grand opera house york Archives - Page 28 of 41

May 21, 2022May 21, 2022

More Things To Do in York and beyond when not only the Mouse will play in all weathers. List No. 83, courtesy of The Press

*Behind you! Behind you: Will The Gruffalo pounce on Mouse in Tall Stories’ The Gruffalo?*

POLITICS, the weather, monsters, Sixties and Eighties’ favourites, comedy songs and a north eastern tornado all are talking points for Charles Hutchinson for the week ahead.

Children’s show of the week: Tall Stories in The Gruffalo, Grand Opera House, York, today, 1pm and 3pm; tomorrow, 11am and 2pm

JOIN Mouse on a daring adventure through the deep, dark wood in Tall Stories’ magical, musical, monstrous adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s picture book, suitable for children aged three upwards.

Searching for hazelnuts, Mouse meets cunning Fox, eccentric old Owl and high-spirited Snake. Will the story of the terrifying Gruffalo save Mouse from becoming dinner for these hungry woodland creatures? After all, there is no such thing as a Gruffalo – or is there? Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

*True or false: Is Tony Hadley playing York Barbican on Sunday? True!*

Eighties’ nostalgia of the week: Tony Hadley, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm

I KNOW this much is true: smooth London crooner Tony Hadley is celebrating 40 years in the music business with a 2022 tour that focuses on both his Spandau Ballet and solo years.

Once at the forefront of the New Romantic pop movement, Islington-born Hadley, 61, is the velvet voice of hits such as True, Gold, Chant No. 1, Instinction and Paint Me Down and solo numbers Lost In Your Love and Tonight Belongs To Us. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Up and at’em, Fladam: York musical comedy duo Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter*

Comedy songs of the week: Fladam & Friends, Let’s Do It Again!, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm

YORK musical comedy duo Fladam, alias Florence Poskitt and piano-playing partner Adam Sowter, vowed to return after last year’s Hootenanny, and return they will this weekend. But can they really “do it again?”, they ask. Is a sequel ever as good?

Mixing comic classics from Victoria Wood with fabulous Fladam originals, plus a sneak peak of this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe debut, this new show will “either be the Empire Strikes Back of musical comedy sequels or another case of Grease 2”. Tickets to find out which one: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Always take a brolly with you just in case: Mikron Theatre Company’s James Mclean, left, Hannah Bainbridge, Alice McKenna and Thomas Cotran on tour in Lindsay Rodden’s all-weathers play, Red Sky At Night. Picture: Liz Baker

Whatever the weather, nothing stops Mikron Theatre Company in Red Sky At Night, Scarcroft Allotments, York, Sunday, 2pm

HAYLEY’S sunny, beloved dad was the nation’s favourite weatherman. Now, she is following in his footsteps, joining the ranks of the forecasting fraternity, or at least local shoestring teatime telly.

When the pressure drops and dark clouds gather, Hayley melts faster than a lonely snowflake. She may be the future’s forecast, but will anyone listen in Lindsay Rodden’s premiere, toured by Marsden company Mikron’s 50th anniversary troupe of James Mclean, Hannah Bainbridge, Alice McKenna and Thomas Cotran. No tickets are required; a Pay What You Feel collection will be taken after the show.

*Stop Stop Start: The Hollies’ rearranged 60th anniversary tour will arrive at York Barbican on Monday*

Sixties’ nostalgia of the week: The Hollies, 60th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, Monday, 7.30pm

MOVED from September 2021, with tickets still valid, this 60th anniversary celebration of the Manchester band features a line-up of two original members, drummer Bobby Elliott and lead guitarist Tony Hicks, joined by lead singer Peter Howarth, bassist Ray Stiles, keyboardist Ian Parker and rhythm guitarist Steve Lauri.

Expect He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, I Can’t Let Go, Just One Look, Bus Stop, I’m Alive, Carrie Anne, On A Carousel, Jennifer Eccles, Sorry Suzanne, The Air That I Breathe and more besides. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Giving an earful: Bettrys Jones’s Ellen Wilkinson MP, left, has a word with Laura Evelyn’s British Communist activist Isabel Brown in Red Ellen*

A bit of politics of the week: Northern Stage in Red Ellen, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday

CAROLINE Bird’s new play turns the overdue spotlight on “Mighty Atom” Ellen Wilkinson, the crusading Labour MP cast forever on the right side of history, but the wrong side of life.

