More Things To Do in York to celebrate losing an hour’s lie-in tonight. Clock in to List No. 75, courtesy of The Press, York

Quick step: Jake Quickenden as dancing cowboy Willard in Footloose The Musical at York Theatre Royal

FROM Holding Out For A Hero to Search For The Hero, Charles Hutchinson is on a quest to find heroic deeds and much else to entertain you.

Musical of the week: Footloose at York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday

DANCING On Ice champ Jake Quickenden rides into York as cowboy Willard and musicals stalwart Darren Day plays Reverend Moore in Racky Plews’s touring production of Footloose The Musical.

Reprising the 1984 film’s storyline, teenage city boy Ren is forced to move to the rural American backwater of Bomont, where dancing and rock music are banned. Taking matters into his own hands, soon he has all hell breaking loose around him and the whole town on its feet. 

The set design, by the way, is by Sara Perks, who designed York Theatre Royal’s open-air show Around The World In 80 Days last summer and Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in York. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Reunited: EastEnders soap stars Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in the chilling thriller Looking Good Dead

Thriller of the week: Looking Good Dead, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday

AFTER playing bickering husband and wife Ian and Jane Beale in EastEnders for years and years, Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett are re-uniting, this time on stage in Shaun McKenna’s stage adaptation of Peter James’s thriller Looking Good Dead.

No good deed goes unpunished in this story of Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently witnessing a vicious murder, only hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick.

Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to face while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryces’ lives. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Writer, journalist and historian Simon Jenkins: Appearing at York Literature Festival

Festival event of the week: York Literature Festival presents Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals with Simon Jenkins, St Peter’s School, Clifton, York, tonight, 7pm

FOR Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals, former editor of the Evening Standard and The Times Simon Jenkins has travelled the continent, from Chartres to York, Cologne to Florence, Toledo to Moscow, to illuminate old favourites and highlight new discoveries.

Tonight he discusses the book’s exploration of Europe’s history, the central role of cathedrals in the European imagination and the stories behind these wonders. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk.

That Old Devil Moon, by Richard Kitchen, from Navigators Art’s Moving Pictures exhibition at City Screen Picturehouse

Exhibition of the week: Navigators Art in Moving Pictures, City Screen Picturehouse café and first-floor gallery, until April 15

FROM December’s ashes of the Piccadilly Pop Up Collective studios and gallery in the old York tax office, Navigators Art have re-emerged for a spring exhibition at City Screen.

For their first post-lockdown project, founder Navigators Steve Beadle and Richard Kitchen have invited fellow artist and teacher Timothy Morrison to join them for Moving Pictures: From Fan Art To Fine Art.

“The title is deliberately ambiguous, and we’ve responded to it accordingly,” says Richard. “There are works that relate to cinema and other media but also many of which interpret ‘Moving’ in other ways.”

BC Camplight: Examining madness and loss at The Crescent, York

Rearranged York gig of the week: BC Camplight, supported by Wesley Gonzales, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

MOVED from March 10, BC Camplight’s gig in York highlights the final chapter of his “Manchester trilogy”, Shortly After Takeoff.

“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says BC, full name Brian Christinzio. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”

Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff follows 2018’s Deportation Blues and 2015’s How To Die In The North in responding to BC’s move from his native Philadelphian to Manchester. Cue singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and Fifties’ rock’n’roll. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps and George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

York premiere of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 1 to 9

LEE Hall’s 2014 stage adaptation of Shakespeare In Love, the Oscar-winning film written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, celebrates the joys of theatre in Pick Me Up’s first show of 2022.

Directed by Mark Hird, it recounts the love story of struggling young playwright Will Shakespeare (George Stagnell) and feisty, free-thinking noblewoman Viola de Lesseps (Sanna Jeppsson), who helps him overcome writer’s block and becomes his muse.

Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola blossoms, inspiring him to write Romeo And Juliet. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Heather Small: Proud moment at York Barbican

Voice of the week: Heather Small, York Barbican, April 2, 7.30pm

BILLED as “The voice of M People”, soul singer Heather Small will be combining songs from her Nineties’ Manchester band with selections from her two solo albums.

As part of M People, she chalked up hits and awards with Moving On Up, One Night In Heaven and Search For The Hero and the albums Elegant Slumming, Bizarre Fruit and Fresco. The title track of her Proud album has since become a staple at multiple ceremonies.

At 57, she will never be one to rest on her laurels: “If you got the feeling I do when I sing, you’d understand,” she reasons. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Steven Jobson (Jekyll/Hyde) gets to grips with Matthew Ainsworth (Simon Stride) in rehearsals as York Musical Theatre Company director Matthew Clare looks on

Book early for: York Musical Theatre Company in Jekyll & Hyde The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, May 25 to 28

FLOOR rehearsals are well under way for York Musical Theatre Company’s spring production under the direction of Matthew Clare, who is delighted by how the cast is responding and supporting each other.

The epic struggle between good and evil in Jekyll & Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of myth and mystery on London’s fog-bound streets, comes to stage life in Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s pop-rock musical, where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn.

YMTC are running an early bird discount ticket offer with the promo code of JEKYLL22HYDE when booking at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk by April 10.

To Beale or not to Beale? What Adam Woodyatt’s doing away from EastEnders

Re-united: Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett go from husband and wife in EastEnders to husband and wife in Looking Good Dead

SOAP icon Adam Woodyatt, EastEnders’ longest-serving cast member, has taken to the stage in a play for the first time in 40 years.

After playing Ian Beale in the BBC series since 1985 – or about 1748, as he jokes – Adam is starring as Tom Bryce in Shaun McKenna’s world-premiere stage adaptation of Peter James’s crime thriller Looking Good Dead.

His next port of call from Tuesday will be the Grand Opera House, in York, in the wake of earlier conversions from page to stage of James’s Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, The Perfect Murder and Dead Simple.

Welcome to York, Adam. “I was there last April actually, because I came up to see a friend. First time I’d been there,” he says. “What a lovely city…but sort your roadworks out!

“I went and did some cycling up there on the trans-Pennine route, and I went out and found some lovely woods over to the east of York. Really enjoyed it.”

