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Doors shut, stage silent, but the Grand Opera House has a habit of bouncing back

The Grand Opera House sign for these Coronavirus lockdown days

TODAY is World Theatre Day, although the day-to-day world of theatre has ground to a shuddering halt, its stages silenced by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Nevertheless, today is still the chance to celebrate Shakespeare’s sentiment in As You Like It that “All the world’s a stage”.

Shakespeare’s Melancholy Jaques went on to mull over exits and entrances, how one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. Let’s turn that life model to theatre itself, and none more so than the Grand Opera House in York, a theatre, a building, a site, that has been through so many ages, so many stages, that seven would be an underestimate.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who appeared at the Empire Theatre, York, on March 22 1954

Its life before theatre can be traced back to 71AD as part of the Roman Quayside; 450AD, a nunnery; and Victorian days as a “sink or stew”, brothels, crowded slum housing, until the area was cleaned.

The Grand Opera House building in Cumberland Street began life as a Corn Exchange, designed in 1868 by architect G A Dean to double as a concert room, hence an ornate blue/vermillion/ gold gilding colour scheme.

Conversion to a 1,540-capacity theatre followed in 1901, undertaken by theatrical manager William Peacock, who presented the first performance at the Grand Theatre and Opera House, as it was first named, on January 20 1902 when Australian music hall entertainer Florrie Forde starred in Little Red Riding Hood.

The SS Empire, pictured in the 1970s. Note the Roller Skating sign

The 1916 introduction of the Amusement Tax was not amusing, putting all theatres at risk, but The Empire, as it was now known, survived. Charlie Chaplin, Gracie Fields, Lillie Langtry and Marie Lloyd played there; so too, later, did Vera Lynn, Laurel and Hardy, on their last tour, and Morecambe and Wise.

A huge rates increase in 1945 ruined the theatre, forcing Marie Blanche, Peacock’s daughter, to end 44 years of family ownership by selling it to F.J. Butterworth. Audiences declined against the competition of television, to the point where the theatre closed in 1956, blaming the “crippling entertainment tax, when TV pays no tax”.

Ernest Shepherd of Shambles acquired the theatre in 1958, duly adding the ‘S’ and ‘S’ to the Empire name, removing the stage and levelling the stalls floor for roller-skating, wrestling and bingo.

Special knight, special night: Sir Ian McKellen in Ian McKellen On Stage With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others…And You! at the Grand Opera House, York, last June

The end of Empire days came in 1985, but after the India Pru Company acquired the building in 1987,   Henley-on-Thames architect Gordon J Claridge was given the brief to restore it to its 1909 glory. The Art Nouveau wallpaper was copied; the chandelier duplicated; the carpets rewoven from the original pattern with the Grand Opera House motif added to the design.

Stalls boxes were restored and a new stage built; the Clifford Street entrance was turned into a box office; Cumberland Street became the main entrance. The £4 million renovation complete, the theatre re-opened on September 26 1989 as the Grand Opera House, but tempted fate by presenting Macbeth – traditionally a harbinger of bad luck in the theatre world – as the first production, 33 years since the last professional stage performance.

Only two years later, the theatre closed suddenly, staff arriving to find the doors locked, as the curse of Macbeth did indeed strike.

E&B Productions brought to an end two and a half years of darkness after acquiring the premises for a nominal sum, re-opening the theatre on February 26 1993, since when the Grand Opera House has remained open, hindered only occasionally by the River Ouse in flood.

From Strictly Come Dancing to Strictly Ballroom: Kevin Clifton is to star in his dream role of Scott Hastings at the Grand Opera House, York, in November 2020

The theatre’s ownership passed from E&B Productions to Apollo Leisure in 1995 and American company SFX in 1999. After SFX merged with Clear Channel in 2000, and later set up a new company, Live Nation, to focus on live entertainment, in 2006, the latest change of hands came in 2010 when Britain’s largest owner/operator of theatres, the Ambassador Theatre Group added the York theatre to their roster.

The ownership baton may be passed on, but each has favoured a programme of lavish musicals, often straight from the West End; stand-up comedy; opera; ballet; dance; concerts; tribute acts; celebrity talks; classic theatre; new plays; in-house youth theatre summer projects; myriad shows by York stage companies and a star-studded commercial pantomime each Christmas.

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Cabaret, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Show, Blood Brothers, Legally Blonde and Once The Musical; the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Winter’s Tale; the National Theatre’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Hedda Gabler and Jane Eyre; The Waterboys, Antony & The Johnsons, Adele at 19, Echo & The Bunnymen; Ken Dodd so many times, Danny La Rue, Ross Noble, Jimmy Carr, Paul Merton, Julian Clary; Sir Ian McKellen, on his 80th birthday solo tour. The list goes on…

Dame Berwick Kaler with his pantomime co-stars AJ Powell, left, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard and Martin Barrass at the launch of Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, York, on February 14. Picture: David Harrison

In the deepening shadow of Coronavirus, we await to discover when that list will start up again, but let us hope that once more we can gather for such upcoming shows as The Commitments, from October 26 to 31 and Strictly Ballroom, with Strictly Come Dancing’s Kevin Clifton, from November 23 to 28.

