Tag: grand opera house york

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang flies into Grand Opera House with York Stage at the wheel

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.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Malone will be anything but alone at Sing-Along-A-Gareth-Two at Grand Opera House

Gareth Malone: Time for a sing-song

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 0808 or 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: Gareth Malone 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.

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REVIEW: Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

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.

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Dame Berwick and his crew all at sea as they launch Robinson Crusoe piratical pantomime for Grand Opera House

Messing about on the river: Dame Berwick Kaler, AJ Powell and David Leonard spot an incoming Grand Opera House pantomime. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

AT 76, York’s grand dame of pantomime, Berwick Kaler, is never too old to try something new.

After 41 years in his big boots and misbehaving wig at York Theatre Royal and now newly confirmed for a third season following his crosstown transfer to the Grand Opera House, he will write, direct and star in Robinson Crusoe for the first time.

Or, to give this “swashbuckling panto adventure” its full title with a nod to a certain Johnny Depp film franchise, Robinson Crusoe & The Pirates Of The River Ouse will be afloat from December 9 to January 9 2024.

Martin Dodd, pantomime producer for UK Productions’ second year at the Cumberland Street theatre, says: “Following last year’s success with The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose, we are delighted to return with another legendary Berwick Kaler pantomime in York. Ahoy me hearties…grab your tickets quick!”

Those tickets – £13 and upwards – will go on sale to ATG TheatreCard and Groups Presale today (March 23) from 10am and on general sale from tomorrow (March 24) at 10am in person at the box office or at atgtickets.com/york.

Dame Berwick and fellow piratical panto hearties David Leonard and AJ Powell launched Robin Crusoe in suitable costume in the Tuesday morning rain aboard a City Cruises self-drive boat, steered by comic sidekick Martin Barrass, making an impromptu appearance in his civvies.

Only regular co-star Suzy Cooper was not on board, but she too has been confirmed as part of the crew for the famous-in-York five’s winter return.

Laura McMillan, theatre director for the Grand Opera House York, says: “We are delighted to welcome Berwick and the wider family back this year for what will certainly be a swashbuckling family adventure. The Berwick panto is a York tradition, and we can’t wait to welcome audiences to the theatre.”

What can they expect? Dame Berwick as writer? Tick. Director? Tick. Dowager dame? Tick. The dame’s name and role? How she fits in? Er, nothing decided yet, although any variation of “Mrs Crusoe” is the odds-on favourite.

“But there definitely won’t be a Man Friday,” he says of the slave character from Daniel Defoe’s 1719 seafaring tale, The Life And Strange Surprizing Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner.

“You’ve got to get round that. I’m not ‘woke’, but for 50-odd years we’ve never insulted anybody. If we like to take the mick, we take it out of ourselves, but when you get to adapt fairy tales – or a novel, like this one – there’s a lot you have to change.”

What is promised, to quote the Grand Opera House press release, is an “hilarious take on the classic story of the sailor from York who finds himself marooned on a desert island, but he’s not alone”. Expect a “captivating tale of magic, mayhem and misunderstanding”…and mystery at this stage, because Dame Berwick’s panto is among the very first in the UK Productions stable to be announced for 2023/24.

Martin Barrass takes the wheel on the City Cruises self-drive boat as fellow Grand Opera House pantomime stars Berwick Kaler, AJ Powell and David Leonard launch Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates On The Ouse. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“Man Friday isn’t necessary to the story, and I’m used to changing things anyway. I’ve always done that in my pantomimes, changing names, or the plot, to give it some spontaneity, to make it something different.

“The problem for pantomime is that if you make it ‘woke’, it just won’t be funny, I promise you.”

The challenge is to make it work, not make it woke. “To do that, it’s about playing to the strengths of the cast, how they play their characters each year. I still have my imagination and it’s a young imagination for my age, and that’s vital for panto,” says Dame Berwick.

“We love to make it a little different, but at the same time, I don’t think anyone would go away from having ‘He’s behind you!’ in there, but we even change that a bit.”

In the first instalment of Defoe’s nautical trilogy, Robinson Crusoe introduces himself thus: “I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, tho’ not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull.”

Defoe’s  hero does not stay long in York, however, the call of the sea soon luring him to his shipwrecked fate. “In my story, I have to decide how far does he get up the Ouse before he meets the pirates,” says Dame Berwick.  What about Hull, the book’s starting  point. “No, not in our panto!”