Adam, 53, is on the second leg of a tour that began last July. “It’s been a lot of fun and we’re still having a lot of laughs,” he says. “You do always get a lot of dark humour out of situations in thrillers!

“As we’ve discovered, people laugh at the weirdest things. We’ll be thinking we’ll get a laugh out of them for something, then we don’t, but then they’ll laugh at something else and you think, ‘they laughed at that?’.”

No good deed goes unpunished in Looking Good Dead, where, hours after finding a discarded USB memory stick, Woodyatt’s Tom Bryce inadvertently becomes a witness to a vicious murder.

Reporting the crime to the police has disastrous consequences, placing him and his family in grave danger. When Detective Superintendent Roy Grace becomes involved, he has his own demons to contend with, while he tries to crack the case in time to save the Bryce family’s lives.

“Tom is a husband, a father, a businessman. It’s a very normal family unit,” says Adam. “The rowing husband and wife! The stroppy teenager! Everyone will be able to identity with that!

“When Tom finds the USB memory stick and tries to do a good deed, it sets off a chain of trouble for him.”

Cue the combination of dark humour and Peter James’s trademark thriller tension. “If you’ve got a comic on stage, he looks for laughs. In this show we’re trying to get gasps, the shock factor, and we do that,” says Adam.

Touching moment: Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett in Looking Good Dead

One component has changed since the first leg: Woodyatt is now playing opposite Laurie Brett, who just happened to play wife Jane to his Ian in the bickering Beale couple in EastEnders. “Gaynor Faye did the first leg up until November, but then she had another gig booked, and so Laurie has come in and she’s been brilliant to have in the show,” says Adam.

“It was great working with Gaynor, but there’s no denying there’s a connection with Laurie [who played long-suffering wife Jane from 2004 to 2017 in EastEnders]. Like when she looked in my eyes on stage as if to say, ‘well, that isn’t in the script’ when I’ve said my line!”

Adam recalls last being in a stage play in 1981. “It was On The Razzle at the National Theatre. Yes, I did have a career before soap – though I did start so young in EastEnders. I joined Sylvia Young’s [theatre school] at the age of nine in 1972 and I worked constantly until joining EastEnders in 1984 before the show opened in February 1985,” he says.

Adam, who was honoured in 2013 with the Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2015 with Best Actor at the British Soap Awards, has not cut his ties with the soap. “I haven’t left yet!” he protests.

Ah, but will he be back? “Look, it’s too many things. It isn’t just my decision. It’s their decision too. But there was never a case of ‘I’m leaving’ or ‘You’re leaving’. I just wanted to go off and do this play,” Adam explains.

“I fancied doing something different. Shane Ritchie said how much he’d enjoyed doing Peter James’s Not Dead Enough and The Perfect Murder. I’d looked at the possibility of doing The House On Cold Hill, and then this opportunity came up.”

Adam notes one contrast between working on stage and the small screen. “If you work in TV, you won’t find out if people like it until later, whereas in the theatre, the reaction is immediate,” he says.

“You don’t have a second take, so every show is slightly different, like when someone walks off stage before you deliver a line, or they use a slightly different intonation, or you do. That’s what makes every show unique – and I must admit I love it.

“We’ve had understudies throughout the tour [the ebb and flow of the actor’s Lateral Flow Test life in Covid times], and each actor’s tone or pace can be slightly different, so you have to react to that. That’s live theatre!”

EastEnders may be infamous for its suspenseful finale to each episode but Looking Good Dead has far more! “There are various cliffhanger moments throughout this play.  Several you can see coming; some you can’t. It’s fast paced; it’s entertaining. It’s like watching telly for two hours, but on a much wider screen!” says Adam.

Does he have unfulfilled stage ambitions? “I’ve done panto – the last one was at Swindon in 2019 – and it tends to be the more comical baddie that I play, there to have a laugh,” he says. “I keep offering to play dame, and one of these days, I hope they say ‘yes’,” he says.

“Maybe I could play Ugly Sister first. I’ve got someone in mind to do it with before they retire!”

Looking Good Dead runs at Grand Opera House, York, from March 29 to April 2. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Copyright of The Press, York

REVIEW: Fishnet fever as The Rocky Horror Show returns to Grand Opera House, York

Suzy McAdam’s Magenta, Lauren Ingram’s Columbia, Haley Flaherty’s Janet Weiss, Ore Oduba’s Brad Majors and Kristian Lavercombe’s Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show. Picture: David Freeman

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

RICHARD O’Brien’s schlock-horror rock’n’roll musical comedy sextravaganza was let loose on an unsuspecting world on June 19 1973 at the 63-seat Theatre Upstairs in London.

Forty-nine years later, it has an undying cult status, one sustained in York on three-yearly pilgrimages to the Grand Opera House, where it plays to gleefully reunited devotees and wide-eyed new converts alike, breathlessly keen to undergo their rites of passage at O’Brien’s fantastical freak show.

Judged solely as a piece of musical theatre, it has been surpassed by Rent, Spring Awakening and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, each better written and without the dip in quality of songs, momentum and storyline alike that nevertheless has never hindered Rocky Horror.

And yet, in our gender-fluid times, O’Brien’s musical has gained new wings with its themes of transvestism, freedom of self-determination and homosexuality, as well as the more timeless tropes of infidelity and loss of innocence.

Innocents abroad: Haley Flaherty and Ore Oduba as newly engaged Janet Weiss and Brad Majors. Picture: David Freeman

It does so with its tongue in its cheek, and everywhere else too, with its boldness in matters sexual and sartorial at odds with the global image of frigid, awkward, uptight Blighty, making it a kind of Weimar pantomime for adults.

Its story of a newly engaged, squeaky-clean American college couple, nerdy Brad Majors (Strictly champ Ore Oduba) and sweetheart Janet Weiss (Haley Flaherty) , losing their way in a storm and then their virginity under the seductive powers of castle-dwelling transvestite scientist, Dr Frank N Furter (Stephen Webb), is framed in a bravura send-up of horror and sci-fi B-movies, heightened by O’Brien’s raucous pastiche of Fifties’ rock’n’roll music.

