Victoria Delaney in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders
FROM Dennis Potter to Stephen Sondheim, showman P.T. Barnum to a Phil Collins tribute, Charles Hutchinson is spoilt for cultural choice amid the incessant rainfall.
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight to February 28, 7.45pm, except Sunday and Monday; February 21 and 28, 2pm matinees
FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade, makes her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.
Seven children are playing in the Forest of Dean countryside on a hot summer’s day in 1943. Each aged seven, they mimic and reflect the adult world at war around them. Their innocence is short lived, however, as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Blue Remembered Hills director Fleur Hebditch
Spooky adventure of the week: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in The Addams Family Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Flying Ducks Youth Theatre undertake a whimsical, spooky musical adventure into the delightfully dark world of the hauntingly eccentric Addams Family on a night of unexpected revelations.
When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” boy, chaos ensues. As the two families converge over dinner, secrets are revealed and the true meaning of family is put to the test. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Kathryn Williams: Opening Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre
Time’s shifting tides of the week: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour 2026, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, 8pm
KATHRYN Williams, the Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer-songwriter, novelist, podcaster, tutor and artist long celebrated for her quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision, promotes her 15th studio album, last September’s Mystery Park, with support and special guest guitarist Matt Deighton in tow.
Opening her 12-date tour in Pocklington, 2000 Mercury Music Prize nominee Williams marks 27 years of diverse, multi-faceted music projects with a reflective, textured work, made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides. “This is the most personal record I’ve made,” she says. “The artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Megson’s Debs Hanna and Stu Hanna: Performing at Helmsley Arts Centre on Friday
Folk gig of the week: Megson, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
FOUR-TIME BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards nominees and double Spiral Earth Awards winners Megson combine heavenly vocals, lush harmonies and driving rhythmic guitars, topped off with northern humour.
Hailing from Teesside and now based in Cambridgeshire, husband-and-wife folk roots duo Debs Hanna (vocals, whistle, piano accordion) and Stu Hanna (guitar, mandola, banjo) followed up 2023 studio album What Are We Trying To Say with Megson – Live In Teesside, recorded at Stockton-on-Tees Arc in 2025. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Ryedale film event of the week: Summit Stories, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm
THIS evening of adventure films to raise funds for the Scarborough & Ryedale branch of Mountain Rescue England & Wales features a variety of exciting off-piste adventures, such as ski mountaineering, mountain climbing and mountain biking.
Created by elite athletes from around the world, the Faction Collective’s 150 Hours From Home, Blair Aitken of British Backcountry’s 10 In A Weekend, Commencal’s Dolomites and Jessie Leong’s The Last Forgotten Art contain scenes to take the breath away. The mountain rescue team, by the way, supports adventurers when things go wrong and conducts day-to-day searches and rescues off the beaten track. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
Seriously Collins: Taking Phil Collins at Face Value in tribute to solo and Genesis years at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute gig of the week: Seriously Collins – A Tribute To Phil Collins & Genesis, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 8pm
RETURNING by popular demand, Seriously Collins relive the hits of Phil Collins and Genesis, taking a musical journey through the songs that defined an era, echoing Collins’s soulful solo sound and re-creating the energy, intricacy and intensity of his more expansive original band. Expect “no gimmicks, just a genuine tribute to one of the greatest artists of our time”. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Lee Mead, centre, as showman P. T. Barnum, surrounded by actor musicians and circus acts in Barnum: The Circus Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
Touring musical of the week: Bill Kenwright Ltd in Barnum: The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
MUSICALS leading man Lee Mead plays the most challenging role of his career, stepping into P. T. Barnum’s shoes and on to the tightrope as the legendary circus showman, businessman and politician in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production of the Broadway musical.
Mead leads the cast of more than 20 actor-musicians (playing 150 instruments), acrobats and international circus acts as, hand in hand with wife Charity, Barnum finds his life and career twisting and turning the more he schemes and dreams his way to headier heights. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Maggie Smales’s Madame Armfeldt and Libby Greenhill’s Fredrika rehearsing for Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music
Sondheim show of the week: Wharfemede Productions in A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
SET in turn-of-the-century Sweden, A Little Night Music explores the tangled web of love, desire, and regret through Stephen Sondheim’s signature blend of sophistication, humour and hauntingly beautiful music, not least the timeless Send In The Clowns.
Directed by Helen “Bells” Spencer, Wharfemede Productions’ show combines the York company’s hallmark attention to emotional depth, musical high quality and character-driven ensemble storytelling. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Levellers: Revisiting Levelling The Land at York Barbican this autumn. Picture: Steve Gullick
Gig announcement of the week: Levellers, Levelling The Land 35th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, October 29
BRIGHTON folk-rockers Levellers have been among Britain’s most enduring and best-loved bands for nearly 40 years, their success built in part on the anthems that comprised their platinum-selling second album Levelling The Land, whose 35th anniversary falls on October 7.
To mark the occasion, Levellers will head out on a UK and European tour from October 16 to November 21, playing many songs from that album, alongside fan favourites from their extensive catalogue. Hotly tipped Essex punk duo The Meffs will support. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am from https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/levellers-2026/.
Lee Mead’s American showman P. T. Barnum in Barnum: The Circus Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
LEE Mead will lead the cast as legendary circus showman, businessman and politician P. T. Barnum in Bill Kenwright Ltd’s tour of Barnum: The Circus Musical at the Grand Opera House, York, from February 24 to 28.
West End performer and television star Mead, now 44, made his breakthrough when winning the BBC One reality show Any Dream Will Do in 2007, going on to star in the Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tour that brought him to the Cumberland Street theatre in 2010.
Lee is no stranger to Barnum, first playing the show-hosting Ringmaster in a school production when he was 13 or 14 in his home town of Southend-on-Sea.
“I had such a brilliant time and I thought the story and the characters were wonderful. And it had all these fantastic songs, like Come Follow The Band, The Colours Of My Life and There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute.”
Lee’s friend Chris was cast in the lead role. “And he was a great Barnum, but I remember thinking, ‘It would be lovely to play that part one day’.”
Now, three decades later, his wish has come true at last as he headlines a lavish new UK tour of the 1980 musical by Cy Coleman (music), Michael Stewart (lyrics) and Mark Bramble (book).
Barnum: The Circus Musical tells the story of legendary American showman, marketing genius and master of spectacle P.T. Barnum, who revolutionised entertainment in the 1800s through the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Greatest Show on Earth.
Premiered on Broadway in 1980 and fronted by Michael Crawford at the London Palladium in 1981, ahead of a UK tour, the show has been revived numerous times since, both here and around the world.
As he steps into the ring for the 2026 tour, Lee says: “It’s an absolute classic and I can’t quite believe I now get to play Barnum some 30 years after that school production. I think I must have somehow manifested it.”
“This is definitely my most challenging role,” says Lee Mead of playing P. T. Barnum
Barnum’s tour show is directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing alumna Oti Mabuse and features more than 20 actor-musicians, alongside acrobats and international circus acts.
Starring as Barnum is not only a dream come true for the Any Dream Will Do winner but also an homage to his grandfather Bert and grandmother Lil, who did not have much money, meaning that a trip to the theatre was very rare for them.
“But they saved up for a year and a half to see Barnum at the London Palladium and they loved it,” says Lee. “It stayed with them their whole lives. Sadly they’re no longer with us, but I know they would have been so proud to see me in it. Every performance is going to be for them.”
Since Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lee has starred in Wicked, Legally Blonde, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chicago and Sister Act and plenty besides. “But this is definitely my most challenging role,” he says.
“It’s one of those rare roles for a leading man. It’s an enormous part, with huge monologues and so many songs, and I don’t think I leave the stage for two hours, apart from the interval of course.”
Then add the tightrope walking, a discipline that has required several months of intense training for Lee. “It’s the kind of thing you learn at 24, not 44,” he says. “I’ve had to get myself fit and put in the work. The rope is about 7ft off the ground and, although I trained with a harness on, there’s no harness during the show itself.
“You have to use your whole body, your whole core and every ounce of your focus and energy to get across that wire, but I like a challenge.”
Does he play an instrument too in this actor-musician show? “I don’t, no. I already have enough to do with the acting, singing, dancing and tightrope walking!” he says.
Lee Mead in the poster image for Bill Kenwright Ltd’s tour of Barnum: The Circus Musical
As with Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman, the musical looks at the real man behind the on-stage showman, not least how he had a wife named Charity but became infatuated with Swedish singer Jenny Lind.
“So he’s a flawed character, as most human beings are,” muses Lee. “As an actor, it’s interesting to explore that side of him alongside all the spectacle. It makes for great drama.”
When researching the role, “it was interesting to learn about Barnum’s tenacity and his drive, which I think you have to have to be as successful as he was,” says Lee. “At times he kind of put his wife to one side, even though she was so supportive and loving, so I guess you could say that he was very selfish.
“But he wanted the world to see all these amazing acts that he brought together, like the oldest woman in the world, Joice Heth and General Tom Thumb. It was his passion.”
