Posted on

More Things To Do in York and beyond when life is swings & roundabouts, not all doom & gloom. List No 98, from The Press

All Swings And Roundabouts, by Adele Karmazyn, from her Pleasure Gardens exhibition at Village Gallery, York

POLITICAL division and soul power, sturdy stilettos and string sextets, doomed comedy and surreal gardens spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest for the week ahead.

Exhibition of the week: Adele Karmazyn, Pleasure Gardens, Village Gallery, Colliergate, York, until October 25

YORK Open Studios regular Adele Karmazyn is exhibiting new works in Pleasure Gardens, demonstrating her love of Victorian antiquities and oddities, weathered surfaces and nature.

Using her digital camera, scanner and Photoshop, Adele creates playful, surprising, surrealist digital photomontages, printing the images on to archival paper before hand-finishing with paint, pastel and gold leaf.

Drawing on idioms, metaphors and musical lyrics for narrative inspiration, she chooses her characters, then brings them back to full colour, intertwining them with creatures big and small, coupled with delicate foliage.

Nostalgia of the week: Giants Of Soul, York Barbican, Saturday (10/9/2022), 7.30pm

HOSTED by Smooth Radio’s Angie Greaves, the three-hour revue Giants Of Soul assembles performers from the late-1970s to the modern day, who have notched 18 British top ten smashes and 47 top 40 entries between them.

Step forward The Lighthouse Family’s Tunde Baiyewu; Grammy winner Deniece Williams; Rose Royce’s Gwen Dickey, on her farewell tour; Alexander O’Neal; Jaki Graham; Janet Kay and American Candace Woodson, who will be accompanied by an all-star ten-piece band of British and American musicians. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Chris de Burgh: Playing songs and telling stories at York Barbican

Rescheduled show of the week: An Evening With Chris de Burgh, His Songs, Stories & Hits, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm

BRITISH-IRISH singer-songwriter Chris de Burgh heads to York for a night of songs, stories and hits, showcasing his latest album, 2021’s The Legend Of Robin Hood, on guitar and piano.

Born Christopher John Davison in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, de Burgh will be delivering “an exciting evening full of your favourite songs”, accompanied by a large lighting production. Here come The Lady In Red, Don’t Pay The Ferryman and A Spaceman Came Travelling. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Howell of anguish: Comedian Daniel Howell peers through the gloom in search of hope in We’re All Doomed

Doom’s day booking of the week: Daniel Howell, We’re All Doomed, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

WOKINGHAM comedian, YouTuber, presenter and author Daniel Howell’s new solo show, We’re All Doomed, finds him as stressed and depressingly dressed as ever but nevertheless resisting temptation to give into apocalyptic gloom.

Armed with sarcasm, satire and a desire to skewer everything deemed wrong with society, Howell vows to find hope for humanity or at least to “laugh like it’s the end of the world (because it probably is)”. Prepare for savage self-deprecation, soul-searching and over-sharing of his deepest fears and desires. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Tim Lowe: Programming York Chamber Music Festival at the NCEM

Festival of the week: York Chamber Music Festival 2022, National Centre for Early Music, York, September 16 to 18

ARTISTIC director and cellist Tim Lowe turns his festival focus on the string sextet repertoire in the company of Tristan Gurney and Jonathan Stone, violins, Sarah-Jane Bradley and Scott Dickenson, violas, and Marie Bitlloch, cello, plus Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson.

“We’ll play four of the very greatest sextets: Boccherini, the first string sextet, as far as we know; Brahms’s heart-warming/glowing Sextet in B flat; Richard Strauss’s sextet embedded at the beginning of his last opera, Capriccio, and Tchaikovsky’s joyous recollection of his favourite place in his Souvenir de Florence.” Full programme and ticket details at ycmf.co.uk.

Angels in Kinky Boots: York Stage’s musical is a shoe-in for joyous songs and staggering stilettos at the Grand Opera House, York

Musical of the week: York Stage in Kinky Boots, Grand Opera House, York, September 16 to 24

FACTORY owner Charlie is struggling to save his family business. Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. Both live in the shadows of their fathers in seemingly different, yet surprisingly similar ways.

Learning to embrace their differences, they create sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen.

Up step York Stage director Nik Briggs and choreographer A J Powell to oversee a joyous show with 16 songs by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Tony-winning Harvey Fierstein. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Effie Ansah (Sephy) and James Arden (Callum), left, in rehearsal for Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal and on tour. Picture: Robert Day

Political drama of the week: Pilot Theatre in Noughts & Crosses, York Theatre Royal, September 16 to 24

YORK company Pilot Theatre revive their award-winning production of Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel of first love in a volatile fictional dystopia, first toured in 2019.

Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought in a segregated society of racial and social divides. As violence breaks out, the teenagers draw closer, but their forbidden romance will lead them into terrible danger in this exploration of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Phil Ellis: Headlining The Comedy Network’s first triple bill at Selby Town Hall

Comedy launch of the week: The Comedy Network at Selby Town Hall, September 18, 7.30pm

PITCHING up at Selby Town Hall for the first time this autumn, The Comedy Network is launching a series of showcases of national circuit acts, each night featuring a master of ceremonies, support act and headliner.

First up will be Edinburgh Comedy Award panel prize winner Phil Ellis; Mancunian actor and comedian Katie Mulgrew, daughter of Irish humorist Jimmy Cricket, and compere Travis Jay, a writer for Spitting Image. Box office:  01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk or on the door from 7pm.

York National Book Fair in the Knavesmire Suite

Looking for a book? York National Book Fair, Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, today, 10am to 5pm

“BRITAIN’S largest antiquarian book fair” is booked in for its second day in the Knavesmire Suite with all manner of book sellers, book binders and restorers, books, maps and prints to discover.

In its 48th year, this Provincial Booksellers’ Fairs Association event brings together an array of rare and antiquarian booksellers offering material for sale to collectors, scholars, dealers, readers and the curious. Items are priced from only a few pounds up to many thousands. Complimentary tickets can be booked at yorkbookfair.com; alternatively, pay £2 on the door.

Posted on

An Inspector Calls will call again in February 2023, this time at Grand Opera House, York

Goole by name, ghoul by nature: Liam Brennan’s stern Inspector Goole in An Inspector Calls. Picture: Tristram Kenton, 2019

STEPHEN Daldry’s award-garlanded reimagining of J B Priestley’s haunting family drama An Inspector Calls will return to its York roots next year.

Premiered at York Theatre Royal in 1989, this time it will play the Grand Opera House for the first time from February 7 to 11 2023 on its 30th Anniversary UK and Ireland Tour: so called because the London premiere was staged in 1992 at the National Theatre.

PW Productions are mounting the 2022-23 tour that will see Liam Brennnan playing Inspector Goole, just as he did on the last visit to York when performing to sold-out audiences at the Theatre Royal in September 2018.

Writer-director Daldry’s ground-breaking production has accumulated 19 major awards, including four Tony Awards and three Olivier Awards, and played to more than five million theatregoers worldwide, en route to becoming the National Theatre’s most internationally lauded show.