Kaler’s pantomimes are no stranger to taking to the waters, whether in Dick Whittington or 2011’s The York Family Robinson or indeed the many bygone years of water slapstick for Dame Berwick and Barrass.

Will water slapstick or aquatic mishaps make a Kaler panto comeback? “You’ll be the first to know,” says Dame Berwick. “I’ve got to get water into it somehow, so I think you will see water, but I’m governed by the commercial pantomime producers and the space.

“To do a proper water scene, you do need the whole of the floor to be covered.  At the minute, I’m trying to get them to do something new and hopefully get a rocking cabin on the stage.”

Perennial panto villain David Leonard was dressed in a rather dandy wig for the City Cruises launch. “It’s a pirate theme, so they thought, ‘let’s have me looking like Captain Hook, AJ like Smee and Berwick as…well, looking like a ‘Mona Washboard’,” he says of that familiar harassed washer woman look.

As for his role, details are sketchy because Kaler will be writing “from scratch”. “He’ll be someone tall, a 6ft 3 ponce in a wig,” David speculates. “And evil,” says dame Berwick. “Oh yes, very evil.”

“Luvverly Brummie” AJ Powell has set his sets high. “I’m hoping for the title role this year. Robinson Crusoe,” he says. “But he never appears. He’s only spoken of,” jests David. “A bit like Berwick’s Mrs Fitzackerley, always mentioned but never seen!”

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More Things To Do in York & beyond as everyday Buddy’s a gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster. Hutch’s list No. 12 for 2023, courtesy of The Press, York

Rave on: Hannah Price, left, Harry Boyd, Christopher Weeks, Rhiannon Hopkins, Joshua Barton and Ben Pryer in a scene from Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story

THE return of Buddy, Stewart Lee and English Touring Opera, a dream of an exhibition and a vintage DJ night of song top Charles Hutchinson’s diary highlights for the week ahead.

Musical of the week: Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees

HOLLYLUJAH! Rock’n’roll musical Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story returns to York for the first time since 2017 with “The day the music died” tale of the bespectacled young man from Lubbock, Texas, whose meteoric rise from Southern rockabilly beginnings to international stardom ended in his death in a plane crash at only 22.

Christopher Weeks’s Buddy leads the cast of actor-musicians through two hours of music and drama, romance and tragedy, driven by all those hits, from That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue and Rave On to Big Bopper’s Chantilly Lace and Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle: Playing The Crescent on Sunday night

Folk gig of the week: Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker & John Doyle, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 8pm

THE Black Swan Folk Club and Please Please You present the powerhouse triumvirate of musical magpies McGoldrick, McCusker and Doyle in a Sunday session of traditional, contemporary and original jigs, reels and ballads, as heard on their two albums, 2018’s The Wishing Tree and 2020’s The Reed That Bends In The Storm.

Their paths first crossing as teenagers before they joined separate bands (Lunasa, The Battlefield Band and Solas respectively), they line up with Mancunian McGoldrick on flute, whistles, Uileann pipes, bodhran, clarinet and congas; Glaswegian McCusker on fiddle, whistles and harmonium; Dubliner Doyle on vocals, guitar, bouzouki and mandola.

“The whole thing’s great fun,” says McCusker. “We have no agenda other than having a nice time and playing music. That’s the way we tour as well – we throw ourselves in a little car, instruments on our laps, and off we go. And the records? Well, I hope it’s the sound of three old friends, having a great time, making music together.” Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Stewart Lee goes back to basic Lee at York Theatre Royal, but sold out, basically

Comedy at the treble: Stewart Lee: Basic Lee, York Theatre Royal, Monday to Wednesday, 7.30pm

AFTER recording last May’s brace of Snowflake and Tornado gigs at York Theatre Royal for broadcast on the BBC, Stewart Lee returns for three nights of his Basic Lee show.

Following a decade of high-concept shows involving overarched, interlinked narratives, Lee enters the post-pandemic era in streamlined stand-up mode. One man, one microphone, and one microphone in the wings in case the one on stage breaks. Pure. Simple. Classic. Basic Lee – but sold out, alas.  

Navigators Art collective explores the subconscious mind in Dream Time at City Screen Picturehouse

Exhibition launch of the week: Navigators Art, Dream Time, City Screen Picturehouse, York, on show until April 21

YORK collective Navigators Art’s Dream Time exhibition takes inspiration from dreams, visions, surrealism and the mysteries and fantasies of the subconscious mind. The official launch event will be held tomorrow (19/3/2023) in the café bar from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.