Lee picks The Colours Of My Life as his favourite song in the show “because the melody is beautiful and it’s about him trying to explain to Charity why he is the way he is, with all the different colours to him as a person and why he wants to light people up, entertain them and make them happy,” he says.
Since his schooldays productions of Barnum and Grease, Lee has enjoyed the camaraderie of the stage life and the chance to lose himself in different characters. “Then, as time went on, I discovered I had a bit of a talent for it and I worked really hard, trying to get better and better,” he says.
He attended Whitehall Performing Arts College in Essex, performed on the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry and at Bridlington Spa Theatre, played Levi and the Pharaoh in a touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and was in the The Phantom Of The Opera ensemble in the West End.
Any Dream Will Do then launched him to stardom. “It was a bit of a blur, although I remember certain moments in detail, so it was very surreal,” he recalls of competing on the BBC One talent show in front of a panel that included composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and impresario Bill Kenwright, winning the public vote and then playing the lead at London’s Adelphi Theatre.
Oh what a circus: Lee Mead’s P. T. Barnum, centre with actor-musicians, acrobats and circus acts in Barnum: The Circus Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith
“You never think anything like that would ever happen to you, and the TV show was seen by around 13 million viewers every week. Even now, more than 18 years later, I get people stopping me in the street or at the supermarket and saying that they voted for me. I feel very blessed, because it opened up all the parts that have come my way since.”
His subsequent career highlights include performing at the London Palladium on his 40th birthday with a full orchestra as he followed in the footsteps of legends such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.
Singing in front of H.M. The Queen and the Royal Family at the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2019 is way up there too, along with playing Caracticus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
“I remember seeing it as a teenager, with Michael Ball in the lead and thinking ‘I’m going to play that role one day’. Again, as with Barnum, I must have manifested it somehow,” says Lee.
His television work has included stints as Nurse Lofty Chiltern on Casualty and Holby City, but his appearance as himself on Motherland drew the biggest response from the public. “I played Lofty for five years in total but I’ve had more people stop me and ask about Motherland, even though I was only in one episode. That’s the one thing in my career that I haven’t done yet that I would love to do: to have a recurring role in a sitcom.”
For now, however, Lee is focusing on Barnum. “I get to be in one of the greatest, most iconic musicals ever,” he says. “I’m still in shock that I’ve landed the part, to be honest, and I can’t wait to take it around the country and to see the smiles on the audience’s faces.”
Lee Mead stars in Barnum: The Circus Musical at Grand Opera House, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Also Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, March 31 to April 4, 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday & Thursday matinees and 2.30pm Saturday matinee, 01274 432000 or https://www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/; Hull New Theatre, June 2 to 6, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees,https://www.hulltheatres.co.uk/
The March To Coppergate, when 500 Vikings parade through York city centre on February 21 in a highlight of the 2026 JORVIK Viking Festival
THE Vikings are invading York once more while the Dark Skies Festival is full of stars in Charles Hutchinson’s tips for adventure and artistic discovery.
Festival of the week: JORVIK Viking Festival, York, February 16 to 22
YORK is gearing up for another action‑packed February half‑term as the JORVIK Viking Festival brings a week of hands‑on history, craft activities and Norse‑themed entertainment to the city’s streets and historic venues.
Organised by York Archaeology, Europe’s largest Viking festival promises an accessible programme for families, featuring a mix of free drop‑in events and low‑cost bookable sessions designed to spark curiosity in young Vikings and their grown‑ups. The full programme and tickets are available at jorvikvikingfestival.co.uk.
Milky Way over Ravenscar at the North York Moors National Park Dark Skies Festival. Picture: Steve Bell, North York Moors National Park
Celebrating jewels of the night sky: North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Parks Dark Skies Festival, nightly until March 1
NORTH York Moors and Yorkshire Moors National Parks celebrate their 11th Dark Skies Festival this month. Discover activities at night to heighten the senses, such as night runs, canoeing and night navigation, astrophotography workshops, stargazing safaris, children’s daytime trails, art workshops and mindful experiences.
Full details of nocturnal activities at the two International Dark Sky Reserves, at the peak of the stargazing season, can be found at https://www.darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk/north-york-moors-events and https://www.darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk/yorkshire-dales-events.
Day Fever: Turning York Barbican into a dance floor this afternoon
Dance moves on St Valentine’s Day: Day Fever, York Barbican, today, 3pm
FULL of revellers ready to party to the best feelgood music, personally curated by Jon McClure of Sheffield band Reverend And The Makers, the gang behind Day Fever guarantee an afternoon of no-holds-barred fun times and dancing. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Fladam Theatre duo Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano at Helmsley Arts Centre
Children’s show of half-term week: Fladam Theatre in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 2.30pm
FLADAM Theatre, the York actor-musician duo of Adam Sowter and Florence Poskitt, return with an intergalactic musical adventure ideal for ages four to ten. Meet out-of-this-world pianist Norma, who dreams of going into space, like her heroes Mae Jemison and Neil Armstrong, but children can’t go into space, can they? Especially children who have a very important piano recital coming up.
When a bizarre-looking contraption crash-lands in the garden, is it a bird? Or perhaps a plane? No and twice no, it’s a piano, but no ordinary piano. This is a cosmic piano! Maybe Norma’s dreams can come true in a 45-minute show packed with awesome aliens, rib-tickling robots, and interplanetary puns that will have children shooting for the stars. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
For whom the Bells toll: The Best Of Tubular Bells I, II & III, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE Best of Tubular Bells I, II & III celebrates Mike Oldfield’s iconic and seminal musical pieces on a 26-date 26 date UK tour featuring an expansive live group, led and arranged by Oldfield’s long-term collaborator Robin Smith.
1973’s Tubular Bells will be performed in full, complemented by extended sections of 1992’s Tubular Bells ll and 1998’s Tubular Bells lll, as well as worldwide hit single Moonlight Shadow. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Hottest ticket of 2026 in York: Jodie Comer as defence lawyer Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie at the Grand Opera House. Picture: Rankin
Recommended but sold out already: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, February 17 to 21, 7.30pm plus 3pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
JODIE Comer returns to her Olivier and Tony Award-winning role as lawyer Tessa Ensler in the “Something Has To Change” tour of Suzie Miller’s Prime Facie in her first appearance on a North Yorkshire stage since her professional debut in Scarborough as Ruby in the Stephen Joseph Theatre world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything in April 2010.
Comer’s Tessa is a thoroughbred young barrister who loves to win, working her way up from working-class origins to be at the top of her game: prosecuting, cross examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. An unexpected event, however, forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge. Box office for returns only: atgtickets.com/york.
Thom Feeney in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills
Child’s play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, February 18 to 28, 7.45pm, except Sunday and Monday; 2pm, February 21 and 28
FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade, makes her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.
Seven children are playing in the Forest of Dean countryside on a hot summer’s day in 1943. Each aged seven, they mimic and reflect the adult world at war around them. Their innocence is short lived, however, as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Spooky adventure of the week: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in The Addams Family Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 19 to 21, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Flying Ducks Youth Theatre undertakes a whimsical, spooky musical adventure into the delightfully dark world of the hauntingly eccentric Addams Family on a night of unexpected revelations.
When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” boy, chaos ensues. As the two families converge over dinner, secrets are revealed and the true meaning of family is put to the test. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Kathyrn Williams: Opening Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour 2026, Pocklington Arts Centre, February 20, 8pm
KATHRYN Williams, the Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer-songwriter, novelist, podcaster, tutor and artist long celebrated for her quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision, promotes her 15th studio album, last September’s Mystery Park, with support and special guest guitarist Matt Deighton in tow.
Opening her 12-date tour in Pocklington, 2000 Mercury Music Prize nominee Williams marks 27 years of diverse, multi-faceted music projects with a reflective, textured work, made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides. “This is the most personal record I’ve made,” she says. “The artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Katherine Jenkins: Playing York Barbican on 25th anniversary tour
Concert announcement of the week: Katherine Jenkins, York Barbican, October 15
WELSH mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, 45, the biggest-selling classical artist of the 21st century, will play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue of her 25 Year Anniversary Tour. Tickets will go on sale at 10am on February 20 at https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/katherine-jenkins-2026/.
“Reaching 25 years in music is incredibly emotional, but this tour is truly a celebration of the fans who have been there from the very beginning,” she says. “To be heading out across the UK and Ireland for 18 special shows feels less like a celebration of a career and more like a reunion with old friends, and I can’t wait to stand on stage, look out into those familiar faces and share it all over again.”
Russell Hicks: In action at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, and The Wardrobe, Leeds on his This Time It’s Personal tour
In Focus: Comedy gig of the week, Russell Hicks, This Time It’s Personal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm
LAST year, Russell Hicks was just Happy To Be Here on his tour travels, discussing his life in the UK after moving from the USA.
Now the improvisational Californian comedian is looking inwards on his latest tour that visits Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight and The Wardrobe, Leeds, on February 22 (7.30pm). “This year it’s about…me. I’m back. And This Time It’s Personal,” he says, explaining the show title.
