Faye Brookes: Ballroom dancing for the first time in Strictly Ballroom The Musical. Picture: Danny Kaan
CORONATION Street star and Dancing On Ice finalist Faye Brookes is joining Kevin Clifton in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York, from Monday to Saturday.
The Manchester actress, 35, will be taking the lead female part of Fran opposite Strictly Come Dancing alumnus Clifton’s Scott Hastings in Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood’s production on tour until July 15.
“I’m so excited to be playing the role of Fran and making it my own. Bring it on!” says Faye, who last appeared on the York stage in the pink and perky role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde The Musical in August 2011.
“But I have been back to York since then because it’s so pretty, a great day out, wonderful cafés and restaurants, and the river.”
Actress, soap star and Dancing On Ice contestant Faye Brookes
Faye, who became a household name after joining ITV soap opera Coronation Street to play Underworld packer and waitress Kate Connor from 2015-2019, is no stranger to musical theatre.
Not only starring in Legally Blonde, but also in Shrek The Musical in the role of Princess Fiona, in a tour that visited Leeds Grand Theatre in August 2014, and in Chicago, playing housewife, nightclub dancer and murderess Roxie Hart, visiting the Leeds theatre last May.
Now she adds Strictly Ballroom’s Fran to that list. “I was doing panto at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, playing Goldilocks – with Jason Donovan as the villain [the Evil Ringmaster] – when my agent called me to say Maisie Smith was scheduled to leave the tour in March.
“How would I feel about auditioning? ‘Great!’ I said. I knew Strictly Ballroom well from seeing the film in my childhood. I fell in love with the script and when I watched the film again, I was completely in awe of the dancing and bonkers, crazy comedy that Baz Luhrmann had done.”
“Kevin has taken me under his wing. He’s an absolute pro,” says Faye Brookes, describing her rehearsal experience playing Fran to Kevin Clifton’s Scott Hastings in Strictly Ballroom The Musical
Based on Luhrmann’s 1992 Australian romantic comedy, Strictly Ballroom The Musical follows the rocky path of arrogant, rebellious ballroom dancer Scott Hastings (Clifton).
When he falls out with the Australian Federation over his radical dance moves, he finds himself dancing with Fran (Brookes), a beginner with no moves at all. Inspired by one another, this unlikely pairing gathers the courage to defy both convention and families while discovering that, to be winners, the steps do not need to be strictly ballroom.
All important to the show is the chemistry in Scott and Fran’s tentative, then blossoming relationship on and off the dance floor. “I’ve got myself into the fittest shape possible and Kevin has taken me under his wing. He’s an absolute pro,” says Faye. “He’s been wanting to do this show ever since he was ten.”
Faye began rehearsals on March 8 before joining the itinerary from March 27. “I worked with Kevin while he was on the road as I followed the tour around the country,” says Faye, who relished the task of mastering her Australian accent too.
“It’s action packed and you just have to jump on the train and ride!” says Faye Brookes, centre, of Strictly Ballroom The Musical. Picture: Ellie Kurttz
“To be fair, I do love taking on any challenge and doing accents is definitely one. I’ve always loved voices, and from watching Home And Away and Australian movies, my ear has picked up on the accent.
“What else I did, when I was doing drama at Guildford [School of Acting], was we had elocution lessons with a new accent every week.”
2021 brought her another challenge in the form of the ITV celebrity contest Dancing On Ice. “I’d never had any lessons before, but it just shows what you can do if you’re so committed to it,” says Faye, who finished as the runner-up.
“I was very lucky that I had no other commitments than the ice and I took to it like a duck to water, soaking it up like a sponge. With Strictly Ballroom, there is territory that I’ve done before [musicals], but I’ve never done ballroom dancing until now, though I have had to do ‘historical’ dancing before.”
Strictly Ballroom The Musical director Craig Revel Horwood
Working with Australian-born director Craig Revel Horwood has been a thrill too. “He’s really taken the film and sought to re-create what Baz Luhrmann created in his first ever movie and put it on stage,” says Faye. “So there are moments that will remind people of that film, and for young people who aren’t familiar with it, I can say it’s action packed and you just have to jump on the train and ride!”
Combining a book by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce with a cast of more than 20, Strictly Ballroom The Musical brings to stage life such hits as Love Is In the Air, Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps and Time After Time with joyous verve, bolstered by songs by Sia, David Foster and Eddie Perfect in a show full of “scintillating singing, dazzling dancing and eye-popping costumes” under the glitterball.
“It’s a very explosive show where you go on this wonderful experience,” says Faye. “Take a leap of faith, go with your gut, and what a beautiful feeling you will have when you come out of the theatre.”
Strictly Ballroom The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, April 24 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Florabundant: Phil Wang is in full bloom in 2023 as he extends his Wang In There, Baby! tour to take in autumn as well as spring dates
BRITISH Malaysian stand-up comedian, writer, sketch troupe performer and podcaster Phil Wang is promising his silliest show yet in Wang In There, Baby!, where he will discuss “race, family, nipples and everything else in his Philly little life”.
Nipples, Phil? “The problem with my shows is it’s a string of different material I like to discuss, so when I’m asked, ‘what are the themes?’, I have to think quickly of the topics.
“I’m always talking about race, but this year I also have a routine about nipples and why we censor women’s nipples, but not men’s,” he says, ahead of Friday’s Grand Opera House gig in York, where he will return in the autumn for a September 23 show at York Barbican.
Family? “I talk about my relationship with my father. I’ve always talked about him as being this Asian foil,” says Phil [full name Philip Nathaniel Wang Sin Goi], who was born in Stoke-on-Trent to an English mother and a Chinese-Malaysian father of Hakka descent.
“Hopefully I’ll have some extremely York observations to make,” says Phil Wang
One week after his birth on January 22 1990, the family returned to his father’s home town of Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, where Phil was was taught in Malay, Mandarin and English, studying at the Jerudong International School in Brunei.
Anyway, back to Wang senior. “During the pandemic, he was in Malaysia where they were very strict about people coming in and out of the country. For two years I didn’t see him, but we don’t have a sentimental relationship, so we’re not very good at expressing our feelings towards each other,” Phil says.
On the phone from Peckham, South London, where he was tucking into noodles and a fried egg, Phil is looking forward to his brace of York gigs. “Yeah, hopefully I’ll have some extremely York observations to make.
“I always enjoy freshening it up with local references. For audiences it shows that you’re present in the moment and not just rattling off a script. You’re taking notice – and British humour can be summed up as ‘our town sucks but the next town over there is even worse’.
