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More Things To Do in and around York: when the love of music and food combine, plan on. List No. 99, courtesy of The Press

Over the Moon: Chef Stephanie Moon, delighted to be cooking in the York Food and Drink Festival demonstration kitchen on Wednesday at 1pm

FOOD for thought from Charles Hutchinson as he contemplates what’s on the menu for autumn days and nights out. 

Festival of the week: York Food and Drink Festival, Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square, York, packed with flavour until October 2

IN its 26th year, York Food and Drink Festival offers demonstrations and hands-on participation, taste trails and wine tastings, markets and street food, with two marquees and live music until 9pm.

Look out for the free Food Factory cookery classes in the Museum Gardens and the Coppergate Centre; trails through the doors of artisan food producers, delicatessens and restaurants; Bedern Hall crowning York’s finest pork pie at its York Pork Pie competition and York Mansion House hosting a week-long tea exhibition and tasting. Head to yorkfoodfestival.com/programme for the full five-course details.  

For the love of Nina Simone: Apphia Campbell in Black Is The Colour Of My Voice, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm

Apphia Campbell: Brings her play to York on Monday

INSPIRED by the life of Nina Simone, writer, director and performer Apphia Campbell’s play follows a successful jazz singer and civil rights activist as she seeks redemption after the untimely death of her father. 

Complemented by many of Simone’s most iconic songs sung live, she reflects on the journey that took her from a young piano prodigy, destined for a life in the service of the church, to a renowned jazz vocalist at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Cameron Sharp: Confirmed for Stacee Jaxx role in Rock Of Ages

Musical of the week: Rock Of Ages, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2.30pm Saturday matinee

CAMERON Sharp returns to the rock demi-god role of Stacee Jaxx on the latest tour on Rock Of Ages after earlier appearances in the West End and on the road. He joins Coronation Street legend Kevin Kennedy, playing ornery Bourbon Room owner Dennis Dupree once more in this tongue-in-cheek musical comedy kitted out with classic rock anthems galore, from The Final Countdown to We Built This City, all played loud and proud.

The storyline invites you to “leave it all behind and lose yourself in a city and a time where the dreams are as big as the hair, and yes, they can come true.” Box office:0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/york.

Lucy Worsley: Uncovering the real, revolutionary, thoroughly modern Agatha Christie

History meets mystery: An Evening With Lucy Worsley On Agatha Christie, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm

THE Queen of History will investigate the Queen of Crime in an illustrated talk that delves into the life of such an elusive, enigmatic 20th century figure.

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was just an ordinary housewife, a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure, when clearly she wasn’t? Agatha went surfing in Hawaii, loved fast cars and was intrigued by psychology, the new science that helped her through mental illness. 

Sharing her research of the storyteller’s personal letters and papers, writer, broadcaster, speaker and Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Lucy Worsley will uncover the real, revolutionary, thoroughly modern Christie. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Steve Hackett: Revisiting his Genesis past in Foxtrot At Fifty at York Barbican

Golden celebrations of the week: Steve Hackett, Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm; Don McLean, 50th Anniversary of American Pie, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm

GUITARIST Steve Hackett, 72, revisits Genesis’s landmark 1972 prog rock album Foxtrot, the one with the 23-minute Supper’s Ready, preceded by an hour of highlights from his six years in the band and his solo career.

New Rochelle troubadour Don McLean, 76, marks the 50th anniversary of his 1971 album American Pie and its 1972 top two single, the poetic 8 minute 36 sec title track, a double A-side that had to be split over two sides of the vinyl with its mysterious, mystical tale of lost innocence “the day the music died”. Expect Vincent, Castles In The Air and  And I Love You So too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Missus in action: Katherine Ryan mulls over life, love, marriage and motherhood at York Barbican

Comedy gig of the week, Katherine Ryan, Missus, York Barbican, Thursday, 8pm

AFTER previously denouncing partnerships, Canadian-born comedian, writer, presenter, podcaster and actress Ryan has since married her first love…accidentally.