Come the winter, all eyes will be on Berwick Kaler as the grand old dame of York becomes the Grand’s new dame after his crosstown transfer, with villain David Leonard, perennial principal girl Suzy Cooper, comic stooge Martin Barrass and luverly Brummie A J Powell in tow, for Dick Turpin Rides Again from December 12 to January 10.

There to greet them and you, unmoved by the tide of theatre history, will be the Grand Opera House ghost: a nun in the Dress Circle.

Happy World Theatre Day, but happier still when theatre days and nights can return.

Charles Hutchinson

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Lights out, but what are York’s theatres doing to keep the fat lady singer at bay?

“Critical situation”: Dark nights, dark days too, at York Theatre Royal until further notice

CLOSED. Closed. Closed. Closed. Closed. York’s theatres have shut down en masse in response to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Monday briefing on Black Monday to avoid unnecessary social contact at pubs, clubs and theatres.

One by one came the measured official statements in response to the rising Coronavirus pandemic, announced with regret, sadness and heavy hearts.

By way of contrast, a tide of anger rose ever higher on social media from the entertainment industry, feeling shafted by the PM not legislating closure, merely advising it.

In doing so, he placed the decision in the (no doubt frequently washed) hands  of theatre managements, boards and trusts, whose sense of moral responsibility left no option but to announce closure until further notice as a precaution amid the Coronavirus crisis. When insurance effectively amounts to no insurance, hell by hand cart is the only journey in town.

Lights out: Ellen Kent Company’s La Boheme, at the Grand Opera House tomorrow is snuffed out by the Prime Minister’s Coronavirus dictum

The Grand National, the first post-Brexit Eurovision, the Chelsea Flower Show, Glastonbury Festival, the Euro 2020 football championships, are all scrapped for 2020. A tsunami of further announcements will follow, not least from theatre companies cancelling or postponing tours.

Keep Calm and Carry On may be the mantra, but the fear is that Keep Calm and Carry On may well turn to carrion on account of, well, the accounts.

York Theatre Royal, in St Leonard’s Place, Theatre @41 Monkgate, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in Haxby Road, and Riding Lights Theatre Company’s Friargate Theatre, in Lower Friargate, have individual boards and managements addressing urgent, previously unimaginable requirements and strictures.

Likewise, the Ambassadors Theatre Group, owners of the Grand Opera House, is co-ordinating the Coronavirus-impacted strategy throughout ATG, making statements for the Cumberland Street theatre, whose staff are now working remotely from home.

Clock stopped: PIck Me Up Theatre’s Tom’s Midnight Garden was curtailed after Monday’s performance at Theatre @ 41 Monkgate, York

These are unprecedented circumstances. Circumstances not even seen in wartime when theatres – some, not all – across the land stayed open through 1939 to 1945.

Circumstances where the new C-word has led to theatre after theatre – together with cinemas, music clubs, museums, galleries, visitor attractions, SparkYork, et al – to issue variations on: “It is with enormous sadness that we take these measures, but the safety of our audiences, staff and community is of utmost importance.”

So, where does each of these York theatres stand now, in a city where, like the rest, the theatre focus is turning to those of the medical variety? The best advice is to visit the theatre websites for information on the present closures, ticket refunds, and, in light of the harsh financial reality, Donate Today requests. “Your support is vital to our survival,” pleads York Theatre Royal bluntly.

A spokesman for the Theatre Royal – take it as read that it was executive director Tom Bird – said: “The closure of theatres in the UK puts York Theatre Royal, along with hundreds of other theatres, into a critical situation.”

Road closed: Riding Lights Theatre Company have had give up The Narrow Road tour for Lent

Does that make it theatre’s version of the intensive care unit? Time will tell, but the arts have a way of defying the last rites, always have, always will, keeping the fat lady singer waiting, the final curtain up in the flies. What they will make of Richmond Rishi’s £330 billion loan scheme is another discussion point for the in-tray, however.

In a nutshell, York Theatre Royal’s shows and public events initially are cancelled until April 11, but there surely will be no miraculous resurrection on Easter Sunday. The York Theatre Royal building, box office and café remained open initially, but the building closed to the public today (March 19). The box office is still taking phone calls on 01904 623568; ticket refunds are underway.

Shows at the Grand Opera House, in common with all Ambassadors Theatre Group theatres, are “temporarily suspended with immediate effect”, with a policy of postponement and future re-arranged dates to be confirmed, rather than cancellations, at this stage.

“We are following government guidance which is currently ambiguous,” say ATG. “It is unclear how long theatres are to remain closed. We will reopen them once the government and medical authorities confirm that there is no risk to our audiences, performers and staff. 

The Missing Peace: one of the now missing pieces at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, but with plans for re-arranged dates later

“We are working hard with our producers and performers to understand how this will play out, so we can’t confirm that at this time. We will try, wherever possible, to re-programme shows that have been suspended.”

