MARMiTE Theatre’s show announcement poster for Ladies Day at Theatre@41, Monkgate
YORK company MARMiTE Theatre will begin rehearsals on June 21 for Ladies Day, Amanda Whittington’s “racecourse comedy-drama to warm the cockles of your heart”.
Directed again by company founder Martyn Hunter, the company’s second production will run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from September 8 to 12.
Premiered at Hull Truck Theatre in June 2005, Ladies Day’s tale of friendship, sisterly support and, above all, love follows Hull fish-filleting factory packers Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda as they embark on Pearl’s “I’m not retiring” leaving-do.
Nicki Clay’s Geraldine Granger in MARMiTE Theatre’s debut production, The Vicar Of Dibley, last November
Out go the hairnets, wellies and overalls, in come the outrageous hats, high heels and posh frocks, as the four friends set off for Ladies Day at Royal Ascot in the one-off summer when the racing festival relocated to York’s Knavesmire course in 2005.
“As the racing begins and the champagne flows, we find out there is more to the mundane fish-packing lives of our four friends than we first thought,” says Martyn. “As the day unfolds and the races go by, we see their loves, losses and insecurities laid bare, but if their luck holds they could still hit the jackpot and a lot more besides.”
Ladies Day playwright Amanda Whittington
Jeanette Hunter’s Pearl will be joined in MARMiTE Theatre’s cast by Jackie Cox’s Jan, Nicki Clay’s Shelley, Gemma McDonald’s Linda, Chris Gibson’s Joe, Stuart Rae’s Fred and Kevin, Robbie Howe’s Jim, Martyn Hunter’s Barry and Trevor Britain’s Patrick and Tony Christie.
“MARMiTE Theatre had hoped to follow up November 2025’s sell-out debut production of The Vicar Of Dibley with a return to the village of Dibley this year to continue the story of Hugo and Alice as they set out on married life & parenthood,” says Martyn.
“However, due to unforeseen difficulties, we’ve had to postpone a second visit but are keen to return to Dibley in 2027.” Watch this space.
Tickets for Ladies Day cost £15 at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Leading light: Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds
MIKHAIL Lim played Georg in York Stage Musicals’ northern premiere of Spring Awakening at the Vaudeville Theatre, Joseph Rowntree School, York, in November 2010.
Roll forward to May 19 2026 when his startling production of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s rock musical was launched with a 20th Anniversary Preview Event, 20 years to the day since the off-Broadway premiere opened at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City.
Entry came with a tote bag emblazoned with a lyric from the show. Inside were a notepad and pen (tools for the reviewers, received gratefully) and a Welcome note from Inspired By Theatre, the York company fast establishing a reputation for injecting thrilling new life into landmark musicals.
Spring Awakening director Mikhail Lim, right, in rehearsal with actor-musician JJ Thornton, who plays Hanschen. Picture: Tiggy-Jade
“What you are about to witness is a production that aims to honour the heart and spirit of Spring Awakening whilst bringing fresh and contemporary ideas to the piece through thrust staging, actor-musicianship, expressive movement and an intimate, visceral approach to storytelling,” the statement read, emphasising the desire to highlight the kinetic musical’s continued relevance two decades later.
Your reviewer would argue that Sheik and Sater’s raucous musical take on Frank Wedekind’s late-19th century play has taken on even more resonance in those 20 years. The original play’s controversial themes of rape, abortion, teenage suicide, gay first love and adolescent sexual discovery led to Spring Awakening being judged too scandalous to perform in Wedekind’s lifetime, with no public performances until November 1906.
Rianna Pearce’s Wendla, centre, with Maz Nachif’s Martha, left, and Skye Pickford’s Ilse in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds
Wedekind was damning the lack of birds & bees tuition and protection provided both by hand-washing and wringing parents and teachers when faced by their young charges’ burgeoning sexual feelings and search for identity. Now, the world has gone the other way, in the era where social media and the dark web provides a tsunami of information, but teenagers can still feel overwhelmed.
Spring Awakening – such an apt title – is a devastating, dark musical of youthful yearning rubbing up against austere learning in the strict schooldays of 1891 Germany. Part play, part punk concert, it comes suited and booted with strong language (the best song is called Totally ****ed) and scenes of a sexual nature (staged with the involvement of intimacy co-ordinator Lina Glissman, by the way).
In a tale of sex & drudge & shock’n’roll, company founder Dan Crawfurd-Porter swaps directorial duties for the Hamlet-echoing role of piercingly bright, free-thinking, atheist, rebellious student Melchior, sharing centre stage with Rianna Louise’s awakening young flower Wendla and Eryn Grant’s tormented, workaholic, tragic Moritz.
Blow by blow account: JJ Thornton’s Hanschen and guitar-playing actor-musician Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds
Spring Awakening is above all a wake-up call to the damage that ignorance imposes on young people in a sexually repressive era, here represented by the multiple stultifying roles of the Adult Woman (Gemma McDonald) and Adult Men (Stefan Michaels). Righteous, religious, blinkered, they rule by book and sometimes by belt.
The combination of Gi Vasey’s thrust set design, placing the audience close up, and musical director Jessica Viner’s band of keys, drum and string players, bolstered by guitar and piano/bass/Cajon-playing actor-musicians, gives even more intensity to the already heightened drama.
Vasey places a bare tree stump at the back, draped in ribbons, complemented by bare branches to either side. In the centre is a sand pit, framed in stones, that serves as school playground and field and transfers to a school room with the aid of chairs. The sand is of the shifting variety, in keeping with sense of seismic change, of matters going beyond balance and control.
Eryn Grant’s Moritz, centre, with JJ Thornton’s Hanschen, left, Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst, Lewis Jordan’s Georg and Kailum Farmery’s Otto. Picture: Mia Scudds
Freya McIntosh’s choreography matches the anger and frustration of the modern yet instantly timeless songs, breaking out of the formal lines and restrictive behaviour of the classroom for free, explosive expression, often with a microphone in the hand (a style of presentation later seen in Six The Musical).
Julie Fisher’s costume designs, with green school uniforms for the boys and a more diverse palette for the girls’ dresses, work well with Daniel Grey’s lighting design, and Will Nicholson’s sound design blends band and actor-musicians with clarity.