In a show driven by song, set-piece, character and carnal pleasure, the plot can get away with being flimsy, with its unsubtle echoes of Frankenstein in Frank N Furter’s desire to create a new life in the form of the glitter-dusted, bodacious-bodied Rocky (Ben Westhead). What separates Rocky Horror from Rent, Spring Awakening and Priscilla is the glut of audience rituals that accompany performances.

In the city that loves to dress up for stag and hen parties and a Knavesmire day at the races, burlesque fancy dress is not only encouraged but pretty much obligatory, fishnets, pyjamas, Fifties’ waitress outfits and scientist coats, lipstick too, just as likely to be worn by men as women – and the ushers and usherettes too.

The Rocky Horror Show company at large on the 2022 tour

Rice, confetti, lighter flames and water pistols have been stripped from the audience’s repertoire of interjections by the safety mandarins, but now the lighters have made way for mobile phone torches, and the saucy shout-outs from the auditorium have become all the more prominent.

Indeed, they happen so much – usually orchestrated and time-honoured from shows past but still with room for the impromptu – that they are becoming like a procession. Oh, for some originality, please, York, in the off-the-cuff remarks, rather than inane crudity in the tradition of a drunken heckler.

To go with those audience customs is plenty of familiarity and continuity within the performing company – and indeed in the presence of Christopher Luscombe in the director’s chair once more for this typically swaggering production.

Kristian Lavercombe is clocking up his 2,000th performance as flesh-creeping servant Riff Raff on this tour; Haley Flaherty has plenty of mileage on her clock as prim prom queen-turned-minx Janet; Stephen Webb spun his “transsexual Transylvanian” Frank N Furter previously in York in 2019, and again he favours sensuality, grace and fruity decadence over camp excess.

Philip Franks: “Delicious devilry in his topical commentary”

The Narrator’s role – the lightning conductor to so much of the audience’s “scripted abuse” – has long been a celebrity vehicle, from the late Nicholas Parsons to comedian Steve Punt and the inevitable Stephen Fry. Now,  Royal Shakespeare Company actor, theatre director and television regular Philip Franks is renewing acquaintance with blue smoking jacket and fishnets for the 2022 tour.

He has the golden voice and unflappable air to the urbane manner born, coupled with a quick mind for acerbic retorts, a gift for mimicry and delicious devilry in his topical commentary, whether on Prince Andrew or when sending up Blood Brothers, the Liverpool musical soon to return to the Grand Opera House. He knows just when and how to indulge any over-excitable audience contributions, but the instincts, timing and flourishes of a circus ringmaster always keep him one step ahead.    

The pre-tour publicity has surrounded TV presenter Ore Oduba, whose Strictly Come Dancing triumph re-awakened his love for the stage from teenage days. After Teen Angel in Grease and Aaron Fox in Curtains, now he adds geeky American Brad Majors to his post-Strictly musical theatre repertoire. He sings with power, control and aplomb, applies just the right amount of caricature to his square character and looks the part in high heels, feather boas and underpants.

Bewildering to non-believers, like any cult, The Rocky Horror Show demands and rewards exuberant audience commitment from the Usherette’s first entrance, through Sweet Transvestite to The Time-Warp singalong finale, although a first-night altercation in the stalls was going too far over the top.  

Review by Charles Hutchinson

Ore Oduba: Highly entertaining in high heels in The Rocky Horror Show. Picture: Shaun Webb

   

More Things To Do in York and beyond the norm as horror shows and love stories beckon. List No. 73, courtesy of The Press

2,000 shows and counting: Kristian Lavercombe, as Riff Raff, far right, clocks up another milestone in The Rocky Horror Show on its return to York . Picture: David Freeman

LET’S do The Time Warp again? It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to right, to enjoy plenty more of Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations.

Fancy dress invitation of the week: Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday

KRISTIAN Lavercombe celebrates his 2,000th performance as Riff Raff as Richard O’Brien’s 1973 musical extravaganza enjoys yet another York run.

Alongside Lavercombe in Christopher Luscombe’s touring production will be 2016 Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba as preppy college nerd Brad Majors, Haley Flaherty as squeaky-clean fiancée Janet Weiss and Stephen Webb as castle-dwelling Transylvanian transsexual doctor Frank-N-Furter.

Cue fabulously camp fun and even camper costumes, shlock-horror comedy and science-fiction send-ups, audiences in fancy dress and sassy songs such as Sweet Transvestite, Science Fiction/Double Feature and The Time-Warp singalong. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

New Beverly Cinema, by Imogen Hawgood, at According To McGee, York

Exhibition launch of the week: Imogen Hawgood and Horace Panter, Hyperrealism in America and Japan, at According To McGee, Tower Street, York, from 11am today until March 25

NEW According To McGee signing Imogen Hawgood, from County Durham, introduces her collection of realist paintings in a duo show with Pop artist and Ska legend Horace Panter, The Specials’ bassist.

Panter’s Edward Hopper-inspired depictions of Midwest motels, inner-lit Japanese kiosks and sun-warmed Coca-Cola crates complement Hawgood’s exploration of Americana icons and the idea of “the road” as a transitional landscape.

The vampire strikes back: Steve Steinman’s Baron von Rockula with his vampettes in Vampires Rock – Ghost Story

Rock horror show: Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock – Ghost Train, Grand Opera House, York, tonight (12/3/2022), 7.30pm

NOTTINGHAM singer and producer Steve Steinman returns to York with his tongue-in-cheek show stacked high with rock anthems, guitar gods and vampy vampettes.

Steinman’s Baron von Rockula and his vampires take refuge in an old fairground’s ghost train as he seeks a new virginial wife after the death of his beloved Pandora. Ordering faithful sidekick Bosley to find him one, enter Roxy Honeybox.

Now in its 20th year, Vampires Rock sets a cast of singers, dancers and musicians loose on Queen, AC/DC, Bonnie Tyler, Meat Loaf, Bon Jovi, Journey and Guns N’ Roses chestnuts. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Glenn Tilbrook: Squeezing in hit after hit at The Crescent

York gig of the week: Glenn Tilbrook, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

THIS is a standing show…and an outstanding one too as endearing and enduring Deptford singer, songwriter, guitarist and troubadour Glenn Tilbrook makes his debut appearance at The Crescent.