The Joseph Rowntree Theatre will remain closed “until we receive further instruction that it is safe to reopen”. “We will be issuing further advice in the coming days on how we are going to manage ticket refunds and exchanges,” says trust chairman Dan Shrimpton. “We would ask that you please bear with us and wait for us to contact you.”

The Theatre @41 Monkgate website is yet to be updated following Monday’s Coronavirus ultimatum – the About Us section has Covid-19 Guidance from before – but Pick Me Up Theatre artistic director Robert Readman announced performances would cease after Tom’s Midnight Garden that evening.

He also cancelled Pick Me Up’s Sondheim 90 birthday concert this Sunday and the April 17 to 25 run of The Pirates Of Penzance. Be assured that Coronavirus has been the death of York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth from March 31 to April 4 too.

Riding Lights, York’s Christian theatre company based at Friargate Theatre, have cancelled their March 16 to April 11 tour of The Narrow Road. “We are very sorry not to be performing this Lent but wish you a happy and safe Easter,” their website says.

Meanwhile, prayers and thoughts go to all those working in the theatres at York Hospital and elsewhere, preparing for whatever is to come.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Grand Opera House, York, suspends all shows with immediate effect, but Tom’s Midnight Garden goes ahead tonight at Theatre @41 Monkgate

Lights out: Ellen Kent Company’s La Boheme at the Grand Opera House on Friday falls victim to Coronavirus social contact measures

THE Grand Opera House, York, is suspending all shows with immediate effect in light of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Coronavirus statement to “avoid unnecessary social contact”.

Mark Cornell, group chief executive officer of the Ambassador Theatre Group, the theatre’s owners, has issued a group-wide statement. “In response to the Prime Minister’s statement this evening, advising the UK public to avoid unnecessary social contact, including in theatres, we regret to inform you that shows in all Ambassador Theatre Group UK venues are temporarily suspended with immediate effect,” he said.

“We understand that this decision comes as a disappointment, and a massive inconvenience for those of you already on the way to a venue this evening, but ultimately we all want the same thing: the health and safety of our communities, and we believe this is the correct decision to make.”

Mr Cornell’s statement continued: “Given the current ambiguity and lack of clarity as to how long our theatres may be closed for, we hope to provide you with an update within the next 48 hours regarding the exchange of tickets. We will be consulting with industry bodies including the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre and the government over the immediate future. 

“For now, we would like to thank you for your understanding and patience, and to recognise the incredible efforts and support of producers, artists, partners and customers over this difficult period.”

The Grand Opera House has no show tonight, but Round The Horne is in the diary for Wednesday; Psychic Sally, 10 Years And Counting for Thursday; Ellen Kent Company’s La Boheme for Friday and Madama Butterfly for Saturday, and the musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story for March 24 to 28.

Meanwhile, Tom Bird, executive director of York Theatre Royal, was holding a meeting this evening. A statement will follow.

Still on…then off: Jimmy Dalgleish as Tom, left, Olivia Caley as Hattie and Jack Hambleton asTom in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Tom’s Midnight Garden. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Tonight’s 7.30pm performance of Tom’s Midnight Garden at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkate, York IS going ahead, but Pick Me Up Theatre artistic director Robert Readman will call off this week’s run after that.

His Twitter statement at 6.38pm this evening read: “In light of the Government’s latest measures, we will be closing Tom’s Midnight Garden after tonight’s show. Do come if you have tix for another day and we will accommodate as many as possible. We are also sad to announce the postponement of Sondheim 90 and The Pirates Of Penzance. “

Sondheim 90: A Birthday Concert, in celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday was to have taken place on Sunday; Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance from April 17 to 25, both at 41 Monkgate.

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Strictly speaking, Kevin Clifton WILL still be in Strictly. Here’s why…

From Strictly to Strictly Ballroom: Kevin Clifton in his dream role as Scott Hastings. Picture: Dave Hogan

KEVIN Clifton will still be in Strictly after all this year…and next year too.

Not the 2020 series of Strictly Come Dancing, but the 2020/2021 UK and Ireland tour of Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom The Musical, directed by Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood, no less.

“Kevin from Grimsby”, 37, will play his dream role of Scott Hastings, with Yorkshire dates in York, Hull, Sheffield and Bradford, after the 2018 Strictly champion announced his exit last week from BBC One’s ballroom dance show, ending  seven seasons in annual pursuit of the glitter ball trophy.

“I really can’t wait to don the golden jacket ,” says Kevin Clifton

Clifton is making a full-time move into the world of musical theatre, kicking off with the musical version of the 1992 Australian film that so inspired him in childhood days in Grimsby.

“I’m beyond excited to be finally fulfilling a lifelong ambition to play Scott Hastings in Strictly Ballroom The Musical,” he says.  “When I was ten years old, I first watched the movie that would become my favourite film of all time. This is my dream role.

“Plus, I get to work with Craig Revel Horwood again.  I really can’t wait to don the golden jacket and waltz all over the UK from September this year in what’s set to be an incredible show.”

Craig Revel Horwood: directing Kevin Clifton in Strictly Ballroom. Picture: Ray Burmiston

On tour from September 26 to June 26 2021, Strictly Ballroom will visit the Grand Opera House, York, from November 23 to 28, as well as Hull New Theatre, October 12 to 17; Sheffield Lyceum Theatre, April 12 to 17 2021, and Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, May 31 to June 5 2021.