Eryn Grant is particularly impressive as the crushed Moritz, while Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior has an edge to him, contrasting with the innocence of curiosity of Rianna Louise’s Wendla.
Explosion of punk energy in the classroom, observed by Stefan Michaels’ Adult Man and Gemma McDonald’s Adult Woman in Spring Awakening. Picture: Mia Scudds
Skye Pickford’s Ilse, with her stillness of presence, JJ Thornton’s Hanschen and Maz Nachif’s Martha catch the eye too, performing in tandem with Oskar Nuttall’s Ernst, Lewis Jordan’s Georg, Kailum Farmey’s Otto, Ines Campos’s Thea and Greta Piasecka in a schoolroom cast that has uniformity but bags of individuality too.
Drawing so strikingly on German Expressionism and folkloric imagery, Mikhail Lim has delivered a shattering, alarming, agitated, impassioned Spring Awakening, reaffirming Inspired By Theatre as a major player, a welcome upstart, on York’s theatre scene.
Inspired By Theatre presents Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Inspired By Theatre marking the 20th anniversary of Spring Awakening’s off-Broadway debut on May 19 2006. Picture: Mia Scudds
Rianna Louise’s Wendla and Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s Melchior in rehearsal for Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: JJ Thornton
INSPIRED By Theatre will mark the 20th anniversary of Spring Awakening with a bold new production at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from May 20 to 23.
Continuing the York company’s reputation for presenting bravura interpretations of well-known works, the Tony Award-winning rock musical will be directed by Mikhail Lim.
Following artistic director Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s ambitious staging of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in February, Lim picks up the reins for one of the most powerful and emotionally raw musicals of the modern era.
Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1906 play, Spring Awakening follows a group of late-19th century teenagers in a small German village, navigating the confusion, curiosity and turmoil of adolescence in a rigid and repressive society at odds with their awakening sexuality.
Maz Nachif’s Martha and JJ Thornton’s Hanschen. Picture: Tiggy-Jade
As these young people search for answers about sex, identity and self-expression, their world collides with an oppressive culture imposed by teachers and parents determined to silence them.
Combining music by Duncan Sheik with book and lyrics by Steven Sater, the show blends alternative rock, folk and punk influences with a deeply human coming-of-age story. Scenes unfold with grounded realism before erupting into powerful musical numbers that reveal the characters’ inner thoughts and emotions.
Opening on Broadway in 2006, starring Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele and John Gallagher Jr., Spring Awakening won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Next month’s production marks a full-circle moment for director Lim, who appeared in the northern premiere of Spring Awakening, staged by York Stage Musicals under Robert Readman’s direction at the Vaudeville Theatre, Joseph Rowntree School, York, in November 2010.
Spring Awakening director Mikhail Lim working on the guitar with cast member JJ Thornton. Picture: Tiggy-Jade
On returning to the show as director, Mikhail says: “Spring Awakening came out when I was almost exactly the age of the characters. It completely opened my eyes to different forms of musical storytelling and the kind of contemporary theatre I fell in love with.
“Being part of the northern premiere in York 15 years ago was incredibly special. Now, approaching the 20th anniversary of the original off-Broadway production, it feels extraordinary to be returning to this piece as a director. In many ways, it feels like fate.”
Lim leads an outstanding creative team assembled specifically for the project. Choreographer and assistant director Freya McIntosh, known for her work on Green Day’s American Idiot, RENT and Jesus Christ Superstar, reunites with Lim after their acclaimed Black Sheep Theatre Productions collaboration on Songs For A New World at the National Centre For Early Music, York, in October 2024.
Musical director Jessica Viner brings a wealth of musical expertise to Spring Awakening, drawing on her professional experience in touring productions, not least her role as musical director for Singin’ In The Rain, when she travelled across China.
Gemma McDonald, best known for her clowning silly-billy in Rowntree Players pantomimes each winter, takes on the role of Adult Woman in Inspired By Theatre’s Spring Awakening. Picture: Felix Wahlberg
Annie Roux steps into the producer’s role after serving as assistant producer on Jesus Christ Superstar. Costume design will be led by Julie Fisher, of The Costume Crew York, joined by fashion designer Gregory Harper, working together to create a visual world that supports the show’s striking aesthetic.
Dan Crawfurd-Porter swaps directorial duties for playing Melchior in Inspired By Theatre’s cast of 13, joined by Rianna Louise as Wendla; Eryn Grant, Moritz; Skye Pickford, Ilse, Maz Nachif, Martha; JJ Thornton, Hanschen; Oskar Nuttall, Ernst; Lewis Jordan, Georg; Kailum Farmery, Otto; Ines Campos, Thea; Greta Piasecka, Anna; Stefan Michaels, Adult Man, and Gemma McDonald, Adult Woman.
Utilising such a small cast requires every performer to play a vital role in bringing the story to life, as Mikhail explains: “This show demands performers who can truly act through song and move with real emotional honesty. We’ve assembled a phenomenal company of performers who bring enormous passion and skill to the stage.”
Eryn Grant’s Moritz at the microphone, with Sky Pickford’s Ilse in the background. Picture: JJ Thornton
Movement and physical storytelling will play a central role in the production. McIntosh’s choreography blends contemporary dance with expressive theatrical movement, creating moments that feel less like traditional choreography and more like living visual art unfolding on stage.
The show’s band will form part of the storytelling, with a mixture of professional musicians and actor-musicians creating a dynamic on-stage musical presence.
Lim’s production will take place in the John Cooper Studio at Theatre@41, creating an intimate and immersive environment where audiences are placed close to the action. “The black-box setting allows the production to feel particularly visceral,” says Mikhail.
“Performing in a smaller space is both a challenge and a gift. It allows every moment, every sound and every visual detail to be felt up close. The result is something incredibly immediate and powerful.”
Inspired By Theatre will draw visual inspiration from German Expressionism and folkloric imagery to create a haunting and symbolic world that sits between realism and surrealism as old-fashioned values are refracted through a 21st century lens in an exploration of sex, puberty, coming of age and a yearning for a more progressive future.