Deciding to leave the Trump-era politics to the likes of Jon Stewart, “I thought I would talk about more personal things, which is a challenge because I’m reactive to the climate, having done this thing of being a fish out of water [in Happy To Be Here].
“I’ve done that thing of discussing British culture through an American perspective on Instagram and Facebook, and I write Dear Diary entries about moving to Britain. I’ve done stuff on Marmite and Wetherspoons, as an American who knows nothing about this culture and is very honest about it, but they’re mostly just jokes.
“Like in America, I’m seen as a drinker; in England, I’m a legend (when it comes to drinking). That gave me an outline to talk about the UK versus the USA, and having done that, now I’m looking at myself in my new show, trying to sharpen my perspective, where I’m 42 now and so you get to the point where you’re more reflective.”
Russell continues: “That’s kind of the hallmark of being this age. At 35/40, people are starting to look at where they are and what got them there, good or bad. As in any culture, there is so much attention paid to early choices and early paths through life, but then there’s no guide to what to do in a capitalist society after 40. Then it’s just about maintenance.”
Do not mistake This Time It’s Personal for a navel-gazing exercise. “I’m very sensitive that that might be boring, where people do this show that can best summed up as ‘why I’m not successful’. But in my show, I’m celebrating being a comic and the experiences that I have,” says Russell.
“An audience member once came up to me and said, ‘comedians are like university drop-outs: they’re smart but they make the worst choices’. In a comedy club, I’m always in the moment, but then once I’m outside, I’ll look at what makes me uncomfortable. It’s that thing of thinking that you’re talking about yourself but actually you’re talking about all of us.”
As ever, Russell will be weaving improvisation into his shows in York and Leeds. “Improvisation, for me, is just something that’s inevitable. It’s the only way that I know how to perform, bringing in more as I talk about myself, and I’m always happy to find something in the room and then go off track,” he says.
“It’s just exciting. There’s a purity of connection. Being on stage, it’s the closest you get to hanging out with someone, making them laugh.”
As for the jokes, “I always know a joke’s really worked when they’re laughing uncontrollably at something and then have a hard time trying to re-tell it!” he says.
One final question: do you have any memories of past York visits, Russell? “One night in York, I went on a ghost walk before the show, then died on stage. I was like my own ghost that night!”
Occupation: Exuberant, provocative stand-up comedian noted for weaving improvisation into material, and writer of weekly journals of life as an ex-pat.
Appeared on: Channel 4, BBC and ITV. Starred as loveable Texan Coach Hughes in Prime Video series Lovestruck High, narrated by Lindsay Lohan. Written for and starred in ITV’s Stand Up Sketch Show. Won Channel 4 competition series Captive Audience with his fully improvised stand-up.
Track record: Won Prague Fringe Festival 2024. Headlined at every major UK club, including The Stand, Glee Club and Up The Creek. Residency at Top Secret Comedy Club in London. Comperes at Leeds and Reading Festival. Curates indie venues, historic theatres such as Hammersmith Apollo, and private members clubs. Endorsed as Global Talent by Arts Council England in 2022.
What else? Regularly entertains studio audiences at Have I Got News For You, The Last Leg and As Yet Untitled. Works Stateside with legendary Hollywood clubs The Comedy Store, The Improv and The Laugh Factory. As voice actor, he has lent his voice to Sky Comedy and Great Big Story and works for international brands in global campaigns.
Still more? Presenter on Yahoo Entertainment. Opens shows regularly for friends Axel Blake (2022 winner of Britain’s Got Talent), Simon Brodkin and Al Murray. Multiple film roles include appearing Edgar Wright’s The Running Man (2025) and Amazon MGM Studios romantic comedy Maintenance Required (2025) on Amazon Prime. Posts Dear Diary series on Instagram, gaining millions of views.
Previous tours: The Age Of Hicks, 2022; Next Level, 2023; first national UK itinerary, Happy To Be Here, 2024-2025, discussing his life in the UK.
Latest tour: This Time It’s Personal, January 23 to June 5.
Reflection of the day: “I still can’t believe I get to make people laugh for a living, travel the world and, most importantly, not wake up early on Monday mornings.”
River Medway’s Jem, centre, in the Code Fabulous rendition of Chain Reaction in Here & Now: The Steps Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith
A JUKEBOX musical is defined as a stage or film musical that “generally uses songs everyone knows and loves, creating a sense of instant familiarity and singalong fun”.
Then add a storyline, a plot structure, a reason to use those songs, from comedian, playwright and screenwriter Ben Elton’s futuristic, dystopian, flash script for Queen’s We Will Rock You to fellow playwright and screenwriter Tim Firth’s cheeky-boy, kitchen-sink tale of love, choices and destiny for Madness’s Our House.
Now add Steps, the boy/girl-next door purveyors of late-Nineties’ high-energy, synth-fuelled Europop, a late runner from the Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable beloved of bubblegum pop radio, hen-party club nights, post-school Iberian summer holidays and supermarket aisles. Never fabber than Abba, but once almost as ubiquitous.
Enter playwright, screenwriter and journalist Shaun Kitchener – who writes a fortnightly pop culture column in the Metro – to take Steps to musical jukebox heaven after participating in the Royal Court’s New Writers’ Group, writing for Soho Theatre, Channel 4’s Hollyoaks and Comedy Central’s Queerpiphany and premiering his plays Positive and All That in London.
Sally Ann Matthews’ supermarket boss, Patricia, left, with Lara Dennning’s Caz in Here & Now: The Steps Musical. Picture: Danny Kaan
Steps one: make it camp, make it cheesy, make it bright and breezy. Steps two, stick to the everyday soap-opera stuff of love, love rats, troubled pasts and hopeful futures, escapism and inertia, in the quotidian setting of a seaside supermarket. Steps three, find myriad ways to splice Steps’ hits to that storyline, however contrived.
Steps four, use every Steps’ trope and insignia, from typeface to palette of colours (pinks and blues), from calling the supermarket Better Best Buys (in a nod to Better Best Forgotten) to naming an airline Buzz (after the album of that title).
Look out too for the supermarket checkout aisles being numbered 5, 6, 7, 8 (Steps’ 1997 chart debut). All these in-jokes play well with the target audience – yes, Steps fans – who just about observed the pre-show supermarket-announcement request not to sing along until the Megamix finale at Wednesday’s matinee.
Steps five: build this Steps, ROYO and Pete Waterman-backed show around a high-quality production team, led by Rachel Kavanaugh, esteemed Royal Shakespeare Company, West End, Regent’s Park and Chichester Festival Theatre director and former Birmingham Rep artistic director. Alongside her are choreographer Matt Cole, musical supervisor and arranger Matt Spencer-Smith, set designer Tom Rogers and costume designer Gabriella Slade.
In the trolley: Lara Denning’s Caz being spun a lie by Chris Grahamson’s Gareth in Here & Now. Picture: Pamela Raith
All contribute to the sassy show’s sights and sounds, playing playfully with the Steps iconography in the cause of a fun and hit-filled party night out (or matinee, if you want to make a day of it) on an open-plan set that has towers of immaculately stacked shelves to each side, pier railings and blue sea behind and bluer sky above.
Here, in the tradition of Jeremy Lloyd & David Croft’s Are You Being Served? and Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies, the focus is on the staff, rather than interaction with customers, which leaves Here & Now to play out largely in an eerie vacuum (although that could provide an alternative explanation for why the store will, spoiler alert, close in a week’s time).
While that blinkered focus is understandable, surely it would not have been too far a step to have had ensemble members dressed as shoppers on occasion. Instead, Here & Now is a staff-heavy fantasia for our age of the self-service till.
Jacqui Dubois’ Vel, left, and Rosie Singha’s Neeta on the supermarket floor in Here & Now. Picture: Pamela Raith
At the heart of Here & Now is the outstanding Lara Denning’s Caz and her co-workers, who promise her a Summer Of Love (after rotter husband Gareth (Chris Grahamson) reneges on their plan to adopt a child on the eve of her 50th birthday.
Jacqui Dubois’s ever-comforting Vel has eyes for delivery worker Tracey (Lauren Woolf); Rosie Singha’s Neeta is tongue-tied over fancying co-worker Ben (Ben Darcy); Blake Patrick Anderson’s Robbie is struggling to overcome his father’s rejection, stultifying his craving for a relationship with town celebrity drag act, Drop Dead Diva Amanda Smooth (RuPaul’s Drag Race star River Medway’s Jem), one of only two customers to be woven into Kitchener’s tick-the-boxes storyline.
The other is Edward Baker-Duly’s Max, or Frenchman ‘Henri’ as supermarket boss Patricia (Coronation Street alumna Sally Ann Matthews) thinks he is, practising her dodgy French pronunciations on her staff while failing to hide her fancy Francais fling from them. Acquisitive businessman Max turns out to be the Machiavellian villain of the piece, playing his part to the 2D, six-pack max.