Written at the end of the Second World War and set before the First, Bradford playwright Priestley’s thriller opens with the mysterious Inspector Goole calling unexpectedly on the prosperous Birling family home. Whereupon their peaceful family dinner party is shattered by his investigations into the suicide of a young, discarded, pregnant factory girl.

A scene of devastation: Brian MacNeil’s over-sized doll’s house design for An Inspector Calls, on tour at York Theatre Royal in 2018

Inside, the year is 1912; outside it is 1945 as urchins play in the rain-swept, thundering wartime streets in the year when Priestley wrote his play. A pillar-box telephone and steam radio denote the latter era, as does the Bogart raincoat of Brennan’s sternly Scottish Inspector Goole.

Under Goole’s forensic, assiduous, tongue-loosening style of questioning, the impact mirrors a wartime bombing raid as the ground buckles beneath them.

Priestley’s socialist uprising of a play dramatises the dangers of casual capitalism’s cruelty, complacency and hypocrisy. Over its 105 unbroken minutes, Daldry’s German expressionist interpretation builds a political layer, one whose resonance renews with each era.

In 1989, his wish was to send Margaret Thatcher’s Tory philosophies to the grave, to damn the pursuit of individual gain; in 2009, when playing Leeds Grand Theatre, parliamentary expense claims and duck ponds were in the headlines.

In 2018, Inspector Goole’s final speech, with its wish for collective responsibility and someone, anyone, willing to say sorry, rubbed against an age of austerity, intolerance, division and worsening working conditions.

Roll on 2022-23, a 12th year of Tory rule, as inflation rises and strikers rise up in an over-hot world but one where people can’t afford to heat themselves through the winter while oil and gas shareholders can afford to burn fivers by the barrowload.

Liam Brennan, left, and Jeffrey Harmer are all smiles as they rehearse for the latest tour of An Inspector Calls, heading for the Grand Opera House, next February

Dorset-born British theatre and film director Daldry will be at the directorial helm once more. Over the years, he has received Academy Award nominations for his films The Reader, The Hours, Billy Elliot and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, while his West End theatre work includes David Hare’s Skylight at the Wyndham’s Theatre and Peter Morgan’s The Audience at the Apollo Theatre.

His multi award-winning production of Billy Elliot The Musical ran for 11 years at the Victoria Palace, London, before embarking on a national tour. Latterly, he has directed several episodes of the Netflix hit series The Crown, taking on the producer’s role too.

Joining him in the production team will be Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare In Love), lighting designer Rick Fisher and designer Ian MacNeil, whose audacious original set is still extraordinary, still breath-taking: an over-sized doll’s house set on stilts to raise its smug, partying Edwardian occupants for moral examination by Priestley, the inspector and the audience alike.

Alongside Brennan’s Inspector Goole will be Christine Kavanagh as haughty, social-climbing Sybil Birling; Jeffrey Harmer as bumptious former Lord Mayor Arthur Birling; Evlyne Oyedokun as daughter Sheila Birling; Simon Cotton as her arch fiancé, Gerald Croft; George Rowlands as Sheila’s unhappy, inadequate, lush brother, Eric Birling, and Frances Campbell as parlour maid Edna, complemented by understudies Philip Stewart, Beth Tuckey, Maceo Cortezz and Rue Blenkinsop.

Tickets for An Inspector Calls at Grand Opera House, York, cost £13 upwards on 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Evlyne Oyedoken in rehearsal with Jeffery Harmer, left, and Simon Cotton for the 2022-23 tour of An Inspector Calls

Here, George Rowlands (who will play Eric Birling) and Evlyne Oyedokun (Sheila Birling) escape Inspector Goole’s forensic scrutiny to answer questions of a different kind ahead of the 2023 tour of An Inspector Calls.

An Inspector Calls is on the school curriculum, sure to attract GCSE pupils and their parents alike to next year’s tour. Did you study it at school? If so, did you enjoy it? Does your appreciation of the play differ as an adult?

George: “I did read it at school, although I can’t really remember much of it. But I did always like it. I always think at school, when you sit down and analyse every single word, it can make you go a bit crazy, and I always thought it ruined books and plays. But now that I’m an adult, or more importantly now that I’m an actor, I definitely have more of an appreciation for it.”

Evlyne: “I actually didn’t study it  at school; I studied To Kill A Mockingbird. I’d heard about An Inspector Calls but I didn’t really know what it was, or really anything about it. It wasn’t until I got this audition that I actually read the play for the first time, and I still didn’t quite understand it. It took me a while to realise how many layers this play actually has.”

“It took me a while to realise how many layers this play actually has,” says Evlyne Oyedokun

What makes J B Priestley’s play so timeless and Stephen Daldry’s production so engaging?

Evlyne: “Well, the fact that is has three timelines helps. It’s set across three timelines – you’ve got 1912, which is where the play is set; then you’ve got the future, which is the Blitz, 1945, and then you’ve also got the current now, 2022.

“It’s amazing. You’re flicking through the past, present and the now constantly, and it’s so reflective on humanity, so it makes it so relevant, and people can really see themselves.”

George: At the end of the day, at its centre it’s a play about somebody in distress, and that doesn’t get old, does it? I think at different points in time, when we’ve put it on over the last 30 years, it’s been relevant. And this time around I think it’s more relevant than ever because of what’s going on in terms of the strike action and housing crisis.”

Give three characteristics of the character you will be playing?

George: “Eric is well educated because he’s been sent to public school. He enjoys a drink, probably a little bit too much. He really wants to be respected by his dad. Unfortunately, the combination results in some pretty catastrophic things.”

Evlyne: “Well, Sheila’s absolutely besotted with Gerald. She is very self-absorbed and in her own world, as she’s been brought up that way. She absolutely adores clothes.”

“Being an actor beats doing any other boring job,” says George Rowlands

What made you want to be an actor?

Evlyne: “Oh gosh! With me, I actually didn’t ever want to be an actor, it happened by accident. From a young age I was struggling with people and I never really spoke – I was pretty much mute to people I didn’t really know.

“My mum advised me to go and see a youth company at the weekends, so I did that, and I didn’t realise how natural it was to act as it is to live in the real world. I was a lot freer.

“That’s how I realised it’s the only thing I can do. Drama school taught me how to speak and acting taught me how to be more of a human than I ever was.”

George: “I think it beats doing any other boring job. I did find out quite early on in Year 6: for the end-of-school plays we did The Wizard Of Oz and I completely rewrote the script because I thought it was rubbish, and obviously made my parts the best.

“I like storytelling and I like the creative and artistic aspect of it. With this production, it has enabled that part of acting, and it’s been a really good creative process.”

Evlyne Oyedokun’s Sheila Birling and Simon Cotton’s Gerald Croft in the rehearsal room for An Inspector Calls. Picture: Mark Douet

When on tour, are there any essentials to have in your dressing room or top tips for making yourself feel at home in each city?