Inspired By Theatre presents Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 20 to 23, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Content warning: Spring Awakening features mature themes, including sexual content, sexual assault, suicide, abortion, physical abuse and strong language. Minimum age recommendation: 15 plus.
Inspired By Theatre’s poster artwork for Mikhail Lim’s production of Spring Awakening
Don’t rain on his parade: Jamie McKeller’s Captain Hook lays down his terms and conditions in Rowntree Players’ The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan. Picture: Matt Hillier
DIRECTOR Howard Ella had resisted staging Peter Pan for more than 15 years. So much story to cram in, so familiar, and how do you stay true to J M Barrie while putting the Pan into pantomime and vice versa, he pondered.
Thankfully, always saying never to Neverland has turned into, well, you should never say never, as he teams up for a second time with Rowntree Players’ regular goofing panto loon Gemma McDonald to construct a script that retains all but the Darling parents among the regulation principals (until a late sub-plot).
Meanwhile, Nana the dog is turned into Nanny McFlee, Michael Cornell’s affable role in his third year on cheeky dame duty, forging a double act with sidekick McDonald, in trademark ginger bubble perm, rouge cheeks and riotously colourful clothing as Nanny’s dogged apprentice cum putative entrepreneur Barkly.
McDonald’s panto character never knowingly rejects the opportunity for a burst of bottom burps, but here takes raspberry blowing to new levels by bottling Barkly’s noxious wind for its powers of toxic termination of any opponent.
McFlee bite: Michael Cornell’s Nanny McFlee on dame duty. Picture: Matt Hillier
Effective, apparently, against all but those who suffer from anosmia: the medical term for the complete loss or lack of the sense of smell that five per cent of us experience and winner of the Unexpected Word of the Day in a York pantomime award.
Such a detail marks out the welcome unpredictability of a Rowntree Players panto, one of the assets of Ella and McDonald’s script that keeps the storytelling to the fore while promoting spectacle and slapstick too.
Jamie McKeller, spookologist Dr Dorian Deathly of Deathy Dark Tours by night when not treading the boards, has long craved the chance to play Captain Hook, a “real bad guy”, as he calls him. McKeller has beefed up his singing chops too with six months of lessons to add further impact to his latest character from the dark side, most notably in Don’t Rain On My Parade.
Irascible, arch, obsessive in his wish to put kill Peter Pan, his Hook is the master of the putdown, the waspish quip, yet fearful of the croc and the clock, here hounding him with electronic messages that Doom Is Imminent: a running gag that nods to modern technology.
She’s back! Hurrah! Claire Horsley’s Gloria on glorious piratical form performing in Pink Parade Club. Picture: Matt Hillier
Tradition plays its part in Rowntree pantomimes, and so Hannah King is a conventional, thigh-slapping, resolute principal boy as Peter Pan, working in tandem with Sara Howlett’s tinkering Tinkerbell.
Laura Castle knocks out a belting Holding Out For A Hero as the “never mess with a Yorkshire lass” Tigerlily; Sophie Bullivant’s Cornish clot of a Smee is amusingly disruptive before bringing the house down with Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat.
Claire Horsley returns to the Rowntree ranks after a long hiatus to remind us of her vocal prowess as Gloria in the triumphant Pink Parade Club, while Tom Bettany’s John, Fergus Green’s Michael and especially Eva Howe’s storytelling Wendy have their moments as the Darling children.
Among the Lost Boys – ties tied around their heads as if band members of AC/DC – are company veterans Geoff Walker as Curly and Barry Johnson as Slightly, complemented by senior chorus, principal dancers and two junior teams (Blue at Sunday’s matinee) when Ami Carter’s choreography skilfully turns solo numbers and duets into full-scale ensemble routines.
The calm before the panto storm for Rowntree Players’ comical double act, Gemma McDonald’s Barkly and Michael Cornell’s Nanny McFlee. Picture: Matt Hillier
Rather than flying to Neverland, the Darlings are transported on their bed, lifted into the night sky with Pan and Tinkerbell to either side in set designer and scenic artist Anna Jones’s most striking scene. The show even makes fun of the budget limitations of trying to conjure an underwater scene…without water (save for water pistols).
Musical director Sam Johnson regularly lifts his band to the heights in the big numbers, especially in the Will Survive/Survivor mash-up and One Day More.
Rowntree Players’ Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan are fun, funny, fast-moving, full of silliness, but magical storytelling and colourful characterisation too. Tickets are selling fast and rightly so for this ever-rollicking community show
Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Jamie McKeller (Captain Hook), second from right, in rehearsal with Gemma McDonald (Barkly), Michael Cornell (Nanny McFlea) and musical director Sam Johnson for Rowntree Players’ The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan
ROWNTREE Players pantomime co-writer and director Howard Ella had always avoided Peter Pan…until now.
“I see it as a bit of a Cinderella, where the story is so familiar to everybody that it’s hard to tell that story, do it justice and make it a panto at the same time,” he reasons ahead of tomorrow’s opening performance at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.
“It’s taken me 16/17 years to find the courage. You can’t just do the book, but I want to be loyal to the[J.M. Barrie] text while making it into a panto, and I think we’ve nailed it.”
By “we” he is referring to co-writer and regular goofing loon Gemma McDonald, cast as eager apprentice Barkly this time. “I’ve had Gemma by my side again, working from a great traditional story with great characters that give you a good foundation to then work out how to bring together the traditional while being forward facing; how you then get that balance right.
“A story like Peter Pan adds another level to that challenge, but we have an exciting cast that meets that challenge with contemporary relevance amid the melee of pantomime traditions.”
Joining Gemma in the principal cast will be Hannah King’s Peter Pan, Sophie Bullivant’s Smee, Claire Horsley, returning from a long hiatus, as Gloria, Sara Howlett’s Tinkerbell, Eva Howe’s Wendy and Neon Crypt theatre company trio Laura Castle as Tiger Lily, Michael Cornell as Nanny McFlea and Jamie McKeller as Captain Hook.
“Hook is the perfect panto villain and to have someone who’s wanted to play that role forever…that’s when serendipity kicks in with Jamie.”
McKeller is a familiar face on York’s haunted streets as ghost-walk host Dr Dorian Deathly, promoter of Deathly Dark Tours, but he has taken to the dark side in Rowntree Players pantomimes too, whether as an Ugly Sister or the Sheriff of Nottingham.