This mixed-media show features painting by Steve Beadle and Peter Roman; collage, prints and drawing by Richard Kitchen; photography and painting by Nick Walters and textiles by Katie Lewis.

The tour poster for Sounds Of The 60s with Tony Blackburn as host

Nostalgic show of the week: Tony Blackburn: Sound Of The 60s Live, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm

BBC Radio 2 disc jockey Tony Blackburn hosts an evening of 1960s’ classics, performed live by the Sound Of The 60s All Star Band and Singers. 

Listen out for the hits of The Everly Brothers, Dusty Springfield, The Kinks, Elvis Presley, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Otis Redding, The Beatles, The Who and many more. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Paul Smith: Playing the Joker at York Barbican

Liverpool lip of the week: Paul Smith: Joker, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm

JOKER is Paul Smith’s biggest and funniest tour show to date, wherein the Scouse humorist mixes his trademark audience interaction with true stories from his everyday life.

Resident compere at Liverpool’s Hot Water Club, Smith has made his mark online as well as on the gig circuit with his affable nature and savvy wit. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Roddy Woomble: Songs old and new at Selby Town Hall

Indie gig of the week: Roddy Woomble, Selby Town Hall, Thursday, 8pm

RODDY Woomble, Scottish indie band Idlewild’s lead singer, is now a leading voice in the British contemporary indie folk scene. In Selby, he is joined by Idlewild band mate Andrew Wasylyk for a duo show of Idlewild favourites and solo works.

“This is a tour in between records, so a tour for exploring all the songs,” says Woomble. “Lo! Soul is going on two years old now, and although the songs still sound fresh to me when I play them, it’s time for something new – which there is. We’ll definitely be including some new material in the set.” Box office: selbytownhall.co.uk.

Paula Sides’s Lucrezia in English Touring Opera’s Lucrezia Borgia, on tour at York Theatre Royal

Two nights at the opera: English Touring Opera, York Theatre Royal, in Lucrezia Borgia, March 24, and Il Viaggio a Reims, March 25, both 7.30pm

LUCREZIA Borgia, Donizetti’s tragedy of a complex woman in a dangerous situation, is making its debut in the English Touring Opera repertoire in Eloise Lally’s ETO directorial debut production of this thrilling and moving meditation on power and motherhood.

Valentina Ceschi directs a cast of 27 in Il Viaggio a Reims, Rossini’s last Italian opera, in which intrigue, politics, romance and lost luggage all play their part as a group of entitled guests from all over Europe is stranded in a provincial hotel on the way to a great coronation. Period-instrument specialists The Old Street Band play for both operas. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Gig announcement of the week: Steve Earle, The Alone Again Tour, Grand Opera House, York, June 9

Steve Earle: Heading from New York to York in June for solo show

AS his tour title suggests, legendary Americana singer, songwriter, producer, actor, playwright, novelist, short story writer and radio presenter Steve Earle will be performing solo and acoustic in York: the only Yorkshire gig of a ten-date itinerary without his band The Dukes that will take in the other Barbican, in London, and Glastonbury.

Born in Fort Monroae National Monument, Hampton, Virginia, Earle grew up in Texas and began his songwriting career in Nashville, releasing his first EP in 1982 and debut album Guitar Town in 1986, since when he has branched out from country music into rock, bluegrass, folk music and blues. 

His colourful life prompted Lauren St John’s 2003 biography Hardcore Troubadour: The Life And Near Death Of Steve Earle, written with the rebel rocker’s exclusive and unfettered cooperation. “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself,” he once said.

Earle, 68, has been married seven times (including twice to the same woman) and been through drug addiction and run-ins with the law, serving a month in prison in 1994 for heroin possession. “Going to jail is what saved my life,” he said, after he was sent to rehab.

A protege of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Earle is a masterful storytelling songwriter in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, The Proclaimers and The Pretenders, among others.

Since the Millennium, he has released such albums as the Grammy-awarded The Revolution Starts…Now (2004), Washington Square Serenade (2007) and Townes (2009).

Restlessly creative across artistic disciplines, Earle has published a collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses (2002) ; a novel, I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (2011), and a memoir, I Can’t Remember If We said Goodbye (2015).

He has produced albums for Joan Baez and Lucinda Williams, acted in films and on television, notably in David Simon’s The Wire, and hosts a radio show for Sirius XM.