Clifton joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2013, performing in the final five times, missing out only in 2017 and 2019, and was crowned Strictly champion in 2018 with celebrity partner Stacey Dooley, the BBC documentary filmmaker, presenter and journalist.

A former youth world number one and four-time British Latin Champion, Clifton has won international open titles all over the world. After making his West End musical theatre debut in 2010 in Dirty Dancing, he starred as Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer at Wembley Troubadour Park Theatre and as rock demigod Stacie Jaxx in the satirical Eighties’ poodle-rock musical Rock Of Ages in the West End, a role that also brought him to Leeds Grand Theatre last August.

Kevin Clifton as Stacee Jaxx in Rock Of Ages at Leeds Grand Theatre in 2019

Clifton last performed at the Grand Opera House, York, in the ballroom dance show Burn The Floor last May.

Strictly Ballroom The Musical tells the story of Scott Hastings, a talented, arrogant and rebellious young Aussie ballroom dancer. When his radical dance moves lead to him falling out of favour with the Australian Dance Federation, he finds himself dancing with Fran, a beginner with no moves at all.

Inspired by one another, this unlikely pair gathers the courage to defy both convention and family and discover that, to be winners, the steps don’t need to be strictly ballroom.

Sam Lips as Scott Hastings and Gemma Sutton as Fran in the British premiere of Strictly Ballroom The Musical at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in 2016/2017. Picture: Alastair Muir

Featuring a book by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, the show features a cast of 20 and combines such familiar numbers as Love Is In The Air, Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps and Time After Time with songs by Sia, David Foster and Eddie Perfect.

Strictly Ballroom began as an uplifting, courageous stage play that Luhrmann devised with a group of classmates at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia in 1984. Eight years later, he made his screen directorial debut with Strictly Ballroom as the first instalment in his Red Curtain Trilogy.

The film won three 1993 BAFTA awards and received a 1994 Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture. Strictly Ballroom The Musical had its world premiere at the Sydney Lyric Theatre in 2014, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, staged the first British production in December 2016 to January 2017.

Joanne Clifton, Kevin’s sister, as Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show at the Grand Opera House, York, last June

Kevin is not the only member of the Clifton dancing family of Grimsby to have graduated from Strictly champion into musicals. Sister Joanne, 36, appeared at the Grand Opera House, York, as demure flapper girl Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie in February 2017; combustible Pittsburgh welder and dancer Alex Owens in Flashdance in November that year and prim and proper but very corruptible Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show in June 2019.

York tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york; Hull, 01482 300306 or hulltheatres.co.uk. Sheffield and Bradford tickets will be available soon.

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Bohemian Paris, snow machines and a dog combine in Ellen Kent’s La Bohème

Ellen Kent’s production of La Boheme: lighting up the Grand Opera House, York, on March 20

OPERA producer and director Ellen Kent returns to the Grand Opera House, York, with a brace of Puccini productions next week.

Under the Opera International umbrella, she presents La Bohème on March 20 and Madama Butterfly the following night, with sopranos Elena Dee, from Korea, and Alyona Kistenyova, from Odessa National Opera, billed for the 7.30pm performances, subject to cast changes.

Ukrainian tenor and former military pilot Vitalii Liskovetskyi, from the Kiev National Opera, will be reprising his role as Rodolfo in La Bohème; Spanish tenor Giorgio Meladze, who sang with José Carreras in 2014, plays Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly; Moldovan baritone Iurie Gisca will be singing Marcello in La Bohème.

Soprano Marina Tonina takes the role of Musetta in La Bohème and both productions will feature a full chorus, orchestra and sumptuous sets and be sung in Italian with English surtitles.

Set in the backstreets and attics of bohemian Paris, La Bohème tells the tragic tale of the doomed romance of consumptive seamstress Mimi and penniless Rodolfo.

Madama Butterfly’s heat-breaking story of the beautiful young Japanese girl who falls in love with an American naval lieutenant, with entirely predictable consequences in the world of opera, will be staged with a Japanese garden and antique wedding kiminos.

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.

Look out for the dog in Ellen Kent’s La Boheme next week

Here, Ellen Kent answers questions on her 2020 production of Puccini’s opera of love and loss, La Bohème, a touring show inspired by Ellen reading George Orwell’s Down And Out In Paris.

What can the Grand Opera House audience expect from your production, Ellen?

“I like to provide shows at a very high level and I like large productions, so the feel is very much of a big show.

“I try to put everything into it, from the sets to the artists on the stage, and I like to add things. For example, with La Bohème, I have these fabulous visuals. I’m a very visual director and producer, so I give audiences the whole package.

“The overall experience is of something that is very beautiful, with gorgeous and spectacular sets. The curtain goes up and, depending on the opera of course, I want the audience to feel the ‘Wow’ factor. The sets have got to be beautiful and I like to wrap something visually stunning around the plot.”

How are you staging La Bohème?