“One of the things I’m most proud of this year is that he’s a real bad guy,” says Jamie. “There’s usually redemption at the end for the villain, a great epiphany, but Hook doesn’t get one –and he shouldn’t. He just says from the get-go, quite unreasonably, that he will kill this child [Peter Pan].”
What’s more, his Hook will have the gravitas of a Shakespearean bad egg. “My first entrance is two pages of what Howard calls ‘elegant prose’,” he says.
Howard rejoins: “Pantos are frivolous and fun on the surface, but there’s no reason to not have a deeper story behind it to add depth. It would be very easy to tell a simple panto story around Peter Pan, where most of it could just be a tale with fairy dust, but then you have to insert a dame and a comic.
“We haven’t gone down that path: rather than Nana the dog, we have Nanny McFlea, with some dog-like tendencies in human form, and Gemma as her comical son Barkly.”
Jamie’s Hook will be attired in de rigueur red coat, hat, scarf, stripey trousers, big boots, hook…and “flamboyant hair”. “He’s wholly evil, but with show-stopping numbers, such as Don’t Rain On My Parade, the Barbra Streisand song from Funny Girl, One Day More and the Survivor/I Will Survive mash-up from Glee.
“As soon as I was told it was Peter Pan this year and that Captain Hook would require some strong singing, I went off and did six months of singing lessons at York Singing Academy in Marygate.
“I’ve always been able to maul my way through a song as the bad guy in a ‘speak-sing’ style but I’d never learned the mechanics of singing, though I knew how to manipulate my voice because of all the voiceover work I’ve done. Sam Johnson tells me I’ve done a good job!”
Howard concurs: “When you end up with the baddie singing as the campest character in the show, then that’s my idea of what a panto should be!”
He is enjoying Michael Cornell’s progression in the dame’s role too (as Nanny McFlea this year). “You grow into this role because no two dames are the same, and you have to own your dame,” he says. “By building relationships, like working around the consistency of Gemma’s character, it all gets layered over the years.”
Jamie, who performed alongside Michael in Neon Crypt and the Deathly Dark Tours’ paranormal investigations of The Wetwang Hauntings – Live in November, says of his panto co-star: “He’s just very fearless, bringing so much to the rehearsal room. He’s not long 30, and look at how still he was on stage in our Wetwang show, his tweedy suit and moustache barely moving.”
Defining why he loves pantomime in the 21st century, Howard says: “Pantomime remains something that is multi-generational. Bringing generations together in any activity is a challenge, but I’m all for multi-generational entertainment that is safe yet challenging at the same time and doesn’t just make you laugh but cry and think as well.
“It’s a unique form of entertainment with audiences that you don’t get with other forms of theatre. And I love the tradition of it all, which is important in the right place. It’s one of the things that drove me to do what I do now, and why wouldn’t you want to pass it on to the next generation? It’s a joyous privilege.”
On the subject of tradition, Howard adds: “You’re fitting pantomime into a world that’s changing all the time, but tradition doesn’t mean unchanging and old-fashioned, but comfortable and recognisable.
“I’m still fond of having a traditional principal boy [played by a female], but it doesn’t mean you can’t sprinkle new things into the pantomime mix. That’s the joy of writing it each year.”
Jamie enthuses: “From an acting/performing point of view, pantomime is so mischievous. I’m not very disciplined, and you know you can do things in panto, like knowing looks or catching each other’s eye on stage, and the audience knows that you’re doing that.
“I always say that doing panto is like a fever dream. I take the week off from everything else, just going around coffee shops.”
Audiences can’t wait. “We’ve had our third successive year of record ticket sales, which is even harder to achieve in this current climate, but we’ve had a strong team for a long time,” says a delighted Howard.
“We laugh a lot in rehearsals and that energy carries through to the performances when you have a bunch of people who love doing these shows.”
Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 2pm and 7.30pm, Sunday, 2pm and 6pm; December 9 to 12, 7.30pm; December 13, 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Everybody’s talking about Harvey Stevens’ Jamie: the break-out star of Pick Me Up Theatre’s production
MADE in Sheffield and exported to the musical theatre world, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie has its second York run this week after Nik Briggs’s Teen Edition for York Stage in June 2023.
Young actors are no less prominent in York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s production, led by Harvey Stevens, even younger at 15 than Ryan Addyman was when fronting Briggs’s cast of 13 to 19-year-olds at 17.
Harvey has been dancing since his first class at the Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance aged three and will begin musical theatre studies at SLP College in Garforth in September. He is a stage natural, tall and lithe and mischievously energetic, here bringing his dream role of Jamie New to life with cheek and chutzpah.
There to watch him on the first night was his father, Antonie Williams-Browne, who had travelled up from Plymouth specially for the show. Twenty years ago, Antonie had shown off his own dance moves in Robert Readman’s UK amateur premiere of The Full Monty for Shipton Theatre Company at the JoRo, “lifting the first half to new heights” (York Press, July 27 2005) when playing the veteran, arthritic-limbed Horse.
Harvey Stevens’ Jamie New, front left, and his Mayfield School classmates in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Son Harvey is a colt by comparison, with room for expansion in both his vocal and acting range, but already he has a thrilling presence on stage: everybody will be talking about his Jamie this week.
Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Dan Gillespie Sells (from Horsham pop practitioners The Feeling) and writer/lyricist Tom MacRae drew on an original idea by co-writer Jonathan Butterell for the 2017 Sheffield Crucible Theatre premiere of a show that completed a populist trilogy of Steel City comedy dramas.
First came the defiant spirit and sheer balls of The Full Monty; next, the classroom politics and fledgling frustrations of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and lastly “Jamie”, the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes to be wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen.
Eight years on, “Jamie” still lives up to its billing as “the hit musical for today”, replete with bold humour, withering wit, northern nous and sassy social awareness, in a barometer of our changing times and attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression. Jamie’s reverence for RuPaul, whose Drag Race was not aired on BBC Three until 2019, affirms how the show has kept an eye on cultural shifts.