In 2009, Earle made his off-Broadway theatre debut in the play Samara, contributing the score too. In 2010, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Music and Lyrics in the drama series Treme.

In 2020, he wrote music for and appeared in Coal Country, a docu-play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen that shines a light on the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion, the most deadly mining disaster in United States history. A nomination for a Drama Desk Award came his way.

In 2020 too, Earle released the album Ghosts Of West Virginia and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His 21st studio album, J.T. in January 2021, was an homage to his late son, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle, who had died from an accidental drug overdose in August 2020. In May 2022 came Jerry Jeff, Earle’s tribute to cowboy troubadour Jerry Jeff Walker.

Tickets go on sale on Thursday morning (23/3/2023) at atgtickets.com/york.

The artwork for J.T., Steve Earle’s 2021 album of covers of songs by his late son, Justin Townes Earle
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All in a Weeks’ work in York as Christopher plays Buddy Holly at Grand Opera House

Oh Boy! Christopher Weeks as Buddy Holly in Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story, on tour at Grand Opera House, York

CHRISTOPHER Weeks will be in York all week, playing the lead role as Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story returns to its regular nesting place of the Grand Opera House from Tuesday for the first time since 2017.

After the 30th anniversary travels were stalled by Covid, writer-producer Alan Janes’s musical is back on the road at last, adding to the record-breaking 4,668 performances over 580 weeks on tour in Britain and Ireland (alongside 5,822 performances over 728 weeks in London’s West End since 1989).

Buddy tells the “day the music died” story of how bespectacled Buddy Holly, from Lubbock, Texas, rose from southern rockabilly beginnings to international stardom in only 18 months before his untimely death in a snow-shrouded plane crash at the age of only 22 after playing the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Christopher, a 33-year-old southerner with northern connections, has been a Buddy fan since childhood days. “The show has been around for more than 30 years, and I first saw it in High Wycombe when I was seven or eight,” he recalls.

“I grew up with the show soundtrack, before I knew Buddy Holly’s own versions, and  it’s always been on the list of shows I wanted to do, but I never thought I’d get to play Buddy as it’s top of the tree, a pipe dream, the biggest show of its kind around.”

Nevertheless, Christopher knew members of the previous Buddy cast of actor-musicians, having worked with Josh Haberfield, his “go-to drummer”, who played The Crickets’ Jerry Allison in the show, and Joe Butcher, Buddy’s double bassist Joe B Maudlin.

That affiliation provided his inroad. “I was in a group called The Runaround Kids, a four-piece with a flexible line-up [including Haberfield and Butcher, sharing drumming duties], and we played Buddy Holly and other rock’n’roll songs.

“I played piano and fronted the band on cruise ships and we did it all over the world, playing with headline acts like Chesney Hawkes and Gareth Gates. We once shared a cab back with Chesney!”

Haberfield and Butcher mentioned Weeks’s enthusiasm to play Buddy to director Matt Salisbury. “I then went through an audition process that was very vigorous,” says Christopher.

“That was in 2019, when they were casting for the 30th anniversary tour in 2019/2020. I got the part, and everything was rolling along nicely, six months or so into the tour, when we had the dreaded ‘We’ll keep you posted’ meeting and the pandemic lockdown soon followed.

“They were great with us, very upfront, and gave us some financial support, but it’s such a big show that the tour has only been back up and running for three weeks.

“You couldn’t have done it for the previous two years, as it just wasn’t possible, and then the venues had to play catch-up with all the shows that had been booked in.”

Rave on: Hannah Price, left, Harry Boyd, Christopher Weeks, Rhiannon Hopkins, Joshua Barton and Ben Pryer in a scene from Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story

Has resuming the tour after such a long hiatus been akin to climbing back on to a bicycle? “Well, I did as much work on it as I could at home. The songs never leave you, and because we’ve played them with all those different groups, The Crickets came together a few days before rehearsals resumed to refresh ourselves,” says Christopher.

“Once you get back in the rehearsal room, you start finding yourself instinctively back in the same positions on stage. It felt like a shadow was there from what I’d done before.”

Driven by the truncated arc of Holly’s story – the candle snuffed out so soon – as much as by such songs as That’ll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, Oh Boy, Everyday, Rave On, The Big Bopper’s Chantilly Lace and Ritchie Valens’s La Bamba, Buddy adds up to much more than the raft of jukebox musicals it inspired.