Evlyne: “I’m really bad at this stuff! A lot of people tend to make their dressing rooms cosy with nice blankets and things. I just bring everything that I have in my bag and that’s pretty much it.

“Some people put up fairy lights and flowers, but for me I’m very simple. With autism, as long as I’ve got really comfy clothes, a phone charger and headphones to cancel out sound, I’m all good.”

George: “I’m sharing a room with Simon [Cotton] who’s playing Gerald. I don’t know…I think a bottle of water goes a long way. A bottle of water and some Vaseline is not a terrible idea – for the lips, obviously! I get chapped lips.”

What is the most challenging part of being a performer?

Evlyne: “For me, it’s not being able to see your work or the story you’re creating because you’re so involved and living in the moment of it. You don’t really see the end result. I feel that the end result is mainly the response from the audience; if they got the story then we’ve done our job.”

George: “With other jobs, you can put a direct amount of work in, you can work more, you can do this and this, and your results will be better because of it. Like if you’re studying for an exam, the more you revise, the better the result.

George Rowlands’ Eric Birling and Christine Kavanagh’s Mrs Birling in rehearsal. Picture: Mark Douet

“But with acting it doesn’t work like that because being good is so subjective – there’s no grade. I think that’s quite hard. Putting lots of work in and not knowing really how it will go.”

Evlyne: “One of the sayings at RADA was, ‘plan it, know it and forget it’. It’s the hardest thing to do, but it’s the most rewarding thing to do.”

If you could swap roles for a performance, would you?

Evlyne: “If I had to be someone out of all the characters, it would definitely be the inspector, because I’m obsessed with crime documentaries and serial killers, everything to do with murder, unsolved murder, unsolved mysteries, death row, all of that! I’ve pretty much seen everything and I re-watch it to go to sleep.”

George: “If I could pick any character, I’d probably pick Edna [the parlour maid]. I would love to play her. If you haven’t seen this production, there’s a special thing that Edna is part of – a little bit of magic. She’s amazing.

“My second choice would be Mrs Birling. I really like Mrs Birling; she’s got such sass and doesn’t have the insecurities that Eric is stuck with.”

Posted on

More Things To Do in York and beyond when questions needs answering. Such as? Find out in List No. 96, from The Press

Barrel of laughs: Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, has the answer, whatever the question

FOOD and food for thought, pub concert and Pub Landlord, outsider comedy and  family drama whet Charles Hutchinson’s appetite.

Comedy gig of the week in York: Al Murray: The Pub Landlord, Gig For Victory, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

“AS the dust settles and we emerge blinking into the dawn of a new year, the men and women of this great country will need answers,” reckons the Guvnor, Al Murray. “Answers that they know they need, answers to questions they never knew existed.”

When that moment comes, who better to show the way, to provide those answers, than the people’s man of the people, Murray, The Pub Landlord? Cue his pugnacious bar-room wisdom in the refurbished Grand Opera House. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Miles and The Chain Gang: New territory tonight

Pub gig of the week: Miles and The Chain Gang, The New Smithy Arms, Malton Road, Swinton, near Malton, tonight (27/8/2022), 9pm

YORK band Miles and The Chain Gang are heading to the New Smithy Arms gastro pub this weekend.

“It’s our first time performing in the Malton area,” says songwriter and singer Miles Salter. “We’ll be playing a selection of our own songs, plus some old classics from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and The Rolling Stones.”

Latest single Love Is Blind has been aired 400 times on radio stations around the world, YouTube views of the band have topped 50,000 and their 2022 gig diary has taken in Doncaster, Harrogate and Helmsley.

Three-day event: Malton Summer Food Lovers Festival

Festival of the week: Malton Summer Food Lovers Festival, today (27/8/2022) and tomorrow from 9am, Bank Holiday Monday, from 10am.

THIS is the second Malton Food Lovers Festival of 2022, taking over the streets of “Yorkshire’s food capital” for three days in a celebration of fine produce and cooking.

Expect artisan stalls, street food, talks, tastings, celebrity chefs, cookery and blacksmith demonstrations, a festival bar, buskers, brass bands and Be Amazing Arts in the Creativitent.

Look out for Tommy Banks, from The Black Swan, Oldstead, and Roots, York, on the festival demo stage today at 1pm. Festival entry is free.

Daniel Kitson: Wanting a word with you Outside

Comedy gigs of the week outside York: Daniel Kitson: Outside, At The Mill, Stillington Mill, near York, Monday (29/8/2022) to Wednesday, 7.30pm

DENBY Dale stand-up comedian Daniel Kitson had not been on stage for two years when he contacted At The Mill promoter Alexander Flanagan Wright to say “hello, could I come and do a show?”.

Not one show, but six work-in-progress gigs, performed in two sold-out blocks from May 23 to 25 and June 8 to 10. He enjoyed the Mill outdoor experience so much, he has added a third run for August’s dying embers.

Tickets have flown again for the latest chance to watch Kitson “find out whether he can still do his job and what, if anything, he has to say to large groups of people he doesn’t know”. For returns only, contact atthemill.org.

That’ll be Mel Day: Guest star for The Story Of Soul. Picture: Entertainers

History show of the week: The Story Of Soul, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm

FROM the producers of Lost In Music and The Magic Of Motown comes The Story Of Soul with special guest Mel Day, “The Soul Man” from Britain’s Got Talent.

This journey through the history of sweet soul music takes in the songs of Aretha Franklin, Earth Wind And Fire, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, The Pointer Sisters, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Ben E King, Barry White and plenty more. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Foy Vance: Showing Signs Of Life at York Barbican

Blues gig of the week: Foy Vance, Signs Of Life Tour, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.50pm

NORTHERN Irish singer-songwriter Foy Vance plays York Barbican in support of his fourth studio album, Signs Of Life, in a gig rearranged from March 25.

The redemptive record finds Bangor-born Vance – husband, father, hipster, sinner, drinker – belatedly coming to terms with his demons in his late-40s.

The storytelling bluesman, survivor, rocker and folk hero calls Signs Of Life “an album of dawn after darkness, hope after despair, engagement after isolation, uplift after lockdown”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

One for the Family Album: Writer-director Alan Ayckbourn, left, Jude Deeno and David Lomond in rehearsal for his 87th play, premiering at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Play launch of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Album, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Friday to October 1

FAMILY Album, his 87th full-length play, is written, directed and sound designed by Alan Ayckbourn for its world premiere in The Round at the SJT.

Ayckbourn tenderly chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home. 

Join RAF veteran John and housewife Peggy as they proudly move into the first home they can really call their own in 1952; daughter Sandra, frantically negotiating the challenges of a ten-year-old’s birthday party without her AWOL husband in 1992, and granddaughter Alison, finally escaping the house she has somewhat unwillingly inherited in 2022. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

The poster for In The Name Of Love, The Diana Ross Story tribute show

Tribute show of the week: In The Name Of Love, The Diana Ross Story, York Barbican, September 3, 7.30pm

IN the wake of Diana Ross headlining the Platinum Party At The Palace at 78 and playing Leeds First Direct Arena in June with a 14-piece band, here comes the tribute show.