More than 45 years after he first answered an ad placed by Chris Difford looking for like-minded sorts to form the band that became the evergreen Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight, even if he called his fourth solo album Happy Ending in 2014. Expect silver-tongued Squeeze and solo numbers, peppered with audience requests, tomorrow night.

Squeeze up, by the way, because this Gig Cartel-promoted gig has sold out. Fingers crossed for any returns (www.thecrescentyork.com), but otherwise you’re really up the junction for a ticket.

Alexander McCall Smith: Delving into his books at York Theatre Royal

Literary event of the week: Alexander McCall Smith, York Theatre Royal, Monday, 7.30pm

YORK Literature Festival plays host to Alexander McCall Smith as he discusses the new instalment in his long-running Scotland Street series, the warm-hearted, humorous and wise Love In The Time Of Bertie.

Fiona Lindsay pops the questions, intertwined with footage shot on location in Edinburgh, wherein McCall Smith invites guests into his study, where he writes surrounded by paintings and books, and visits key landmarks from the books.

The festival follows from March 18 to 27 with full details at yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

NOT Thu 17 March 2022 after all: It’s different for Joe Jackson now as York gig moves to the summer

Postponement of the week: Joe Jackson, Sing, You Sinners! Tour, York Barbican, moving from March 17 to July 29

BLAME Covid for this delay to only the second ever York concert of singer, songwriter and consummate arranger Joe Jackson’s 44-year career.

“After months of uncertainty, it finally became clear that continuing Covid restrictions (particularly on venue capacity) in certain countries, would make our Spring European Tour un-viable as planned,” says Jackson’s official statement. “We can’t tour at a loss, and the situation did not look like changing soon enough.”

Tickets remain valid for the new July 29 date when Jackson promises hits, songs not aired in years and new material. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Sam Freeman: Thirty years of love burst out of his storytelling show in Harrogate and York

Storytelling show of the week: Sam Freeman, Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention), Cold Bath Brewery Co Clubhouse, Harrogate, Monday, 7.30pm; York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm

FORMER York Theatre Royal marketing officer and 2009 TakeOver Festival co-director Sam Freeman heads back to his old stamping ground with his solo rom-com for the lonely hearted and the loved-up, armed with a projector, a notebook, wonky spectacles and nods to Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill.

Freeman, marketeer, occasional writer, director and stand-up comedian, combines storytelling and whimsical northern comedy in his multi-layered story of a chance encounter between two soulmates, how they fall in love, then part but may meet again. Box office: Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

For Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers’ interview with podcast special guest Sam Freeman, head to the Two Big Egos In A Small Car listening link at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10231399.

Off to the woods: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It

Shaking up Shakespeare: Northern Broadsides in As You Like It, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Tuesday to Saturday; York Theatre Royal, March 23 to 26

MARKING Northern Broadsides’ 30th anniversary, artistic director Laurie Sansom’s diverse cast of 12 northern actors captures the “sheer joy of live performance and the crazy power of love to change the world” in his bold, refreshing take on Shakespeare’s most musical comedy.

Exiled from the court, high-spirited Rosalind, devoted cousin Celia and drag queen Touchstone encounter outlaws, changing seasons and life unconfined by rigid codes in the forest.

Gender roles dissolve and assumptions are turned on their head in a natural world of endless possibilities. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Lola May as daughter Aramide, Oyi Oriya as mother Omotola and Anni Domingo as grandmother Agbeke in Utopia Theatre’s Here’s What She Said To Me

Touring show of the week: Utopia Theatre in Here’s What She Said To Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Thursday and Friday, 7.45pm

MEET Agbeke, Omotola and Aramide, three generations of proud African women connecting with each other across two continents, time and space, in Oladipo Agboluaje’s distaff drama, conceived and directed by York St John University graduate Mojisola Elufowoju.

Together the women share their struggles, their joys, tragedies and broken dreams, in order to find healing in the present. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Strictly dance star Johannes Radebe finds Freedom at last in debut solo tour show

FREEDOM. What better title could South African dancer and ground-breaking Strictly Come Dancing star Johannes Radebe give his debut British tour.

“It is the freedom to dance to my own tune for the first time,” says 34-year-old Johannes, ahead of his itinerary opening with a Yorkshire show at Bridlington Spa on Wednesday (16/3/2022) before playing the Grand Opera House, York, on April 12.

“I’ve danced in many productions around the world but I’ve never been able to capture on stage where I came from, and I never thought I’d be able to go on my own tour, so it’s a very welcome surprise.”

Radebe (pronounced Ra-dee-bay) was catapulted to new heights of popularity by bonding so exhilaratingly with 2012’s The Great British Bake Off winner and TV chef John Waite as the first all-male couple in 2021’s series of Strictly, pipped for the Glitterball by first deaf contestant Rose Ayling-Ellis and professional partner Giovanni Pernice.

“It was liberating and healing as well,” says Johannes. “I’ve got a better relationship with my mum now, as we can talk about my sexual orientation – and people’s lives have changed for the better too.

“In a world where two men still can’t be free to be  together, I hope to be able to educate the masses, and if people had a glimpse of that with me and John dancing together, then they can think about it.”

Such was the appeal and dancing brio of both partnerships, each marking a first for Strictly, that many would have loved them to have been declared first equal. “I’m with you!” says Johannes, bursting into laughter. “John kept saying, ‘it’s fine if we don’t win’, and yes, it is s fine! At the finale, we both stood there as couples thinking ‘it’s fine’. That’s the friendship that comes through the show.”

After touring the world in Burn The Floor, Joahannes was head-hunted to join the Strictly professionals for the 2018 series, first moving to Britain that year. In his second season, when partnering Catherine Tyldesley in 2019, he danced the first same-sex routine with fellow Strictly pro Graziano Di Prima.

The tour poster for Johannes Radebe’s Freedom show

Last year was to be even more significant. “My decision to finally dance with another man in the competition came about after I lost a friend of mine within our community. He was murdered, and the last words that were uttered to him by his killer was that he was a ‘faggot’,” says Johannes.

He paused, consumed again by the pain of what his friend had suffered, then said: “I get a moment to highlight it in the show. This is something that needs to be done, to give it that platform, and it’s important to keep being flamboyant – but that does require bravery.”