“In terms of drama, it’s a tragedy,” says Christopher. “Jukebox musicals have their place, but this is different. It’s a play with songs and it’s not rose-tinted, showing a lovely guy who nevertheless wanted to get things done his way and didn’t have time for any nonsense.

“There’s so much drama, and it’s a true telling of how the songs came about, rather than just singing because that’s what the emotion demands. They’re playing music because they’re musicians.

“It’s the rawness and simplicity of those songs that still appeal to people. Music has gone through so many turns and changes, like my father growing up listening to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. He’d probably look back at rock’n’roll as simplistic, whereas I see it as simple but vibrant and thrilling.”

Christopher admires Holly for his “creativity, passion and drive, and unimaginable talent”. “He was in the business for only 18 months, and I do wonder if he somehow knew what was coming. He was always on the clock, always in the studio, always up at night writing, and his wife [Maria Elena] had that dream of what might happen,” he says.

Naming Raining In My Heart, Early In The Morning and True Love Ways – the song that accompanied his walk down the aisle on his wedding day – as his Holly favourites, Christopher will be on tour until October.

Next week he will tread the Grand Opera House boards for the first time since playing The Big Three bassist Johnny Gustafson in Cilla, The Musical in January 2018, as he heads north once more.

Should you be wondering about his northern connections: “My mother’s side of the family is from Ilkley. Do you know my uncle?” he enquires. Who? “Mike Laycock!”

Mike Laycock, soon-to-retire chief reporter of The Press, no less.

Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, runs at Grand Opera House, York, March 21 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees.  Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Copyright of The Press, York

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More Things To Do in York & beyond when time travel and hot dancing counters the chill. Hutch’s List No. 11, from The Press

The future, here they come: Amy Revelle, Dave Hearn, centre, and Michael Dylan in Original Theatre’s The Time Machine. Picture: Manuel Harlan

THE week ahead is so crammed with clashing cultural highlights, Charles Hutchinson wishes you could climb aboard a time machine.

Find time for: Original Theatre in The Time Machine, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees  

DAVE Hearn, a fixture in Mischief Theatre’s calamitous comedies for a decade, takes time out to go time travelling in John Nicholson and Steven Canny’s re-visit of H G Wells’s epic sci-fi story for Original Theatre.

“It’s a play about three actors who run a theatre company and are trying to put on a production of The Time Machine, with fairly limited success,” says Hearn. “But then a big event happens that causes the play to spiral out of control and my character [Dave] discovers actual time travel.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Curtains At Village Gallery, by Suzanne McQuade, marks the final exhibition at Simon and Helen Main’s art space in Colliergate, York

Farewell of the week: The Curtain Descends, Village Gallery, Colliergate, York, until April 15

AS the title indicates, The Curtain Descends will be the last exhibition at Village Gallery after 40 exhibitions showcasing 100-plus Yorkshire artists in five and a half years. “The end of the shop lease and old age creeping up has sadly forced the decision,” says gallery co-owner Simon Main.

Ten artists have returned for the farewell with work reduced specially to sale prices. On show are watercolours by Lynda Heaton, Jean Luce and Suzanne McQuade; oils and acrylics by Paul Blackwell, Julie Lightburn, Malcolm Ludvigsen, Anne Thornhill and Hilary Thorpe; pastels by Allen Humphries and lino and woodcut prints by Michael Atkin. Opening hours are 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Saturday.

Singer PP Arnold: From The First Cut Is The Deepest to Soul Survivor, her autobiography is under discussion at York Literature Festival

Festival of the week: York Literature Festival, various venues, today until March 27

HIGHLIGHTS aplenty permeate this annual festival, featuring 27 events, bolstered by new sponsorship from York St John University. Among the authors will be broadcasters David Dimbleby and Steve Richards; political journalist and think tank director Sebastian Payne (on The Fall of Boris Johnson); The League Of Gentlemen’s Jeremy Dyson; Juno Dawson, thriller writer Saima Mir and York poet Hannah Davies.

On Music Memoir Day at The Crescent, on March 18, at 1.30pm American singer PP Arnold delves into her autobiography, Soul Survivor, at 1.30pm. At 4pm, writer/broadcaster Lucy O’Brien discusses her new book, Lead Sister: The Story Of Karen Carpenter, and the challenges of writing a biography. Go to yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk for the full programme.