“A lot has changed for everyone,” says the creator and star of Netflix series The Duchess and host of BBC Two’s jewellery-making competition All That Glitters, who looks forward to discussing her new perspectives on life, love and what it means to be Missus. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Budge up! Everyone tries to find Room On The Broom in Tall Stories’ staging of Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler’s picture book. Picture: Mark Senior

Children’s show of the week: Tall Stories Theatre Company in Room On The Broom, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 1.30pm and 4.30pm; Wednesday, 10.30am and 1.30pm

IGGETY Ziggety Zaggety Boom! Jump on board the broom with the witch and her cat in Tall Stories’ adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s picture book.

When they pick up some hitch-hikers – a friendly dog, a beautiful green bird and a frantic frog – alas the broomstick is not meant for five. Crack, it snaps in two  just as the hungry dragon appears.

Will there ever be room on the broom for everyone? Find out in this 60-minute, magical, Olivier Award-nominated show for everyone aged three upwards. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Wild Murphys, wild times: Tribute band revel in Irish bar favourites in One Night In Dublin

Irish craic of the week: One Night In Dublin, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

IRISH tribute band The Wild Murphys roll out the Irish classics, Galway Girl, Tell Me Ma, Dirty Old Town, The Irish Rover, Brown Eyed Girl, Seven Drunken Nights, Whiskey In The Jar, Wild Rover and Molly Malone.

Kick back in Murphy’s Pub, sing along and imagine being back in Temple Bar as Middi and his band roar into York. “Ah, go on, go on, go on!” they say. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Tom Robinson at 72: Sing if you’re glad to be grey at The Crescent

2-4-6-8, don’t be late: Tom Robinson Band and TV Smith (solo), The Crescent, York, Friday, 7.30pm

PUNK veteran, LGBTQ rights activist and BBC 6 Music presenter Tom Robinson returns to The Crescent with his band to reactivate 2-4-6-8 Motorway, Glad To Be Gay, Up Against The Wall, The Winter Of ’79 and the cream of his early albums, 1978’s Power In The Darkness, 1979’s TRB Two, and beyond, maybe War Baby.

Support comes from  TV Smith, once part of Seventies’ punks The Adverts, of  Gary Gilmore’s Eyes notoriety. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Don McLean: Marking American Pie’s golden landmark at York Barbican on Wednesday
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Steve Hackett revisits Foxtrot to find new revelations in Genesis at York Barbican

Steve Hackett: Visiting York Barbican to revisit Genesis’s 1972 album Foxtrot

GUITARIST Steve Hackett’s 25-date Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot At Fifty tour arrives at York Barbican on Saturday night (24/9/2022).

Hackett had joined the English progressive rock band in 1971, and Foxtrot would be their fourth album, recorded in August and September 1972 for release on Charisma on October 6 that year.

“We were a young, struggling band at that time,” recalls Pimlico-born lead guitarist Steve, now 72, who played with Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks until 1977.

“By the time we were doing Foxtrot, the band was becoming more ambitious. Foxtrot is a must for fans of the early Genesis work. Fifty years ago? It doesn’t feel like those ideas are 50 years old because it was-genre defining, rather than following trends. It still sounds current now.”

Foxtrot, the one with Genesis’s longest-ever song, all 22 minutes and 52 seconds of the album-closing Supper’s Ready, became a college student staple of the Seventies. “I’ve got one or two friends saying it was the record that got them through college, got them through isolation, and that played its part in the Genesis back story, that connection with Foxtrot, that romance with it,” says Steve.

“Peter was enacting things theatrically from his lyrics to personify Genesis, and there were so many elements that went into constituting Genesis’s magic. Music sticks with people when it affects them when they’re young, when the school curriculum is being forced on them and you’re told you have to be good at school.”

