Nikita Kuzmin in his debut solo dance spectacular, Midnight Dancer, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York
First published on May 15 2025
STRICTLY Come Dancing’s Ukrainian star dancer and choreographer Nikita Kuzmin leaps into the Grand Opera House, York, on May 20 in Midnight Dancer, his debut British and Irish solo tour.
The Kyiv-born holder of six Italian Championship Latin and Ballroom titles invites you to “a fairytale ball like no other and a night full of music, sequins and world-class dancing” in the company of fellow dancers Sophie Baker, Thomas Charles, Lowri Hamilton, Samuel Lake, Charlotte Lee, Zara Liu, Seamus Mcintosh, Daniel Rae and Andreea Toma.
Joining 27-year-old Kuzmin too will be singer Rebecca Lisewski, who has appeared in Mamma Mia! and Cabaret in the West End and the UK tour of The Spongebob Musical.
Follow the highs and lows of a classic romance story as two star-crossed lovers meet only to be torn apart. Will they reunite at the masked ball or will real life put an end to their fairytale fantasy?
Presenting 2024 Celebrity Big Brother runner-up Kuzmin “like you’ve never seen him before”, Midnight Dancer promises a modern-day Cinderella story with “all of your favourite dancefloor anthems, dazzling costumes and explosive dancing”.
“Whenever I create my shows, I want them to be different, so every detail matters about the narrative,” says Nikita. “I need a narrative, as a dancer, as a creative person, otherwise I don’t see the point if they don’t have a story.
“When I see other shows without a narrative, I feel they get lost. A show can only resonate with me if it has meaning.”
Explaining the roots of his debut solo show, Nikita says: “It was always quite clear to me, I knew where I wanted to go with it, after many years of prepping it, making the show with creative director Tom Jackson Greaves, who I’m working with for the first time.
Nikita Kuzmin in the poster artwork for Midnight Dancer, heading for York on May 20
“We started at the beginning of last year’s Strictly season, and I’ve spent every single day for the last eight months working on it. It’s been a lot of work.”
In putting the show together, “being in my position, you do have the final say, but I do like to listen to other opinions, and we chose what we’re doing as a collective of me, the [creative] director and the company – though I always have quite a say!” says Nikita.
When picking the company of dancers, “I look for characters; I look for different movement, distinguishing one from the other; I look for the sparkle in the eye; the intensity inside the body,” he says.
“It needs technique but I love individuality and to see people move in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily do. To find people who embrace that quality, it’s fantastic.
“I think my job and Tom’s job is to ask ‘when do we want to see the individual, when do we want to see the collective?’, and it should be like ocean waves that have their individual course but are also collective – and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of doing that.”
The tour opened on March 8 in Bromley. “It’s gone so much better than I expected. It’s a dream come true,” says Nikita. “I think it’s surprising the audience in how we’ve created something that is very different from other Strictly [off-shoot] shows, by not following the usual course but by going our own way and exploring feelings in a deep way, like a movie that starts well, then goes badly and then all is well again at the end.”
Selecting one word to describe Midnight Dancer, Nikita chooses “drama”. “That’s my favourite word,” he says. “It’s a very dramatic show, but you know what, I love how deep, how fast paced, it is,” he says of a show with 53 songs and 120 costumes.
Nikita Kuzmin in Midnight Dancer, “a classic romance story where two star-crossed lovers meet only to be torn apart”
“The most important thing is to have fun. I think audiences are in for the best night ever. If not, let’s make them feel better, with plenty of banter from me as well. I always try my best.
“I think we’ve done the show in such a way that it’s very clear when we’re doing the story and when we’re breaking off from that to have a chat, and I’m really proud of that.”
Nikita’s own performance draws on “a combination of things”. “I have a certain character on Strictly, and I do play to that, but I also like to be honest on stage. I’ll discuss my feelings in a very honest way, being funny or talking of sometimes feeling a bit scared performing on my own,” he says.
“Being honest makes the audience feel we’re all together in this show because I can be honest with them, they can be honest with me.”
Midnight Dancer will be on the road until May 24. Looking ahead, Nikita’s return is confirmed already for his fifth season as a Strictly professional. “I’m so excited. I can’t wait. You never know how it will go,” he says.