Save Our Store: Lara Denning’s Caz, centre, leads the supermarket staff in their protest. Picture: Pamela Raith
Matthews has fewer scenes than the central quartet but, along with Caz, Patricia is the show’s best-written role: blunt, in urgent need of more self-awareness, but with a waspish bite to her. Better still is Denning’s Caz, whose characterisation carries the most depth, not least the back story of child loss, against the grain of Kitchener’s tendency towards cliché. She sings bangers and ballads alike with panache and poignancy.
All the hits are here and now, from 5, 6, 7, 8 being transformed into a Half-Price Hoedown to the washing- machine spin cycle of Medway’s Code Fabulous rendition of Chain Reaction. Even 2012 flop Story Of A Heart turns out to be rather better than its number 173 chart placing might have suggested.
Do not go seeking hidden depths – the songs never had them – but Here & Now has both comedy and Tragedy, (the Bee Gees cover), happiness and sadness, fun and games, bad behaviour and good, baskets and trolleys, love and loss, Steps and more Steps. A Summer Of Love to perk up a wet winter with fizz, friction and fancy fondant pop.
Here & Now: The Steps Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; Sunday, 3pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Sally Ann Matthews in the role of supermarket boss Patricia in Here & Now, The Steps Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Danny Kaan
MUSICALS aplenty and a posthumous debut exhibition for two York artists are among Charles Hutchinson’s choices for February fulfilment.
Comedy and Tragedy show of the week: Here & Now, The Steps Musical, Grand Opera House, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday & Saturday, 2.30pm; Sunday, 3pm
PRODUCED by Steps, ROYO and Pete Waterman, Here & Now weaves multiple dance-pop hits by the London group into Shaun Kitchener’s story of supermarket worker Caz and her fabulous friends dreaming of the perfect summer of love.
However, when Caz discovers her “happy ever after” is a lie, and the gang’s attempts at romance are a total tragedy, they wonder whether love will ever get a hold on their hearts? Or should they all just take a chance on a happy ending? Look out for Coronation Street star Sally Ann Matthews as supermarket boss Patricia. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Josh Woodgate’s Pilate in Inspired By Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter
Boundary-pushing theatre show of the week: Inspired By Theatre in Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Inspired By Theatre’s gritty, cinematic and unapologetically powerful staging of Jesus Christ Superstar presents director Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s radical new vision of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1971 musical.
On Gi Vasey’s shifting building-block set design, part temple, part battleground, the story unfolds through visceral movement, haunting imagery and a pulsating live score, capturing Jesus’s final days as loyalties fracture, followers demand revolution and rulers fear rebellion. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Annabel van Griethuysen’s Miss Hannigan in York Light Opera Company’s Annie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography
The sun’ll come out tomorrow: York Light Opera Company in Annie, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow until February 21, 7.30pm, except February 15 and 16; matinees on February 14, 15 and 21, 2.30pm; February 19, 2pm
MARTYN Knight directs York Light Opera Company for the last time in the company’s first staging of Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan’s Annie in 25 years.
This heart-warming tale of hope, family and second chances, packed with such knockout songs as Tomorrow, Hard Knock Life and You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile, stars Annabel van Griethuysen as Miss Hannigan, Neil Wood as Daddy Warbucks and Hope Day and Harriet Wells, sharing the role of Annie. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies: Northern English folk at Helmsley Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
JEZ Lowe & The Bad Pennies have been playing their northern English and Celtic folk and acoustic songs and tunes for more than two decades around folk festivals, clubs and concert stages, while making a dozen albums.
Touring the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland and Belgium, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, singer, guitarist and composer Lowe performs with fiddle player, vocalist and Badapple Theatre writer-director Kate Bramley, Northumbrian small-pipes, accordion and whistle player Andy May and fretless bassist David De La Haye. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
The poster for Al Murray’s All You Need Is Guv tour show at York Barbican
Comedy shake-up of the week: Al Murray, All You Need Is Guv, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
HEY cool cats! Hot on the heels of last year’s Guv Island tour of these green and groovy isles, The Guvnor is back with a new stand-up show for 2026. There’s no denying the world’s a mess, daddio, but here comes a glimmer of hope as the globe’s favourite pub landlord returns with his common sense hot-takes for the masses, offering a much-needed truth tonic for these whacked out and troubled times. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Fladam Theatre duo Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano at Helmsley Arts Centre
Children’s show of half-term week: Fladam Theatre in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 2.30pm
FLADAM Theatre, the actor-musician York duo of Adam Sowter and Florence Poskitt, returns with an intergalactic musical adventure ideal for ages four to ten. Meet out-of-this-world pianist Norma, who dreams of going into space, like her heroes Mae Jemison and Neil Armstrong, but children can’t go into space, can they? Especially children with a very important piano recital coming up.
When a bizarre-looking contraption crash-lands in the garden, is it a bird? Or a plane? No and twice no, it’s a piano, but no ordinary piano. This is a cosmic piano! Maybe Norma’s dreams can come true in a 45-minute show packed with awesome aliens, rib-tickling robots, and interplanetary puns that will have children shooting for the stars. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Crime fiction author Elly Griffiths: Discussing new novel The Killing Time at Milton Rooms, Malton
Kemps Books’ literary event of the week: An Evening With Elly Griffiths, Milton Rooms, Malton, February 16, 7.30pm
ELLY Griffiths, award-winning crime fiction author of The Ruth Galloway Mysteries, The Brighton Mysteries and The Postscript Murders, discusses new novel The Killing Time and the inspirations behind her time-twisting mysteries, compelling characters and gripping storytelling. Expect lively conversation, fascinating insights and a book-signing finale. Tickets: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Jodie Comer’s lawyer Tessa in Prime Facie, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Rankin
Recommended but sold out already: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, February 17 to 21, 7.30pm plus 3pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
JODIE Comer returns to her Olivier and Tony Award-winning role as lawyer Tessa in the “Something Has To Change” tour of Suzie Miller’s Prime Facie in her first appearance on a North Yorkshire stage since her professional debut in Scarborough as Ruby in the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything in April 2010.
Comer’s Tessa is a thoroughbred young barrister who loves to win, working her way up from working-class origins to be at the top of her game: prosecuting, cross examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. An unexpected event, however, forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge. Box office for returns only: atgtickets.com/york.
Craig David: PerformingTS5 DJ set at York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend in July
Gig announcement of the week: Craig David presents TS5, York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Knavesmire, York, July 24
SOUTHAMPTON singer-songwriter and DJ Craig David will complete this summer’s music line-up at York Racecourse after earlier announcements of Becky Hill’s June 27 show and Tom Grennan’s July 25 concert.
David, 44, will present his TS5 DJ set on Music Showcase Friday’s double bill of racing and old-skool anthems, from R&B to Swing Beat, Garage to Bashment, plus current House hits, when he combines his singing and MC skills. Tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk; no booking fees; free parking on race day.
“It is a huge privilege to return to Prima Facie for one last time,” says Jodie Comer, as she plays defence barrister Tessa Ensler on tour. Picture: Rankin
JODIE Comer willrevive her Olivier and Tony Award-winning solo performance in Suzie Miller’s sexual assault drama Prima Facie “one last time” on a 2026 tour booked into the Grand Opera House, York, from February 17 to 21.
The Killing Eve, The Bikeriders and 28 Years Later star last appeared on a North Yorkshire stage in her professional debut asspoilt, mouthy but bright, privately educated Ruby, playing opposite York actor Andrew Dunn in the world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in November 2010.
Tickets for the only Yorkshire venue on Prima Facie’s nine-city “Something Has To Change” tour went on sale on March 25 2025, for pre-sale to members at 10am and the general public at 12 noon, selling out only 20 minutes later.
Looking forward to reprising Miller’s monodrama on tour – directed by Justin Martin with music by Self Esteem’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor – Comer says: “It is a huge privilege to return to Prima Facie for one last time and take this important play on tour across the UK & Ireland. The resonance of Suzie Miller’s writing, both in London and New York, exceeded anything we could have imagined.
Jodie Comer in her professional theatre debut as Ruby in Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2010. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“I’m so thrilled to have the opportunity to get the team back together and take the production to theatres around the country, including my hometown of Liverpool. On a personal note, I can’t think of a better finale to what has been such an incredible and deeply rewarding chapter in my life.”
In criminal lawyer-turned playwright Miller’s Olivier Award winner for Best Play, Comer, 32, will play thoroughbred Tessa Ensler, a young, brilliant barrister who loves to win.
Ambitious Tessa has worked her way up from Liverpool and Luton council estates, via Cambridge University, to be at the top of her game in her early 30s as a criminal defence barrister for an esteemed London chambers: defending the accused, cross examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case.
However, an unexpected event forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge.
Jodie Comer in Prima Facie at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, on April 25 2022. Picture: Helen Murray
“She played by the rules, but the rules are broken,” as the sleeve to Miller’s script puts it, when Tessa, the woman who defends men accused of rape, is assaulted herself and ends up in the witness box.
In her 90-minute play, Miller, who was a lawyer for 15 years before focusing on writing since 2010, drew on research from trials at the Old Bailey to address how the legal system conducts sexual assault cases.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled about the Prima Facie 2026 tour,” says the Australian playwright, screenwriter, librettist, visual artist, novelist and human rights lawyer, who has degrees in both science and law.