Foxtrot became the first Genesis album to make the UK charts, its diversity encapsulated in the science fiction-influenced Watcher Of The Skies and the social commentary of Get ‘Em Out By Friday, with its  depiction of concrete tower blocks replacing ageing slums, not out of concern for communities but driven by the greed of developers.

Hackett, meanwhile, was the lead writer of Can-Utility And The Coastliners and also contributed his classically inspired solo piece Horizons.

Fifty years on, Steve returns to Foxtrot in concert in the company of two Swedes, Nad Sylvan, vocals, and Jonas Reingold, bass and backing vocals; Roger King, keyboards; Rob Townsend, saxophone, flutes and keys, and Craig Blundell, drums.

“Over the years, I’ve played with orchestras to expand the sound, and now, the way it can be presented live is with an expanded sound palette, with real brass, real woodwind, as well as keyboards,” says Steve.

“It’s music that’s survived well beyond its sell-by date. Maybe ‘classical’ music has to be 100 years old, but this is 50 years old. I was part of creating it, and going back to it, I’m struck by the breadth of Foxtrot.

The tour poster for Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot At Fifty

“People will have their favourites, maybe they’re attracted to the more proggy moments or maybe the less proggy, but what matters is that it stuck with them. Songs that first struck me as ‘just another of our pieces’, now I look back and think it’s very detailed music, as detailed as a five-piece band could be.”

Steve is revelling in broadening the Foxtrot canvas. “It takes a lot of rehearsal, but the gigs have been going very well. Now we can add the reverb, which is all part of the detail, and it all sounds much bigger than it did on the record. It’s music that was written to be performed live within palace walls in Italy, where the music could be recorded around the rooms and you got the feel of a space age band playing,” he says.

“Now, on this tour, the little Cinderella songs get the chance to go to the ball. I want to be authentic, but to expand, to extend, the sound is important. I don’t want it to be a slavish reproduction of the record, so we’re doing three-part harmonies rather than one-and-a-half-part harmonies.”

What happens to Supper’s Ready, Steve? “At the end, I tend to take it to the mountain and then keep it going, so I’m striking a balance between reverence and having a rave-up,” he says. “It’s not a heavy metal show but to have these wide dynamics brings it alive.”

Although the term “prog rock” has negative connotations for nay-sayers, Steve prefers to think of the possibilities of such flexible music-making. “It’s supposed to involve everything, so that it will evolve to include world music, the blues, whatever. That’s why it’s ‘music from heaven’,” he says.

“I’ve just got this love of classical music; my guilty pleasure was listening to [Spanish classical guitarist Andre] Segovia at the same time as watching Jimi Hendrix, and then the baroque and the blues did come together. Music without prejudice is the ideal; the stuffed shirt making way for letting it all hang out.”

Steve continues: “John Lennon said some nice things about our [Genesis] music; Yehudi Menuhin used some of my music, and if there was a point that they agreed on, I had their ear for a few seconds.”

Steve, who “wants to be the glue” that bonds different musical forms, reflects on the Steve Hackett of today and of 50 years ago. “The similarities between these two different times in my life is that I’m still trying to get it right. It’s never finished. One lifetime is never enough if you’re dead serious. Music doesn’t end with Chuck Berry. It goes on,” he says.

“In heaven, my ideal band would have both Lennon and Menuhin in it. Maybe their confluence came with Eleanor Rigby, as realised by George Martin.”

Looking ahead to Saturday, Foxtrot will be preceded by an hour of “Hackett Highlights”, drawn from both his Genesis and solo catalogues. Be ready for much more than Supper’s Ready.

Steve Hackett, Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights, York Barbican, Saturday (24/9/2022), 7.30pm; Sheffield City Hall, September 30, 7.45pm. Box office: York, yorkbarbican.co.uk; Sheffield, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk; both concerts, hackett.songs.com and myticket.co.uk.