Caught between revolutionary and parliamentary politics, Ellen fights with an unstoppable, reckless energy for a better world, whether battling to save Jewish refugees in Nazi Germany; leading 200 workers on the Jarrow Crusade; serving in Churchill’s war cabinet or becoming the first female Minister for Education. Yet somehow she still finds herself on the outside looking in. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*Steven Jobson, as Jekyll/Hyde, and Nicola Holliday, as Lucy Harris, in York Musical Theatre Company’s photocall for Jekyll & Hyde The Musical at York Castle Museum*

Musical of the week: York Musical Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2.30pm, Saturday matinee

BE immersed in the myth and mystery of London’s fog-bound streets where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn in Matthew Clare’s production of Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s epic struggle between good and evil.

Steven Jobson plays the dual role of Dr Henry Jekyll and Mr Edward Hyde in the evocative tale of two men – one, a doctor, passionate and romantic; the other, a terrifying madman – and two women – one, beautiful and trusting; the other, beautiful and trusting only herself– both women in love with the same man and both unaware of his dark secret. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

*Coastal call: Sam Fender kicks off the 2022 season at Scarborough Open Air Theatre*

Award winner of the week: Sam Fender, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, May 27, gates open at 6pm

WINNER earlier this week of the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for his Seventeen Going Under single, North Shields singer-songwriter Sam Fender opens the 2022 Scarborough Open Air Theatre summer season next Friday.

Already Fender, 28, has the 2022 Brit Award for Best British Alternative/Rock Act in his bag as he heads down the coast to perform his frank, intensely personal, high-octane songs from 2019’s Hypersonic Missiles and 2021’s Seventeen Going Under. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

May 18, 2022May 18, 2022

Yorkraine benefit concert for Ukraine has it covered when it comes to York bands

*The poster artwork for Yorkraine, Ian Surgenor’s benefit concert for Ukraine*

THE Yorkraine benefit concert for Ukraine brings together York cover bands The Supermodels, The Mothers, The Y Street Band and Sister Madly on May 24.

Acoustic sets from Alex Victoria and fellow York singer-songwriter Mal Fry and contributions from guest speakers complete the “totally York” 7.30pm bill at the Grand Opera House, York.

The evening of pop and rock classics from the past six decades will raise funds for the British Red Cross DEC appeal to aid Ukrainian refugees who find themselves in dire circumstances. All artists, hosts, sound tech and crew have donated their time free of charge.

Concert organiser Ian Surgenor says: “I’m a taxi driver by trade, and when I was working at night, there was a newsflash that Russia had invaded Ukraine. I was mortified, and then, like 99 per cent of the British population, I just felt helpless.

“The only thing I thought I could do was to arrange a concert for the DEC appeal. I’ve always held York Rocks Against Cancer concerts at the Grand Opera House, so I got in touch.

“The manager, Alice [Long], went out of her way to find us a spot, squeezing us in for May 24, and we’re delighted to be doing the show there as the acoustics are great.”

Explaining the choice of musicians for the night, Ian says: “Cover bands have a broad appeal, and I have a really good relationship with most of them in York, just from doing events and seeing gigs.

“There’s a mutual respect, so I approached Dave Sykes, from The Supermodels, who did the first York Rocks; I knew Rob Wilson, from The Mothers, and I’ve done shows with The Y Street Band.”

Sister Madly happen to be Ian’s own band, also featuring two stalwarts of the York musical theatre scene, Jo Theaker, last seen in York Stage’s Calendar Girls at the Grand Opera House, and Ian’s wife, Marie-Louise Surgenor, from Rowntree Players.

*Sister Madly*, *featuring Ian Surgenor, Jo Theaker and Marie-Louise Surgenor*

Ian was keen to include acoustic acts too. “I’d seen other venues putting on acoustic singers on such nights,” he says.

“In fact, I provided the sound for the acoustic lounge when Big Ian Donaghy held a fundraiser for the Ukraine emergency appeal at York Sports Club in March, with Huge playing in the main room, and Dan Webster, Emily Lawler, Rich Hardcastle, To The Blue and a young lady called Alex Victoria in the lounge.

“I was blown away by her. ‘What a voice this girl has,’ I thought, and I wondered if she’d like to do the Yorkraine gig. She said she’d be honoured!”

In attendance too will be a civic party led by Andrew Digwood, Undersheriff of the City of York, while a speaker from the British Red Cross will explain “what will happen to the money and what it’s like on the front”.

“We’ll also be welcoming a Ukrainian gentleman, Dimitri, who works for the Studio Cloud Nine fitness company. He drove to Poland to bring a family here, but couldn’t get them into the country, so they ended up going to Portugal, where the children were placed in a school within two days. Amazing what can be done, isn’t it?”