“This play has already achieved more than we all could have dreamed, and Jodie’s commitment to the story reaching so many new venues and communities means more people can be part of the conversation, and the solution.”
“Jodie’s commitment to the story reaching so many new venues and communities means more people can be part of the conversation, and the solution,” says Prima Facie playwright Suzie Miller. Picture: Rankin
Liverpool-born Comer won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for her 2022 performance as Tessa in her sold-out West End debut at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, repeating that feat in the Tony Awards when Miller’s play transferred to Broadway in 2023.
The NTLive (National Theatre) and Empire Street Productions live capture of Prima Facie has enjoyed two record-breaking cinema releases, with streaming on National Theatre At Home too, and Comer also has recorded an audiobook adaptation by Miller.
Now, opening at Richmond Theatre, Surrey, on January 23, Comer will complete the “perfect full circle by concluding the tour in her home city at the Liverpool Playhouse from March 17 to 21.
In an exclusive interview with Harpers Bazaar journalist Helena Lee on January 22, (https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/a70089560/jodie-comer-prima-facie-play-tour/), Comer said: “Honestly, it’s just such a gift. I’ve got a fair chance to revisit Tess, to see how the character can develop and what further truth I can find. It’s rare.
Jodie Comer’s Tessa Ensler, the young, brilliant barrister who loves to win in Prima Facie. Picture: Rankin
“I’ve had so many different life experiences [since she first played Tess]. I’m coming into the room feeling a little more confident, a little more knowing, which is making for more detailed and revelatory discoveries.”
Comer’s Harpers Bazaar interview concluded: “We’re going out to regional, smaller cities and presenting Tess to the people she probably speaks to most. To go on this tour and have the final week in Liverpool – a homecoming for both Tess and myself – feels really quite magical.”
Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, February 17 to 21, 7.30pm plus 3pm Thursday and Saturday matinees, all sold out. Box office for returns only: atgtickets.com/york.
NO press tickets are being provided for Prima Facie’s visit to the Grand Opera House, York. Frustratingly, CharlesHutchPress will not be reviewing the hottest ticket of the year, so hot that he was unable to purchase one in the booking tsunami on March 25 last year.
Robin Simpson in The Last Picture at York Theatre Royal Studio, Picture: S R Taylor Photography
MUSICALS aplenty and a posthumous debut exhibition for two York artists are among Charles Hutchinson’s favourites for February fulfilment.
Solo show of the week: The Last Picture, York Theatre Royal Studio, until February 14, 7.45pm except Sunday, plus Wednesday and Saturday 2pm matinees
ROBIN Simpson follows up his sixth season as York Theatre Royal’s pantomime dame by playing a dog in York Theatre Royal, ETT and An Tobar and Mull Theatre’s premiere of Catherine Dyson’s anti-Fascist monodrama The Last Picture, directed by associate artist John R Wilkinson.
Imagine yourself in a theatre in 2026. Now picture yourself as a Year 9 student on a school museum trip, and then as a citizen of Europe in 1939 as history takes its darkest turn. While you imagine, emotional support dog Sam (Simpson’s character) will be by your side in a play about empathy – its power and limits and what it asks of us – built around a story of our shared past, present and the choices we face today. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Colour & Light turns the spotlight on Viking invader Eric Bloodaxe among York’s rogues, scoundrels and historical figures in Double Take Productions’ light installation at York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower. Picture: David Harrison
Illumination of the week: Colour & Light, York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower, York, until February 22, 6pm to 9pm
YORK BID is bringing Colour & Light back for 2026 on its biggest ever canvas. For the first time, two of York’s landmark buildings are illuminated together when York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower become the combined canvas for Double Take Projections’ fully choreographed projection show, transforming the Eye of York.
Presented in partnership with York Museums Trust and English Heritage, the continuous, looped, ten-minute show bring York’s historic rogues, scoundrels, miscreants, mischief makers and mythical characters to life in a family-friendly projection open to all for free; no ticket required.
Suede: Showcasing Antidepressants album on York Barbican return
Recommended but sold out already: Suede, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm
AFTER playing York Barbican for the first time in more than 25 years in March 2023, Suede make a rather hastier return on their 17-date Antidepressants UK Tour when Brett Anderson’s London band promote their tenth studio album.
“If [2022’s] Autofiction was our punk record, Antidepressants is our post-punk record,” says Anderson. “It’s about the tensions of modern life, the paranoia, the anxiety, the neurosis. We are all striving for connection in a disconnected world. This was the feel I wanted the songs to have. This is broken music for broken people.” Box office for returns only: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sara Pascoe: Contemplating smart and astute nocturnal thoughts in I Am A Strange Gloop
Comedy gig of the week: Sara Pascoe, I Am A Strange Gloop, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm
HAVE you ever been awake in the middle of the night and thought something so smart and astute that you could not wait for the world to wake up for you to tell them? “This show is that thought, in that it doesn’t make much sense and is a bit weird on reflection,” says Dagenham comedian, actress, presenter and writer Sara Pascoe.
In I Am A Strange Gloop, Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club podcaster and former The Great British Sewing Bee host Pascoe reveals how her children don’t sleep, her kitchen won’t clean itself and her husband “doesn’t want to be in it”. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Sally Ann Matthews’ supermarket boss Patricia in Here & Now The Steps Musical. Picture: Danny Kaan
Comedy and Tragedy show of the week: Here & Now, The Steps Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 10 to 15, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday and Saturday, 2.30pm; Sunday, 3pm
PRODUCED by Steps, ROYO and Pete Waterman, Here & Now weaves multiple dance-pop hits by the London group into Shaun Kitchener’s story of supermarket worker Caz and her fabulous friends dreaming of the perfect summer of love.
However, when Caz discovers her “happy ever after” is a lie, and the gang’s attempts at romance are a total tragedy, they wonder whether love will ever get a hold on their hearts? Or should they all just take a chance on a happy ending? Look out for Coronation Street star Sally Ann Matthews as supermarket boss Patricia. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Gi Vasey’s Annas and Joseph Hayes’ Caiaphas in Inspired By Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter
Boundary-pushing theatre show of the week: Inspired By Theatre in Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 11 to 14, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Inspired By Theatre’s gritty, cinematic and unapologetically powerful staging of Jesus Christ Superstar presents director Dan Crawfurd-Porter’s radical new vision of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1971 musical.
On Gi Vasey’s shifting building-block set design, part temple, part battleground, the story unfolds through visceral movement, haunting imagery and a pulsating live score, capturing Jesus’s final days as loyalties fracture, followers demand revolution and rulers fear rebellion. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Annie at the double: Hope Day, left, and Harriet Wells will be sharing the title role in York Light Opera Company’s musical. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography
The sun’ll come out, not tomorrow, but from Thursday at: Annie, York Light Opera Company, York Theatre Royal, until February 21, 7.30pm, except February 15 and 16; matinees on February 14, 15 and 21, 2.30pm; February 19, 2pm
MARTYN Knight directs York Light Opera Company for the last time in the company’s first staging of Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan’s Annie in 25 years.
This heart-warming tale of hope, family, and second chances, packed with such knockout songs as Tomorrow, Hard Knock Life and You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile, stars Annabel van Griethuysen as Miss Hannigan, Neil Wood as Daddy Warbucks and Hope Day and Harriet Wells, sharing the role of Annie. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Liz Foster: Exploring memory, landscape and the childhood feeling of being immersed in wild places in Deep Among The Grasses
Exhibition launch of the week: Liz Foster, Deep Among The Grasses, Rise:@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, February 12 to April 10
YORK artist Liz Foster’s new series of abstract paintings, Deep Among The Grasses, invites you into rich, expansive imagined spaces where she explores memory, landscape and the childhood feeling of being immersed in wild places.
Full of colour, feeling and atmosphere, this body of work is being shown together for the first time. Everyone is welcome at the 6pm to 9pm preview on February 12 when Leeds-born painter, teacher and mentor Liz will be in attendance.
Craig David: Performing his TS5 DJ set at York Racecourse Music Showcase weekend
Gig announcement of the week: Craig David presents TS5, York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Knavesmire, York, July 24
SOUTHAMPTON singer-songwriter and DJ Craig David will complete this summer’s music line-up at York Racecourse after earlier announcements of Becky Hill’s June 27 show and Tom Grennan’s July 25 concert.
David, 44, will present his TS5 DJ set on Music Showcase Friday’s double bill of racing and old-skool anthems, from R&B to Swing Beat, Garage to Bashment , plus current House hits, when he combines his singing and MC skills. Tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk; no booking fees; free parking on race day.
Ice amid the January rain: York Ice Trail 2026
Festival of the week: Make It York presents York Ice Trail, An Enchanted City, York city centre, today and tomorrow, 10.30am to 4pm
THE streets of York will be transformed into An Enchanted City, where a spell has been cast, as ice sculptures, alive with enchantment, appear across the city’s cobbled and narrow streets.