In a chronological set list, Cheri Jade takes on The Supremes’ catalogue before Tameka Jackson handles the solo Diana years.

Here come Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, Stop In The Name Of Love, Reflections, You Keep Me Hanging On, You Can’t Hurry Love, Stoned Love, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Touch Me In The Morning, Upside Down, My Old Piano, I’m Coming Out and Chain Reaction. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Posted on

Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, is back to pour pints and scorn alike as he gigs for victory

The taste of victory: Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, is here for more than the beer

THE Guvnor of Little England comedy, Al Murray, will hotfoot it from his Edinburgh Fringe run at the distinctly French-sounding Palais du Variete to the Grand Opera House, York, on September 1.

“As the dust settles and we emerge blinking into the dawn of a new year, the men and women of this great country will need answers,” proclaims Murray’s publicity machine. “Answers that they know they need, answers to questions they never knew existed. And when that moment comes, who better to show the way, to provide those answers, than the people’s man of the people, the Pub Landlord?”

In that case, let’s crack on with the questions that do need answering pronto for The Press. We dig the pun, but why call the show “Gig For Victory”, Al? “Well, it’s because, at the height of the pandemic, there were those inane comparisons with the Second World War, our biggest one” says Murray, the graduate in Modern History from St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

“People clearly think there was a victory at the end of the lockdowns, and if there is one, it’s being back on the road again. By May last year, I wondered if that was it for performers. ‘It’s fine,’ I thought. ‘I’ve been doing this for a long time; I don’t have to go up and down the country, eat bad food, or have things get right up my nose’!

“I thought, ‘maybe it will be fun’…and lockdown was a laugh. I could be at home with my family, instead of nights away on tour. But come last summer, someone was putting gigs on in a pub and asked if I wanted to do one. I did one hour 40 minutes and I felt sky high with the laughs.”

What does Murray mean by the Pub Landlord providing the “answers that they know they need, answers to questions they never knew existed”. “That does sound quite Donald Rumsfeld,” he says, referring to the United States Secretary of Defence’s infamous response to a question at a US Department of Defence briefing in February 2002.

The one where Rumsfeld obfuscated: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

You were saying, Al? “What I’m trying to capture with the Pub Landlord is that thing of someone chewing your ear off. Showing you how you are all linked without realising it.”

Murray’s Pub Landlord dispenser of bar-room wisdom plays on people’s prejudices, such as in his “People come over here, taking our jobs” routine on his last tour. “Human history is about migration – and I’m fascinated by history, as you know – so you’ve got to accommodate that in the way you look at the world,” says Murray.

The poster for Al Murray’s latest tour, Gig For Victory, bound for York next Thursday

“One of the great ironies of this country is people saying what a great country it  is, and then not expecting anyone to want to come and live here – though the complexion has changed with the war in Ukraine.

“Why the Pub Landlord is useful is he can say things without saying them on the nose, whereas if you say things on the nose, it gets tricky for humour, but if you go around the houses, you can say things with ironic distance.”

Looking at the state of Britain today, amid the cost-of-living crisis, the Government’s policy on immigration and Boris Johnson’s endless headlines, Murray says: “Things are very tricky at the moment. That’s how I’d put it. I have friends who write editorials for newspapers, but as a comic I’d rather have that bloody-minded attitude. 

“Coming up with subjects when you’ve been writing for a character for a long time, you think, ‘what will they [the Government/political leaders] come up with this time?’. Since Trump, you think, ‘how does satire keep up with the reality?’, and you just have to rise to that challenge.

“Looking from an historian’s point of view, people are worried about Putin, but what if he’s just an appetiser, like John the Baptist. With Putin, he was there all along, but we just misread him. When someone says they want to restore the Russian Empire, maybe we should take him at his word.”

Maybe we should not take Al Murray, Pub Landlord and bar-room braggard at his word, although his xenophobic Little Englander schtick turned out to be a forerunner for UKIP leader Nigel Farage – who he memorably stood against in Pub Landlord mode, representing the Free United Kingdom Party, or FUKP, in South Thanet at the 2015 General Election. Brexit would be just around the corner.

The Pub Landlord is an alter-ego, a comic device, but how did that act develop into the audience-bothering motormouth of today, pouring pints and scorn alike? “It came about from doing the crowd work, because when I started being this character in the London cabaret clubs, the problem was, why would a pub landlord be on stage, and wouldn’t he tell you why? So, he’d start up a conversation, saying ‘who are you?’,” says Murray.

“I found that working with the audience was the most effective way to show his character, talking to them, asking them what jobs they do, when all he does is pour pints, which is not like being a university professor, is it?! His attitude to what people do for a living tells you who he is, what he thinks, and the other really brilliant thing about the audience interaction is it means the show is different every night out of necessity.”

Al Murray: The Pub Landlord, Gig For Victory, Grand Opera House, York, September 1, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Copyright of The Press, York

Posted on

Corrie soap bad lad Nigel Pivaro reports back for stage duty in The Commitments after turning his hand to journalism

Father and son: Nigel Pivaro’s cynical Jimmy’s Da and James Killeen’s dreamer Jimmy Rabbitte in The Commitments. Picture: Ellie Kurttz

AFTER switching to the fourth estate for a decade and more, Coronation Street bad lad Nigel Pivaro is putting down the notepad to star in the 2022-2023 tour of The Commitments.

“I’m thrilled to be marking my return to the stage in this production,” he says, ahead of visiting the Grand Opera House, York, from November 7 to 12 in the role of Jimmy Rabbitte’s Da in the Irish musical.

“It’s an iconic story that resonates across the years, about people who, though distant from the music’s origins, find communion and expression in the Motown style. A musical genre which was borne out of oppression and which the characters embrace as their own. The Motown Sound is as vibrant today as it was when it first burst through in the Sixties.”

Thirty-five years have passed since The Commitments first leapt from the pages of Roddy Doyle’s best-selling novel with its story of the hardest-working and most explosive soul band from the northside of Dublin,

The 1991 film and a stage musical ensued. Now comes the latest nine-month British and Irish tour, running from next month to July, directed by Andrew Linnie, who played Dean, the saxophonist, in the original West End production in 2013.

The headline news in his cast list is Pivaro’s stage return at 62. “It came about from [playwright] Jim Cartwright saying, ‘how about coming back in? We miss you, mate,’” says Nigel, who forever will be best known for playing lovable Corrie rogue Terry Duckworth from 1983 to 2012.

Nigel Pivaro: Returning to the stage after a long hiatus when investigative journalism became his primary career

“After Jim said that, I started doing some plays for BBC Radio 4, like The Corrupted with Toby Jones, and some commercials, and then the role of Da was offered to me two and a half years ago. I was chomping at the bit: the chance to stretch my theatre legs again in my first theatre role since Bouncers [in 2003].

“But then the first Covid lockdown stopped it for a year, and then more lockdowns put it back another year. Just great! It had been a bit of a slow start for me getting back in, then just as it was gaining momentum, something extraordinary scuppered it.”