Too hot to handle: Strictly’s Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer in Firedance at the Grand Opera House, York

Hot moves amid the weekend chill: Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer in Firedance, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 5pm

STRICTLY Come Dancing stars Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer reignite their chemistry in Firedance, a show full of supercharged choreography, sizzling dancers and mesmerising fire specialists.

Inspired by movie blockbusters Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Carmen and West Side Story, Marquez and Hauer turn up the heat as they dance to Latin, rock and pop songs by Camilla Cabello, Jason Derulo, Gregory Porter, Gipsy Kings and Jennifer Lopez. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Suede: First appearance at York Barbican in a quarter of a century

Gig of the week: Suede, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.45pm

ELEGANT London rock band Suede play York Barbican for the first time in more than 25 years on the closing night of their 2023 tour. Pretty much sold out, alas, but do check yorkbarbican.co.uk for late availability.

Last appearing there on April 23 1997, Brett Anderson and co return with a set list of Suede classics and selections from last September’s Autofiction, their ninth studio album and first since 2018. “Our punk record,” as Anderson called it. “No whistles and bells. The band exposed in all their primal mess.”

Sloane danger: Ben Weir’s psychopathic Sloane, left, playing siblings Kath (Victoria Delaney) and Ed (Chris Pomfrett) off each other in rehearsal for York Actors Collective’s Entertaining Mr Sloane

Debut of the week: York Actors Collective in Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

DIRECTOR Angie Millard launches her new company, York Actors Collective, with Joe Orton’s controversial, ribald comedy Entertaining Mr Sloane, the one that shook up English farce with its savage humour in 1964.

Living with her father, Dada Kemp (Mick Liversidge), Kath (Victoria Delaney) brings home a lodger: the amoral and psychopathic Sloane (Ben Weir). When her brother Ed (Chris Monfrett) arrives, the siblings become involved in a sexual struggle for Sloane, who plays one off against the other as their father is caught in the crossfire. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Classrooom comedy: Sara Howlett, left, Laura Castle and Sophie Bullivant in rehearsal for Rowntree Players’ production of John Godber’s Teechers Leavers ’22

Education, education, education play of the week: Rowntree Players in Teechers, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

FAMILIAR to York’s streets at night as ghost-walk guide and spookologist Dr Dorian Deathly, actor Jamie McKellar is directing a play for the first time since 2008, at the helm of Rowntree Players’ production of former teacher John Godber’s state-of-the nation, state-of state-education comedy Teechers.

Updated for Hull Truck’s 50th anniversary celebrations as Teechers Leavers ’22, Godber’s class warfare play within a play features a multi role-playing, all-female cast of Laura Castle, Sophie Bullivant and Sarah Howlett as Year 11 school leavers Salty, Hobby and Gail put on a valedictory performance, inspired by their new drama teacher. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

David Ford: Songs and stories at The Crescent

The robots are coming: David Ford, Songs 2023, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

EASTBOURNE singer-songwriter David Ford might play solo stomps with loop machines and effects pedals or backed by a swish jazz trio or with a string quartet attached. Not this time.

For 2023, Ford has taken the rare decision to keep it simple, leave most of the crazy machines at home, play some of his favourite songs and share stories about where they came from. Oh, and he’ll be bringing his new DIY toy, a drum robot. Beat that. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Tuesday’s seated Crescent gig by The Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster, promoting his new album The Candle And The Flame, has sold out by the way.

Because he cared: Comedian Bilal Fafar reflects on working in a care home for the very wealthy in Care at Theatre@41, Monkgate

Caring comedian of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Bilal Zafar in Care, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 19, 8pm

WANSTEAD comedian Bilal Zafar, 31, is on his travels with a new show about how he spent a year working in a care home for very wealthy people while being on the minimum wage.

Fresh out of university with a media degree, Bilal was dropped into the real world, where he was given far too much responsibility for a 21-year-old lad who had just spent three years watching films. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk; age limit,18 and over.

In Focus: Anders Lustgarten’sThe City And The Town, at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, March 15 to 17

Gareth Watkins as Magnus in Anders Lustgarten’s The City And The Town. Picture: Karl Andre

LONDON playwright and political activist Anders Lustgarten’s new play, The City And The Town, heads to the Yorkshire coast next week. 

This funny, eclectic drama brings a fresh perspective to the political divides and problems facing Great Britain and Europe today.

By way of contrast to those schisms, the tour involves a hands-across-the-water partnership: a co-production by Riksteatern, the national touring theatre of Sweden, and Matthew Linley Creative Projects in association with Hull Truck Theatre.