“There are more comedians than ever,” says Phil Wang. “That means you really have to be present to make an impact”
“I was actually up in Yorkshire in February with a couple of friends on a gastronomical trip to the Star Inn at Harome – it’s so popular we had to book at the end of last year – then walked on the moors and had the best pint of beer I’ll ever have in my life.”
Phil was the first British comedian to tape and release a Netflix Original stand-up comedy special during the pandemic, revelling in the title Philly Philly Wang Wang, and the only non-American act to be spotlighted on Netflix’s That’s My Time With David Letterman, and he has appeared in a recurring guest role in Amy Schumer’s comedy-drama series Life & Beth for Hulu/Disney+ too.
Then add USA tours, appearances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Montreal’s Just For Laughs Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe, and the September 2021 publication of his debut book Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once, his comic memoir and observational essay on being a Eurasian man in the West and the East.
He is spreading his Wang wings, as it were. “I think we’re lucky to be living in these times: as a comedian, it’s not that we have to do so much, it’s just that we can – and there are more comedians than ever. That means you really have to be present to make an impact,” says Phil. “You never get bored because you’re always doing different things.”
The cover artwork for Phil Wang’s debut book Sidesplitter
Race, or more to the point, being of mixed race as a Eurasian – or “the two majorities, white and Chinese” as he puts it in one routine – has been a double-edged sword for him. “On the one hand, I don’t have that familiarity with an audience, whether a British or Malaysian one. That is my disadvantage,” he says.
“But, on the other hand, my advantage from the start was being the only Asian on the bill and often I still stand out. I accept I will never completely fit in anywhere; that’s not something I need to change. It’s perfectly OK to be in that position.”
Especially for a comedian, with its role of being the outsider looking in and commenting on the world around him. “Comedians live an observational life,” says Phil. “I’ll often not be able to live in the moment because I’m observing it and over-thinking it, but that lends itself to being a stand-up. Growing up mixed race, that forced me to be an observer too.”
Phil Wang, Wang In There, Baby!, Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm; York Barbican, September 23, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york; yorkbarbican.co.uk. Further Yorkshire dates: Leeds City Varieties, Thursday, 7.30pm, sold out; Sheffield City Hall, April 30, 7.30pm; sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Plum job: Robert Daws at the typewriter in his role as P. G. Wodehouse in Wodehouse In Wonderland at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith
THE Plum life of Wodehouse, Godber’s walk into the future, happy and angry comedy, Bros big band style and mountain adventures on screen jostle for a starring role in Charles Hutchinson’s week ahead.
PG tips and Wooster source of the week: Wodehouse In Wonderland, York Theatre Royal, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
IN William Humble’s play set in the exiled English author’s New York State home in the 1950s, P. G. Wodehouse is trying to write the latest instalment of Jeeves and Wooster. However, a would-be biographer, his wife, his daughter and even his two Pekingese dogs have other ideas.
Performed by Robert Daws, Wodehouse In Wonderland presents stories of first meeting Jeeves, Wodehouse’s addiction to soap operas, and why he wrote books “like musical comedies without music”, combined with Broadway songs composed by Kern, Gershwin, Porter and Novello with lyrics by Wodehouse himself, but is there a darker story to be told too? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Garrett Millerick: Thumbs-up to optimism with an angry hue
Grumpy comedy gig of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Garrett Millerick: Just Trying To Help, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 8pm
THE world’s angriest optimist returns for another bash at sorting out life’s inexplicable complications in a night of comedy for people who like to keep things simple.
Stand-up comedian, writer and director Garrett Millerick investigates the unintended consequences of doing our best, the mayhem that ensues when people try to help, in a cathartic appeal for calm from one of the least calm people in the country. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
On their knees: Jane Thornton and John Godber in Godber’s new comedy Living On Fresh Air, on tour at the SJT from Wednesday
State of the nation report of the week: John Godber Company in Living On Fresh Air, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
PLAYWRIGHT John Godber and wife Jane Thornton play newly retired Yorkshire couple Caroline and Dave, who have everything they have ever wanted: a nice house, a hot tub, a small mortgage, a few savings and a new smart meter.
However, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis changes everything. Their son has moved back home, their money is disappearing, the hot tub’s gone, the lights are going out and the smart meter is stressful. Time to head for the hills for their new-found hobby of walking, but far can you go living on fresh air as Godber projects an even gloomier future ten years on in this bleak comedy? Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Johannes Radebe: Expressing Freedom in movement at Grand Opera House
Dance show of the week: Johannes Radebe in Freedom Unleashed, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
CONFIRMED for the 2023 series of Strictly Come Dancing, South African dancer and international champion Johannes Radebe returns to the Grand Opera House with his cast of dancers and singers.
Freedom Unleashed combines African rhythms and party anthems with a touch of ballroom magic in a jubilant celebration of culture, passion, and freedom. Completing the company will be South African singer-songwriter Ramelo, a former contestant on The Voice South Africa. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Millie Manders & The Shutup: Songs of loss, betrayal and political unrest at The Crescent, York
Band to discover of the week: Millie Manders & The Shutup, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
NEWSFLASH 19/4/2023: Unfortunately, illness has forced this gig to be rescheduled. New date is July 7. All tickets remain valid but refunds are available from point of purchase.
NORTHERN SkaFacepresents cross-genre punks Millie Manders & The Shutup, a band noted for grinding guitars and irresistible horns, topped off by Manders’ vocal dexterity. Their lyrics deliberate on themes of loss, betrayal, anger, anxiety, heartbreak and bitterness, environmental catastrophe and political unrest. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Matt gloss: Bros singer Matt Goss gives songs the big band and orchestral makeover at York Barbican
Hitting his swing: The Matt Goss Experience with MG Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
BROS frontman and Strictly Come Dancing 2022 contestant Matt Goss had to reschedule his York gig after the recurrence of a shoulder/collar bone injury. Original tickets remain valid for the new date (20/4/2023).
“I never give less than 100 per cent on every single show I do, so I had to adhere to the medical advice,” says Goss, 54, who headlined Las Vegas for 11 years. Expect his biggest hits, new original music and a Cole Porter tribute in a night of swing, glitz and swagger. Dressing to the nines is encouraged. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Pulling faces:
Seriously silly: Phil Wang, Wang In There, Baby!, Leeds City Varieties, Thursday, 7.30pm, sold out; Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm; York Barbican, September 23, 7.30pm
HOT on the heels of his Netflix special, David Letterman appearance, role in Life & Beth with Amy Schumer and debut book Sidesplitter, PhilWang discusses race, family, nipples and everything else going on in his Philly little life in his latest stand-up show, Wang In There, Baby! Box office: atgtickets.com/york; yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Mountain high: Film feats at York Barbican
Film event of the week: BANFF Mountain Film Festival World Tour, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
THE world’s most prestigious mountain film festival presents the 2023 Blue Film Programme, a new adrenaline-fuelled collection of short films by the best adventure filmmakers and explorers as they push themselves to the limits in the most remote corners of the globe. Witness epic human-powered feats, life-affirming challenges and mind-blowing cinematography on the big screen. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Miles And The Chain Gang: Launching new single Charlie
Single launch: Miles And The Chain Gang, Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane, York, April 29, doors 7pm; first band 8pm
MILES And The Chain Gang launch their April 21 single, Charlie, at the Vaults, where they will play their rock’n’roll the old-fashioned way in the vein of Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen.