Roll on to autumn 2022 for Pivaro’s first appearance at the Grand Opera House since September 2003, when his hot-headed doorman Judd clashed with a fellow soap bad boy, EastEnders’ John Altman’s pontificating yet pugilistic Lucky Eric in John Godber’s nightclub comedy Bouncers.

“I was away from the business for 15 years after that, training as a journalist after doing a Masters degree in International Relations,” recalls Nigel. “I did my NCTJ [National Council for the Training of Journalists) course in Liverpool, my work experience at the Manchester Evening News, and my first staff job was at the Tameside Reporter.”

Freelance reporting ensued for the Daily Star, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily and Sunday Express, and not least Jane’s Defence and Intelligence Review, reporting on military and security topics.

The poster for the 2022-2023 tour of The Commitments, announcing Coronation Street legend Nigel Pivaro as the star attraction

“I travelled to Ukraine in the first war in 2014 and did three tours there,” says Nigel. “So I did my journalism from the bottom up, pushing my specialist knowledge into my reporting.

“Over the years, I’ve done everything from interviewing ex-Corrie colleagues and stars from other shows to doing research for a Newsnight feature last year on the shortcomings of the Manchester police.”

Hold the front page, Pivaro has a musical to perform in a new commitment to the stage. “I did see The Commitments film, attracted to it by the music, not knowing what to expect, other than it was an Alan Parker movie, and I’d always liked him as a director,” he says.

“I was just knocked out by how the music and the story were woven together, when often musicals are, ‘right, let’s do another song now’. The Commitments has a strong narrative, with the music weaved into that story without it kicking you in the face.”

Pivaro has read Doyle’s book too, “but I’ve not seen the play, so I’ve got no preconceptions about the stage show,” he says.

“What I can say is there’s dramatic tension, there’s humour, and there’s music. What’s not to like?! There’s a big band with loads of characters, sexy girls, sexy boys, with all that tension that can happen between band members, even in a band on the back streets of Dublin, as much as between John, Paul, George and Ringo.”

Roddy Doyle: Writer of The Commitments. Picture: Anthony Woods

For sure, the show will feature such soul staples as Try A Little Tenderness, In The Midnight Hour, Save Me, Mustang Sally, I Heard It Through The Grapevine and I Can’t Turn You Loose.

“This is the music that has provided the soundtrack to our lives, as hits in the Sixties and Seventies, and then being re-played and re-played at weddings and funerals and parties ever since. They are the standards,” says Nigel, who admits to having preferred Sweet, Mud and Gary Glitter, “anything that harked back to rock’n’roll”, in his youth.

Will he be singing in the show? “No, I don’t think I get to sing a song, but Jimmy’s Da is a big Elvis fan, so I do get to do a few bars of Can’t Help Falling In Love, but that’s it,” he says.

The Irish accent will be key too. “I’ve done accents all over the place. That’s my job!” he says. “There are certain accents you find you can do off pat, like Liverpool, being a Manchester kid. This Dublin accent had better be there because we have two weeks there at the Olympia!”

Tickets for the York run: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York. For Hull New Theatre’s October 31 to November 5 run: 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Posted on

More Things To Do in York and beyond when a circus of dreams and cricket skipper pitch up. List No. 95, courtesy of The Press

Rootsy rockin’ psychedelia: The Slambovian Circus Of Dreams at The Crescent

THIS is the holiday season, but not everyone is away, as Charles Hutchinson keeps one eye on August attractions, the other on autumn additions.

Woodstock vibe of the week: The Slambovian Circus Of Dreams, supported by Stan, The Crescent, York, Wednesday (17/8/2022), doors, 7.15pm

THE Slambovian Circus Of Dreams, purveyors of rootsy rockin’ psychedelia from Sleepy Hollow, New York, stretch the borders of Americana folk rock with their fantastic stories and performances.

Often described as “the Hillbilly Pink Floyd”, they visit The Crescent for the first time in support of their sixth album, A Very Unusual Head, released last January. Elements of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, The Incredible String Band, Syd Barrett and The Waterboys flavour their psychedelic sound. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

York River Art Market: Arts and crafts by the riverside this weekend

Art event of the weekend: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, River Ouse, York, today (13/8/2022) and tomorrow (14/8/2022), 10am to 5.30pm

YORK River Art Market’s seventh summer season is heading for a sunny finale by the Ouse as York’s answer to the Parisian Left Bank welcomes up to 30 artists and makers on both days this weekend. This open-air market provides the chance to browse and buy directly from those showcasing their creative wares along the riverside railings; entry is free.

Look out for paintings, prints, jewellery, textiles, glass work and ceramics. Among today’s artists will be regular participant Richard Smith with his Point Paper Art; tomorrow, Here Be Monsteras ceramicist Kayti Peschki and Cuban artist Leo Morey, who moved to York in 2018.

Phil Toms and his band: Performing Tubular Bells note for note at the JoRo

Tribute show of the week: Tubular Bells Live! with Phil Toms, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight (13/8/2022), 7.30pm

PHIL Toms and his 12-piece band perform music from Mike Oldfield’s landmark 1973 record Tubular Bells – the one that launched Richard Branson’s Virgin Records label – complemented by highlights from his 50-year career, such as Moonlight Shadow, To France and Guilty.

Enjoy selections from Oldfield’s instrumental albums too, including Ommadawn, Return To Ommadawn, Islands, The Songs Of Distant Earth and Tubular Bells 2 and 3. Ticket update: limited availability on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

The poster for Mychael Barratt’s print exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York

AS part of Pyramid Gallery’s 40th anniversary celebrations, curator Terry Brett made his regular trip to the Clink Press duo Mychael Barratt and Trevor Price’s studio, near Rotherhithe, London, returning north in a car filled with Barratt’s Beyond Bruegel and Price’s Bottles, Pots, Dots series of original prints. All works are for sale.

Fully Fest: Live music galore at The Fulford Arms

York festival of the week: Fully Fest 2022, The Fulford Arms, Fulford Road, York, August 20, 2pm (doors) to 11pm

THE Fully Fest welcomes Captain Starlet, The Rosemaries, Everything After Midnight, Tommyrot, City Snakes, The Rosettas, The Wreck Liners, Percy, Heartsink and Pat Butcher for a full-on day and night of live music at the Fulford Arms. Box office: thefulfordarms.com.

Derren Brown: “Remembering what’s important” in Showman at Leeds Grand Theatre

Mind games of the month: Derren Brown: Showman, Leeds Grand Theatre, August 23 to 27, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

DERREN Brown, master of mind control and psychological illusion, is on tour with his first new theatre show in six years, Showman, in the wake of his Broadway debut.

The content remains a closely guarded secret, but Brown says: “The heart of the show is about remembering what’s important. Like how the very things that we find most isolating in life – our fears and difficulties – actually connect us. Framed with what I think will be some extraordinary demonstrations of my voodoo.” Box office: leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Gretchen Peters: Sharing stories and songs at Leeds City Varieties

Americana gig of the month: Gretchen Peters, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, August 29, 7.30pm

2022 marks the 25th anniversary of Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Gretchen Peters first setting foot on a British stage. To honour this landmark, she returns this month with long-time musical partner and special guest Kim Richey in tow. 