Created by Icebox, 36 sculptures inspired by magic, mystery, the weird and wonderful will make an extraordinary trail, but who cast the spell and why? Follow the trail to uncover the truth. Pick up a trail map from the Visit York Visitor Information Centre to tick off all the sculptures; collect a special sticker on completion.
The sculptures will be: Ice Ice Baby (neon photo opportunity), provided by Make It York; Igloo 360 Photobooth, Party Octopus; The Ice Village (curated market); All Aboard for Railway Stories, National Railway Museum; Bertie the Shambles Dragon, Shambles Market Traders; The Wizard of Ouse!, City Cruises York and Mr Chippy; The Enchanted Chocolate Bar, York’s Chocolate Story.
Drake’s Spellbound Catch, provided by Drake’s Fish and Chips; Sword in the Stone, York BID; The Yorkshire Rose by Kay Bradley, Bradley’s Jewellers; Saint William’s Poisoned Chalice, York Minster; Toadstool House, York BID; York Park & Brrr-ide, First Bus; Wizard Teddy Bear, Stonegate Teddy Bears; Bettys Bern Bears, Bettys; The Magic of Connection, Grand Central Rail.
Lord of the Lodging, provided by The Judge’s Lodging; The Ice Wall (photo opportunity), Make It York; Spellbound Train Ticket, The Milner York; From Grand Roots, Magic Blooms, The Grand, York; Hobgoblin, York BID; Enchanted, Icebox; Wade The Giant, North York Moors National Park; Let It Sew, Gillies Fabrics; The Hungry Dragon, Ate O’clock; Barghest, York BID.
The Prophet Hen, provided by SPARK: York; Jack Frost, York BID; Wings of Ice, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall; Magic Mixie Monster, York Mix; Mjolnir – The Bringer of Lightning, Murton Park; Beaky Blinder the Puffin, RSPB; Food and Drink Area; Ice Masterclass (paid experience); The Snow Block (photo opportunity), Make It York, and Live Ice Carving (from 12 noon each day).
In Focus: Navigators Art performance & exhibition, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Sunday, 5pm
Penesthilia, by Penny Marrows
TO mark the opening of Penny Marrows and J P Warriner’s posthumous exhibition at City Screen Pictiurehouse, Penny and artist Timothy Morrison’s son, London jazz guitarist Billy Marrows, performs tomorrow with Portuguese Young Musician of the Year 2025 Teresa Macedo Ferreira, supported by lutenist Simon Nesbitt. Admission is free.
The exhibition launch follows at 6pm, celebrating two late York artists whose paintings were never exhibited in their lifetimes.
Born in 1951, Penny grew up in Tockwith, west of York, and attended Mill Mount Grammar School for Girls before studying 2D and 3D art at York College, training as a sculptor, then taught art in prisons and adult education in London.
On returning to Yorkshire, she painted and drew trees, landscapes and portraits for 30 years, including her self-portrait as an heroic winged figure.
Her exhibition is curated by husband Timothy Morrison, York artist and teacher, who says: “I met her in a printmaking evening class in Brixton, where Penny made linocuts and engravings of alarmingly aggressive-looking mythical beasts.
“Billy came along…and as a teenager fell in love with the guitar and jazz, and went on to study at Royal Academy of Music.
“Fast forward to early 2023 when Penny was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Billy started sending little video recordings of his music to cheer her up (and me). New compositions, and duets with Teresa [Macedo Ferreira].
Penny Marrows in her garden
“The Beech Tree had its premiere at Penny’s funeral, and some of these pieces became Billy’s first album, Penelope, released soon after in her memory. So far it’s raised almost £7,000 for World Child Cancer.”
In 2025, Penelope was shortlisted in the category of Best New Album in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. “Penny doesn’t know about all this, nor that thanks to Billy’s music her paintings have had an extraordinary resurrection.
“The trauma of the illness, combined with major retro-refit work in the house, meant that the paintings were buried in the chaos. We found them at the back of a huge pile. First exhibited at the funeral, they’ve since gone round the world beautifully emblazoned on Billy’s album covers.”
Penny loved trees, especially walking through woods. “The paintings seemed to burst from nowhere at the time, almost with a secretive devil-may-care diffidence, but are actually distillations of detailed observational sketchbook drawings done in the Howardian Hills while we collected wood for our stove,” says Timothy.
“Her early notebooks tenderly catch details of family life in Tockwith with an almost Bonnard-like natural draughtsmanship. My garden is a beautiful sculpture garden.
“If Penny is anywhere, she’s in the trees, both in the paintings and out there. Her work inspires my own drawings; I think of her as Daphne and I often depict her as a bird perched humorously and enquiringly on her very own branch.
“I would like to thank Richard Kitchen, who greatly encouraged me to curate this show of Penny’s work, and for making it possible.”
J P Warriner’s work Untitled, featuring in Navigators Art’s exhibition
BORN in Ireland in 1935, J P (John)Warriner lived most of his life in York, where he died in 2019 aged 84. “He has no surviving family or partner,” says Navigators Art’s Richard Kitchen. “Research indicates he was a brilliant and kind man, and a grandfather figure to troubled local youth.”
John was a contemporary figurative painter whose style spanned surrealism, post pop, erotic and neo-mythic genres. Married to Effie, the couple had two children, Ronald and Nigel, who both died tragically young.
“John seemed to have taken to painting to heal from the losses he and Effie endured,” says his exhibition curator, Cath Dickinson, of Notions Vintage. “He remains somewhat of an enigma, with little recorded about his life or artistic endeavours.
“We know that he was a retired Nestle employee, living in Acomb, suspected to have hailed from Omagh, County Tyrone. With no social media or websites to dissect, no records of known influences or potential drivers, the journey of discovery about JP is just beginning.”
Local accounts reveal that he was a much loved go-to grandfather figure to all the children in his street in Foxwood, Acomb, never missing a birthday or Christmas, delivering shortbread and fixing many broken bikes.
In a strange encounter, curator Cath Dickinson, who has been collecting paintings by John for five years, met someone who knew a friend and neighbour of John by chance.
“I discovered that John had been more than a friendly neighbour but amentor to troubled local adolescents and young people who were struggling with the temptations of life in the hedonistic 1990s and 2000s,” says Cath.
Artist J P Warriner with “our Amy”
“John had a particularly close friend, mentee and muse in ‘Our Amy’, a wonderful young mum who was full of life, and had a fantastic sense of humour. John became Amy’s mentor and confidante and tried to not only guide but also record many of the pivotal moments in her tragically shortened life.”
Exhibition visitors hopefully will be able to discover and share more of the history of John’s painting and subjects. “The main part is in tribute and memory to Amy and John and their bond which transcended generations and societal norms,” says Cath. “John’s works have been likened to Alasdair Gray and Grayson Perry. They span decades and observe war, tragedy, comedy, temptation, love and loss.
After the exhibition in memory of John, Effie and Amy ends on March 6, some of John’s works will be available to buy from notionsvintageyork.com at 6 Aldwark Mews, York, YO1 7PJ.
“This joint exhibition has been both a labour of love and a voyage of discovery for its two curators,” says Richard. “Come and discover the work of two wonderful creative artists and their vibrant contrasting styles and subject matter.”
Penny Marrows & J P Warriner, City Screen Picturehouse, York, on show until March 6, open daily from 10.30am until closing time.
Did you know?
BILLY Marrows also played at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, on February 5 with Di-Cysgodion, a contemporary jazz quartet making waves in the capital and touring the north following their appearance at London’s Vortex Jazz Club.
Billy will return to The Basement with the Billy Marrows Band on March 26 in a 7.30pm concert promoted by Jazztones at 7.30pm. Tickets: TicketSource booking at bit.ly/nav-events.
The quartet brings together exciting London jazz scene improvisers to present York-born Billy’s boundary-pushing compositions, where they explore the relationship between improvisation and composition, incorporating grooves from across the globe and taking inspiration from many genres, including contemporary jazz, funk, progressive jazz and classical.
Penny Marrows’ artwork for Billy Marrows’ album Penelope, which received a four-star review in Jazzwise
Joining Billy, electric guitar and compositions, will be Chris Williams, alto sax (Led Bib, Sarathy Korwar, Grande Familia, Let Spin), Huw V Williams, double bass (Gruff Rhys, Ivo Neame, Chris Batchelor, Di-Cysgodion) and Jay Davis, drums (Mark Lockheart, Eddie Parker, Elliot Galvin, Di-Cysgodion).
Their debut album, Dancing On Bentwood Chairs, will be released on February 13, and this concert forms part of the accompanying tour,
Billy, who grew up in Sheriff Hutton, near York, studied jazz guitar at the Royal Academy of Music. He also leads the chamber-jazz project Grande Família, whose appearances have taken in top British venues, Scarborough Jazz Festival and a sold-out residency at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho.
In addition, Billy performs with Docklands Sinfonia, Tom Ridout Quintet, Chelsea Carmichael, Patchwork Jazz Orchestra and Di-Cysgodion. For more details, go to: billymarrows.com.