The York band are fronted by singer, songwriter, poet, storyteller and podcaster Miles Salter, organiser of the new York Alive festival. In the support slot on this night of blues, soul and funk, The Long Shots, featuring Chain Gang rhythm section Steve Purton and Mat Watt, give their debut public performance. Box office: theyorkvaults.com.
Scouting For Girls: New album and autumn dates in York, Leedsand Sheffield
Gig announcement of the week: Scouting For Girls, York Barbican, November 10, Leeds O2 Academy, November 23, and Sheffield O2 Academy, November 24
WEST London trio Scouting For Girls will follow up the October 13 release of their seventh indie-pop album, the life-affirming The Place We Used To Meet, with a 22-date autumn tour. York, Leeds and Sheffield await. Tickets go on sale on April 21 at 10am at gigst.rs/SFG.
“As the name suggests, it’s an album about going back to our roots and starting again. Falling back in love with music,” says band leader Roy Stride. “Heartbreaking, anthemic, fun and pop, indie and serious, anything went as long as we loved it. It’s the best collection of songs we’ve ever had, and I’ve loved every minute of making it.”
In Focus: Leeds Fine Artists’ exhibition, Awakening, at Blossom Street Gallery, York
The Midnight Hour, by Kate Buckley, at the Leeds Fine Artists show in York
LEEDS Fine Artists are marking the arrival of spring with Awakening on their return to Blossom Street Gallery, York.
Among those showing new work are York artists Tim Pearce, Kate Buckley, Luisa Holden and Gail Fox.
Both Pearce and Buckley also are taking part in York Open Studios this weekend and next weekend too, 10am to 5pm each day.
Mixed-media artist Pearce’s paintings and sculptural ceramics, informed by Cubist sensitivity to form, colour and rhythm, can be found in his studio, house and garden at Brambles, Warthill, York.
Light, shadow, surface and space come into play in Buckley’s contemporary, press-moulded sculptural porcelain artworks for the wall and home at 31 Wentworth Road, York.
Leeds Fine Artists (LFA), an association of artists from across Yorkshire, was established in 1874, making it one of the oldest regional arts bodies in the UK. From its beginnings in Leeds, it has spread throughout Yorkshire and is now among the most prestigious arts organisations in the north.
Lamona For Blossom Street, by Gail Fox
LFA has more than 50 exhibiting members working in two and three dimensions in a broad span of media and seeks to encourage and promote art and artists throughout Yorkshire.
An annual exhibition is held in the Crossley Gallery at Dean Clough, Halifax, and other exhibitions are organised across the region each year, bringing together the wide range of styles and approaches of LFA’s members.
In addition to group exhibitions, many LFA artists exhibit individually, both in Yorkshire and internationally as well as promoting excellence in the visual arts through education.
Applications to join LFA are welcomed from fine artists practising in all areas of the visual and applied arts. For more details, go to: leedsfineartists.co.uk/yorkshire/leeds-fine-artists-become-a-member/.
Membership is by election, decided by a panel of members, who look for a high standard in each applicant’s work, including quality, content and consistency, as well as a professional approach to exhibiting.
Awakening is on show at Blossom Street Gallery, Blossom Street, York, until May 28.
Work by Leeds Fine Artists members on show and for sale at Blossom Street Gallery, York
Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan: Comedy and impressions for sharing on a Sunday night in York
JASPER Carrott had decided his Stand Up & Rock gig with Brummie schoolmate and ELO drummer Bev Bevan in Barnstaple would be his last show.
June 6 2022. Age 77. Joke cracker Carrott and sticks basher Bevan in Devon. Exit the Queen’s Theatre stage left, the finale for the Lifetime Achievement winner in the 2008 British Comedy Awards. The Funky Moped now defunct.
But what’s this? An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan, heading to the Grand Opera House, York, on Sunday on their comedy and impressions double bill.
“I gave it up last year to see how I felt – and I missed it terribly,” says comedian, actor and television presenter Jasper, his nickname since the age of nine when growing up in Birmingham.
“I’m having a golden autumn. There’s an audience out there that’s not catered for and I cater for it. I get standing ovations, and these days I like to say it would be 100 per cent…if 100 per cent of the audience could still stand up!”
Carrott, 78, and Evesham-born McGowan, 58, who now lives in Ludlow, Shropshire, first shared a bill as a one-off at the 2017 Reading Festival. “They had a spare spot on the Sunday, and my agent asked if I’d like to do it, My first thought was, ‘Not on my own’,” recalls Jasper (real name Robert Norman Davis, by the way).
“I’d previously worked with Phil Cool for about three years [from 1992] on the Carrott & Cool tour shows, where the comedy nights felt different because of Phil’s impersonations. Anyway, my agent said Alistair would be interested in doing the festival with me, and it went really well.”
So much so, they went out on tour in 2018, playing York Barbican in their An Evening With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan format on November 19. “That was one of the first shows I did with him.”
How did they settle on who would open the show? “Alistair really wanted to go on first. I think he thought it would be more difficult if he had to build on my energy. We first did it that way at Reading, and it worked, so, each half, Alistair does 20-25 minutes, then I come on and do 30,” says Jasper.
In a long, long career, Jasper has spread his wings to star in the television series The Detectives from 1993 to 1997; play Koko, the executioner, for the D’Oyly Carte Opera in a 96-show run of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre, London, in 2002, and host 300 episodes of the ITV daytime game show Golden Balls from 2007 to 2011.
Jasper Carrott, centre, and The Bev Bevan Band line-up for their Stand Up & Rock shows in 2021
Yet raconteur Jasper has always returned to performing stand-up, cracking quickfire gags, spinning yarns and singing ditties to guitar accompaniment solo on stage: the most exposed and exposing form of self-expression on stage.
“Now then, I’m going to paraphrase Bill Shankly [the legendary Liverpool football manager of the 1960s and ’70s],” says Jasper. “When he signed Kevin Keegan, he walked him on to the Anfield pitch and said, ‘you can run anywhere on this pitch, but you can’t hide’, and that’s the same for me, doing my comedy.”