“It’s set in the French Impressionist period, so my sets reflect that. For instance, I’ve gone for a beautiful Chagall and Renoir feel and it’s quite stunning. You get this beautiful French Impressionist flavour and everything is done to serve that, so when you look at it, it’s a bit like an Impressionist painting.

“I like to dress my sets, so in La Bohème, for instance, Act One is set in an attic and it’s got all these wonderful rooftops, as if they’ve been painted by one of the great French artists.

“Then I like to add something more realistic, so you have this sort of Impressionist painting but we’ve also got windows lit up and we have smoke coming out of a few of the chimneys.

“I’ve got a human skeleton – though not a real one of course – which I’ve dressed with a hat and a scarf. We also have a dog on stage; a brass band; snow machines; a carnival effect; the cafe with waiters running around, a market stall.

“I want the audience to feel the ‘Wow’ factor ,” says opera producer and director Ellen Kent

“The whole thing is a visual feast and I always like to draw on the period an opera is set in. I do have an Eiffel Tower, which of course was built later, but that’s a bit of poetic licence.” 

Why is La Bohème so beloved?

“With [Jonathan Larson’s American musical] Rent basing itself on La Bohème, for example, people use Puccini’s operas as benchmarks to build modern musicals on, which shows how strong the stories and themes in his operas are.

“The music is beloved because it’s so great and La Bohème is my personal favourite because you have this poignant story wrapped around this fabulous music. There’s something rather special about Puccini’s scores and the stories that go with them are very well constructed. Some of what the characters sing is heart-rending, and people love tragedy.

“La Bohème is a very sad little story and it’s got Puccini’s wonderful music and moments of great poignancy. There’s something about the violins that brings up those goosebumps and goes straight to your soul.

“It also has a lot of comedy, which I like to bring out. Opera should be giving you the whole deal – wonderful music, gripping storylines – and these two really deliver.” 

How does La Bohème fit into the timeline of Puccini’s work?

“Like Verdi, he started off with these great Biblical-style operas, such as Turandot, for instance. They’re big storylines, not necessarily personal dramas. Then everything changed around the 1830s, when realism and domestic storylines became fashionable.

“Puccini jumped on to the bandwagon. La Bohème is about a domestic tragedy and it is complete realism. It’s about very poor people living in the deprived parts of Paris: these artisans and poets starving in garrets and living in mindless poverty.” 

Has Rent opened up La Bohème to new audiences?

“Yes. I tend to take a musical theatre approach to operas, with lavish visuals, and I get a lot of people coming to the shows who haven’t been to an opera before but they’ve seen big musicals like Miss Saigon or Rent. I firmly believe in opening up opera to the masses.” 

Your production will be sung in Italian with surtitles, rather than in English. Does that reflect the purist in you?

“I can’t stand operas in English! I am a purist in that regard; you start putting them into English and the whole sound changes. Puccini wrote with Italian vowels, and when you’re singing, you need that Italian in the voice, instead of clipped British intonations. “And, of course, surtitles open opera up to the masses and they’re much better than just having a synopsis in the programme.

“We do that too, but the actual words used are poetic and moving. The librettos are extremely good pieces of writing and you get all this emotion coming out of the words, matched by the emotion coming out of the music. You put those two together and the audience gets a much better experience.” 

” I can’t stand operas in English!” says Ellen Kent. “I am a purist in that regard; you start putting them into English and the whole sound changes “

What first sparked your love of opera?

“I was born in India to a colonial father and my mother was known as the queen of amateur operatics in Bombay. My mother loved producing and putting on shows – and they were really good, actually.

“She managed to put me into every single opera from about the age of four. I’d be dressed in these wonderful costumes and I loved it. Then we moved to Spain and we’d go see all the – rather bad – travelling operas.

“That said, from the age of six, I declared I wanted to be a film star. Eventually, after my father had retired, I enrolled at Durham University to do a degree in Classics to appease him because he insisted ‘You’ve got to have some academic education’.

“I don’t regret doing that degree now because it’s given me a wonderful background for all the operas I’m doing. After I finished my degree, I went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, trained as an actress, singer and dancer, because although I got a place at the Royal Academy of Music to go be an opera singer, I decided it was too narrow a field.” 

What happened after you left theatre school?

“I went on to acting and musicals and was putting on European children’s theatre when Rochester City Council, who were among the people funding me, asked me to put on a children’s show in Rochester Castle gardens.

“I don’t know where these notions come from, but I found myself saying, ‘I don’t think that’s really suitable but opera might work’. So, that’s how it all started, with an outdoor production of Nabuccoin 1992 to 7,000 people.

“I remember the sun sinking over the River Medway with all these people having picnics. We had champagne tents, candelabras, the whole works, and I thought, ‘this is what I want to do. It’s fantastic. I’m going to do opera’. Since then, it’s been a series of wonderful adventures.” 

Why is it important to take opera to regional theatres?

“I’m quite an instinctive person so, although I never really thought it through, I just knew audiences in the regions would be hungry for opera. And why go to London when you have these wonderful sites – these outdoor arenas and lovely big theatres – all around the country?