Sally Ann Matthews in her musical debut as Patricia in Here & Now. Picture: Danny Kaan
SALLY Ann Matthews’ next step on leaving Coronation Street last October after treading the Weatherfield cobbles across 39 years is to join the cast of Steps’ musical Here & Now.
“This is my first tour show since 2010. I’ve come in for the second leg,” she says, after taking over from Finty Williams – Dame Judi Dench’s daughter – in the role of Patricia, a supermarket proprietor “with a touch of Hyacinth Bucket about her”.
Next week, she will play a York stage for the first time, performing at the Grand Opera House from February 10 to 15.
How did Sally Ann feel on her first night at The Mayflower in Southampton on January 23? “I wasn’t remotely nervous,” she says. “It’s a beautiful theatre – another one I’d never played before – with that lovely feeling of 1,700 people on their feet at each show. What’s not to love about a show that leaves everyone with a smile on their face?”
She was delighted to be offered the chance to join the hit show. “I got a phone call from my agent, saying ‘how do feel about touring again?’. I said, ‘what is it?’. ‘Here & Now, the Steps musical’.
“Of course I said ‘yeah’ as I’m a massive Steps fan and I know Claire [Steps member Claire Richards]. We have mutual friends and we’ve kept in touch. I messaged her to say ‘I’ve just had an offer to play Patricia’. ‘I suggested you!’ she said.
“When she then came to see the show, I told her I was so grateful she’d recommended me.”
At 55, Matthews is making her debut in a musical. “I’ve done plays and pantomime, but never musical theatre, though I do love musicals,” says Sally Ann, who is part of a touring company of 56-60. “They’re such a vibrant, young, talented group that I’m working with.”
Introducing Sally Ann Matthews as Patricia in Here & Now
Produced by Steps, the London dance-pop group with 14 consecutive top five hits to their name since 1997, Here & Now weaves those songs into Shaun Kitchener’s story of supermarket worker Caz and her fabulous friends dreaming of the perfect summer of love.
However, when Caz discovers her “happy ever after” is a lie, and the gang’s attempts at romance are a total tragedy, they wonder whether love will ever get a hold on their hearts? Or should they all just take a chance on a happy ending?
“The best way to describe it is it’s like Mamma Mia!, but with Steps songs, rather than Abba,” says Sally Ann. “It’s about love, life and loss, with the Steps songs feeding the storytelling parts beautifully – and it’s really funny as well.”
That means comedy and, of course, Tragedy, the Bee Gees cover so synonymous with Steps. “We use it as a war cry at the start of Act Two,” says Sally Ann.
“These characters have real heart and you really invest in their journey – and it’s like a panto because there’s a villain too, though I don’t want to give anything away about that.”
Tooled with such Steps favourites as Tragedy, Heartbeat, Stomp, One For Sorrow, Better Best Forgotten, 5,6,7,8, Last Thing On My Mind, Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart and Chain Reaction, Here & Now appeals to every demographic, reckons Sally Ann.
“We have older, retired couples there; then we have youngsters, like my great-nephew, aged six, who’s coming to the show; there are a lots of groups of girls and mums on a Prosecco trip, all dancing away, and then there are lots of men who love Steps,” she says.
“I’ve been to three Steps concerts, where it’s very inclusive and very safe, everybody coming together because there’s such a love of Steps – and this show is the same. After the curtain call, there’s a ten-minute mega-mix, where everyone’s on their feet.”
Sally Ann Matthews’ Patricia and Lara Denning’s Caz in Here & Now. Picture: Danny Kaan
Sally Ann has been struck by the high quality of the touring show and the demands on the cast to be at their best. “We have a resident director with us on tour, so every day we have notes from the director, the dance captain and the musical director to keep up in check. It’s a really tight show,” she says.
“It looks stunning too: a simple set, but so effective, beautifully lit, and the costumes are out of this world, with everyone working so hard for all the quick changes.”
Ironically, Sally Ann’s character has only one costume. “Though I do get to wear a pink pleather coat with fur collar,” she says. “It’s rather fabulous, with a scarf underneath that you only see a little of – but it’s a Dior scarf. There’s been no expense spared in this show.”
Sally Ann is best known for playing Jenny Bradley in Coronation Street, first from 1986 to 1991, then a brief return in 1993 before coming back as a regular from 2015 to 2025.
How did she feel when she recorded her final episode last autumn? “By that point, I felt excited for what was next,” she says. “I’d had a very, very fortunate time, starting my career at 15, then had a long gap when I went off and learnt my trade on stage and had my children as well – they’re 27 and 25 now.
“When I went back in 2015, it was supposed to be a short stint, but when they asked me to stay, I did. But there came a time when Jenny lost the love of her life three times in three years – Johnny in 2021, Leo in 2022 and Stephen, the serial killer, in 2023. Three years on the trot!
“It kind of got to the point where other actors were saying, ‘please don’t put me with her’ – and she’d been held up at gunpoint four times at the Rovers. It kind of felt like a natural end when it came. Jenny had been through so much, she needed a break.”
Here & Now, The Steps Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 10 to 15, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday and Saturday, 2.30pm; Sunday, 3pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kym Marsh’s Hedy clasps Lisa Faulkner’s Allie in Rebecca Reid’s stage adaptation of A Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
HERE comes Single White Female at the double.
Journalist, author and writer Rebecca Reid’s new stage adaptation is not so much a doppelganger, in the style of Hedra’s identity thief, but a new spin on Swiss director Barbet Schroeder’s 1992 film and John Lutz’s 1990 source novel, SWF Seeks Same. One, however, still equipped with stilettos and a nerve-shredding elevator.
Correction, it is not an elevator, but a malfunctioning, screeching lift, as Reid has switched the location from Nineties’ New York apartment to an Elephant and Castle tower-block flat with dodgy lighting and electrics in the invasive social-media age of 2026 London.
No stranger to the kitchen from her 2010 Celebrity MasterChef victory, cookery books and YouTube channel with husband chef John Torode, Lisa Faulkner returns to the stage after a 21-year hiatus and finds herself standing behind the island on Morgan Large’s open-plan set.
Lisa Faulkner in her first stage role in 21 years as London divorced mum and tech start-up boss Alliein Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
Two doors lead to neighbouring bedrooms, a third to the lift, and, out of view, is the doorway to Faulkner’s divorced mum Allie’s bedroom. A glass panel gives views of a less-than-beautiful London skyline.
Large’s rectangular design is framed by Jason Taylor’s lighting, sparking on and off in blues and reds that pick out the eerie shape of a children’s cot above, accompanied by a child’s cries and echoing screams.
The misbehaving electrics, lift and lighting are matched at the outset by gremlins in Max Pappenheim’s sound design that thankfully dissipate as Tuesday’s press night progresses. The overall effect is deliberately unnerving, whether screeches, clunks, cries or sparks spitting from plugs, complemented by amusingly discordant slabs of musical discharge (even an instrumental segment from Radiohead’s Creep).
Single White Female’s Allie and Hedy (Kym Marsh) are no longer in their late 20s/early 30s. Allie has a 15-year-old daughter, surly Bella (Amy Snudden), who is starting at a new school, and already consigned to the role of bullied misfit, after tech start-up boss Allie is found a new home by business partner Graham (Andro) in his tower block.
Amy Snudden’s troubled teenager Bella and Lisa Faulkner’s mum Allie in Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
To make ends meet, Allie advertises for a flatmate (on social media of course). Fashion photographer Hedy replies, moves in and takes over the cooking, building bonds with Bella. Graham, buoyed by acquiring a new boyfriend through Grinder, keeps popping in, as does Allie’s “reformed” alcoholic ex-husband Sam (Jonny McGarrity), whose bond with daughter Bella remains strong, even if access is restricted.
Piece by piece, flash of light by flash of light, we learn of Hedy’s past, her loss of a child, spoiler alert, to cot death, and so Marsh portrays a more complex character than either Jennifer Jason Leigh’s film portrayal or indeed Marsh’s more openly villainous Cruella De Vil on her last visit to the Grand Opera House in 101 Dalmatians The Musical in November 2024.
Manipulation of social media and mobile phones is now Hedy’s weapon of choice, whether impersonating Allie on phone calls to the errant Bella’s school, tampering with Graham’s Grinder account or using her photographic training to help Bella to send a compromising A1-doctored post.
Reid’s script is snappy, witty, darkly humorous, surprising, suspenseful and up with the zeitgeist. If you have never heard the expression “situationship” before, as playground argot for “relationship”, you will here.
Seeing double: Jonny McGarrity’s Sam encounters Kym Marsh’s blonde Hedy in Allie’s dress in Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
Reid riffs on Schroeder’s film, but makes those tropes her own, whether the startling lift noises, or the notorious stiletto when Marsh’s Hedy gives Sam a right eyeful as director Gordon Greenberg turns up the schlock horror without reaching for the histrionics.
Marsh, fresh from her tyrannical Beverley in Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party at Manchester’s Royal Academy, is terrific and, yes, ultimately terrifying as Hedy, never resorting to melodrama, but calculated, desperate and consumed by grief, jealousy and finally uncontrolled rage.