First we meet the Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School, a typical comprehensive classroom of 16-year-olds full of hopes and aspirations, but filtered through the realities of life in a northern town that makes them cynical and unruly too, typified by Stevens’ Jamie, draped languidly over his chair, bored and inattentive.
Zander Fick’s feisty drag queen Loco Chanelle in Everbody’s Talking About Jamie Picture: Matthew Kitchen
In the wake of Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, here is another young, restless Yorkshire dreamer in need of escape from the grey grime of a Sheffield council estate in a classic teen rebel story.
A breaker of rules and hearts alike, this lippy kid in lip gloss oozes confidence on the surface, graceful in high heels, but Jamie is naive and vulnerable too, desperate to strut before he can walk, especially when his stay-away father (Andrew Isherwood) is so disapproving and teacher Miss Hedge (Alexandra Mather) is so narrow-minded.
Stevens’ Jamie will be the teen star of the show, but gold stars also go to Fergus Green’s loathsome, self-loathing bully, Dean Paxton, and Ruby Salter’s quietly self-assured doctor-in-waiting Pritti Pasha, Jamie’s best friend, whose rendition of It Means Beautiful lives up to its title.
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is told from more than the teen perspective, giving it the grit of a kitchen-sink drama, where the adult viewpoint of father and teacher is compounded by Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum Margaret (Rowntree Players’ pantomime clown Gemma McDonald revealing a deeper side, her voice cracking under the emotion of singing her second heartfelt ballad, He’s My Boy.
Meet Sheffield drag queens Loco Chanelle, Tray Sophisticay, Laika Virgin and Sandra Bollock, alias Zander Fick, Andrew Isherwood, Mark Simmonds and Ryan Richardson, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Make-up: Renee Delait. Hair: The Birdcage, Brighton. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
She forms a defiant double act with Lottie Farmer’s Ray, her blunt but sharp friend, who is always popping round with a market stall bargain, backed up by a choice putdown for authority.
Equally supportive too is dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (Zander Fick, continuing his year of outstanding performances), in tandem with the bantering drag-queen veterans Sandra Bollock (Ryan Richardson), Tray Sophisticay (Andrew Isherwood at the double) ) and Laika Virgin (Mark Simmonds), Sheffield’s variation on The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.
Posted high above the stage, musical director Adam Tomlinson and his band, trumpet, trombone, tenor sax et al, are in top form throughout, for big numbers and instrumental interludes alike, while Ilana Weets’s choreography hits the mark, from And You Don’t Even Know It opening to Out Of The Darkness (A Place Where We Belong) finale.
Readman wears his director and designer hats with elan, aside from a misbehaving, overworked central door* that opens to Margaret’s kitchen, Loco Chanel’s studio, school classroom and Dad’s house alike. His triumphant production epitomises this musical’s call to “celebrate being yourself and find a place where you belong”: the stage for Jamie New and Harvey Stevens alike.
Pick Me Up Theatre, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Gemma McDonald’s Margaret, left, Harvey Stevens’ Jamie New and Lottie Farmer’s Ray in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
* Footnote from director-designer Robert Readman:
“JUST a quick note to say the misbehaving centre door is now fixed! It was originally going to swing both ways but it just decided to come out…”
Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New, front left, with his fellow Year 11 pupils at Mayfield School in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
EVERYBODY’S talking about the new Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in York.
From July 22 to 26, GCSE schoolboy Harvey Stevens will play the title role in York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’s award-winning musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.
This joyous underdog story was last staged in York in its Teenage Version by York Stage in June 2023. “I was too young for that, which I was really gutted about,” says Harvey, 15, from Acomb.
He has loved the story of Jamie New ever since his first experience of the film. “My mum hadn’t heard of it, so she was mortified, not knowing what she’d taken me to, but I loved it!” he says.
“I’ve seen every tour, every cast, since then. My favourite Jamie was Layton Williams, who I went to see at Leeds Grand [Theatre], though I take a bit from every Jamie to be honest, like the riffs in their singing…”
“…But you have your own style, in your singing and in your dancing,” says Gemma McDonald, the Rowntree Players pantomime favourite, who will be playing Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum, Margaret.
Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New with the high heels that will transform him from 6ft to 6ft 6ins in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Colin Wallwork
Premiered at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre in 2017, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen. Jamie New, from a Sheffield council estate, but feeling out of place, is so restless at sweet 16 to be “something and someone fabulous”, standing out from the crowd of Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School.
You sense that Harvey has that drive too. He took his first dance steps at the age of three at the Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance in York. “I then started studying ballet at Let’s Dance, picked up jazz, tap and contemporary there in Year 4, and then I went to Northern Ballet in Leeds for three years,” he says.
From there, he moved on to Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, boarding there as he studied musical theatre, jazz and ballet dancing in Year 7 and 8, adding dancing in heels to his repertoire at SK Dance Fusion in York.
That will come in handy in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. “I’ll be 6ft 6 with my heels on as I’m 6ft,” says Harvey. “I’ll be looking over everyone on stage!
“I first wore heels on stage at the Move It dance convention in London in 2022.” As with all his dance moves, he took it in his stride. “For this role I’ve taken everything I’ve learnt from ballet and contemporary [dance], all the core techniques, taking the styles and joining them together.”
To be playing Jamie is “like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey. “I’ve always said I wanted to play him, and here I am. It’s such a good character to play and story to tell and I feel I can really relate to that age, and what he’s going through.”
“Playing Jamie is like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey Stevens. Picture: Jo Hird
Gemma, a former teacher, whose 15-year-old son, Ethan, is in the cast too, says: “There’s all those similarities, all those experiences, of what boys face. When I saw that Robert [director Robert Readman] was doing this show, I was thinking, I’m of an age where I can play this character, the mother, who’s got true Yorkshire grit to her.
“I love her songs, If I Met Myself Again and He’s My Boy, and all the words in those songs resonate with me. With having my son there as well, I know how he feels, having just done his Proms.
“I love how Margaret is so supportive of Jamie and never wants him to feel any of that negativity that he experiences from his dad. What she does is everything you would want to her to do as a mum in that situation.
“Any mum in the audience will sit there thinking, ‘I hope that’s how I am with my child’, even though Jamie’s mum does question it, worrying if he will be bullied.”