“I felt that half the population didn’t know how wonderful these works were and I’ve never changed my concept of it. The regions are where these shows need to be.”

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REVIEW: What’s the secret to Ghost Stories’ success at Grand Opera House?

Ghost Stories from the past: lecturer Professor Goodman making a point (when Simon Lipkin played the role in London in this picture)

REVIEW: Ghost Stories, presented by Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, scaring all and sundry at Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york

IT is not every play day that the writers send out a polite request to reviewers, and normally it would be a red rag to that most bullish of breeds: the hacked-off hack.

However, the seriously bearded duo of Andy Nyman and Leeds-born Jeremy Dyson, he of the deeply, madly, darkly twisted League of Gentlemen, do have a point.

Ghost Stories has been around for a decade now, going global and being transformed into a film too, but all the while “it has meant so much to us that critics the world over have kept [secret] the plot and secrets of our show when writing about it,” they say.

“We appreciate it makes life a little trickier for you by not divulging [the] plot, but because of your help, Ghost Stories remains a rare thing: a modern experience you have to see ‘spoiler-free’.”

Spoiler alert: there will be no spoiler alerts in this review to blow the cover of their audacious spooky conceit. What your reviewer can reveal, however, dear reader, is that he first saw this immersive fright-fest at the Ambassadors Theatre – a typically compressed, crowded, everyone-close-to-the-stage, venerable West End locale – only last autumn, and frankly it was just as joyously, seat-of-the-pants, phew, glad-to-have-got-through-that scary, second time around at the Grand Opera House on Tuesday night.

Not-so-secret request: writer-directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson

Even when knowing what was coming next. Much like returning to a favourite fairground ghost train or high-speed ride. In fact, that even added to the experience, and apparently others share that view, gleefully inviting the uninitiated to join them to break their Ghost Stories virginity. Just do as Andy and Jeremy say: tell them nothing, except maybe pass on this message: “We hope you have a great night and maybe even scream a bit.”

A bit? In reality, there is as much laughter as screaming in response to the brilliantly executed storytelling, stocked with its 15-rated “moments of extreme shock and tension”. “We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition to think very seriously before attending,” says the programme cover, which is a tad late for a warning and amounts to more of a dare.

Do note this, however. Anyone who leaves once the ghosts have started their work for the night is not allowed back in, and nor is there an interval. So, the strongest advice is to think very seriously of heading to the loo beforehand, should that fear of a discomfort break be more likely to make you nervous.

Unlike Stephen Mallatratt’s The Woman In Black, Ghost Stories is not one ghost story but three ghost stories, wrapped inside an over-arching, far darker psycho-drama that begins with Joshua Higgott’s Professor Phillip Goodman, a parapsychologist in obligatory brown corduroy, delivering a lecture, glass of water and dry wit at hand.

In a theatre with its own ghost, opposite the York Dungeon tourist attraction with its love of gory history, and in “Europe’s most haunted city” with a ghost tour around every corner, even a ghost bus ride and a York Ghost Merchants shop to counter the spread of Pottervirus in Shambles, Goodman should be feeling very much at home as he guides us through the history of our fascination with ghosts and expert ghost analysis of the past. So far, so para-normal.

All of this is a way to trap us into a false sense of security/strap us in for the very bumpy ghost rides ahead, each more alarming than the last, as lecture and lecturer seep in and out of each suspenseful story.

The night-watchman on his guard in Ghost Stories (again pictured in the 2019 London production)

Without giving anything away, these involve a seen-it-all-before night-watchman in a depository (Paul Hawkyard); a novice motorist in a car at night in a murky wood (Gus Gordon) and a flashy father-to-be in a nursery (Richard Sutton, still as outstanding as he was in the London run). What happens next? Relax, Andy, relax Jeremy, my bitten lips are now sealed.

Except to say, writer-directors Nyman and Dyson and fellow director Sean Holmes work their ghostly magic deliciously devilishly in tandem with Jon Bauser, a sleight-of-hand magician of a designer, far outwitting Hammer Horror.

James Farncombe’s lighting adds heart-stopping menace to the juddering frights, hand-held torches and all; Nick Manning’s disturbing, disorientating, jagged, sometimes deafening sound design assaults you from all sides, and Scott Penrose’s climactic special effects are terrifically terrifying.

Do keep what happens secret, but don’t keep the show secret. It deserves big houses, being all the better, the more who share the experience, even amid the worrisome shadow of Coronavirus.

”Sweet dreams, Andy and Jeremy,” say the ghost-story weavers as they sign off their letter to the fourth estate, politely teasing to the last.

Sweet dreams? Lovers of gripping theatre, devotees of the paranormal world, your nightmare would be to miss Ghost Stories, especially on Friday the 13th. You won’t rest until tickets are safe and secure in your hand.

Charles Hutchinson

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Win tickets for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever! in York at the Grand Opera House

Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever is just around the corner. All pictures: Dan Tsantilis

PEPPA Pig is celebrating ten years of live shows with a new adventure, Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!, visiting the Grand Opera House, York, on March 4 and 5.