Look out too for a guest appearance by York vocal drag diva supreme Velma Celli, alias York’s West End musical theatre actor Ian Stroughair. “Ian approached me and said he thought what we were doing was amazing and asked how he could help,” says organiser Ian, who duly slotted Velma into the bill.

Surgenor has secured sponsorship from four sources: Nestlé, Vincent & Brown, Ainsty Ales and Fenton Simpson Financial Services. “They’ve covered the costs totally for hiring the theatre, projection, and so every ticket sold, every penny raised on the night from a collection, all the money will go the DEC appeal.”

The last mention goes to Simon Hudson, who is providing the sound and lighting…for free, of course.

Yorkraine, Ukraine Benefit Concert, Grand Opera House, York, May 24, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

*Velma Celli: New addition to the Yorkraine bill*

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022

May the fourth be with you! Gary Barlow extends A Different Stage run in York

*Gary Barlow: First there were two, now there are four shows*

GARY Barlow is adding a FOURTH show at the Grand Opera House, York, on June 9 after his June 10 and 11 performances and hastily added Sunday matinee on June 12 all sold out.

The Wirral singer, songwriter, composer, producer, talent show judge and author will be presenting his theatrical one-man show A Different Stage, ahead of the September 1 publication of his autobiography of the same name by Penguin Books.

“Now I’ve done shows where it has just been me and a keyboard,” says the Take That mainstay, 51. “I’ve done shows where I sit and talk to people. I’ve done shows where I’ve performed as part of a group.

“But this one, well, it’s like all of those, but none of them. When I walk out this time, well, it’s going to be a very different stage altogether.”

Tickets for June 9’s 7.30pm show are selling fast at atgtickets.com/York or on 0844 871 7615.

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022

The Simon & Garfunkel Story is bound for York in Grand Opera House return in May

*The Simon & Garfunkel Story: On tour at the Grand Opera House, York*

THE Simon & Garfunkel Story returns to the Grand Opera House, York, on May 27 to celebrate the songs of the folk-rock duo from Queens, New York.

The 7.30pm performance features a cast of West End actor-musicians telling the story of elementary school friends Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, from their humble beginnings as rock’n’roll duo Tom and Jerry, through to their 1960s success, relationship troubles and dramatic break-up in 1970, finishing with a re-creation of their 1981 Central Park reunion concert.

Using a large projection screen, the show features 1960s’ photos and film footage while a live band performs such favourites as The Sound Of Silence, The Boxer, Mrs Robinson, Cecilia, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Homeward Bound, I Am A Rock and America.

The Simon & Garfunkel Story heads to York on the back of a week-long West End run at the Vaudeville Theatre and sold-out performances in 50 countries worldwide,

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/york.

May 16, 2022May 18, 2022

Keith Allen plays The Homecoming to the Max in third role in Pinter’s brutal comedy

*Keith Allen as brutal patriarch Max, ruling his sons with threats and violence, in The Homecoming*

KEITH Allen is completing a hattrick of roles spread over 25 years in Harold Pinter’s darkly comic power struggle The Homecoming, on tour at York Theatre Royal from tonight.

At the National Theatre, in 1997, the Welsh actor, comedian, television presenter, documentary maker and rousing punk musician played university professor Teddy, returning from America with his wife Ruth to find his two brothers, Joey and Lenny, and elderly father Max still living at their North London family home.

In 2015, at the Trafalgar Studios, London, he was cast as Uncle Sam. “Now I’m playing Max but that’s as far as I can go because I’m too old to play Joey or Lenny,” says Keith, 68. “Max is the patriarch of a very misogynistic household. Every character is repressed to the nth degree but while most of them repress their rage Max doesn’t.

“He had a very interesting relationship with his now-dead wife that has coloured his whole life and he’s in a household where they’re all playing games and trying to top each other. Everything that’s done is for a reason and it’s usually to get one over on someone else.”

Keith compares former butcher Max to a raging sheep: “If you’ve ever been in a field with a very angry tup, you don’t want to be there. I’ve been there and they don’t back down.”

Director Jamie Glover and actor Mathew Horne, who is playing pimp Lenny, always had Allen in mind for their Pinter project “They’re close mates, and the genesis of the idea to do a Pinter play came from them. They took their idea to Danny Moar at [the Theatre Royal] Bath, originally wanting to do The Caretaker, but the Pinter estate offered the rights to The Homecoming instead.”

Glover and Horne were unsure whether Allen would want to return to Pinter’s 1965 fractured family drama, but “Max is a part I’ve always had my eye on,” says Keith. “I was very lucky to be offered it and I’m very pleased to be doing it.”