Coinciding with the August 19 release of her live album The Show: Live From The UK – recorded in 2019 with a Scottish female string quartet – Peters will be sharing stories and songs from her early touring days in the UK, complemented by favourites from later works. Box office: leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Aggers & Cook: An evening of cricket chat with the correspondent and the captain

Cricketing double act: An Evening With Aggers & Cook, Grand Opera House, York, October 3, 7.30pm

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew teams up with former England captain, record run-scorer, Test Match Special summariser and farmer Sir Alastair Cook for a night of willow-on-leather chat in in aid of the Professional Cricketers’ Association.

Aggers, who has partnered Sir Geoffrey Boycott, Phil Tufnell and Michael Vaughan in past chat shows, will encourage Cook to lift the lid on life in the England dressing room. Audience members can tweet the pair with questions for the second half. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Hitting their stride: John Smith and Katherine Priddy will tour together for the first time this autumn

Autumn fruitfulness at the double: John Smith & Katherine Priddy, Selby Town Hall, November 3, 8pm

SONGWRITERS John Smith and Katherine Priddy will hit the road together for the first time in a November collaboration after a fortuitous encounter in a Kansas City hotel lobby earlier this year.

Since then, Devonian Smith and Birmingham-born Priddy have been testing the musical waters together in a galvanising new venture set to bloom on tour, when they will perform a mix of their own original songs. Box office: selbytownhall.co.uk.

Posted on

Theatre@41 combines the new and familiar in autumn and winter of theatre, music, comedy, cinema and pantomime rehearsals

Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Helen Bauer in Madam Good Tit at Theatre@41 in October

NEW partnerships, returning performers, comedy acts aplenty and community theatre regulars make up the autumn and winter season at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

One year on from throwing open its doors post-pandemic, the black-box studio will play host to Yorkshire and national companies and artists alike.

“We’re doing all right, whether by chance or design!” says chair Alan Park.  “In the year since we took over the programming, there’s been a nice balance between comedy, music and theatre, with a focus on new writing, as well as continuing our relationships with York Stage, Pick Me Up Theatre, White Rose Theatre, York Settlement Community Players and York Musical Theatre Company.

“The mailing list has gone up from 40 to 2,000 and we feel that people are invested in the building, our charity status, the work we present, and want us to do well. There are plenty of people who run theatres, but we want to run a ‘movement’ and we think we’re getting there.”

Colin Hoult in The Death Of Anna Mann. Picture: Linda Blacker

Looking ahead to the new season, one new partnership finds Theatre@41 linking up with York promoter Al Greaves’s well-established Burning Duck Comedy Club, complementing his programme at The Crescent (and previously at The Basement at City Screen Picturehouse).

“Maggie Smales, one of our trustees, reached out to Al,” says Alan.  “Initially, comedy promoters were contacting us directly, and we were doing maybe two comedy shows a season, but we got in touch with Al to say ‘we don’t want to tread on your toes, but we’d love to work with you’, and so now we have six shows this autumn through linking up with Al.”

Among those shows will be Lauren Pattinson’s It Is What It Is on September 16; Colin Hoult, from the Netflix series After Life, presenting The Death Of Anna Mann  on October 8; the returning Olga Koch, star of her own BBC Radio 4 series, in Just Friends on October 15 and fellow Edinburgh Festival Fringe Best Newcomer nominee Helen Bauer’s Madam Good Tit, on October 22. Look out too for Taskmaster winner Sophie Duker next April.

Returning to Theatre@41 will be Dyad Productions, following up the sold-out I, Elizabeth with Christmas Gothic, adapted and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, on November 26 and 27, and  Sarah-Louise Young, building on the sold-out success of Alan’s favourite show so far, An Evening Without Kate Bush, by presenting her charming yet cheeky West End and Off-Broadway cabaret hit Julie Madly Deeply, a tribute to Julie Andrews.

Sarah-Louise Young in her Julie Andrews tribute, Julie Madly Deeply. Picture: Steve Ullathorne

Further returnees will be East Riding company Other Lives Theatre Productions in Landmarks, Nick Darke’s environmentally topical story of a farming family feud, and Nunkie Theatre’s Robert Lloyd Parry with two more gripping MR James ghost stories by candlelight in Oh, Whistle on November 25.

“We’ve had a lot of good feedback from artists, such as Olga Koch’s agent,” says Alan. “We know there’s paint peeling off walls, the roof is leaking, but we believe in making the artists welcome, like giving them a little York Gin pack on arrival. We try to be a friendly venue where everyone will want to come back.”

Endorsements for Theatre@41 are spreading, leading to debut visits by Mark Farrelly in his Quentin Crisp show, Naked Hope, on September 7 and Olivier Award-winning actor and director Guy Masterson, staging his one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol on November 24.

Seven York companies and performers are booked in. Robert Readman’s Pick Me Up Theatre will stage Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical Jr from September 23 to October 2 and The Sound Of Music from December 16 to 30 in the Christmas slot. York Settlement Community Players will perform Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning Broadway comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike from November 3 to 5.

Rebecca Vaughan in Dyad Productions’ Christmas Gothic. Picture: Ben Guest

White Rose Theatre will deliver The Last Five Years, an emotionally charged musical full of upbeat numbers and beautiful ballads by Jason Robert Brown that tells the story of two lovers over the course of five years, with Cathy starting her tale at the end of the relationship and Jamie telling his story from the beginning. Directed by Claire Pulpher, it will run from November 9 to 12.

Barnstorming country-rock band The Rusty Pegs will play Rumours (Again!) in a 45th anniversary celebration of the Fleetwood Mac nugget on October 9, after giving Theatre@41’s re-launch gig post-Covid; Jessa Liversidge will sing Some Enchanted Sondheim on October 9, and York Musical Theatre Company will mark their 120th anniversary with A Musical Celebration on October 13 and 14.

Spookologist and ghost-botherer Doctor Dorian Deathly, a winner in the 2022 Visit York Tourism Awards, will make his Theatre@41 debut with his Halloween show, A Night Of Face Melting Horror!, from October 26 to 31.

“Each night, Dorian will be hot-footing over here after doing his Deathly Dark ghost tour for a cabaret evening with a bar of the dead and cocktails,” says Alan. “He came to us with the idea, and we thought, ‘yeah, let’s do it’. He has a huge following, so we’re delighted he wanted to come here.”

The horror! The horror” The poster for Doctor Dorian Deathly’s Halloween show, A Night Of Face Melting Horror!

Paul Birch, one of the stand-outs in York Theatre Royal’s Green Shoots showcase for new work in June, will bring his improv group, Foolish, to Theatre@41 for the third time. On September 15, he will host a night of ad-hoc comedy improvised from suggestions written in chalk on the stage floor under the title of Cobbled Together.