Performances start at 1pm and 4pm on the first day; 10am and 1pm on the second, and courtesy of the Cumberland Street theatre, CharlesHutchPress has one family ticket (four seats) to be won for the 4pm Wednesday performance.

Based on the Entertainment One animated television series, this is Peppa Pig’s sixth touring production, rooted as ever in songs, games and laughter as Peppa and friends make a big splash when they jump in puddles.

Peppa Pig Live has been enjoyed by more than 1.5 million people in Britain, playing eight consecutive West End seasons, as well as touring the United States and Australia.

In the wake of directing and adapting the stage shows Peppa Pig’s Adventure, Peppa Pig’s Party, Peppa Pig’s Treasure Hunt, Peppa Pig’s Big Splash and Peppa Pig’s Surprise, Richard Lewis is doing likewise for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever, working with BAFTA award-winning composer Mani Svavarsson.

Family travels in Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!

Produced by children’s theatre team Fierylight, in tandem with eOne, the new adventure finds Peppa Pig excited to be going on a special day out with George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig.

Peppa’s best day ever will involve a road‐trip full of fun adventures. From castles to caves, dragons to dinosaurs and ice‐creams to the muddy puddles, there will be something for all Peppa’s family and their friends Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and very busy newcomer Miss Rabbit to enjoy.

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.

Competition question:

Who has written the music for Peppa Pig’s Best Day Ever!?

Send your answer with your name, address and daytime phone number, to charles.hutchinson104@gmail.com, marked Peppa Pig Competition, by 1pm on Monday, March 2.

Let’s go.! Time to head out on Peppa Pig’s best day ever

Quickfire questions for Peppa Pig to answer as York beckons.

Are you excited about your road trip with your family and friends?

“Yes. Oink! Oink! Hee! Hee! Hee! I’m very excited to visit loads of new places and I hope to make some more nice friends. I think it’s going to be the best ever!”

What makes your best day ever?

“Lots of adventure! I like it when we get to drive around in our camper van and eat lots of ice cream and explore castles. And jump in muddy puddles of course.” 

What are you most looking forward to on your road trip?

“Jumping in muddy puddles. Hee! Hee!” 

Who is your favourite person to travel with?

“My little brother, George. Oink! Oink! But he has to bring Mr Dinosaur everywhere with him!”

Who else will join you at the theatre?

“Mummy, Daddy, Mr Bull, Suzy Sheep, Gerald Giraffe and some of our other friends. Even Miss Rabbit is coming. She is always so busy with all her jobs, so it’s extra special she can come with us.” 

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Boo! Paranormal Research York dare you to join the Grand Opera House ghost hunt

All in a paranormal night’s work at the Grand Opera House, York. Ghost image: Syarafina Yusof / Unsplash; Grand Opera House photograph: visityork.org

IN the week when Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s terrifying play Ghost Stories will be spooking out the Grand Opera House, now there is to be even more paranormal activity at the York theatre.

On March 12 and 13 at 10.30pm each night, Paranormal Research York (PRY) will lead The Ghost Hunt in a theatre lit only by the emergency lighting systems.

Those attending this after-dark theatre tour will be encouraged to participate throughout the interactive event, where PRY will employ assorted traditional methods, such as a human pendulum and divination activities, using crystals and divining rods.

Ghost hunters: the calling card for Paranormal Research York

A variety of technical equipment will be on hand for guests to try out, such as a “stick man” camera and gadgets that can detect spirit energies. In a nutshell, guests can be “as involved as they dare to be”.  

Paranormal Research York’s team of experienced and professional paranormal investigators from York have come together to investigate predominantly in “Britain’s most haunted city”.

Their work involves accessing a range of haunted locations in and around York and then researching their findings to go with the legends.

Parallel paranormal activities: Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s play Ghost Stories will be scaring all and sundry at the Grand Opera House in the same week as the late-night ghost hunts

Looking forward to conducting The Ghost Hunt in a building built in 1868, PRY’s Clare Bryant says: “We’re very excited to be hosting the first ever ghost hunt at this amazing, historical building. From our first walk around at the Grand Opera House, we could feel the spirits already coming forward.”

Kevin Spindloe, from PRY, adds: “Wow! Friday the 13th and we have the privilege to be investigating here. It’s so active here and the spirits seem keen to tell their own ghost stories. As a guest you can be involved in the activities or just watch. Either way you will experience an event like no other.”

The Ghost Hunt on Friday, March 13th has sold out – unlucky for some! – but tickets for March 12 and the Ghost Stories run from March 10 to 14 are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.

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Are you ready for extreme terror, tension and ghost tremors at Grand Opera House?

The lecturer in Ghost Stories: “The supernatural is purely a trick of the mind,” he says…but is it?

THE Grand Opera House, York, already has its own ghost, one said to call out the first name of a new member of staff in the quiet of the auditorium on first acquaintance.

No doubt that will intrigue Professor Goodman, ahead of the lecturer’s visit to the Cumberland Street theatre from March 10 to 14 as the investigative fulcrum of writer-directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s “supernatural sensation”, Ghost Stories, on its first national tour.