After all, The Homecoming is considered to be Pinter’s finest work in its exploration of toxic masculinity, stultifying patriarchy, one-upmanship feuds and sexual powerplays. “I’ve always thought Pinter was a poet before he was a playwright and the poetry is amazing. This whole play is about language and very particular choices of words, which is why as an actor you have to be very on-the-ball about the grammar.

*Keith Allen’s Max, seated, and Mathew Horne’s Lenny, centre, in The Homecoming*

“I think the lyricism of the play is extraordinarily attractive and the tension has people constantly going, ‘What on earth is happening and what’s going to happen next?’.”

Keith praises not only the writing, but the “brilliant structure” too, describing it as a feat of engineering. “As an actor, you just get your skis on and let the skis guide you,” says the skiing enthusiast.

What does Keith recall of his first performance in The Homecoming? “That was in 1997, directed by Roger Michell, who died last September, bless him. I remember feeling I’d let the cast down in rehearsals, as I would forget my lines, make things up and trip my way through it, playing Teddy to Lindsay Duncan’s Ruth.

“But I got a handle on it in the end, and it was a brilliant way to learn about being still on stage, which is a great skill to master, when a lot of actors get scared if they’re not doing anything.”

Comparing the productions, Keith says: “I have to say that all three have had very different qualities. This one is very funny, much funnier than the other two, because the director chose that path. Jamie Lloyd’s production in 2015 was much bleaker; this one is genuinely funny but also very discerning.

“A hefty contributory factor to that humour is that these men are idiots. They’re fantasists, all trying to be top dog, and that’s funny to watch.”

Assessing The Homecoming’s impact on audiences in 2022, by comparison with 1965, Keith says: “Misogyny is very present in the play, as is generational jealousy within a family. The mother is dead but she looms very large in everyone’s memory, especially Max’s because he loathed her.

“When the play was first performed, I don’t think anyone had seen anything quite so vicious and measured before. Now it’s interesting for different reasons because we’re living in a time where women are becoming far more recognised and are on a far more equal footing.

*“As an actor, you just get your skis on and let the skis guide you,” says Keith Allen of the art of performing in a Pinter play*

“There are things in the play that could be misconstrued as being abusive to women and, because of the times we’re living in, audiences might react very quickly to certain things which they wouldn’t necessarily have reacted to before.”

Keith has “previous” for Pinter, not only appearing in The Homecoming but also in Pinter 3: Landscape/A Kind Of Alaska in the West End and The Celebration and The Room, both directed by Pinter himself at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 2000 and in New York in 2001.

“You very quickly realised that Harold chose people for what they could do; he was very careful in his casting,” Keith recalls. “He wouldn’t ask you to act a part, but to ‘be’, so he left you alone and watched.”

As for Pinter’s advice on his notorious use of pauses, “he once quite frivolously said to us, ‘if the pauses don’t work, **** it’, but actually they do work,” says Keith. “It works like a musical score in that what comes before dictates what comes after. It’s all about rhythm.”

After a five-year hiatus, Keith will enjoy his return to York, where he was last seen on stage as Inspector Rough in Patrick Hamilton’s thriller Gaslight at the Grand Opera House in February 2017. ” York is lovely because you’re near the river and there are some lovely pubs,” he says.

“I really like touring. I like the fact that you’re on the move and it’s as if you’re having an opening night every week because you’re in a different space, in a different theatre, with a different ambience.

” I like to fit in some golf wherever I go and I have an ingrained curiosity about corrugated iron chapels and buildings, so I always see if I can find one or two to go and have a look at.”

Theatre Royal, Bath, presents Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, York Theatre Royal, tonight until Saturday; 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, . Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

*Keith Allen as Inspector Rough and Kara Tointon as Bella Manningham in Gaslight at the Grand Opera House, York, in February 2017*

May 16, 2022May 16, 2022

Paul Merton’s ad-libbing Impro Chums want a word with you on first travels since 2019

*Paul Merton, front, and his Impro Chums Mike McShane, Richard Vranch, Kirsty Newton and Suki Webster*

HAVE I Got News For You regular Paul Merton teams up with his Impro Chums to flex their off-the-cuff comedy muscles tonight at the Grand Opera House, York.

In their first antics roadshow since August 2019, seasoned improvisers Merton, Richard Vranch, Suki Webster and Mike McShane are accompanied by latest addition Kirsty Newton on piano.