Seeking to foster a growing relationship with The Groves community, Theatre@41 will play host to the inaugural Groves Community Cinema: a weekend of classic films old and new right on residents’ doorsteps when visitors will be invited to “pay what you feel”, with support from an ARG Events and Festivals Grant in partnership with Make It York and City of York Council.

“Historically, we’re on the edge of The Groves, and maybe The Groves has never quite felt this is The Groves’ theatre, but we hope that putting on a community cinema weekend will make it feel more like it’s part of their community, rather than people just walking past our doors,” says Alan.

Olga Koch: Returning to Theatre@41 to present Just Friends

September 10 will offer Encanto Singalong at 2.30pm and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind at 6pm; September 11, Kes at 2.30pm and Nomadland at 6.30pm.

Three more new additions add to the sense of momentum at Theatre@41. Firstly, £5,000 funding from City of York Council and the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation will ensure the lighting rig “no longer wobbles”; secondly, the theatre will resume being a polling station for elections.

Last, but not least, the Monkgate building will be turned into the rehearsal rooms for veteran dame Berwick Kaler’s Grand Opera House pantomime, Old Granny Goose. “We’re giving them multiple rooms, including the dance studio,” says Alan. “They’ll have the run of the building basically.”

For performance times and to book tickets for the new season, head to: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Pantomime dame Berwick Kaler and daft-lad sidekick Martin Barrass will be rehearsing Old Granny Goose at Theatre@41 ahead of its run at the Grand Opera House, York

Posted on

REVIEW: The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ****

Jay Osmond with the principals from The Osmonds: A New Musical, Jamie Chatterton, left, Danny Nattrass, Alex Lodge, Ryan Anderson and Joseph Peacock, by the River Ouse

SLADE, Marc Bolan & T. Rex, David Bowie, Sweet, er, Gary Glitter, Gilbert O’Sullivan, even David Cassidy, who shared a birthday, were early Seventies’ favourites in the Hutch household.

The Osmonds, however, were not, save for the somewhat bizarre presence of nine-year-old Little Jimmy’s excitable Long Haired Lover From Liverpool in 11-year-old Hutch’s Christmas stocking in 1972. Today it would pass as a guilty pleasure. Back then, well, the Osmonds were everywhere. Osmondmania, as it was called.

“We want The Osmonds,” went the chant. “We want The Osmonds”. Ah, but do we still want The Osmonds? On the evidence of Tuesday night’s audience, there are plenty who still do: mainly women of a certain age who were taken back to all their yesterdays, whether waving Osmonds flags rescued from the attic or hearts a’flutter anew when Joseph Peacock donned Donny’s trademark peaked cap for Puppy Love.

This was the moment when this show truly took off: just like when young brother Donny first became the number one pin-up. And they still call it puppy love on August 2 2022.

Early steps: Osian Salter as Young Donny and Alex Cardall as Andy Williams in The Osmonds: A New Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

The Osmonds: A New Musical is the Osmonds’ story, or rather it is Jay Osmond’s story, filtered from his 2010 autobiography, Stages, now on stage as the family drama from the family drummer. Jay, played so handsomely by Alex Lodge, is the narrator, the guide, through the lives of the American boy band from Ogden, Utah, from their milk-teeth days singing barbershop on The Andy Williams Show (days when Jay once sat on Walt Disney’s knee).

Faith, first, then family, then career, was the motto of these clean-cut, clean-living boys, as espoused by their disciplinarian father George (Charlie Allen), who controlled the Mormon family music-making operation with military precision. The boys called him sir, saluted him, showed respect at all times, to everyone, just like Elvis did in all his early black-and-white interviews.

Faith, first. Well, ‘Mormon’ was name-checked only once; the ‘Church of Latter-day Saints’ not at all, but there were references to “mission” and “faith”. This was a polite, respectful musical, one that showed the influence of their faith without hammering home their Mormon roots. 

Father George Osmond, who wears the same suit throughout to emphasise his unchanging ways, imposes his will. Mother Olive (Nicola Bryan) is more comforting, a listening ear, but she too preaches the collective good, the cause of faith and family.

Country girl: Georgia Lennon as Marie Osmond, Picture: Pamela Raith

What Julian Bigg and director Shaun Kerrison’s book for this Osmond celebration does do is show what made The Osmonds unique: a family boy band, who all could sing lead vocals, play any number of instruments, grew into writing their own songs, and kept adding new members, from Donny to country-loving sister Marie (Georgia Lennon) and, yes, Little Jimmy (Austin Riley) with his five-week chart topper.

It doesn’t matter who is singing the lead vocal, as long as it is an Osmond, was the other family motto, but as with all bands, gradually individual needs percolate through the shiny surface. Merrill (Ryan Anderson) starts to struggle with his mental health; Jay talks of always being stuck in the middle, the drummer holding things together from the back; Wayne (Danny Nattrass) tends to be the one in the back seat until darkness consumes him.

The brothers, suddenly expected to be Donny’s backing band and to play second fiddle on the Donny & Marie TV shows, deem his hit songs to be lightweight froth.

Alan (Jamie Chatterton), picked by his father to be the leader, takes that to the point – in tandem  with Merrill – of plunging the family  into financial crisis with one disastrous business decision.

Keeping it clean: The Osmonds performing under their parents’ watchful gaze in The Osmonds: A New Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

Jay’s story and Bigg and Kerrison’s stage adaptation achieve the right balance of nostalgia and exhilaration, knowing humour and candour, full of concert, TV studio and recording session detail, topped off by an off-stage vocal cameo by Elvis Presley, offering the brothers advice on their next step and fashion tips. Letters sent to Jay by Wendy (Katy Hards), his number one fan from Manchester, weave a British  thread through the story to amusing effect.

If this feels a clean-cut version, then this is the one band for whom that is entirely warranted. This is not a story of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll, unlike the jukebox musicals for Marc Bolan, The Kinks and The Small Faces that have passed through York previously.

It is, instead, a story of many highs, an almighty crash, and a reunion resurrection in the 2008 finale. The hits keep coming, first with the cutesy children’s cast with their immaculate harmonies and matching attire, then One Bad Apple, Let Me In, Marie’s Paper Roses, et al.

Songs feed into and off the story, especially for Merrill and Wayne’s frustrations; Lodge’s Jay breaks down theatre’s fourth wall with rosy charm, and the principals’ performances grow as the story progresses. Knock-out singers, good movers, equally adept in their dialogue, they honour the Osmonds to the max. As do Lucy Osborne’s set design, Bill Deamer’s snappy choreography, Sam Cox’s wigs, hair and make-up design, the ensemble cast and band.

Ouse-mond! Jay Osmond stands by the River Ouse on his visit to York. Picture: Aaron McCracken

Love Me For A Reason and Crazy Horses are held back, perfectly judged to bring the standing ovation. If you were never a fan, or found many of the songs too sugary, nothing can change that, but The Osmonds: A New Musical will delight all those ‘Osmondmania’ devotees once more and may well draw new converts too with its froth and fun, spirit and smiles, American good cheer and Seventies’ style.