In a parallel story arc, the equally impressive Sneddon’s troubled teenager descends into her own darkness with terrible consequences, warped by the machinations of electronic messaging and bullying.
Faulkner’s enervated Allie, Andro’s amenable Graham and McGarrity’s pliable Sam all contribute to the rising tide of tension emanating from Greenberg and Reid’s stylish, steely, stiletto-sharp psychological thriller. Book now, but don’t wear stilettos.
Single White Female, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Lisa Faulkner’s tech company boss Allie and Andro’s business partner Graham in a nerve-shredding moment in Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
Two into one won’t go: Lisa Faulkner’s Allie, left, and Kym Marsh’s Hedy in Single White Female. Picture: Chris Bishop
AN update of a Nineties’ psychological thriller and a panto dame’s transformation into a dog top Charles Hutchinson’s cultural picks for early February and beyond.
World premiere tour of the week: Single White Female, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees today and Saturday
SCREEN actress, 2010 Celebrity MasterChef winner, TV presenter, chef and cookery book author Lisa Faulkner returns to the stage for the first time in 21 years in Rebecca Reid’s darkly humorous stage adaptation of psychological thriller Single White Female, now updated to the social-media age.
Faulkner’s recently divorced mum Allie is balancing being a single parent with the launch of her tech start-up. When she decides to advertise for a lodger to help make ends meet, Kym Marsh’s Hedy offers her a lifeline, but as their lives intertwine, boundaries blur and a seemingly perfect arrangement begins to unravel with chilling consequences. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Viking illumination: Colour & Light celebrates Eric Bloodaxe at York Castle Museum. Picture: David Harrison
Illumination launch of the week: Colour & Light, York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower, York, today to February 22, 6pm to 9pm
YORK BID is bringing Colour & Light back for 2026 on its biggest ever canvas. For the first time, two of York’s landmark buildings will be illuminated together when York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower become the combined canvas for a fully choreographed projection show, transforming the Eye of York.
Presented in partnership with York Museums Trust and English Heritage, the continuous, looped, ten-minute show will bring York’s historic characters to life in a family-friendly projection open to all for free; no ticket required.
Matt Tapp’s ‘Wild’ Bill Hickok and Helen Gallagher’s ‘Calamity’ Jane in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Calamity Jane
Musical of the week: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Calamity Jane, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
HELEN Gallagher’s tough talkin’, gun-totin’ heroine ‘Calamity’ Jane and Matt Tapp’s former peace-officer ‘Wild’ Bill Hickok lead director Sophie Cooke’s cast for Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster’s musical Calamity James.
Deadwood’s citizens are content with their ways of life: supporting their fort of soldiers and socialising at the beloved Golden Garter saloon. However, when a new face blows in from the Windy City to create a stir, friendships will be formed, long-time loyalties tested and perhaps even secret love revealed. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Alexander Flanagan Wright in Wright & Grainger’s Helios at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Ancient & modern drama of the week: Wright & Grainger in Helios, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
EASINGWOLD theatre-makers Alexander Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger begin their new partnership with Theatre@41 by re-visiting Helios, wherein a lad lives half way up a historic hill, a teenager is on a road trip to the city in a stolen car and a boy is driving a chariot, pulling the sun across the sky.
In Wright’s story of the sun god’s son, Helios transplants the Ancient Greek tale into a modern-day myth wound around the winding roads of rural England and into the everyday living of a towering city. “It’s a story about life, the invisible monuments we build to it, and the little things that leave big marks,” he says. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Robin Simpson in rehearsal for Catherine Dyson’s The Last Picture, premiering at York Theatre Royal Studio
Solo show of the week: The Last Picture, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow to February 14, except February 8, 7.45pm, plus Wednesday and Saturday 2pm matinees
ROBIN Simpson follows up his sixth season as York Theatre Royal’s pantomime dame by playing a dog in York Theatre Royal, ETT and An Tobar and Mull Theatre’s premiere of Catherine Dyson’s The Last Picture, directed by John R Wilkinson.
Imagine yourself in a theatre in 2026. Now picture yourself as a Year 9 student on a school trip, and then as a citizen of Europe in 1939 as history takes its darkest turn. While you imagine, emotional support dog Sam (Simpson’s character) will be by your side in a play about empathy – its power and limits and what it asks of us – built around a story of our shared past, present and the choices we face today. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Simeon Walker: Inviting his audience to gather around the piano at Helmsley Arts Centre
Pianist of the week: Simeon Walker, An Evening Around The Piano, Helmlsey Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
LEEDS modern classical pianist and composer Simeon Walker performs in Great Britain and Europe, while notching 50 million streams across online platforms and having his music played on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.
Walker, who has a keen interest in jazz, folk and ambient music too, has collaborated on interdisciplinary work with artist Mary Griffiths, Portuguese choreographer Sara Afonso, writer Emma White and filmmakers Will Killen and Ben Cohen, plus BBC Radio 4 and University of Leeds. His concerts span moments of quiet, gentle solitude to boisterous, flowing exuberance. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Julie Carter: Addressing themes of feminism, land rights, ageism and ableism, history and literature in The Dreamtime Fellrunner
Wellbeing on the run: Julie Carter, The Dreamtime Fellrunner, Milton Rooms, Malton, February 12, 7.30pm
IN her first theatre show, poetry and creative non-fiction author Julie Carter charts her running exploits on the Lakeland fells in this moving and humorous account of being an athlete with a physical disability in the form of a developmental disease of the spine.
Presenting fell running as a type of land art and spiritual practice, Carter emphasises body-mind-spirit-place connections while addressing themes of feminism, land rights, ageism and ableism, history and literature, in a 60-minute immersive performance supported by original music, topped off by second-half opportunities for discussion and reflections on wellbeing and the ways we inhabit our environments. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Mark Stafford: Solo performance at the double in The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde at Helmsley Arts Centre
Split personality of the month: Mark Stafford in The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Helmsley Arts Centre, February 21, 7.30pm
PUBLISHED in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic mystery tale of the timeless conflict between good and evil is performed by Mark Stafford in his compelling and faithful adaptation.
In fog-bound Victorian London, respectable lawyer Gabriel Utterson is concerned by a strange clause in his friend Henry Jekyll’s will, whereupon he investigates the sinister Edward Hyde, Jekyll’s unlikely protégé. Convinced that Jekyll and Hyde’s relationship is founded on blackmail, Utterson finds the truth to be far worse than he could have ever imagined. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
The poster for Saturday’s EQUUS UK Film & Arts Fest’s day of equine films at Helmsley Arts Centre
In Focus: EQUUS UK Film & Arts Fest, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, Block 1, 12 noon to 2.16pm; Block 2, 3.30pm to 5.07pm; Block 3, 7pm to 9.45pm
HELMSLEY Arts Centre, in collaboration with Ryedale Bridleways Group, presents the first British screening of the EQUUS UK Film & Arts Festival this weekend.
Founded in 2013 by Illinois equestrian Lisa Diersen, who has spent her life in the company of horses, EQUUS aims to show the world how horses can bring everyone together regardless of race, age, gender, abilities or disabilities.
Saturday’s event comprises two afternoon blocks of short films, exhibitions from Ryedale artists and an evening showing of the 96-minute feature film Big Star, The Nick Skelton Story.
Showing from 12 noon will be Horse & Human Connection, featuring Wings Of Angels, Healing Horses In Mongolia, Heart Of Compton and My Life Between The Reins.
The Wild Horse Collection, from 3.30pm, presents American Mustang (music video), Wild Heart Mustang Book Project, Wild Horse Refuge “Dahtetse”, A Mustang Story promo, Okanagan Wild, Hellbent, Evoke and Renegade.
The Big Star Collections opens at 7pm with Healing In The Open, followed by Inside The In Gate and Unstable. After a 15-minute interval, Big Star will close the event.
Tickets for single blocks or the whole day are available on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk.
An equine photograph from Valerie Mather’s 2025 trip to the USA
AMONG the exhibitors at Saturday’s EQUUS UK Film & Arts Fest event will be Yorkshire lawyer-tuned- portrait, documentary and travel photographer Valerie Mather.
“After a successful career in law, I retired early to pursue a lifelong passion for photography,” she says. “I learned to ride (English style) as a child but was brought up watching Western movies on television and longed to see for myself the real cowboys and cowgirls of the American West.
“That dream came true in 2025 when I visited the United States and spent time at the McCullough Peaks wild horse area and the Shoshone National Forest ranchlands in Wyoming. “
Another of Valerie Mather’s McCullough Peaks photographs on show at Helmsley Arts Centre on Saturday
Did you know?
RYEDALE Bridleways Group (RBG) covers the Ryedale district and North York Moors National Park. Activities include fundraising events, such as equestrian talks and films. RBG works with local authorities to seek to resolve issues on bridleways and Countryside Access Service Unsurfaced Unclassified Roads, as well as carrying outpractical work such as bridleway clearances and surveys.