On the road since January 7 after completing its latest West End run at The Ambassadors Theatre, London, the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre production should feel at home in York, the self-proclaimed most haunted city in Europe.

What’s more, with the Grand Opera House’s proximity to the York Dungeon, “York’s scariest tourist attraction”, where better for Nyman and Dyson’s global hit to be spooking?

Premiered a decade ago and turned into a film too, Ghost Stories invites its captive audience to “enter a nightmarish world, full of thrilling twists and turns, where all your deepest fears and most disturbing thoughts are imagined live on stage”.

Expect a “fully sensory and electrifying encounter in the ultimate twisted love-letter to horror, a supernatural edge-of-your-seat theatrical experience like no other”, as Professor Goodman strives to prove the supernatural is “purely a trick of the mind” in the face of three stories that beg to differ.

“Ghost Stories has never really gone away, running in various incarnations since the original production a decade ago, going into the West End, then Canada, Moscow,” says co-writer Jeremy Dyson, best known for his work with those twisted humourists The League Of Gentlemen.

“It was done in Russian in Russia but we had to maintain that it was set in Britain because apparently no Russian is afraid of a ghost.”

Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson: co-writers and directors of Ghost Stories

The latest British incarnation opened at the Lyric Hammersmith last March, whereupon it was picked up by commercial producers keen to take it on the road. “We’d always wanted to do that but never been able to do so, even though we knew just how much people wanted to see it, but we were told it ‘wasn’t tourable’.”

Until now, until Jon Bausor came up with a design that could play both The Ambassadors Theatre and theatres around the country.

“He’s made it possible to squash the set into a van!” says Jeremy, who lives in Ilkley, by the way. “Each time we’ve staged the play, we’ve been able to solve another problem, get rid of another niggle, and finally we have the production that is totally to our satisfaction.

“The show’s been going down really well on tour, and it will fit perfectly into York with all its ghost stories and the York Dungeon opposite the Grand Opera House.”

Why are we so drawn to ghost stories, Jeremy? “I think there are lots of reasons,” he says. “One of them is obvious: death and the afterlife, which is a personal concern to all of us, and ghost stories are a way to approach such an overwhelming concern.

“That’s particularly so in our increasingly secular society, where there’s a hunger for the mysterious, the uncanny, the inexplicable, which once upon a time would have come under the auspices of the church and religion.

“That’s part of it, and also when it comes to a show like Ghost Stories, there’s the entertainment and the thrill, the fairground element.”

Nyman, London actor, director and writer, and Dyson, screen and stage writer and author, have been friends for a “very long time”. “Since we were teenagers, in fact,” says Jeremy. “We met when we were 15 and one of the things we bonded over was horror movies at the dawn of the video age, renting those films to watch them together.

The Caretaker: one of the three Ghost Stories to be told at the Grand Opera House, York

“We’ve had our individual careers and we’d never thought of working together, but out of the blue Andy called me with this idea of having three men sitting telling ghost stories after he saw The Vagina Monologues [Eve Ensler’s show with three women telling stories].

“It was a very intriguing idea that was enough to hook me straightaway, though we then veered away from that initial construction over a long gestation period.

“Creating Ghost Stories was very much a case of sitting in a room together, talking about it for a year, and then getting together, bashing out the outline, working every day for a week, when we pretty much hammered it out, because we’d been thinking about it for so long.”

Ghost Stories has drawn comparisons with Stephen Mallatratt’s stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black, premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1987 and still running in the West End, but Jeremy was keen that Ghost Stories should stand in its own right.

“We wanted very much to create a theatre experience that we hadn’t had before, in terms of being a very immersive piece of theatre, and we also like the challenge of taking things that you’re familiar thematically from horror films and seeing if we could transfer them to the stage.”

A further element is at play in Ghost Stories. “Andy and I both have a love of conjuring and magic; Andy has worked with Derren Brown for 20, so we wanted to build that into the show’s structure,” says Jeremy. “We wanted to look at how you can create a magical effect with a combination of storytelling and technology, and that’s what we’ve achieved.”

Ghost Stories promises “moments of extreme shock and tension” at the Grand Opera House, York, from March 10 to 14. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york. Unsuitable for anyone under 15 years old.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Song and dance meets English stage humour in Crooners big band show

In the swing of it: Crooners celebrates the golden age of song and dance

CROONERS, a rip-roaring comedy music show with a splendiferous injection of big band swing, charms its way into the Grand Opera House, York, on March 6, at 7.30pm.

On a mission to bring old-school variety back to the theatre with a “quintessentially British twist to the genre symbolised by the crooner”, this new collaboration bonds comedy writer and performer Roman Marek with the outrageous ten-piece swing combo The Mini Big Band.

“I’m a song-and-dance man,” says Marek. “I was brought up on the music of the super-cool crooners, but also on the quintessentially English stage humour of Morecambe and Wise, Bruce Forsyth and Max Bygraves.”

Crooners revels in the songs of the Rat Pack’s Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr, together with Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin and Britain’s very own crooner, Matt Monro.

“We have a set list of material never before heard in a theatre production,” says Marek. Tickets for this “truly British swingin’ affair” are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.