“What audiences like about what we do is that we haven’t lost our sense of play, our sense of fun, the sort of thing that gets knocked out of you because you have to get married or get a mortgage or find a job,” says Merton. “We play and they enjoy watching us play.”

Let the adlibbing fun and games sparked by audience suggestions begin at 8pm, with tickets still available on 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Here, the Impro Chums discuss their return to the stage.

Do you expect Covid to be mentioned during a game?

Richard Vranch: “I did quite a few shows back at the Comedy Store after a 16-month break and weirdly it hasn’t come up from an audience in any of the suggestions. I’ve made a couple of jokes about it, because they were very funny, but other than that it hasn’t actually been mentioned.”

Paul Merton: “My own view is that people would want to get away from it. Not every comedy show has to hold up a magnifying glass to society and be about how we live today. The whole idea of entertainment, for me, is to take you somewhere else, not to remind you of where you are.”

Suki Webster: “I think the particular form of comedy we do is about us having fun and being silly; it doesn’t lend itself to satire or in-depth discussion on difficult subjects because you’ve got four or five minds on stage all weaving in and out.

“The depth of it is in the joy and connection with each other and the audience. And we’re all so giddy with excitement at being back together that I can’t see it being a focus.”

What have you missed about the touring life since 2019?

Richard: “The thing I’ve missed is laughter. I’ve been watching a load of telly and there has been wonderful stuff produced by an arts industry that has been having a hard time. But I’ve really missed laughing with mates on the bus on the way to the gig and on stage during the gig.”

Mike McShane: “The last tour was exemplary for us as a group; it felt like a Marx Brothers show in the best way possible. We now had music from Kirsty [on her first tour] and it was all very nice. Getting on the bus, checking in on each other, hanging out, acting like idiots. And doing the show is fantastic and everything you hope for. “

What was your over-riding memory of Kirsty’s first Impro Chums tour of duty in 2019?

Kirsty Newton: “I felt as though I’d been let into the coolest, funnest club ever and we had such a wonderful time. My over-riding sense of it is that it’s probably the best job in the world; just consistent fun and loveliness all the way.

“I’d say I have the best seat in the house: I’m up close and personal with everyone on the stage and I get to direct the music, making them explode into song mid-scene. Quite often I don’t know what’s going to come out of my fingers; that’s the joy of it.”

Paul: “To adapt an old saying, you can lead Paul Merton to music but you can’t make him sing. But it was great having Kirsty there and there was more music in that show than before. Mike and Suki are very strong singers and Richard is very musical, of course, but I stay out of the way.”

Kirsty: “I have one brilliant memory of going through the Scottish Highlands and sticking my head out of the bus going, ‘this is wonderful’!”

For a show without a script, how do you get the comedy muscle moving before the start?

Paul: “The most important thing is to be together beforehand. So, we’ll throw a ball around to be in each other’s orbit and to just tune in to each other.”

Richard: “The preparation for the show is the decades that we’ve known and worked together. With a scripted show or a rock band, you’d start to get ‘musical differences’ round about year 15. I think I first appeared on stage with Paul in 1984, and with impro it’s about a group attitude and sense of fun.

“Weirdly, that matures like a good cheese or wine over the years and doesn’t fester like a rock band. So, we put the work in by simply having done it for all this time and it just gets better and better.”

How important is the audience to making an Impro Chums show the best it can be?

Suki: “If you’re doing a play or stand-up there’s a bit of us and them, but with our show it’s about everybody, because their energy and their suggestions build it in a way that no other show can have. Everything is happening in the moment and what they’re doing is absolutely crucial. When it goes right that means everyone is involved and having a good time. It’s like a big party!”

May 14, 2022May 18, 2022

More Things To Do in York and beyond as Pinter’s pause and effect comes home to roost. List No 82, courtesy of The Press

*Keith Allen: Homing in on The Homecoming arriving at York Theatre Royal on Monday*

AVOIDING the “devastation of stag and hen parties” (copyright Rachael Maskell, York Central MP), Charles Hutchinson finds reasons aplenty to venture out.

Play of the week: Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, York Theatre Royal, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Thursday, 2pm; Saturday, 2.30pm

GAVIN & Stacey star Mathew Horne and Keith Allen star in Jamie Glover’s new production of The Homecoming, Harold Pinter’s bleakly funny 1965 exploration of family and relationships.