Jamie, like Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, is a young Yorkshire dreamer, one who must overcome prejudice, beat the bullies and “step out of the darkness into the spotlight”. Harvey has experienced bullying. “It can be anything, online bullying, but I don’t care what they say online. That just gets a block from me,” he says.
From September, Harvey will study musical theatre at SLP College in Garforth, his next step after taking GCSEs in Maths, English, Art, History and Salon (hair-styling). First, however, everybody will be talking about his Jamie from July 22.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre York, July 22 to 26, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Michael Cornell’s dame, Gertrude Gander, making her point to Gemma McDonald’s Jack in Rowntree Players’ Mother Goose. Picture: Howard Ella
IN the words of director Howard Ella, Mother Goose is “the dame’s pantomime”. Boldly, he casts Michael Cornell in the role of Gertrude Gander in his dame debut after his Ugly Sister double act as Miranda to Jamie McKeller’s Cassandra in last winter’s Cinderella.
These are big boots to fill after the years of Graham Smith and, before that Barry Benson, father of Josh, comedy turn Muddles alongside Su Pollard’s Carabosse and Lee Mead’s Prince Lee in Darlington Hippodrome’s Sleeping Beauty this winter, should you be wondering.
Cornell’s dame is taller, younger, more elegant on initial impression, than his more rumbustious predecessors, his dame style still finding its feet and tone and his voice its pitch. Whether singing or talking, he shows off a wide vocal range, spectacularly so with his singing, full of operatic drama to go with his natural stage presence. He can carry a dress with aplomb too.
Ella likes an eggy pun and a political jab, also parading a meta-theatre awareness that Mother Goose is not exactly thick with plot by mentioning it brazenly, instead building his pantomime around set-pieces, bright-coloured characterisation and songs aplenty, both familiar and less so.
For those about to rock: Jamie McKeller’s guitar-wielding Demon Blackheart and Laura McKeller’s Bob Bingalong in Mother Goose. Picture: Howard Ella
A topical thread runs through the show’s core as Gertie comes to realise the folly of pursuing fame and fortune, after swapping scratching a living from her Wolds farm’s hen pens for the bright lights of Doncaster’s club scene. Doncaster?!
Meanwhile, co-writer and comic turn Gemma McDonald loves the sound of breaking wind, letting rip at every mention of dishy farmer Kev (principal boy Sara Howlett) being the King of Kale. Her daft lad Jack, with his Billy Bremner hair, strawberry cheeks and looning clown face, is as irrepressible as ever, bonding delightfully with Cornell’s Gertie, Jack mucking about at every opportunity when the dame is seeking to assert motherly authority.
Howlett’s farmer Kev is a classic principal boy, each slapping of a thigh being met with Kev being framed in a spotlight and breaking into a toothpaste-perfect smile. There is a pleasing self-awareness to this handsome performance, coupled with chemistry with Laura Castle’s ever-enthusiastic, humorous Jill, recalling their performance in John Godber’s Teechers Leavers ’22 at the JoRo in 2023.
Partnerships abound in Ella’s production, always a good resource for engendering humour, and key to this show are two such double acts: Cornell’s Gertie with American Abbey Follansbee’s Priscilla the Goose and Jamie and Laura McKeller, from the Deathly Dark Tour ghost walks, teaming up as the villainous Demon Darkheart and his deadpan sidekick Bob Bingalong.
Whisking up egg puns: Gemma McDonald’s Jack with Laura Castle’s Jill in Mother Goose
Follansbee has graduated from the Cinderella chorus line to being the golden egg-laying goose on the loose, American accent, big bustle, orange leggings et al, and she brings a song-and-dance flourish to Priscilla in tandem with Cornell.
The McKellers spend time aplenty on the dark side in their nocturnal version of a Deathly day job, but always delivered with more than a dash of humour, and that sense of dark comedy infuses both Jamie’s thespian, shock-haired Darkheart, debt collector and purveyor of the dark arts, and Laura’s dogsbody Bob, a Yorkshire spin on Tony Robinson’s Baldrick in Blackaddder, and no less full of dim suggestions. Laura reveals rather a fine singing voice too.
The principal cast is completed by Holly Smith’s Fairy Frittata with her flow of rhyming couplets and perennially perky interjections. Throughout, choreographer Ami Carter keeps principal dancers, senior chorus and junior teams busy with ensemble routines that fill the stage with more buzz than a beehive, while the animated James Robert Ball is a highly watchable, always engaged musical director.
He extracts fantastic musicianship from his players, who include fellow keyboardist Sam Johnson, whose outstanding musical arrangements are surely worthy of a professional production.
Holly Smith’s Fairy Frittata, left, Sara Howlett’s Kev, the King of Kale, Laura Castle’s Jill, Michael Cornell’s Gertrude Gander, Gemma McDonald’s Jack, Laura McKeller’s Bob Bingalong and Jamie McKeller’s Demon Darkheart in Rowntree Players’ Mother Goose
Out of view but deserving a sustained round of applause are Katie Maloney on reeds, James Lolley on trumpet, James Stockdale on trombone, Micky Moran on guitar, Georgia Johnson on bass and Joel Fergusson on drums. Lena Ella and her costume team deliver the goods as ever.
A quick mention too for a welcome innovation: last Saturday’s matinee was the first interpreted and captioned performance of a panto at the JoRo, presented with interpreter Dave Wycherley and captioner Margaret Hansard in collaboration with York charity Lollipop, Stage Text and ToylikeMe.
Likewise, touch tours for blind and visually impaired theatregoers were provided on Sunday and will be again tomorrow night (10/12/2024). Always a community show, these new additions make it all the more so.
Rowntree Players present Mother Goose at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly, Tuesday to Saturday, plus 2pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Michael Cornell’s Gertrude Gander and Gemma McDonald’s Jack in Rowntree Players’ Mother Goose
LET the egg puns get cracking when Rowntree Players launch their rollicking romp of a 2024 pantomime, Mother Goose, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight.
The plot? Meet Jack (Gemma McDonald), head of hens at Chucklepatch Farm, with its newest addition to the coop, Priscilla the goose (American Abbey Follansbee). Joined by mum Gertrude Gander (alias Mother Goose, Michael Cornell) and his sister Jill (Laura Castle), they head out on their panto adventure.