Freedom marks Johannes’s return to the Grand Opera House for the first time since sharing the York stage with Strictly alumni Kevin Clifton and Graziano Di Prima in Burn The Floor in July 2019.

On tour from March 16 to May 1, Johannes Radebe: Freedom is billed as “a celebration of music and dance, from African fusion to fiery Latin, from classic dance arrangements to huge party anthems”, as Radebe and his dancers take the audience on his personal journey, from starting to dance at seven to leaving South Africa at 21 to travel the world, winning international titles and electrifying Strictly Come Dancing.

Now he will be expressing himself to the full in Freedom. “I’ve been on a quest to find Black dancers in this country that are versed in all dance styles, but not many of them are ballroom dancers, whereas where I come from everyone can do the Cha-cha-cha,” says Johannes.

“I’ve chosen everyone through auditions. I had to be in the room to feel their energy, to see if they move me as a dancer, so I’ve found beautiful, individual dancers, which will make it feel a different show.

“It’s a show designed to be representing everyone, and it will be so beautiful to have audiences that support our artform – and I know we have that privilege because of the Strictly audience.”

Johannes has a theory as to why dance and TV audiences feel such a strong connection with him. “It’s because I have no inhibitions. I know that I come alive when I dance. Something takes over. It’s a feeling as an artist that I can’t explain but people connect with it,” he says.

In a nutshell, Freedom. “Absolutely! Nothing is going to stop me. It’s about the joy that my dancing has brought to my mother. Nothing was more important to me than to see my mum be happy when often she would be sad,” says Johannes.

“I was only a child and so I didn’t understand the magnitude of it when she carried me on her back, telling everyone I’d got a prize in a dance competition. She was so proud, even though it wasn’t first place. But that’s the thing. That talent was nurtured from a young age, and though my mum couldn’t support it financially, everyone else contributed.”

Johannes Radebe’s pathway to Freedom was set in perpetual motion, and hopefully another Strictly series awaits too. “We haven’t had the phone-calls yet, but I’ll gladly do it for as long as they will have me,” he says.

Might he look to do another all-male coupling? “Well, you never now. I’m just glad to have kicked down that door.”

Johannes Radebe: Freedom, Bridlington Spa, Wednesday, 7.30pm; Grand Opera House, York, April 12, 7.30pm. Box office: Bridlington, 01262 678258 or bridspa.com; York, 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York. Further Yorkshire performances: Sheffield City Hall, April 3, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk; Bradford St George’s Hall, April 9, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Hull City Hall, April 23, 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

More Things To Do in York and beyond as Bloosmbury sets in for spring gallery run. List No. 72, courtesy of The Press, York

Fan-tasia : Becky Gee, curator of fine art at York Museums Trust, at the Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham

FROM an ice trail to Spring Awakening, a very happy pig in mud to sibling rivalry in a salon, Charles Hutchinson points you in the right direction for days and nights out.

Exhibition opening of the week: Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love & Legacy, York Art Gallery, until June 5

YORK Art Gallery’s spring exhibition, in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery and Sheffield Museums, explores the lives and work of the extraordinary Bloomsbury writers, artists and thinkers.

Active in England in the first half of the 20th century, they included the writer and feminist pioneer Virginia Woolf and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, as key figures.

On show are more than 60 major loans of oil paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs by Bell, Dora Carrington, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Gwen Raverat and Ray Strachey, plus four commissions from Sahara Longe, painted in response to the Bloomsbury legacy, and Bloomsbury-inspired murals and fireplaces designed by graphic artist Lydia Caprani. 

York Ice Trail: Thrills in chills this weekend

Spectacle of the week: York Ice Trail, today and tomorrow

MAKE IT York and Visit York invite you to “pack your suitcase, grab your passport and embark on a journey around the world” in the return of the York Ice Trail.

Sculptures of solid ice await discovery at 43 locations this weekend, inspired by international cultures and a love of travel. Live carving is promised too.

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the National Railway Museum has withdrawn its Faberge’s Trans-Siberian Railway Egg in Low Petergate, but a newly added ice sculpture in support of Ukraine will be on display in St Helen’s Square.

Giovanni Pernice: This is him in This Is Me!, on tour at York Barbican on Wednesday

Dance show of the week: Giovanni Pernice: This Is Me!, York Barbican,  7.30pm

AFTER partnering Rose Ayling-Ellis to Glitterball Trophy success in the 2021 series of Strictly Come Dancing, Giovanni Pernice pays homage to the music and dances that inspired his journey from competition dancer to television favourite.

“I just want to try and do something different, something that you haven’t seen before,” says Sicilian stallion Pernice, 31. “I want to challenge myself and show off my hidden talents.” Cue ballroom and Latin dances and more besides. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Peppa Pig in her dressing room, awaiting her call for the Best Day Ever

Children’s show of the week: Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 1pm and 4pm; Thursday, 10am and 1pm

PEPPA Pig is so excited to be heading off on a special day out with George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig in a road trip full of adventures, songs, games and laughter.

From castles to caves, dragons to dinosaurs, ice creams to the obligatory muddy puddles, there will be something for all the family to enjoy. Look out for Miss Rabbit, Mr Bull and Gerald Giraffe too on “the best day ever for Peppa Pig fans”. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Hair-larious: Buglight Theatre turn the Bronte sisters into salon stylists in Jane Hair

Salon appointment of the week : Buglight Theatre in Jane Hair: The Brontes Restyled, York Theatre Royal, Studio, Thursday, 7.45pm

SIBLING rivalry meets literary debate one explosive evening when stylists Anne, Emily and Charlotte Bronte cut, colour and style while sharing their hopes and dreams in Bradford’s most creative beauty salon.

Buglight Theatre writers Kirsty Smith and Kat Rose-Martin offer this chance to meet the modern-day versions of three determined young women from Yorkshire who set the literary world on fire. For returns only, ring 01904 623568.

Josh Liew and Amy Hawtin: Playing the leads, Melchior Gabor and Wendla Bergman, in Central Hall Musical Society’s Spring Awakening at Theatre@41

Musical of the week: Central Hall Musical Society in Spring Awakening, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7.30pm

CENTRAL Hall Musical Society (also known as CHMS, York), from the University of York, present Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater’s 2006 rock musical revamp of a once-banned Frank Wedekind play, directed by Abena Abban.