“I would say the year I reached the final [with Layton Williams in 2023] was my favourite, but I would take every year I’ve done it because I love to be partnered with different personalities. You always try to make sure they have the best time ever and enjoy every bit of it.”
Before then, “I’m looking to have a little vacation, a little break, before Strictly,” says Nikita. “Exciting projects” are in the pipeline too. Watch this space.
Nikita Kuzmin in Midnight Dancer, Grand Opera House, York, May 20, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Pease in our time: John Pease tops bill at Patch’s new Funny Fridays comedy forum at the Bonding Warehouse
A NEW comedy night in a bygone location and Shakespeare on a council estate stand out in Charles Hutchinson’s picks for cultural exploration.
Laughter launch of the week: Funny Fridays, Patch, Bonding Warehouse, Terry Avenue, York, May 9, doors 7pm for 7.30pm start
LIVE comedy returns to the Bonding Warehouse for the first time since the days of the late Mike Bennett presenting the likes of Lee Evans and Ross Noble under the Comedy Shack banner. Stand up for Funny Fridays, hosted by York humorist Katie Lingo (alias copywriter Katie Taylor-Thompson) with an introductory price of £6.50.
On her first bill will be Kenny Watt, Tuiya Tembo, BBC New Comedy Awards semi-finalist Matty Oxley, Saeth Wheeler and Edinburgh Fringe Gilded Balloon semi-finalist John Pease. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk/e/funny-fridays-at-patch-tickets.
Sean Heydon: Magical sleight of hand at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club tonight
Magical comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club presents Sean Heydon, Big Lou, Oliver Bowler and MC Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 8pm
LAUGH Out Loud headliner Sean Heydon has performed to A-list celebrities and blue-chip companies, as well as at comedy clubs, with his combination of madcap comedy, sleight-of-hand magic and illusions for more than 15 years.
Big Lou offers a modern twist on old-school joke telling in the Les Dawson style; comedian, actor and writer Oliver Bowler discusses life experiences on the mean streets of Bolton; regular host and promoter Damion Larkin keeps order. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Anastacia: Playing York Barbican on her Not That Kind 25th anniversary tour
Anniversary tour of the week: Anastacia, Not That Kind Tour, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.45pm
CHICAGO singer-songwriter Anastacia , 56, heads to York on her European tour marking the 25th anniversary of her debut album Not That Kind and its breakthrough hit I’m Outta Love.
Further singles Not That Kind, Paid My Dues, One Day In Your Life, Left Outside Alone and Sick And Tired charted too, as did 2001 album Freak Of Nature (reaching number four) and 2004’s chart-topping Anastacia, 2005’s Pieces Of A Dream, 2008’s Heavy Rotation, 2014’s Resurrection and 2015’s Ultimate Collection Her special guest will be Casey McQuillen. Box office: for returns only, yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Newton Faulkner: Unveiling new songs from his upcoming Octopus album at The Crescent, York
“No technological funny business” of the week: Newton Faulkner, Feels Like Home Tour 3, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
LET Reigate singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner describe his York gig: “Folks, I give you the Feels Like Home Tour 3. We’re talking no technological funny business in my set-up. I love switching my focus back to just playing and singing. I also cannot wait to introduce you properly to the new material and my new head.”
Often Faulkner has found himself in his home studio working solo, but not for this next record, nor for this tour. His new phase is full of collaboration, one where “seeing these songs come to life on stage is going to be nothing short of joyous” ahead of the September 19 release of Octopus. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape on his return to York Theatre Royal after 45 years. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1989.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
York musician Steve Cassidy: Once he worked with John Barry and producer Joe Meek, now he plays with his mates on regular nights at the JoRo
Return of the week: Steve Cassidy Band, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
YORK singer, songwriter, guitarist and former head teacher Steve Cassidy will be joined by special guests when he lines up as usual with John Lewis on lead guitar, Mick Hull on bass guitar, ukulele, guitar and vocals, Brian Thomson on percussion and George Hall on keyboards.