University professor Teddy returns to his North London childhood home from America, accompanied by his wife Ruth, to find his father, uncle and brothers still living there. As life becomes a barely camouflaged battle for power and sexual supremacy, who will emerge victorious: poised and elegant Ruth or her husband’s dysfunctional family? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*Tom Figgins: Introducing new material tonight at Stillington Mill. Picture: Daniel Harris*

Outdoor gig of the week: Tom Figgins, Music At The Mill, Stillington Mill, near York, tonight, 7.30pm

SINGER-SONGWRITER Tom Figgins returns to At The Mill’s garden stage after last summer’s sold-out performance, with the promise of new material.

Figgins’ vocal range, guitar playing and compelling lyrics caught the ear of presenter Chris Evans, who hosted him on his BBC Radio 2 show and invited him to play the main stage at CarFest North & South.

His instrumental works have been heard on Countryfile and Panorama and he is the composer for the Benlunar podcast, now on its fourth series. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill.

*Martin Roscoe: Guest piano soloist for York Guildhall Orchestra*

Classical concert of the week: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

YORK Guildhall Orchestra’s final concert of their 2021-2022 season welcomes the long-awaited return of pianist Martin Roscoe, originally booked to perform in May 2020.

Retained from that Covid-cancelled programme are Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite, with its combination of cheeky jazz tunes and the Russian’s mastery of orchestration, and Dohnanyi’s mock-serious take on a children’s nursery rhyme. Leeds Festival Chorus join in for Elgar’s Music Makers. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Go West and Paul Young: Eighties’ revival at York Barbican*

Eighties’ nostalgia of the week: Go West & Paul Young, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm

PETER Cox and Richard Drummer’s slick duo, Go West, and Luton soul singer Paul Young go north this weekend for a double bill of Eighties’ pop.

Expect We Close Our Eyes, Call Me, Don’t Look Down and King Of Wishful Thinking, from the Pretty Woman soundtrack, in Go West’s set. The chart-topping Wherever I Lay My Hat, Love Of The Common People, Everytime You Go Away and Everything Must Change will be on Young’s To Do list. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Paul Merton’s Impro Chums: Wanting a word with you at the Grand Opera House*

Fun and word games of the week: Paul Merton’s Impro Chums, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 8pm

HAVE I Got News For You regular and Comedy Store Players co-founder Paul Merton teams up with fellow seasoned improvisers Richard Vranch, Suki Webster and Mike McShane and accompanist Kirsty Newton to flex their off-the-cuff comedy muscles on their first antics roadshow travels since August 2019.

*Hayley Ria Christian: All aboard her Midnight Train To Georgia for a night of Gladys Knight hits*

Homage, not tribute show, of the week: Hayley Ria Christian in Midnight Train To Georgia, A Celebration Of Gladys Knight, Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm

HAYLEY Ria Christian’s show is “definitely not a tribute, but a faithful portrayal that truly pays homage to the voice of a generation, the one and only Empress of Soul, Ms Gladys Knight”.

In the late Sixties and Seventies, Gladys Knight & The Pips enjoyed such hits as Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me, Help Me Make It Through The Night, Try To Remember/The Way We Were, Baby, Don’t Change Your Mind and her signature song Midnight Train To Georgia. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

*Milton Jones: International spy turned comedian in Milton: Impossible*

Comedy gig of the week: Milton Jones in Milton: Impossible, Harrogate Theatre, May 21, 7.30pm

ONE man. One Mission. Is it possible? “No, not really,” says Kew comedian Milton Jones, the shock-haired matador of the piercing one-liner, as he reveals the truth behind having once been an international spy, but then being given a somewhat disappointing new identity that forced him to appear on Mock The Week.

“But this is also a love story with a twist, or at least a really bad sprain,” says Jones. “Is it all just gloriously daft nonsense, or is there a deeper meaning?” Find out next weekend. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

*Grace Petrie: Carrying on the fight for a better tomorrow when every day you are told you have lost already*

Protest gig of the week: Grace Petrie, The Crescent, York, May 23, 7.30pm

DIY protest singer Grace Petrie emerged from lockdown with Connectivity, her 2021 polemical folk album that reflects on what humanity means in a world struggling against division and destruction.

Petrie’s honest songs seek a way to carry on the fight for a better tomorrow when every day you are told you have lost already. Bad news: her York gig has sold out. Good news: she will be playing Social, Hull, too on May 18 at 8pm (box office, seetickets.com). On both nights, she will be accompanied by long-time collaborator, singer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Moss.

May 12, 2022May 12, 2022

Hayley Ria Christian is arriving on the Midnight Train To Georgia in her Gladys Knight show at Grand Opera House

*Hayley Ria Christian: Climbing aboard her Midnight Train To Georgia as she celebrates the Empress of Soul, Gladys Knight*

HAYLEY Ria Christian takes the Midnight Train To Georgia in A Celebration Of Gladys Knight at the Grand Opera House, York, on May 20.