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Marti Pellow talks architecture? Learn more in Two Big Egos In A Small Car episode 78

TWO Big Egos In A Small Car arts podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson compare notes on their separate interviewing experiences with Marti Pellow, smarty fellow of pop, ahead of his York Barbican greatest hits show on May 3.

Prompted by his Wet Wet Wet exit, Chalmers & Hutch then discuss famous bands’ substitute singers, from Genesis to AC/DC, Black Sabbath to Buzzcocks.

Plus why Kenneth Branagh’s second Agatha Christie revamp, Death On The Nile, bristles with much more than Poirot’s monumental moustache; Harry Sword’s deep dive of a book on drone music, Monolithic Undertow – In search Of Sonic Oblivion… and a Sting in the tail end.

To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10087660

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The Last Domino effect? How were Genesis and chair-leader Phil at Leeds Arena gig?

FOR the revelations on Genesis, listen to Episode 59 of arts and culture podcasters Chalmers & Hutch’s Two Big Egos In A Small Car debates.

Under discussion too are: tips on how to judge/not judge Battle of the Bands contests; Scritti Politti’s music-hall act at Leeds City Varieties; why No Time To Die is the longest Bond film; and the Seventies’ sci-fi visions of Michael Moorcock’s The Condition Of Muzak.

Head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/9327062

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Count Arthur Strong presents himself and Genesis Visible Touch toast the Phil Collins era in new York Barbican dates for 2022

Count-down to to the Strong stuff in 2022: Count Arthur Strong’s poster for And This Is Me!

COUNT Arthur Strong presents himself in And This Is Me! at York Barbican on June 3 2022 to mark still going Strong after two decades.

“After many years of giving his wonderful lecture talks of his he does, Count Arthur Strong has at last bowed to substantial pubic demand and allowed himself be talked into making the show about himself for once,” his tour spiel pronounces.

“And that had never occurred to him before because of him being highly magnanimous,” it adds, as tickets for his 20th anniversary tour go on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441.

From his breakthrough Edinburgh Fringe show Forgotten Egypt in 2002, to turning the spotlight on himself in 2022, the droll creation of Leeds comic Steve Delaney has two decades of memories from his ten national tours, 15 years of his multi award-winning radio show and three series of his BAFTA- nominated self-titled TV sitcom.

Ticket sales start at 10.30am tomorrow for Genesis Visible Touch, “the ultimate Phil Collins-era Genesis show”, at York Barbican on March 3 2022.

For their 2022 Greatest Hits And Fan Favourites Tour, Genesis Visible Touch will be doing “exactly what it says in the title”: replicating Follow You Follow Me, Invisible Touch, In The Cage and myriad older fan favourites and live classics. The verdict? “The best exponents of Collins-fronted Genesis I’ve seen,” says Genesis producer Nick Davis.

The Genesis Visible Touch tour poster for their 2022 concert at York Barbican

Meanwhile, another Genesis tribute gig at York Barbican is on the move from this year to next, this one focused on the Peter Gabriel era . The Musical Box: A Genesis Extravaganza – Part III has been rescheduled from February 14 2021 to February 4 2022.

All tickets remain valid for the new date, but ticket holders should contact their point of purchase if they have any questions.

The Musical Box, the only group in the world granted a licence from Peter Gabriel and Genesis, will re-create “the greatest rock opera ever created” in its entirety, namely the original 1975 performance of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, staged in painstaking historical detail, right down to the original slide show.

The final collaboration between Gabriel and Genesis is to be “revived one last time in the end-of-an-era final chance to witness this unique live experience” in this 8pm show.

The Musical Box have performed to more than one million spectators worldwide, playing such prestigious venues as the Royal Albert Hall, London, and the Paris Olympia, and the group have had the privilege of hosting Phil Collins as a performing guest.

“The Musical Box recreated, very accurately, what Genesis was doing,” says Peter Gabriel. “They’re not a tribute band, they have taken a period and are faithfully reproducing it in the same way that someone would do a theatrical production,” reckonsPhil Collins.