Ten years away from the stand-up microphone had passed when best friend Bev Bevan said, ‘Let’s do some shows together. That’s when I rediscovered the essence of it, going eyeball to eyeball with an audience. It stirred up all the adrenaline again, which is a very addictive drug.”
Preferring that eyeball-to-eyeball experience to playing 5,000-seaters “where everyone just watches the screens”, Carrott and Bevan did shows together for more than eight years. Now he is back on the road with Alistair McGowan.
“Times have changed in comedy. You can’t talk about anything [because of political correctness], but it’s like you have to have Tourette’s to go on stage to talk. That’s comedy today, long, hard and woke. For ages I’ve been watching a lot of comedians, and with all the young stand-up comics, I don’t really laugh,” he says.
“Storytelling is an art and not many comedians now tell stories, but I do sets with machine-gunfire gags and three or four stories with jokes in them that are hidden, and that’s what I’ve always done.
“That’s because I was a product of the American style of comedy: Tom Lehrer, George Carlin, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman. I still don’t swear on stage, but I talk about topics that need discussing, however awkward.”
Looking ahead, Jasper says: “Lots of comedians have performed into their 80s: George Burns, the Marx Brothers, Ken Dodd, and I’ll know when it’s time to stop,” he says. “I have no ego about it. I really enjoy it, and one of things now is the nostalgia, where I go on stage and I’m part of the audience’s lives. I feel their warmth.”
A comedian to the last, he ponders his final curtain. “When I get asked, ‘what do you want on your gravestone?’, I always say, ‘I never died in Glasgow’!”
An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Jasper Carrott: Comedian, actor and TV presenter
Jasper Carrott on playing Koko, the executioner, in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado for D’Oyly CarteOpera
“That was an experience and a half! I was a bit shaky at first as I had to learn so much. Someone said, ‘you can know it, but you don’t own it’, and remember sitting down and thinking ‘how do I go about doing this?’.
“I was a pain in the a**e for everyone on the staff, from the actors to the director, really trying to glean the essence of the part, which I then really got hold of.
“Why pick me for Koko? I suppose they looked at it and thought, ‘who can we get to front this?’, when people like Eric Idle had done it before. I said I’d be very interested, and they sent the director out to Spain, where I was playing golf, to play the piano to see if I could sing.”
Surely D’Oyly Carte must have heard Jasper’s 1975 hit single, Funky Moped? “My musical passport!” he says, with laughter in his voice.
Once Jasper received the OK, rather than KO, for playing Koko, “the rest was a long, hard slog, getting to learn the part…and learning never to do it again! I never realised how much work went into performing opera.”
Jasper Carrott on hosting the ITV game show Golden Balls
“I thought, ‘I’m a raconteur, not a game show host’, but I did the pilot and they liked it. When my agent said how much I’d be paid, I said, ‘is that in lira?’, but no, it wasn’t! I ended up doing 300 episodes.
“I learned so much about human nature in that show, about just how deceitful people are!”
Stewart Lee
Jasper Carrott on fellow comedian Stewart Lee
“Stewart left a couple of books for me at a gig after he’d played there a couple of days earlier, saying I’d inspired him. He’s not always funny but he is very interesting, and he’s probably the link between what I do and the young comedians of today.”
Jasper Carrott on the essence of comedy
“Comedy is the only measurable artform. People laugh or they don’t. You can’t tell me how much you enjoy a Rembrandt painting, but if there aren’t any laughs at a comedy gig, you won’t be performing again.”
High-flying success: Ned Sproston’s Caractacus Potts at the wheel of Chitty, with Carly Morton’s Truly Scrumptious in the passenger seat and Logan Willstrop’s Jeremy Potts and Hope Day’s Jemima Potts in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, York Stage, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm nightly to Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
THIS is James Bond author Ian Flemings’s eyebrow-raising 1964 children’s story, via Ken Hughes’s 1968 family musical fantasy film, adapted for the stage by Jeremy Sams.
It would be easy to put the emphasis on the spectacle, the car that floats and flies, with as many special features as a Q-customised Aston Martin for Bond. Certainly director-producer Nik Briggs pulls out all the stops on that score, but his Chitty show has more wings to it than merely its fine four-fendered friend’s airborne adventures.
The “fantasmagorical” spectacle here extends beyond the repurposed scrap-heap Grand Prix car to Damien Poole’s fabulous, fun and funny choreography; the hair and make-up by Phoebe Kilvington’s team; Charades Theatrical Costume’s flamboyant costume designs and the uncredited hi-tech set design, windmill sails et al.
Pulling a Chu-Chi Face: Alex Papachristou’s Baron Bomburst and Jackie Cox’s Baroness
Out of sight, aside from diligent yet playful musical director Adam Tomlinson, is his lush 12-piece orchestra, properly filling the pit with gorgeous musicality for the Sherman brothers’ score.
Above all, Briggs has improved further on the balance between grand theatricality and human personality in West Yorkshire Playhouse’s 2015 Christmas production. Perhaps it would be truer to say “caricature personality”, but the result is a greater connection with the audience.
In particular, this applies to the baddie double act of Alex Papachristou’s arch, spoilt, teddy bear-carrying Baron Bomburst and his brassy Baroness (Jackie Cox), a hammier, kinkier couple than past interpretations, and far funnier than their outrageous banishment of children from their Vulgarian principality should be.
Bomburst’s spies, Boris and Goran, are always comedy gold, in pursuit of purloining the car for the baron, but they are better still in the hands of Jack Hooper and James Robert Ball, Vulgarian vultures trying to pass themselves off as Englishmen (and even women too).
Send for the clowning spies: Jack Hooper’s Boris gives a lift to James Robert Ball’s Goran
Papachristou, Cox, Hooper and Ball stretch their Vulgarian accents across Germanic vowels with delight and differing, equally amusing results in a send-up where ’Allo ’Allo! meets Mel Brooks’s The Producers.
Such is their broad playing, their comic interplay, their relish for downright silliness, that all four carry appeal for adults and children alike, evil but never vile. Unlike Richard Barker’s Childcatcher, that towering, spindly, grotesque rotter, whose villainy is more threat than presence, given how few scenes he has.
Meanwhile, several saucy jokes fly above innocent young heads, relished especially by Ball and Papachristou, who also rescues a prop malfunction (a telephone wire becoming detached) with an off-the-cuff one liner.
Ploughing a straighter furrow are Ned Sproston’s thoroughly decent inventor and single dad Caractacus Potts, plucky children Jeremy (Logan Willstrop, sharing the role with Esther de la Pena) and Jemima Potts (Hope Day/Eady Mensah), and Carly Morton’s utterly pucker Truly Scrumptious (whose beautiful singing with the purity of a Julie Andrews peaks with her Doll On A Music Box routine, clockwork dancing so exquisitely).