A group of teenagers in a small German village in 1891 find the oppressive structures upheld by their parents and teachers to be at odds with their own awakening sexuality.

Spring Awakening explores themes of sex, puberty, coming of age and a yearning for a more progressive future, refracting old-fashioned values through a 21st-century lens. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Le Navet Bete’s motley crew of pirates in Treasure Island at York Theatre Royal

Family show of the week; Le Navet Bete in Treasure Island, York Theatre Royal, Thursday, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm.

LAST in York last September to reveal a vampire’ secrets in Dracula: The Bloody Truth, physical comedy company Le Navet Bete now go in search of buried treasure in a swashbuckling family adventure, Treasure Island.

Peepolykus artistic director and writer John Nicholson directs a cast of four, playing 26 characters in a fresh take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale laced with contemporary comedic twists, tropical islands, an unusual motley crew of pirates, a parrot called Alexa (straight from the Amazon), a white-bearded fish finger tycoon and unforgettable mermaid.  Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

David Ford: Living in interesting times at Pocklington Arts Centre on Thursday

Gig of the week outside York: David Ford, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm

WHAT happens when you shut a creative force in a room for two years? The answer is a tornado blast of a new album from Eastbourne singer-songwriter David Ford documenting the tumultuous events of 2020 and 2021, as he charts the rise of Covid and fall of Trump, although both are still stubbornly refusing to go away.

Ford will air songs from the imminent May You Live In Interesting Times, along with compositions written in two days and recorded in one with American support act Annie Dressner. Look out for their six-track EP on sale at the Pock gig. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Ore Oduba in fishnets and high heels? Oh yes, as Strictly champ plays college nerd Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Show

Ore Oduba strikes a pose in the obligatory dress code for playing Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Show. Fishnets? Tick? High heels? Tick. Picture: Shaun Webb

ACTOR, presenter and 2016 Strictly winner Ore Oduba will be donning his fishnets in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show at the Grand Opera House, York, from March 14 to 19.

Delighted to be resuming his role as squeaky clean Brad Majors in Christopher Luscombe’s touring production from January to June, he says: “I’m so excited to be extending my stay with our amazing Rocky family. Truth is, when you know how it feels to wear a corset and heels, it’s very hard to take them off – at least it is in my case!

“It’s been a wild ride so far. This show is the perfect remedy to everything we’ve all been through. People want to laugh and be uplifted and to be able to forget about everything for a couple of hours. It’s all about ‘Leave your inhibitions at the door – we haven’t got time for that’.”

In O’Brien’s risqué and riotous 1973 sci-fi musical sextravaganaza, Oduba’s preppy Texas student Brad Majors and his college-sweetheart fiancée Janet Weiss (Haley Flaherty) inadvertently cross paths with mad scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter (Stephen Webb) and his outrageous Transylvanian coterie.

“I think there’s a lot of Brad in me and in a lot of people, ” says Ore Oduba

In a shock’n’roll sugar-rush of fruity frolics, frocks, frights and frivolity, Ore ends up in assorted states of undress. Previously seen on a Yorkshire musical theatre stage as swoon-inducing crooner Teen Angel in Grease, The Musical at Leeds Grand Theatre in July 2019, he signed up to play Brad from last summer, but not before he checked with his wife, television researcher Portia.

“It’s such an iconic show and so well loved, but I thought, ‘I wonder what my wife is going to say about audiences seeing me in stockings?’. I needn’t have worried because what I’d forgotten is that Rocky Horror is one of her and her family’s favourite shows of all time. She was beside herself!

“Then she started chuckling at the idea of me being on stage in just my briefs for the early part of the show, then coming out later in stockings and high heels.”

Ore’s nerdy Brad undergoes a spectacular shedding of inhibitions at the hands of Frank-N-Furter, “just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania” as he calls himself. 

Given how Ore has gone from studying sports and social sciences at Loughborough University to presenting on Newsround, BBC Breakfast, Radio 5 Live and The One Show, to dancing  to Glitterball success with Joanne Clifton on Strictly Come Dancing, to musical theatre roles as Teen Angel and songwriter Aaron Fox in Curtains in the West End, he can connect with Brad’s transformation.

Ore Oduba as Teen Angel in Grease at Leeds Grand Theatre in 2019. Picture: Antony Robling

“I think there’s a lot of Brad in me and in a lot of people,” he says. “It’s the idea of being kind of caged animals, because we all have a lot of reservations and inhibitions and things we hold back. We’re just waiting to be unleashed.”

Not that his Strictly sparkle and burst of musical theatre roles came out of the blue. At 13, he won the school drama prize for his performance in the musical Seven Golden Dragons. “Then at secondary school I did every production under the sun,” recalls Ore, now 36. “It was only when I went to university that I turned my attention to broadcasting, but Strictly reminded me ‘Oh my gosh, I love being on stage’.

“On the surface, doing musical theatre now might seem like a big change-up but when I look back to where I felt happiest and most comfortable when I was younger, it was always on stage. In many ways it’s kind of what I always wanted to do. After Grease and Curtains, Rocky Horror is another step up in my so-far short musical theatre career and a lovely chance for me to do something liberating, fun and a little bit different.”

Ore has taken performing the signature song-and-dance routine The Time Warp in his stride, after continuing to dance since his Strictly triumph, both in the BBC show’s tours and in musicals. “I took up tap dancing too, although my wife and I then decided to renovate the house and turn the garage I was practising in into a kitchen,” he says.

Preppy but unprepared for what lies in store at deliciously, devilishly deviant Dr Frank-N-Furter’s castle: Ore Oduba’s Brad Majors and Haley Flaherty’s Janet Weiss. Picture: David Freeman

“So, I no longer have my tap space. Blame it on the kitchen! But every time I get to do something involving choreography, it gets me as excited as I was when I did Strictly. I love it.”

Wearing fishnets and high heels is altogether more over the top than anything he sported in tandem with Joanne Clifton on Strictly. “We did wear Latin heels but they’re not as high as the ones I have to wear in Rocky Horror,” says Ore.