Desperate for the showbiz life, Gertrude gives up the Wolds for the bright lights of Doncaster. However, ever-nasty landlord Demon Darkheart (Jamie McKeller, alias Deathly Dark Tour ghost walk host Dr Dorian Deathly) and his assistant Bob (Laura McKeller) will stop at nothing to collect rent, but dishy farmer Kev, the King of Kale (Sarah Howlett) and Fairy Frittata (Holly Smith) will not let the dark side rule.
Traditional casting, still with a female principal boy, combines with modernity in the Players’ panto. “We’ve gone down the fame and fortune route with Mother Goose; less judgemental on the look, more judgemental on the pursuit of fame and fortune, which is so much part of the modern age,” says director and co-writer Howard Ella.
“Pantomime keeps evolving as the national outlook changes and the politics change, ” says director and co-writer Howard Ella. “It’s that constant dynamic tension between tradition and relevance, and if you get it right, you have a very happy audience – but if you get it wrong, you can upset people.
“It’s not about being right-on; it’s about accessing each particular audience. You have to reach the broadest audience, and that constant challenge is what keeps our show fresh.”
After playing Ugly Sister Miranda to Jamie McKeller’s Cassandra in Cinderella last year, Michael Cornell steps into the dame’s boots vacated by long-serving Graham Smith, who chose not to audition this year.
On the dark side: Jamie McKeller’s Demon Darkheart and Laura McKeller’s Bob Bingalong in Mother Goose
“It’s a different set-up from Ugly Sister, doing it on his own as the dame,” says Howard. “The joy, the challenge, is that it’s Mother Goose; it’s the dame’s show, whereas Cinderella, for example, is essentially Buttons’ show.
“The fact that Michael is a triple threat – singer, actor, dancer, well, almost dancer! – means it’s a completely different take to Graham’s dame or Barry Benson’s dame before that. He knows it’s the dame’s show and that energy is a real buzz.
“There’s a point where the dame is out there for 30 pages, so she’s the glue, the engine behind the show.”
Abbey Follansbee graduates from the chorus line in Cinderella to play Priscilla the goose. That name? “She’s from the USA,” says Howard. “I don’t want to give too much away, other than to say she’s a tour de force as the goose.
“Mother Goose is fairly light on plot, so the challenge is how do you tell the story and how do you do the goose? “The plot takes you down a line and you just follow it; Abbey’s goose, Priscilla, just becomes livelier and livelier, and cheekier too, and yes, the goose will have an American accent!
“Leni [Ella] and Jackie [Holmes] have been working on the goose’s costume and they’ve created an amazing combo of dress and costume, with a big bustle, flying hat and goggles, so it’s impressionistic.”
Howard is joined for a third year in the writing team by the show’s regular clown-faced comic character, Gemma McDonald. “Gemma is as full of daftness and energy as ever. Where does she get all that energy from?! How she has this unbounding energy, as I get older and older by comparison, is unfathomable.
Laura Castle’s Jill, Michael Cornell’s Gertrude Gander and Gemma McDonald’s Jack in Mother Goose
“Each writing partnership is different, though I can’t let go of the steering wheel, but you need a bright mind to bounce ideas off, because there’s so much riffing in panto comedy,” he says. “Gemma’s enjoyment of the puerile absolutely counters my more sophisticated comic taste!
“I like a good pun; she likes a ripping fart gag, and you need both. The battle is keeping it fresh, and so much of that comes from the cast because our show has gradually revolved and resolved.”
The 2024 cast features not only Jamie McKeller, alias ghost tour host Dr Dorian Deathly, as the villainous Demon Darkheart, but also his partner in Deathly Dark Tours, Laura McKeller, as his deadpan assistant, Bob Bingalong.
“Playing the villain is Jamie’s natural space but he constantly works on freshening it up and bringing new things to it, developing it in rehearsals. Having Laura there by his side has brought another dynamic to it: a push-and-pull partnership.”
Howard draws attention to the bond of York Mix radio presenter Laura Castle’s Jill and Sara Howlett’s Kev, the King of Kale. “Laura is really good at what she does, with proper comedy bones. She and Sara really bonded in the John Godber play they did together [Teechers in March 2023], and you can feel that on stage, so we milk that chemistry of them knowing each other so well,” he says.
“Holly Smith, who plays Fairy Frittata, was in Shakers with Laura, so it’s like having all the alumni from Jamie McKeller’s Godber productions in this year’s panto. The cast are a real company with no ego, so rehearsals have been an absolute dream.”
The musical director is James Robert Ball, sparking up Sam Johnson’s arrangements to the max. “Sam’s arrangements are phenomenal,” says Howard. “When I find a song that I think will work in panto, I can say to him, ‘Can you ‘panto-fy it with cow bells or whatever?’.
Sara Howlett’s farmer Kev, the King of Kale, and Laura Castle’s Jill in Rowntree Players’ Mother Goose. “We milk the chemistry of them knowing each other so well,” says director Howard Ella
“James’s great talent is to get the ‘noise’ out of people when they perform. It’s amazing to watch. He’s one of the most gifted musicians I’ve met.”
Ami Carter provides the choreography once more. “Or ‘the long-suffering choreographer Ami Carter’, I should say, putting up with me interfering left, right and centre!” says Howard.
“Look at the strength of the team we’ve built up over the past 15 years. I might be the Pied Piper at the front, but this pantomime is the sum of all its parts.
“We also remain lucky that we have a workshop and prop store, and we’re very conscious that for a modern am-dram company to have those properties is really rare, enabling us to put on a pantomime as near to professional standards as possible, but, boy, does it rely on teamwork.”
Saturday’s opening matinee marks the launch of a new initiative by the Rowntree Players. “It will be our first-ever captioned and signed performance, spearheaded by Gemma [McDonald] and Abbey [Follansbee], with captions and signing on stage, all being done in conjunction with Lollipop [the York charity that offers opportunities for children and young people with any degree of deafness from mild to profound and their families to meet and build friendships with others].
“We will also have touch tours for blind and visually impaired theatregoers, with an audio introduction to give them a description of the sets and costumes, on Sunday and Tuesday. This is a big step for us and for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre too, and we’re delighted to be doing it.”