Briggs uses adult and children’s ensembles to the full, testament to the show’s mantra that teamwork makes the dream work, never more so than when Poole’s choreography is in full flow in Toots Sweets and especially The Bombi Samba.
Boris and Goran’s Act English and Potts and the Morris Men’s Me Ol’ Bamboo, Grandpa and The Inventors’ The Roses Of Success and the Baron and Baroness’s Chu-Chi Face are all bursting with character as much as musical flair.
For all the considerable technical demands of a show with a flying car, Briggs and his company take everything in their stride with panache in a dazzling, dapper and delightful family treat for the Easter break. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, bang on.
Student Emma Yeoman: Displaying flora and fauna in sculptures and on canvas in the grounds of York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York, at York Open Studios
ART across the city canvas, acoustic gigs, Easter chocolates, a comedy double bill, a singing milkman and Brazilian rhythms shape Charles Hutchinson’s April days ahead.
York’s art fiesta of the year: York Open Studios, April 15 and 16, April 22 and 23, 10am to 5pm
MORE than 150 artists and makers at 100 locations within the city or a ten-mile radius of York open their doors to visitors over two weekends to give insights into their inspirations, creative processes and skills.
Painting and printmaking, illustration, drawing and mixed media, ceramics, glass and sculpture, jewellery, textiles, photography and installation art all will be represented, with works for sale. For full details, including who is participating in Friday’s 6pm to 9pm preview, go to: yorkopenstudios.co.uk.
Rick Witter and Paul Banks: Playing Shed Seven songs in an acoustic duo setting in Barnsley
Local heroes head south…well, to South Yorkshire: Rick Witter & Paul Banks Acoustic, Birdwell Venue, Birdwell, Barnsley, tonight (8/4/2023), 7.30pm
MR H, alias former Fibbers boss Tim Hornsby, promotes frontman Rick Witter and guitarist Paul Banks as they shed their Shed Seven cohorts for an acoustic set down the road from their York home in Barnsley.
Witter and Banks present a special night of Shed Seven material and a few surprises in a whites-of-their-eyes show with an invitation to “holler along to some of the best anthems ever”. Box office: seetickets.com/tour/rick-witter-paul-banks-shed-seven-acoustic.
Hitting the sweet spot: York Chocolate Festival
Choc absorbers: York Chocolate Festival, Parliament Street, York, today, 10am to 5pm
TO coincide with Eastertide, York Chocolate Festival returns to Parliament Street to showcase chocolate and all things sweet from independent businesses.
Tuck into a festival market with a selection of chocolatiers and confectioners; an activity area with chocolate lollipop-making, tastings and cookery workshops; a chocolate bar (not a bar of chocolate) and a taste trail on foot around the city to sample delicatessens, restaurants and suppliers. Entrance to the festival and market is free, with some activities being ticketed.
Buffy Revamped: Seven Seasons, Seventy Minutes, One Spike, as Brendan Murphy re-creates every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Fringe show of the week: Buffy Revamped, York Theatre Royal, Wednesday, 8pm
THIS Edinburgh Fringe 2022 award winner relives all 144 episodes of the hit 1990s’ television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as told through the eyes of the one person who knows it inside out…Spike.
Created by comedian Brendan Murphy, the satirical Buffy Revamped bursts with Nineties’ pop-culture references in a seven-seasons-in-seventy-minutes parody for Buffy aficionados and those who never enrolled at Sunnydale High alike. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Richard Galloway in Badapple Theatre Company’s 2023 tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops, doing the milk round from April 15
Theatre tour of the week and beyond: Badapple Theatre Company in Eddie And The Gold Tops, on tour from April 15 to June 13
GREEN Hammerton’s “theatre on your doorstep” company, Badapple Theatre, mark their 25th anniversary with a tour of Yorkshire and beyond in artistic director Kate Bramley’s revival of her joyous Swinging Sixties’ show Eddie And The Gold Tops.
York actress Emily Chattle, Zach Atkinson and Richard Galloway transport audiences back to the fashion, music and teenage optimism of the 1960s as village milkman Eddie becomes a pop star quite by accident. Hits flow like spilt milk, Top Of The Pops beckons, but when things take a ‘churn’ for the worse, how will he get back for the morning milk round in Badapple’s wry look at the effects of stardom? For tour and ticket details, go to: badappletheatre.co.uk or contact 01423 331304.
Badapple’s Yorkshire tour dates:
April 15, Aldborough Village Hall; April 16, Marton cum Grafton Memorial Hall; April 19, Appletreewick Village Hall; April 20, Kings Theatre, Queen Ethelburga’s School, Thorpe Underwood; April 26, Bishop Monkton Village Hall; April 27, Spofforth Village Hall; April 29, Kirkby Malzeard Mechanics Institute.
May 4, Sheriff Hutton Village Hall; May 13, Sutton upon Derwent Village Hall; May 21, Cherry Burton Village Hall; May 24, Husthwaite Village Hall; May 25, Tunstall Village Hall; May 28, Otley Courthouse. June 9, North Stainley Village Hall, near Ripon; June 13, Green Hammerton Village Hall. All shows start at 7.30pm.
Hand in the air tonight: Chris Hayward performing his Seriously Collins tribute to Phil Collins
Tribute show of the week: Seriously Collins, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Friday, 7.30pm
NOW in its fifth year, Seriously Collins features Chris Hayward and his musicians in a two-hour tribute to singing drummer Phil Collins and Genesis. No gimmicks, no bald wigs, only the solo and band hits, re-created meticulously. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Back in York: Ryan Adams goes solo and acoustic at the Barbican
Solo show of the week: Ryan Adams, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
NORTH Carolina singer-songwriter Ryan Adams plays York for the first time since 2011 on his eight-date solo tour, when each night’s set list will be different.
Adams, who visited the Grand Opera House in 2007 and four years later, will be performing on acoustic guitar and piano in the style of his spring 2022 run of East Coast American gigs, when he played 168 songs over five nights in shows that averaged 160 minutes. Box office: ryanadams.ffm.to/tour.OPR and yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Scott Matthews: Restless lullabies in Selby
Singer-songwriter of the week: Scott Matthews, Restless Lullabies Tour, Selby Town Hall, Friday, 8pm; The Old Woollen, Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, April 16, 8pm
EXPECT an intimate acoustic show from Scott Matthews, the 47-year-old Ivor Novello Award-winning folk-pop singer-songwriter and guitarist from Wolverhampton, who has supported Foo Fighters, Robert Plant and Rufus Wainwright on tour.