“I remember the first time I was asked to wear something a little bit sheer on Strictly and I thought, ‘I don’t want to be too much of a show pony, I want it to be about dancing’. But by the time it came to the end, I was like, ‘You can put me in whatever you want’.”

Cue Frank-N-Furter doing exactly that to Ore’s Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Show.

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show runs riot at Grand Opera House, York, from March 14 to 19; Monday to Thursday, 8pm; Friday, Saturday, 5.30pm and 8.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615. Fancy dress encouraged.

Copyright of The Press, York

More Things To Do in York and beyond, when Jason’s gig is but one good reason to go out. List No. 71, courtesy of The Press

Michael McIntyre: Road-testing new gags at the Grand Opera House, York

FROM McIntyre to Macbeth, two Aussies to an English celebration, a Ugandan story to a pioneering Welsh icon, Charles Hutchinson spreads his net wide.  

Talking point gig of the week: Michael McIntyre: Work In Progress, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 8pm

COMEDIAN Michael McIntyre will put new material to the test in a “York In Progress” show hastily arranged mid-month for February 28.

Tickets sold out within two hours of going on sale on February 15 for the 45-year-old Londoner’s latest dollops of observational comedy, wherein he turns everyday situations into outpourings of startled exasperation.

The jovial Big Show and The Wheel host previously played a three-night run of Work In Progress gigs at the Grand Opera House in July 2012. For returns only, 0844 871 7615.

Tachia Newall and Jessica Baglow in a masked rehearsal for their roles as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Leeds Playhouse

Play of the week outside York: Macbeth, Leeds Playhouse, tonight until March 19

DIRECTOR Amy Leach and designer Hayley Grindle have created a vibrant, raw and visceral vision of Shakespeare’s thrilling tragedy, Macbeth.

Tachia Newall plays the ambitious northern warrior, who does whatever it takes to gain power and, ultimately, the throne, propelled further into darkness by his wife, Jessica Baglow’s Lady Macbeth, whose hands bear witness to her own greed and corruption. Look out for York actress Ashleigh Wilder as one of the witches. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk.

She Drew The Gun: Songs decrying corruption, abuse and division at The Crescent, York

York indie gig of the week: She Drew The Gun, The Crescent, York, tonight, 7.30pm

PASSIONATE, principled, and refreshingly plain-spoken, proud socialist, feminist, bi-sexual mother of one Louisa Roach will not be cowed into silence.

As She Drew The Gun, the Wirral singer-songwriter uses punk-infused psych-pop as a vehicle for exposing injustice and for advocating a fairer and more tolerant society.

Written in lockdown and recorded at McCall Sound Studios in Sheffield, latest album Behave Myself decries corruption, abuse and the continued divisions between rich and poor that have only worsened in the pandemic. Annabel Allum supports. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Jason Donovan: So many reasons to celebrate his York Barbican concert

Third time lucky: Jason Donovan, Even More Good Reasons, York Barbican, Monday, 8pm

AFTER postponements in September 2020 and November 2021, Aussie heartthrob Jason Donovan’s 52-date tour to mark the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Ten Good Reasons, is finally happening. That anniversary actually passed as long ago as May 2019 on a faraway pre-pandemic planet!

“Having not done my own live shows for a while, I can’t wait to get out there again among my fans and deliver a new energetic show that is both personal, creative and reflective – something that is both nostalgic and just a good night out,” says the one-time Neighbours soap pin-up turned star of pop, stage musicals and theatre. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Writer-performer John Rwothomack in his one-man show Far Gone at York Theatre Royal Studio

Solo show of the week, John Rwothomack in Far Gone, York Theatre Royal Studio, Thursday and Friday, 7.45pm

WRITTEN and performed by John Rwothomack, Far Gone is set in northern Uganda, where Okumu’s village is attacked by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), changing Okumu and his brother’s lives forever.

The story of a young boy’s journey from childhood innocence to child soldier is seen through the eyes of those that love him and those that betray him, as presented by Ugandan-born, London-trained and Sheffield-based Rwothomack in his debut play as writer and performer, prompted by himself nearly being kidnapped by the LRA guerrilla rebel group.

He explores complex issues of war, religion and power, drawing on the contrast between his experiences as a child in Uganda and as a young black man in Britain, and how perceptions of “Africa” have affected his own narrative. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Tommy Emmanuel: Playing his best “Tommysongs” at the Grand Opera House, York

Guitar virtuoso of the week: Tommy Emmanuel, Grand Opera House, York, March 6, 8pm

LAST seen in Britain performing on the Transatlantic Sessions Tour, Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel returns for 13 dates in February and March with dobro master Jerry Douglas as his special guest.

Emmanuel, 66, who improvises big chunks of each concert, will be showcasing The Best Of Tommysongs, a double album of re-recordings of his best original songs from the past 30 years with new modern arrangements.

Angelina, Lewis & Clark, It’s Never Too Late, fan favourites Mombasa and Train To Dusseldorf and new compositions Fuel and Song For A Rainy Morning will be aired in York. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.

Simon Wright: Conducting York Guildhall Orchestra’s St George’s Day debut at the JoRo

Bring out the flags: York Guildhall Orchestra, St George’s Day Concert, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 23,7.30pm

YORK Guildhall Orchestra and conductor Simon Wright make their Joseph Rowntree Theatre debut with a celebration of patron saint St George in an evening of light music with the spotlight on English composers.

Expect a variety of favourite pieces alongside some lesser-known gems, but not a dragon in sight in this joyful springtime programme. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Going Underground: Velvet pioneer John Cale to play York Barbican at 80

Gig announcement of the week: John Cale, York Barbican, July 19

VELVET Underground icon John Cale will play York as the only Yorkshire gig of his seven-date summer tour, his first British itinerary in a decade, with tickets going on sale on Wednesday at 10am.

The Welsh multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, who turns 80 on March 9, will perform songs from a career that began in classical and avant-garde music before he formed The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed in New York in 1965.

Over six pioneering decades, Cale has released 16 solo studio albums, most recently M:Fans in 2016, while also collaborating with Brian Eno, Patti Smith, The Stooges, Squeeze, Happy Mondays, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Super Furry Animals and Manic Street Preachers. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Ed Gamble goes Electric for new tour show, playing five Yorkshire gigs. First up, York

Stand-up sits down: Ed Gamble takes a breather between shows

MOCK The Week regular panellist Ed Gamble will be in Electric form at the Grand Opera House, York, tonight and Harrogate Royal Hall tomorrow at 7.30pm.