Jay Osmond, pictured in York this week with the show’s principals, will be there again tonight, watching his family’s story unfold once more, still taking care of business. Faith, family, career, discipline, devotion and no bad apples.  

The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm, tonight until Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Thursday and Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/york

By Charles Hutchinson 

Posted on

Who’s better? Picasso or Warhol? Here’s the verdict of acerbic New Yorker Fran Lebowitz in arts podcast Two Big Egos…

Fran Lebowitz: Opinions aplenty at Grand Opera House, York

CULTURE vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson mull over American writer and Netflix documentary acerbic wit Fran Lebowitz’s night with bite at the Grand Opera House, York, in Episode 98 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.

Under discussion too are Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant talking politics, The Smile’s detour from Radiohead and the new Suicide compilation.

Final thought: is the writing on the wall for Eng. Lit studies at university? To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/11013535

Posted on

More Things To Do in York and beyond amid festival fever and a Viking reawakening. List No. 93, courtesy of The Press, York

Bull : York band play Deer Shed Festival 12 on Sunday

MUSIC in meadows and parks, a Viking community play and Osmondmania revisited, knitting and a superstar by the sea are Charles Hutchinson’s alternatives to summer holiday queues at ports.    

Festival of the weekend: Deer Shed Festival 12, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk, today and tomorrow

DEER Shed Festival 12 takes the theme of Pocket Planet, “a celebration of different things from different planets”, spanning live music, DJ sets, comedy, science, Fringe and children’s shows, spoken word, films, sports, workshops and wellbeing.

John Grant, from Buchanan, Michigan, headlines the main stage tonight, preceded by a special guest set from Self Esteem, alias Rebecca Lucy Taylor, from Sheffield/Rotherham. Art-rock Londoners  Django Django top Sunday’s bill, backed up by South London post-punk hipsters Dry Cleaning, while York’s ebullient Bull headline the Acorn Stage that night. For ticket details, head to: deershedfestival.com.

The Feeling: Headlining MeadowFest in Malton. Picture: Andy Hughes

The other festival at the weekend: MeadowFest, Talbot Hotel gardens and riverside meadows, Malton, today, 10am to 10pm

MALTON’S boutique midsummer music festival, MeadowFest, welcomes headliners The Feeling, Alistair Griffin, New York Brass Band, Huge and Hyde Family Jam to the main stage.

Performing on the Hay Bale Stage will be Flatcap Carnival, Ross McWhirter, Simon Snaize, George Rowell, Maggie Wakeling, Nick Rooke, The Twisty Turns and Graeme Hargreaves.

Children’s entertainment, inflatables, fairground rides, street food and a festival bar are further attractions. Bring folding chairs, picnics…and well-behaved dogs on leads. Tickets: tickettailor.com/events/visitmalton.

Kate Hampson in the title role of The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal’s summer community play

Play of the week: The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, today until August 7

IN an ever-changing world, how do we hang on to who we are when the grounds are shifting beneath our feet? How do we look forward and rebuild, when the end times feel ever more real? In the heart of York lies a woman with the answers.

Discovered in a shallow pit by the River Foss, the remains of an unknown woman are displayed in a Jorvik Viking Centre glass cage for all to see. Until, one day, the visitors are no more, the city is quiet and the Coppergate Woman rises again in Maureen Lennon’s community play, directed by Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson with a cast of 90 led by Kate Hampson. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Crowning glory: Annie Stothert’s papier-mâché sculpture at Blossom Street Gallery

Exhibitions of the week: Colourforms, by Fiona Lane and Claire West; Enchanted Forest, by Annie Stothert, Blossom Street Gallery, York

BLOSSOM Street Gallery has two exhibitions running simultaneously until the end of August.

Colourforms presents brightly coloured paintings by York Open Studios mixed-media artist Fiona Lane and “art to make you smile” painter Claire West, from Beverley. Enchanted Forest brings together a highly imaginative collection of papier-mâché sculptures by Annie Stothert, from Yorkshire, inspired by folklore, myth and fairy tales.

Yoshika Colwell: Knitting together music, metaphysics and words in Invisible Mending at the Stilly Fringe

Edinburgh Fringe taster of the week: Yoshika Colwell in Invisible Mending, Stilly Fringe, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 7pm

IN the summer of 2020 as a pandemic raged, Yoshika Colwell was processing the death of her beloved grandmother, Ann. A woman of few words, Ann’s main outlet was her glorious, virtuosic knitting. As she approached the end of her life, Ann started a project with no pattern and no end goal.

Yoshika takes up this piece where Ann left off, creating a show about love, grief and knitting with fellow experimental music/theatre-maker Max Barton, from Second Body. Original music, metaphysics and verbatim material combine to explore the power in small acts of creativity. Box office: atthemill.org.

How they became big in the Seventies: The Osmonds: A New Musical tells the family story in song at the Grand Opera House, York

Musical of the week: The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday

YOU loved them for a reason. Now, for the first time, family drummer Jay Osmond turns his story into a family drama on the musical stage, offering the chance to re-live the ups and downs, the hits and the hysteria of the clean-living Seventies’ boy band from Utah, USA.

Directed by Shaun Kerrison and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Bill Deamer, this is Jay’s official account of how five brothers born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith were pushed into the spotlight as children on the Andy Williams Show and the hits then flowed, Crazy Horses, Let Me In et al. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Christina Aguilera: Biggest American female star to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre since Britney Spears

American superstar grand entrance of the week: Christina Aguilera, supported by Union J, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Tuesday, gates open at 6pm

CHRISTINA Aguilera piles up the Billboard Hot 100 hits, the Grammy awards and the 43 million record sales, to go with the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the honour of being the only artist under the age of 30 to feature in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.

Add to those accolades her coaching on NBC’s The Voice and her role as a global spokesperson for World Hunger Relief. Tuesday, however, is all about Genie In A Bottle, Beautiful, What A Girl Wants, Dirty and Fighter. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Kate Pettitt: Kate Pettitt: One of the artists taking part in Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend. Picture: Olivia Brabbs

Open studios of the week: Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend, Panman Lane, Holtby, near York, August 6 and 7, 10am to 5pm

ARNUP Studios open their countryside doors for a weekend of art, craft and, fingers crossed, summer sunshine.

Once the home and workplace of the late potter and sculptor Mick and Sally Arnup, Arnup Studios are now run by daughter and stoneware potter Hannah, who oversaw their renovation. Liz Foster, Michelle Galloway, Kate Pettitt, Reg Walker, Emma Welsh and Hannah all have working studios there.

All but abstract sculptor Reg of these resident artists will be taking part, showing a mix of painting, print, drawing, ceramics and jewellery. They will be on hand to discuss their work and share processes and techniques with visitors, who are invitated to buy original one-off pieces of art and craft, smaller gifts and cards direct from the makers or simply to browse and enjoy the day.

As well as a small carpark on site, free on-street parking is available in the village. The studios are bike and dog friendly; families are welcome.