Rowntree Players in Mother Goose, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, December 7 to 14.Performances: today, 2pm (limited ticket availability) and 7.30pm (limited); Sunday, 2pm (last few tickets) and 6pm (limited); December 10, 7.30pm (limited); December 11, 7.30pm (limited), December 12 (last few tickets); December 13, 7.30pm (limited); December 14, 2pm (sold out) and 7.30pm (last few tickets). Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Holly Smith’s Fairy Frittata, left, Sara Howlett’s Kev, the King of Kale, Laura Castle’s Jill, Michael Cornell’s Gertrude Gander, Gemma McDonald’s Jack, Laura McKeller’s Bob Bingalong and Jamie McKeller’s Demon Darkheart in Rowntree Players’ Mother Goose
Jamie McKeller’s Cassandra, Marie-Louise Surgenor’s Fairy Carabosse and Michael Cornell’s Miranda performing I Know Him So Well in Rowntree Players’ Cinderella. Picturee: Angela Shaw, York Camera Club
UNLIKE Cinders, you will not go to the ball…unless you have acquired a ticket already. Cinderella has sold out, reward for the ever-rising pantomime pizzazz of Howard Ella’s community capers.
Cinderella may be the most popular of all pantos, but it is the most difficult to write, he contends, on account of the need to fit in so much. “The story is so loved, so full of plot points and favourite moments, it’s very hard to put your own spin on things,” Ella says in the programme notes.
Then add “the breaking of panto norms”: the dame making way for two Ugly Sisters, baddies rather than goodies to boot. Regular dame Graham Smith decided to take a year’s sabbatical, and in his stead comes the new double act of Jamie McKeller, last winter’s Sheriff of Nottingham, re-booted as Cassandra, and Michael Cornell as Miranda, both shaving off their beards but still with a hint of stubble to go with their trouble-making in matching costumes.
Gemma McDonald: Even busier as co-writer as well as show-steering Buttons in Cinderella. Picture: Angela Shaw, York Camera Club
They know each other from bygone days, and they work in step as pleasingly as Layton and Nikita’s Strictly Charleston last Saturday.
Typically spot-on casting by Ella, who has a new writing partner by his side too in Gemma McDonald, the Players’ long-serving daft lass with the auburn bubble-perm clown’s hair and rouge cheeks.
Still on delightfully dimwit duty as Buttons, she carries the heaviest comedy load as usual, leading the slapstick shenanigans in tandem with the Ugly Sisters in the hotel spa, breaking down the fourth wall to bond with the audience, ragging them when they are too slow to respond.
Ella suggests that Buttons is “really the story lead”, and McDonald’s ever-energetic, ever-cheeky performance backs that up.
Sara Howlett’s Cinderella and Laura Castle’s wave-wanding Fairy Flo in Cinderella
The writers were keen to avoid the danger of Cinderella’s traditional story feeling dated while wanting to be respectful to tradition too: hence Prince Charming and Dandini still being played by women, on the one hand, but Barry Johnson’s Baron Hardup owning the rundown Hotel Windy End (cue bottom burp gags from Buttons and corrections on the pronunciation), on the updated other.
This is very much a Yorkshire Cinderella, playing to its York setting at every opportunity. Radio presenter Laura Castle, so impressive in John Godber’s Teechers at the JoRo in March, makes for a feisty, no-nonsense Fairy Flo, while Teechers’ co-star Sophie Bullivant brings personality to the often dry role of Dandini, especially enjoying her switch with Hannah King’s thigh-slapping Prince Charming.
King’s singing is as strong as ever, not least in partnership with Sara Howlett’s resolute Cinderella in the ensemble number Omigod (a splendid lift from Legally Blonde The Musical). Marie-Louise Surgenor’s Fairy Carabosse takes the singing honours, first in It’s All About Me, then in Three Evil Dames with McKeller and Cornell.
Fill that stage! Rowntree Players in an ensemble routine from Cinderella. Note the pun-named plumber on the backdrop. Picture: Angela Shaw, York Camera Club
Johnson’s Baron, Geoff Walker’s lackey Flunkit and Jeanette Hunter’s Queen of Hearts, the Prince’s mother, bring bags of experience and panto panache to these support roles; Bernie Calpin completes a trinity of fairies, and Ami Carter’s exuberant choreography finds the principal dancers, senior chorus and young teams in boisterous form.
Highlights? Cinderella’s transformation scene with Fairy Flo, unicorn-powered carriage et al, is a picture indeed, and what better way to open Act Two than with McDonald leading the show’s best ensemble routine, Flash Bang Wallop What A Picture, followed by Cinderella, Prince Charming and the ensemble revelling in Shut Up And Dance. The hits keep coming with Fairy Carabosse, Cassandra and Miranda sending up I Know Him So Well.
Ella gained Tommy Cannon’s permission to reprise a Cannon & Ball slapstick classic, as Cinderella, Cassandra and Miranda push, pull and drag each other off a wall while striving to sing a romantic ballad. Howlett, McKeller and Cornell look exhausted from all their exertions, the audience cheers rising with each tussle.
Spot the difference: Jamie McKeller’s Cassandra and Michael Cornell’s Miranda in matching costumes as things turn Ugly for the shopaholic sisters in Rowntree Players’ Cinderella. Picture: Angela Shaw, York Camera Club
The costume team of coordinator Leni Ella, Andrea Dillon, Jackie Holmes and Claire Newbald adds fun and flair to the finery, while set designers Howard Ella, Anna Jones, Paul Mantle and Lee Smith turn their hands to all manner of scenes with aplomb.
Musical director James Robert Ball’s band fires up pop hits and musical favourites alike with dynamic delivery, aided by fellow keyboard player Jessica Viner providing the musical orchestrations with her customary zest.
Difficult to write? Maybe, but Ella and McDonald’s setpiece-driven Cinderella is a joyous, riotous start to the York pantomime season.
Performances: 7.30pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee, all sold out. Box office for returns only: 01904 501935.
Travelling by unicorn: Sara Howlett’s Cinderella, aboard her carriage, heads for Prince Charming’s ball