Lustgarten’s play tells the story of brothers Ben and Magnus. Ben, a successful London lawyer, returns home for his father’s funeral after 13 years away, only to be confronted not only by family and old friends, but also by uncomfortable truths about the past, present and future of the provincial community and family he grew up in and left behind for the metroplis.

Lustgarten, by the way, is the son of progressive American academics and read Chinese Studies at Oxford: in other words, he is an internationalist (and an Arsenal supporter to boot).

Directed by Riksteatern artistic director Dritero Kasapi, The City And The Town features Gareth Watkins as Magnus, Amelia Donkor as Lyndsay and Sam Collings as Ben, with set design by Hannah Sibai and lighting design by Matt Haskins.

Amelia Donkor’s Lyndsay in The City And The Town. Picture: Karl Andre

Kasapi is at the helm of his first UK production since Nina – A Story About Me And Nina Simone. “Even from the very first draft Anders sent us, I knew that this was a play I wanted to direct,” he says. “In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s the play I’ve wanted to direct for a very long time.

“By exploring the rise of the right, Anders is looking at something that is happening all over Europe. But this is not just a political play, it’s also a humane one. It explores the question of if and how we belong to society, what can happen when we lose that connection and how we perceive our common history as a society.”

Kasapi was educated as a stage director at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, Macedonia, but since the early years of his professional life he has been engaged as a cultural organiser.

From 2015 to 2018, he was the deputy artistic director at Kulturhuset Stadstetern in Stockholm. He took up his present post in November 2018. 

The City And The Town follows such Lustgarten plays as Lampedusa (Hightide/Soho Theatre), The Seven Acts Of Mercy (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Secret Theatre(Shakespeare’s Globe) and The Damned United (Red Ladder/West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2016, turning Brian Clough’s 44 days as Leeds United manager in 1974 into a Greek tragedy).

The City And The Town began its UK tour at Hull Truck on February 10 and 11 and has since played Northern Stage, Newcastle, Wilton’s Music Hall, London, Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and Norwich Playhouse before its Scarborough finale. It will then transfer to Sweden for an autumn tour.

The City And The Town, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, March 15 to 17, 7.45pm plus 1.45pm Thursday matinee. Box office: 01723 370541 or www.sjt.uk.com

The tour poster for The City And The Town
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REVIEW: Prue Leith: Nothing In Moderation, Grand Opera House, York, March 2 ****

Prue Leith: First stage show at 83

“I’M probably nuts to try it, but it’s huge fun,” said Dame Prue Leith.

She was talking about mounting her debut tour at the age of 83, and not of her presence at a Parisian orgy aged 19.

As she would explain to her York audience, judge and jury, your honour, she did not know she would be entering such a party when accompanying a young man to the house.

He indulged, but not Prue. She merely took off her clothes to fit in, seated by the bar. She was being Prudent, not Prudish. Nothing on, but something in moderation, in a life where “I’ll try anything once”, to quote her autobiography’s title, but just not that.

As it happens, South African-born, French-trained, English-enterprising Dame Prue has always stood out, not only latterly in her choice of specs and jewellery, but in her culinary career, first cutting a swathe through the male-dominated restaurant scene of the Sixties, later often being the only female director on assorted non-executive boards, where the men put the bored into board meetings.

Prue, live in York: specs, tick. Funky jewellery, tick. Dark jeans, light jacket and pumps, tick. She wouldn’t have looked out of place on a rock concert stage. Always more Chrissie Hynde, than mumsy, our Dame Prue.

The poster for Prue Leith’s Nothing In Moderation tour

Complemented by photos and video clips, Nothing In Moderation was divided into two halves, the first a kind of fork-talk variation on stand-up as culinary queen Prue told funny stories and insightful anecdotes, from her African family roots to flailing around in assorted university studies, to French freedom and culinary finesse.

Then onwards to Swinging Sixties’ London, keeping her pop-star next-door-neighbours The Hollies’ stash of marijuana in her herb jars; flourishing at her restaurant with ground-breaking late-night opening; party cooking from her flat and a van; the Rolling Stones and The Beatles (“the Full English,” requested the nocturnal Fab Four and no greenery on Ringo’s plate). Cooking for Princess Margaret too.