Mastered at Abbey Road Studios, his starkly bold April 28 album Restless Lullabies reincarnates songs from his 2021 record, New Skin, removing its electronic veil. Box office: Selby, 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk; Farsley, oldwoollen.co.uk.
Fernando Maynart: Joyful night of Brazilian samba and bossa nova in Helmsley
“The Brazilian Ed Sheeran”: Fernando Maynart, Helmsley Arts Centre, April 15, 7.30pm
BRAZILIAN singer-songwriter Fernando Maynart returns to Helmsley Arts Centre with a new band and more of his beautiful TranSambas music, rooted in South American culture.
Combining song-writing with traditional, tribal and modern Latin rhythms, Maynart presents a concert with joy at its heart and a repertoire of rhythms embracing bossa nova and samba. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan: Evening of comedy and impressions at Grand Opera House, York
Double bill of the week: An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan, Grand Opera House, York, April 16, 7.30pm
BRUMMIE comedian Jasper Carrott has shared bills in the past with impressionist Phil Cool and latterly with ELO drummer Bev Bevan. He first did so with impressionist Alistair McGowan at Reading Festival in 2017: a one-off that went so well that further shows ensued and now Jasper and Alistair are touring once more this spring.
The format involves McGowan taking to the stage first in each half, followed by Carrott’s stand-up combination of quickfire gags, sketches and stories. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Alex Papachristou’s Baron Bomburst and Jackie Cox’s Baroness in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
THE Sherman brothers’ fantasmagorical musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, takes to the air at the Grand Opera House, York, from tonight.
Produced and directed by Nik Briggs, with musical direction by Adam Tomlison and choreography by Damien Poole, York Stage’s production of Ian Fleming’s story of madness, mayhem and magic features not only a big cast but a quartet of cars too.
“One of them is parked in the en-suite! That’s Baron Bomburst’s car, more of a vintage, turn-of-the-century car than Chitty, slightly more primitive, that we’ve brought here from Brighton,” says Nik. “The Baron wants inventor Caractacus Potts to fit it with a ‘float and fly’ features.
“There’s the battered old Chitty that the children find in a junkyard, and the Chitty with the title role, the 16ft long, 6ft wide, four-fendered Chitty, weighing 1,000kg, that magically flies over the Grand Opera House stage. We’ve hired that car from a company down south that built it specially for stage productions.
“We also have a smaller version of Chitty that was created for a production in Malton five or six years ago.”
Adapted from James Bond novelist Fleming’s story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car, written for his son in 1962 and published as three books in 1964, the musical tells the tale of whacky inventor Caractacus Potts (played by Ned Sproston), his two children and the gorgeous Truly Scrumptious (Carly Morton).
Can they outwit bombastic Baron Bomburst (Alex Papachristou), who has decreed that all children be banished from his kingdom? Watch out, here comes the evil Childcatcher (Richard Barker), who will be “popping up, here, there and everywhere, you never know where next”, Nik promises.
Nik Briggs: Producer-director for York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
“Yes, we have the flying car, but at its heart, it’s a really lovely story of Caractacus and his children, who are so imaginative. Even though Chitty is burnt out when they find her, they see designs of the car and that leads them off into a fantasy world, where the Baron is desperate to have the car.
“His wife, the Baroness (Jackie Cox), will do anything to please him and so she sends spies Boris and Goran (Jack Hooper and James Robert Ball) – obviously not the most intelligent of spies – from Vulgaria to retrieve the car from England.
“We have a broad style of playing these characters, with various Germanic and Vulgarian accents rather than a uniform one,” says Nik. “We’ve deliberately allowed everyone to find the fun in their character, so they all have their different styles. It’s almost comedy in the ’Allo ’Allo! style.
“Traditionally you have a fall guy to set up the gag, but with the Baron and Baroness and the spies too, it’s more like being on a see-saw; they’re the fall guy for each other, so anything goes.”
Barlby-raised Alex Papachristou is returning to the York stage, where he first caught the eye, to take over the role of Baron Bomburst at short notice, heading up from London over the past fortnight for weekend rehearsals, to be followed by tech week.
“They’re ridiculous characters, like a parody of themselves, but it’s also good to see the consequences of the Baron and Baroness’s greed. He’s like a 1910 version of Donald Trump, saying he’s going to make Vulgaria great again!” he says.
“The villains do have a Bond villain quality about them. The Baron doesn’t have a cat but he does have a teddy bear.”
York Stage’s poster artwork for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Chitty takes to the sky over York
Nik adds: “The Jeremy Sams version of the musical that we’re using does feature the Baron and the Baroness and the two spies a lot more than the 1968 film, so you get the story of Caractacus Potts, his children and Truly Scrumptious, but more of the baddies too.
“It’s also interesting to have a story about a single father. Caractacus is this loving character who will do anything for his children, giving them their creative outlets and liberating them to do whatever they want. When the romance with Truly Scrumptious comes along, they are from two different worlds, but they find love.”
Alex’s Baron will differ from the screen version. “I don’t play him like in the film. I play him as a 33-year-old spoilt young Baron, not a baron in his sixties. Of the roles I’ve played before, he’s quite similar in that way to Herod [performed as a white-faced, cross-dressing vaudeville act in York Stage Musicals’ Jesus Christ Superstar in 2011, when Briggs was Pontius Pilate], but not similar to anyone else,” he says.
“I’ve had to work really hard at this role as he wasn’t a natural fit. I even had Brian Blessed in my head for a while! The humour is more dry, more subtle, than in the film, and these characters are so well written that there’s a lot of elasticity to play around with them: you could really do it 100 ways, but as long as the children in the audience hate you and the adults love you, that’s all that matters!
“On the surface, the Baron and Baroness love each other, but underneath, they can’t stand each other, and it’s good to play someone who has more than one level to their character. These are the parts that are a joy to do and it’s always fun to be the villain.”
York Stage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Grand Opera House, York, today to April 15, 7.30pm nightly except April 9, plus 2.30pm matinees, tomorrow, Saturday, April 12 and 15. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Having a Bad Day in York: The Bad Day Blues Band play York Blues Festival tonight
FROM a dose of the blues to tragic poetry and song, an heroic fireman to a flying car, clashing couples to country-singing twins, Charles Hutchinson is ready for a week of up-and-down moods.
Festival of the week: York Blues Festival, The Crescent, York, today, 12.30pm to 11pm
YORK’S DC Blues present the cream of the crop from the British blues scene in an all-dayer. Taking part will be Mojo Catfish: Electric Blues; The Bad Day Blues Band; Bad Bob Bates; DC Blues; Alex Fawcett Band; The Terraplanes Blues Band; Mark Pontin Group and The The Lonely Hands Band.