“This production is definitely not a tribute, but a faithful portrayal that truly pays homage to the voice of a generation…the one and only…Empress of Soul…Ms Gladys Knight,” the tour… publicity…proclaims.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1944, Gladys Knight began singing with her siblings at the age of eight. The group opened for many R&B legends in the 1950s before heading to Motown.

In the company of The Pips, Knight notched R&B, soul and funk hits with Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me; Help Me Make It Through The Night; You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me; Try To Remember/The Way We Were; So Sad The Song, Baby, Don’t Change Your Mind; Come Back And Finish What You Started and her 1976 signature song Midnight Train To Georgia.

Hayley Ria Christian’s production also features Part Time Love, Licence To Kill and That’s What Friends Are For.

In 1996, Gladys Knight & the Pips were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; in 2007, Knight received the Society of Singers’ ELLA Award in a ceremony where she was declared the Empress of Soul. Rolling Stone magazine names her in its list of the Greatest Singers of All Time.

Tickets for next Friday’s 7.30pm show are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York

May 6, 2022May 6, 2022

REVIEW: Fatal Attraction, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday ***

*That clinches it: Susie Amy’s Alex Forrest and Oliver Farnwoth’s Dan Gallagher in Fatal Attraction. Picture: Tristram Kenton*

Fatal Attraction, by James Dearden, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets/York

JAMES Dearden revisits his script for Adrian Lyne’s “bunny boiler” movie, the Paramount Pictures psychological thriller where it was fatal to get too close to Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest.

Dearden does not merely plonk it on stage. Instead, he moves it forward from 1987 to today’s world of #MeToo, greater awareness of mental health, all-pervasive technology (constantly name-checked to prove the point), but where men’s entitled behaviour has not changed.

He tells the same story with better balance but, frustratingly, not better dialogue in climactic scenes, brought to stage life with directorial swagger by Loveday Ingram, an outstanding, hi-tech set design by Morgan Large and projections by Mogzi.

Then add the box-office magnet of a celebrity cast of a Footballers’ Wives goddess (Susie Amy), a soap star (Oliver Farnworth, from Coronation Street and Hollyoaks) and a girl group favourite and Strictly runner-up (Eternal’s Louise Redknapp), each assuming a generic American accent that largely stays that side of the Pond.

They are not playing to big houses, suggesting Fatal Attraction may have lost its sex-sells allure since 1987 or lacks sufficient curiosity value in its transfer to the stage, or has been consigned to the past like so many DVDs and videos at a car boot sale.

Nevertheless, Dearden, Ingram, the production team and cast, sound designer Carolyn Downing and composer Paul Englishby have committed wholly to justifying its return. Dearden even comes up with a Sliding Doors coda, a little awkwardly delivered but worth it all the same.

If Fatal Attraction has slipped from memory or never been a Close encounter of the psycho kind for you, here is a quick refresher course. Farnworth’s Dan Gallagher – a happily married New York attorney with a daughter (unseen, voiced by Charlotte Holden) – narrates the torrid tale of his two-night stand with Amy’s Alex Forrest, the mysterious woman at the basement bar he “befriends”.

Wife Beth (Redknapp) is away in the country for the weekend, and as the drinks clink, the strangers click, Downing’s sound design pounds away, and soon Dan and Alex are too, with every last theatre light turned off. Sound and vision work to best effect here.

Dan might think everything can be washed away with a change of shirt, the fling flung, the dirty deed done, but Alex has other ideas. If there are rules, you play by hers, and here is a woman scorned. A woman, too, whose carapace of confidence in the bar turns out to be fragile, a front to cover loneliness.

*Louise Redknapp’s Beth Gallagher in Fatal Attraction. Picture: Tristram Kenton*

Alex still goes down the bunny boiler path, but Dearden refracts her actions through the prism of our better understanding of mental illness, and the assured Amy has switched impressively from playing Beth in the tour’s first leg to bringing a more rounded humanity to the deeply troubled Alex, her more considered interpretation having none of the Hollywood histrionics of Close.

Farnworth never quite shakes off being an Englishman playing a New York American, but he captures the oily charm but nonchalant arrogance and misogynism of the smart but outsmarted lawyer.

Who is the victim here? Mentally wounded, self-harming, jilted Alex? Dan, who took a chance that backfired? Or Redknapp’s wronged wife, Beth, who had given up her better-paid job to dedicate herself to husband, child and nest-building, making pasta sauce for Dan before heading up country?