Cue Prue’s cookery school, still going strong. Her branching out into cookery writing and novels (eight so far). Those non-exec posts. Journalism. Recipes in papers, with an accidentally erroneous measure for one ingredient causing a particular stir. TV work, 11 years’ judging on Great British Menu and now unintended innuendos (as innocent as that Parisian orgy) to Paul Hollywood’s side on The Great British Bake Off, whose theme tune had heralded Dame Prue’s arrival.

After the businesswoman in Dame Prue was exhibited during the interval in a revolving showcase on screen for her books, specs range and Pure Prue homeware, that perky Bake Off tune announced part two, Prue plus one, Prue and TV producer Clive Tulloh, the witty, gently teasing host for a question-and-answer session.

Tulloh had skilfully filleted the questions sent in by the audience, fishing out the best and finding connecting themes and juicy jousts for Dame Prue’s pondering in the confession chamber. As promised, nothing was “off the menu”, plenty of Bake Off, no back off.

Prue, what does Paul Hollywood smell like? “Grown-up crumpet,” she mused, before an unexpected revelation. She no longer needs glasses, after a cataract operation, but she just loves wearing her bright Prue-designed frames. To emphasise the point, she promptly stuck a finger through where the lens should have been. Well, that’s certainly better than a poke in the eye.

After stories of specs & drugs & maybe not sausage rolls, this show in praise of food, love and life found Dame Prue in a place of happiness, hitting the sweet spot on cake TV, the sun shining brighter than ever on Leith.  

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Strictly’s Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer reignite Firedance. Feel the heat at Grand Opera House, York, and Sheffield City Hall

On fire: Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer in Firedance

STRICTLY Come Dancing stars Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer will reignite their chemistry in Firedance at the Grand Opera House, York, on March 12 at 5pm. Yes, 5pm.

In a show full of supercharged choreography, they will be joined by sizzling dancers and mesmerising fire specialists for a dance-off inspired by movie blockbusters Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Carmen and West Side Story. 

Soundtracked by a live band, Firedance will take a journey through Latin and contemporary dance, igniting passion as Marquez and Hauer turn up the heat and hit their rhythm to Latin, rock and pop songs by Camilla Cabello, Jason Derulo, Gregory Porter, Gipsy Kings, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and more besides.

Marquez says: “Firedance is back! Karen and I are so excited to dance up a storm for you in 2023. Expect favourite moments and lots of new songs, dance, heat, fire and passion. We can’t wait to be back with our brilliant company doing what we love and hope you will join us.”

“Creating and performing this incredible show has been a career highlight,” says Karen Hauer

Hauer says: “I am so excited to be reuniting with Gorka to bring you Firedance: Reignite in 2023. Creating and performing this incredible show has been a career highlight and we are taking things to another level with original dances, new music and a lot more fire! We can’t wait to show you what we have created with this second chapter of the Firedance story.”

Originally from Bilbao, Spain, Marquez attended ballroom and Latin dance classes from the age of 11, quickly excelling and representing Spain across the globe.
 
He first graced BBC One’s Strictly dancefloor in 2016, partnering Alexandra Burke, Katie Piper, 2020 finalist season Maisie Smith, Katie McGlynn and 2022 finalist Helen Skelton since then.
 
He is a qualified personal trainer, fashion model and content creator, having worked with Facebook, Spotify and Tropicana, and has created his own range of apparel in collaboration with WIT.

“Karen and I are so excited to dance up a storm for you,” says Gorka Marquez

Born in Venezuela, Hauer grew up in New York from the age of ten. Joining Strictly in 2012, she is the show’s longest-serving professional dancer, partnering Westlife’s Nicky Byrne, the Hairy Bikers’ Dave Myers, Mark Wright, Jeremy Vine, Will Young and chef Simon Rimmer.

In 2018, she reached the quarter-finals with actor Charles Venn and went a step further in 2019, taking comedian Chris Ramsey to the semi-final. In 2020, she reached her second final when partnering Made In Chelsea’s Jamie Laing. Next came Greg Wise in 2021 and an all-female coupling with comedian Jayde Adams last winter.
 
Hauer is a certified personal trainer and launched her online at-home, equipment-free fitness programme, Hauer Power, in 2019.

Firedance: Reignite’s 2023 itinerary will take in a second Yorkshire show at Sheffield City Hall on April 1 at 7.30pm. Box office: firedancelive.co.uk; York, atgtickets.com/york; Sheffield, 0114 256 5593 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.

Karen Hauer and Gorka Marquez in Firedance: Rhythm, passion and fire
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