Hand-picked by Jorvik Radio’s Blues From The Ouse hosts Paul Winn & Ben Darwin, the fourth York Blues Festival features bands from all over Britain performing from 1pm. Now the bad news to give you the blues: the event has sold out.
Twin sisters Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas make their third visit to York Barbican on Tuesday
Country gig of the week: Ward Thomas, York Barbican, Tuesday, auditorium doors 7.30pm
HAMPSHIRE country twins Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas look for light in troubled times on newly released fifth album Music In The Madness: songs of harmony-soaked balm for shattered souls and an uplifting reminder of what really matters.
Love, family, unity and the healing power of music are recurrent themes on an album begun as war broke out in Ukraine and the world went into a post-Covid tailspin. Tuesday’s York return will be the sisters’ only Yorkshire concert on a 13-date tour. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Fireman Sam on circus-saving duty at York Theatre Royal on Tuesday
Children’s show of the week: Fireman Sam Saves The Circus, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 3.30pm
WHEN all his friends go away, Norman Price decides to become the star of a visiting circus in Pontypandy. However, with a tiger on the loose and faulty lights, his adventure soon turns to danger. Can Fireman Sam come to the rescue and save the circus? Spoiler alert, the show title suggests yes!
Join Sam, Penny, Elvis, Station Officer Steele and Norman in UK Family’s all-singing singing, all-dancing, action-packed show, where you can become a fire-fighter cadet. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Alan Park’s playwright Henry in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. Picture: Ben Lindley
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, Wednesday and Thursday, 7.30pm, then April 11 to 15, 7.30pm, plus April 15, 2.30pm
HENRY is married to Charlotte. Max is married to Annie. Henry – possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation – has written a play about a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Charlotte and Max, his leading couple, are soon to find out that sometimes life imitates art.
Directed by Jacob Ward, Pocklington School alumnus Tom Stoppard’s deliberately confusing 1982 exploration of love and infidelity sets the question “What is the real thing?” … without answering it! Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Sam Green, left, Dan Crawfurd-Porter and Mikhail Lim in rehearsal for Black Sheep Theatre’s Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens
Time to discover: Black Sheep Theatre in Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens, Quad South, York St John University, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
BLACK Sheep Theatre bring Janet Hood and Bill Russell’s rarely performed 1989 musical to the York stage with a cast including Mikhail Lim (last seen as Seymour in York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors last July) and Helen Spencer (Dolly Levi in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Hello Dolly! in February).
Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens is composed of free verse poems and songs, each poem representing a character who has died from AIDS, the songs reflecting the feelings of the living, those who have lost friends and loved ones. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/black-sheep-theatre-productions
Alex Papachristou: Returning to York to play Baron Bomburst in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Spectacular show of the week: York Stage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday to April 15, 7.30pm nightly except April 9; 2.30pm, April 7, 8, 12 and 15
YORK Stage present the magic, mayhem and madness of Richard and Robert Sherman’s most Fantasmagorical musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, under the direction of Nik Briggs with choreography by Damien Poole and musical direction by Adam Tomlinson.
Can whacky inventor Caractacus Potts (Ned Sproston), his two children and the gorgeous Truly Scrumptious (Carly Morton) outwit bombastic Baron Bomburst (welcome back Alex Papachristou), who has decreed that all children be banished from his kingdom? Watch out, here come the evil Childcatcher (Richard Barker) and, yes, that flying car too. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Liza Pulman & Joe Stilgoe: Songs and stories, favourite standards and classic duets, at Selby Town Hall
Musical match made in theatrical heaven: Liza Pulman & Joe Stilgoe: A Couple Of Swells, Selby Town Hall, April 15, 8pm. Also Otley Couthouse, April 14, 7.30pm; otleycourthouse.org. uk
LIZA Pulman and Joe Stilgoe, both headline names in their own right, have chosen Selby for one of their first ever duo shows in a night of songs and stories, favourite standards and classic duets, sprinkled with panache and dazzle.
The Great American Song Book meets 1950s’ French Riviera chic in the company of Pulman, one third of satirical cabaret group Fascinating Aïda, and jazz pianist and singer Stilgoe, a five-time UK Jazz Chart topper. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
May days: The poster for Babybird’s five-date tour, visiting Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Back together: Babybird, The F-Word Tour, supported by Terrorvision’s Tony Wright, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, May 5, doors 7.30pm
PLAYING Leeds feels like a rite of passage to return there for Babybird’s Stephen Jones, as he recalls the memorable between-song banter enthusiasm of his band’s first tours of 1996 and 1997.
Formed in 1995 and best known for misconstrued 1996 anthem You’re Gorgeous, Babybird made 11 albums before splitting in 2013, since when Manchester-based Jones has written fiction, released solo works on Bandcamp and created the film score for Blessed. Reunited, Babybird’s monstrous lullabies for an unstable world are taking wing anew. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
In Focus: Ryedale Youth Theatre in The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 5 to 8
Meet the Addams Family in Ryedale Youth Theatre’s The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy. All pictures: Tim Youster
CHLOE Shipley directs a cast of 50, aged eight to 18, in The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy, featuring music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.
Although numerous film and television adaptations of Charles Addams’s single-panel gag cartoons exist, this musical is the first stage show to be based on the ghoulish American family with an affinity for all things macabre.
Billed as a comical feast that embraces the wackiness in every family, the show features an original story built around every father’s nightmare. Daughter Wednesday, the ultimate princess of darkness – with a name derived from the Fair Of Face poem’s line that “Wednesday’s child is full of woe“ – has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family – a man her parents have never met.
If that were not upsetting enough, Wednesday confides in her father, begging him not to tell her mother. Now Gomez Addams must do something he has never done before: keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia.
Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his parents.
As the lyrics for the Main Theme for The Addams Family, written by Vic Mizzy in 1964, assert: “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They’re all together ooky, The Addams family”.
Under Chloe’s direction and Rachel Clarke’s musical direction, the multi-talented Ryedale cast has thoroughly enjoyed proving that rhyme’s sentiment in rehearsals. Now comethe 7.15pm evening shows and 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees, with tickets on sale at £12, concessions £10, at yourboxoffice.co.uk.
SING up! Song sheets at the ready, choir master Gareth Malone is bringing his 2023 tour, Sing-Along-A-Gareth-Two, to the Grand Opera House, York, on Bonfire Night.