The answer is all three in Dearden’s 2022 version, although he has written the cut-and-thrust scenes for Alex and Dan rather better than those for Dan and demure Beth, especially the far-too-rushed confession and confrontation over his infidelity.

Heat and tension, and later exhaustion, rise from Alex and Dan’s encounters. By contrast, Beth’s hurt is under-powered, unconvincingly reduced to being too reliant on a few expletives as if one eye were on the running time. She deserved better, not just in her husband, but in that let-down of a melodramatic climactic scene.

Put that one down to Dearden but Ingram’s direction errs in the tone of the bunny boiler set-piece, set up deliciously, even with a hint of knowing mischief, only to go off the boil and fizzle out into unintentional comedy. Not for the only time, the pacing is not right – even in the tour’s last week – and momentum is stalled.

Consistently excellent, however, is Large’s set design, one that enables a slick transfer of locations through a fusion of multiple screens and a box-of-tricks structure that allows for furniture to emerge, entrances to be created. Then call on Mogzi’s projections to conjure all manner of imagery, internal, external, urban and upstate, most spectacularly a speeding car heading out of control.

To further emphasise the 21^st century refurb, mobile phonecalls and video calls are relayed on those screens too. The overall effect of this deliberate visual overload is to mess around with your head, just as Dan and Alex are doing to each other, all the while blurring and twisting reality beyond Dan’s narrative control.

Fatal Attraction, the stage play, is the proverbial curate’s egg: direction hit and miss; design top drawer; performances enjoyable; the writing alive to a changed world but sometimes misfiring, not least an overworked “Tired of London/Tired of New York” simile.

Yet everything ultimately boils down to whether it works as a psychological thriller, one that gets you both hot and bothered, shocks and surprises you, and while it comes within a knife’s length of doing so, in the big moments, the ones that really matter, it falls tantalisingly short.

May 5, 2022May 5, 2022

Code breaker! The Da Vinci Code world premiere called off at Grand Opera House ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’

Danny John-Jules, left, Christopher Harper and Hannah Rose Caton in The Da Vinci Code

THE world-premiere stage adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller The Da Vinci Code will NOT be playing the Grand Opera House, York, from May 30 to June 4 after all.

Blame theatre’s perennial enemy – “unforeseen circumstances”- for the cancellation. “Grand Opera House, York, is sorry for any inconvenience,” the Cumberland Street theatre’s statement concludes.

Directed by Luke Sheppard, who was at the helm of the award-winning West End musical & Juliet, the debut tour was in the diary for January 10 to November 12.

However, the producers have decided: “Due to the current challenges of touring, we have made the difficult decision to conclude The Da Vinci Code earlier than expected. We are extremely proud of the work done by the cast and creative team who made this wonderful show, and we hope that it will be seen again before long.

“We apologise for any disappointment caused and ask that audiences continue to support theatre as the industry continues to recover.”

When announcing the tour, producer Simon Friend had said: “We have a truly stellar cast and creative team bringing The Da Vinci Code to life on stage for the first time, and with Dan Brown’s full endorsement of the show and the talented director Luke Sheppard at the helm, we’re confident that we’ll please devoted fans as well as newcomers to this magnificent story.”

*Juilliard School’s Drama Division graduate Hannah Rose Caton in her British stage debut as Sophie Neveu in The Da Vinci Code. Picture: Oliver Rosser*

Should you need a quick refresher course on what now will not be unfolding in Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s stage adaptation in York, the curator of the Louvre, in Paris, has been brutally murdered. Alongside his body is a series of baffling codes.

Professor Robert Langdon and fellow cryptologist Sophie Neveu attempt to solve the riddles, leading to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and beyond as they delve deep into the vault of history. In a breathless race through the streets of Europe, Langdon and Neveu must decipher the labyrinthine code before a shocking historical secret is lost forever.

Director Sheppard said of the stage adaptation: “Cracking The Da Vinci Code open for the stage reveals an epic thriller steeped in theatrical potential, rich in suspense and surprising at every turn.

“Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s brilliant adaptation leaps off the page and demands us to push the limits of our imagination, creating a production that champions dynamic theatrical storytelling and places the audience up close in the heat of this gripping mystery.”

In York, Coronation Street star Chris Harper would have played Robert Langdon alongside Danny John-Jules as Sir Leigh Teabing, Hannah Rose Caton, in her British stage debut as Sophie Neveu, and Joshua Lacey as Silas.

The Grand Opera House is contacting ticket holders.