Co-creator of the food and comedy podcast Off Menu with fellow stand-up James Acaster, Taskmaster winner and Great British Menu judge, Gamble says he is “charged up and ready to flick the switch on another round of attention-seeking.”

Gamble, who has appeared on QI, The Russell Howard Hour, Would I Lie To You? and  8 Out Of 10 Cats, presents a Sunday morning show on Radio X with Matthew Crosby and has his own special, Blood Sugar, available on Amazon Prime.

He will play further Yorkshire gigs on his Electric tour at Hull City Hall on March 25; Bradford St George’s Hall on April 7; Sheffield City Hall on April 19 and Leeds City Varieties on April 22.

Box office: York, 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York; Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Hull, hulltheatres.co.uk; Bradford, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Sheffield, ticketmaster.co.uk/event/35005AB2E2A62A3A; Leeds, leedsheritagetheatres.com.

What would you do if you found Bram Stoker’s original version of Dracula? James Gaddas wrote an obsessive one-man show

James Gaddas: Getting his teeth stuck into Dracula’s story

THIS is the story of Bad Girls, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks actor James Gaddas happening upon Bram Stoker’s original handwritten manuscript of Dracula.

He duly reads of strange encounters in the Count’s castle in Transylvania, his ghostly arrival on a ship of death off the coast of Whitby, his midnight seductions, and a heroic pursuit across Europe in a race against the setting of the sun.

So far, so familiar, but this document contains pages never published, leading Gaddas to a terrifying discovery, one that he shares with the Grand Opera House audience in York on Monday (21/2/2022) in his solo show Dracula – One Man’s Search For The Truth.

“What if everything we thought we knew was just the beginning? What if it’s not a work of fiction but a warning? What if the legend is real?” ponders James, who will bring the original version to life before sharing his discovery in a performance with one actor, 15 characters and one monumental decision. “Are some things better left unburied,” he must discern.

Are you telling the “truth” in this adaptation, James? “It’s more like Boris Johnson’s ‘truth’,” he says. “It’s conjecture. It’s a way of being able to do a one-man version of Dracula without just concentrating on the end.”

Born in Teesside, James recalls Dracula being the first horror film he saw when he was only 11. “I was staying with my grandparents,” he recalls. “I went to bed, but being typically adventurous, I tiptoed downstairs, turned on the telly, and there it was: Dracula, starring Peter Cushing.”

Gaddas, now 61, initially had the chance to appear in Dracula with a small-scale theatre company in Bath 40 years ago when training at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. “I was going to do it, but then I got offered work for my Equity Card, and there was nothing for me in doing Dracula as it was a non-Equity production,” he says.

The idea of doing his own Dracula show first came after watching programmes about searching for lost Second World War treasure. “You watch, knowing from the start they won’t find anything, and they still haven’t after an hour, with all those looks to the camera, but it made me think, ‘wouldn’t it be fascinating to find Stoker’s original version of Dracula?’.

Gaddas was duly asked to voice one of those “lost treasures” investigations into the roots of Stoker’s manuscript, taking him to Romania, where he travelled around Dracula country with a film crew and director in jeeps. “But then something goes wrong with the filming and we have to come back to England,” he says.

Whereupon he took up the role of abusive care-home worker Cormac Ranger in Hollyoaks, shooting episodes sporadically in 2020 and 2021. “I was doing Hollyoaks when lockdown started, so I was left kicking my heels and started looking further into the Stoker story, deciding to write my adaptation in lockdown in London,” says James.

“The idea is that Stoker had been asked by Van Helsing to put this genuine document in book form and I then take it upon myself to take up that story – and by trying to tell it like an investigative journalist, it allows you to play with how Stoker had everything flying around all over the place – the timelines, the newspaper cuttings, the journals – when he was writing the book.

The poster, blood-red writing and all, for James Gaddas’s Dracula – One Man’s Search For The Truth

“In my show, the search for the truth becomes an obsession, and that psychological side of a story is such a strong part of a solo show.”

Gaddas previously wrote a solo play in Australia in 1989 called Shadow Boxing. “It was about a gay boxer,” he says. “It came about when this actor, David Field, said, ‘write me a one-man show’, and his dad had been a boxer. That play was revived on an Arts Council tour over here two years ago.”

Gaddas knew what form his Dracula show should take. “Doing such a classic piece, I wanted to get away from just standing there enunciating the book,” he says. “We’ve come to the point where we expect Dracula to be a comedy, whereas really it isn’t. It’s much more like Nosferatu, rooted in Eastern European ideology, while playing with what happens to someone when sense ends and obsession begins. It’s that archetypal thing where an obsession can take over.”

He may be performing on his own, but he has an impressive production team that has created the show with him, led by director Pip Minnithorpe, UK associate director of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.

Illusion design is by John Bulleid, who provided the Olivier Award-winning illusions for The Worst Witch, and Deborah Radin has provided the movement direction.

The show’s original music is by composer and Downton Abbey and Ted Lasso actor Jeremy Swift. “I’ve known Jez since he was 11, when we were at school together,” says James.

“He’s always had a love of music, and we’d write songs together; he’d write the tunes, I’d write the lyrics. Anyway, we were on this walk on Hampstead Heath, when he said, ‘what are you doing in lockdown?’, and I told him I was writing a one-man play. ‘Would you like me to write the music?’ he said.”

Tomorrow, Gaddas will be playing no fewer than 15 characters. “It’s slightly easier than when I did Billy Bishop Goes To War, a [John MacLachlan Gray ] musical about a Canadian First World War flying ace, where I had to play 23 characters – and I didn’t get to choose those characters, but here, for Dracula, I could.”

As the interview draws to a close, Gaddas offers a final thought on Stoker’s sense of drama in his writing. “Today, he would probably have been writing episodes for Coronation Street,” he says. Imagine that.

James Gaddas in Dracula – One Man’s Search For The Truth, Grand Opera House, York, February 21, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.