Tickets for his November 5 concert and further Yorkshire dates at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall on November 6 and Sheffield City Hall on November 19 go on sale tomorrow (24/3/2023) at 10am at garethmalone.com; York, atgtickets.com/york; Leeds, 0113 243 0808or leedsheritagetheatres.com; Sheffield, 0114 256 5593 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Malone, his band and singers will be on the road with his uplifting, joyous new show from November 2 to December 11.
“Following the barnstorming, whirlwind success of Sing-Along-A-Gareth in 2022, I‘m back, new and improved, with Sing-Along-A-Gareth-Two! Featuring a whole new list of classic tunes for you and your friends to sing your hearts out to. I’ll be up and down the nation warming your larynxes in a feel-good evening of fun that will leave you with a song in your heart.”
Playing piano, guitar and bass, Londoner Malone, 47, will “create songs on the spot and help the audience to write their own songs too, discovering hidden talents along the way, in a feel-good evening of upbeat fun tracks we all know and love, which everyone can easily sing along to”.
The song list will be available to download in advance for those wanting to practise. Whether you are coming with a choir, friends or solo, all are welcome to join Malone in this celebration of community and song.
Audiences will “get to enjoy a whole evening of new classic songs that Gareth will select to raise the roof of every theatre. Prepare your vocal cords for a night of pure joy that will uplift your spirits and bring everyone together through the power of song”.
Malone again naturally: Gareth is all smiles on his return to Sing-Along duties
Advance notice:GarethMalone is assembling a new setlist for his 2023 tour. Songs may include:
9 to 5 – Dolly Parton
We Are The Champions – Queen
Losing My Religion – R.E.M.
Superstar – Jamelia
Eye Of The Tiger – Survivor
Take On Me – a-ha
Proud Mary – Creedence Clearwater Revival/Tina Turner
You Got A Friend – Carole King
I Will Wait – Mumford & Sons
Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty
Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
Plus a few surprises, including a unique medley of party songs created by Malone.
The tour poster for Sing-Along-A-Gareth-Two
Gareth Malone: The back story
EDUCATERD at Bournemoth School, the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and Royal College of Music, London.
Malone’s achievements as choir master, presenter and populariser of choral music include three number one singles, two BAFTA awards and countless television shows over the past 15 years, such as The Choir and The Choir: Military Wives.
He was the pioneer of Great British Home Chorus, wherein thousands of people across the country sang with Malone from their kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms during the pandemic lockdowns.
Christopher Weeks’s Buddy Holly in Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story
IT feels like Buddy, the forerunner to so many jukebox musicals, is always playing the Grand Opera House. Not so! Once there was a 12-year gap, and this week’s run is the first since 2017.
What is true, nevertheless, is that it deserves to keep coming back with its sad but joyous celebration of the geeky, bespectacled boy in a hurry, the revolutionary rock’n’roll rebel from Bible-belt, country-fixated Lubbock, Texas.
As heard in concert at York Barbican last autumn, Don McLean’s letter to the heart of American culture, American Pie, is cryptic in its lyrics. Except for its clarity in recalling “the day the music died” as McLean shivered with every paper he delivered that February 1959 morning after Holly and fellow singers J P Richardson (aka The Big Bopper) and Ritchie Valens had perished in a plane crash in the Iowa snow.
“Something touched me deep inside,” sang McLean in his eulogy, and Alan Janes’s musical has carried that torch through 27 actors playing Buddy, 414 pairs of glasses and 3,326 pairs of trousers – those figures no doubt still rising – since its August 1989 debut at the Plymouth Theatre Royal.
So many short, sharp songs from a brief but brilliant life cut short still rave on, never to fade away, as Janes crams in Holly hit after Holly hit, and plenty more besides with long concert sequences at the climax to both halves.
Indeed, unless your reviewer’s memory is playing tricks, there seems to be less detail of the story these days (in particular about the split from Buddy’s increasingly truculent band The Crickets and old-school producer Norman Petty as Holly (Christopher Weeks) swapped New Mexico for New York. This fracture is now mentioned only in passing by Thomas Mitchells’s narrator, Lubbock radio show host Hipockets Duncan, pretty much with a shrug of the shoulders).
That said, The Buddy Holly Story does answer McLean’s question, “Now do you believe in rock and roll?” with an emphatic ‘Yes’. But “can music save your mortal soul?” The inevitability of death would say ‘No’, but hey, it makes you feel good to be alive, whatever your age, how often you hear those Buddy songs.
Hipockets Duncan’s homespun narration begins at the very end ofthe story, before Holly’s 18-month rise and crash landing is charted chronologically. The teenage rebel with a cause in Buddy bursts through the gingham niceties of the opening number as he dupes a country radio station in deepest redneck 1956 Texas into letting him play on air, only to switch mid-song to that new interloper, rock’n’roll. Rip It Up is the song and rip it up is exactly what rule-breaker and innovator Buddy does.
A Nashville Decca producer may dismiss him with a “Can’t sing, can’t write” jibe, but Holly’s big specs appeal, silver tongue and golden arrow to the melody bullseye will triumph: no time to eat, but always feeding the beat as he writes restlessly and records relentlessly.
Directed by Matt Salisbury, rock’n’roll history in motion is a delight – the where, when and why it happened – as Petty’s wife, Vi (Stephanie Cremona) swaps tea-making for playing the celeste in a key contribution to Everyday; Buddy adapts the drum warm-up of The Crickets’ Jerry Allison (Josh Haberfield) for the opening to Peggy Sue, and Buddy refuses advice to remove his glasses, instead switching to thicker frames.
Such is the energy and joy, the love of life and wonder of love in Holly’s songs that this musical and its cast of multi-talented actor-musicians refuses to let the music die.
Cheeky humour and romance, innocence and defiance play their part, as Weeks’s Holly leads the show in all-action style, his singing and guitar playing top notch, while Joe Butcher’s constantly on the move stand-up bass player Joe B Mauldin and Haberfield’s drumming delight too. Look out too for Thomas Mitchells, taking on no fewer than six roles, count’em. That’s why his surname sounds plural!
Through the second half, the love-at-first-sight story of Buddy and record company receptionist Maria Elena (Daniella Agredo Piper), with her premonitions of Buddy’s fate, tugs at the heart strings like a Buddy Holly ballad.
Both concerts are choreographed superbly by Miguel Angel, whipping up the audience to the max; first, the remarkable night when the mistakenly booked Crickets found themselves playing at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York.
Then, the fateful last night of a badly organised tour at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, Iowa, as Christopher Chandler’s Big Bopper and Miguel Angel’s hip-swivelling Ritchie Valens share the spotlight with Weeks’s inexhaustible Holly.
The tears will always flow at the sudden curtain fall to announce Holly’s passing, but every performance is a resurrection, a chance to shout Hollylujah.
Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