“I cannot imagine that you could have a better tribute for any act,” says Steve Hackett, lead guitarist in the Genesis line-up of that era. “It was better than the real thing,” concedes fellow guitarist Mike Rutherford.

The Musical Box: Re-enacting the Genesis works of the Peter Gabriel era. “Very accurately,” says Mr Gabriel
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Hackett seeks a light to the future while celebrating Genesis past

“I still remain cautiously optimistic about being at the edge of light,” says Steve Hackett

FOR the first time, former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is on the road performing his old band’s 1973 album, Selling England By The Pound, in its entirety.

Now 69, Hackett will be performing the venerated likes of Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth Of Fifth, Cinema Show and I Know What I Like (In My Wardrobe) at a sold-out York Barbican on Tuesday (November 19).

This will be complemented by further Genesis numbers, selections from Hackett’s Spectral Mornings album to mark its 40th anniversary and highlights from this year’s At The Edge Of Light release.

“The idea to do the whole of Selling England By The Pound came from recalling that, at the time, John Lennon said it was one of the albums he was listening to that year,” says Steve.

“By the time Sgt. Pepper came along, there were surprises around every corner in The Beatles’ music, so the challenge for me was always there, and I was rather hoping that Genesis would expand to an orchestra, but in fact they did the opposite and got smaller and smaller!”

He looks back fondly on Selling England By The Pound. “It was my favourite Genesis album that gave us our first hit,” he says.

“Then something special happened with Spectral Mornings, with my first touring band, and now I feel this year’s album, At The Edge Of Light, is special too, doing something political that I knew would be uncommercial, doing something that I wanted to do at a certain point, like when Queen and Led Zeppelin did creative things in an earlier era.”

As the title would suggest, At The Edge Of Light is a place still shrouded in darkness. “Much of the album does centre on that: the populist world view evinced by politicians, that dark times are ahead. It’s very worrying,” says Hackett.

“Look at the situation in so much of America. The man who was ‘going to make America great again’ has put 800,000 people out of work. That’s haunting.

“We don’t mention names, but much of the album is symbolic lyrically, but there are other things on there beyond politics: love songs and travelogues, so I don’t think it’s a one-horse-race album.”

Songs for this fully orchestrated album partly came out of conversations with his wife, Jo, suggesting lyrics, then Hackett coming up with melodies. In addition, he drew inspiration from the music of his youth. “I was born in 1950, and by the time the Sixties were in full cry, you had Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie, doing wonderful versions of Dylan songs, with music carrying a deeper meaning without being didactic…though there’s nothing wrong with boy-meets-girl songs, but music changed for the better.”

Hackett urges people to make friends across the world, rather than for Britain to become insular in these toxic Brexit days. “The idea that we can just exist on our own, sailing off into the Atlantic…if that happens, I think there’ll be a rude awakening, once people realise what they have voted for. Be careful what you wish for. Look at what’s happening in America, with people queueing up for food in Washington. I don’t know what to say about that, but I hope people come to their senses.”

Nevertheless, the choice of the word ‘light’ in the album title indicates Hackett’s view is not all doom and gloom. “I still remain cautiously optimistic about being at the edge of light, rather than the edge of an abyss,” he says.

At The Edge Of Light is an album where Hackett “pulled no punches, gave it everything, but not in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way”, and he had a “great time doing it as I thought ‘let’s give it the full monty’.”

He brought such a scale to his Autumn 2018 tour too, performing Genesis and Hackett material with a 42-piece orchestra, including an October show at London’s Royal Festival Hall recorded for the newly released Steve Hackett – Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live double album and Blu-Ray digipak.

Now he re-visits Genesis again, this time Dancing With The Moonlit Knight at York Barbican.

Steve Hackett, Selling England By The Pound, York Barbican, Tuesday 19 November, 7.30pm.

Charles Hutchinson