Expect rock and country songs, as well as instrumental pieces, selected especially for this evening. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Mark Holgate’s Oberon and Suzy Cooper’s Titania, centre, with Sam Roberts’s Demetrius, left, Amy Domeneghetti’s Helena, Will Parsons’ Lysander and Meg Olssen’s Hermia in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Reinvented play of the week: York Stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees
YORK pantomime golden gal Suzy Cooper turns Fairy Queen Titania opposite York-born Royal Shakespeare Company actor Mark Holgate’s Fairy King Oberon in Nik Briggs’s debut Shakespeare production for York Stage.
In his first co-production with the Cumberland Street theatre, Briggs relocates the Bard’s most-performed comedy from the court of Athens to Athens Court, a northern council estate, where magic is fuelled with mayhem and true love’s bumpy path is played out to a new score by musical director Stephen Hackshaw and Nineties and Noughties’ dancefloor fillers, sung by May Tether. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Katherine Toy in rehearsals for AKA Theatre’s The Flood, on tour in York, Hull and Leeds. Picture: Cian O’Riain
Premiere of the week: AKA Theatre Company in The Flood: A Musical, Friargate Theatre, York, May 9 and 10, 7.30pm; Godber Studio, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, May 13, 7pm; Leeds Playhouse Burton Studio, May 14 and 15, 8pm
AKA Theatre Company’s premiere of Lucie Raine and Joe Revell’s musical The Flood blends live music and heartfelt storytelling based on true accounts of facing up to disaster in West Yorkshire in 2015.
“This is a story about what it means to come together when everything falls apart,” says writer-director Raine, who uses a cast of five actor-musicians. “It’s not just a play. It’s a tribute to resilience and creativity, inspired by Hebden Bridge and its people. It’s a celebration for all communities who have faced adversity and emerged stronger.” Box office: York, ticketsource.co.uk; Hull, hulltruck.co.uk; Leeds, leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox: Putting the retro into today’s hits at York Barbican
Nostalgia for today: Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox: Magic & Moonlight Tour 2025, York Barbican, May 7, doors 7pm
AFTER chalking off their 1,000th show, retro collective Postmodern Jukebox are on the British leg of their Moonlight & Magic world tour. Enter a parallel universe where modern-day hits are reimagined in 1920s’ jazz, swing, doo-wop and Motown arrangements. Think The Great Gatsby meets Sinatra At The Sands meets Back To The Future. Dress vintage for the full effect. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In Focus: York Late Music, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, Stuart O’Hara & Marianna Cortesi, today at 1pm; Trio Agile and Northern School of Contemporary Dance, today at 7.30pm
Stuart O’Hara & Marianna Cortesi
YORK Late Music plays host to two concerts today, the first featuring bass Stuart O’Hara and pianist Marianna Cortesi this afternoon as Sounds Lyrical presents settings of poets Hugh Bernays, John Gilham, Richard Kitchen and Alan Gillott by composers Thomas J Crawley, Robert Holden, Jenny Jackson, Katie Lang, Dawn Walters and James Else.
The concert comprises: Elizabeth Lutyens’ Refugee Blues (Auden); David Blake’s Morning Sea (CP Cavafy); Dawn Walters’ Pre-dawn (Richard Kitchen); Jenny Jackson’s Collecting Stones (Richard Kitchen); Robert Holden’s Flaneur (John Gilham) and Katie Laing’s Maker (Richard Kitchen).
Then come Thomas J Crawley’s Leather Heart (Hugh Bernays); James Else’s Retras IV (Alan Gillott); Tim Brooks’s Jeer (Lizzie Linklater); David Blake’s Voices (CP Cavafy) and Stephen Dodgson’s Various Australian Bush Ballads, 2nd Series. The programme also includes music by David Blake and Elizabeth Lutyens.
Northern School of Contemporary Dance dancer Antonio Bukhar Ssebuuma: Performing with Trio Agile tonight
TONIGHT’S concert marks a first collaboration between York Late Music and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Trio Agile and NSCD’s Freedom Dances programme.
Bringing together the freedoms of dance, music and rhythm, Trio Agile combine their experimental flair and improvisatory talent with four dancers from the Leeds school, Antonio Bukhar Ssebuuma, Darcy Bodle, Genevieve Wright and Maya Donne.
The 7.30pm performance blends a range of styles from across the globe in a shared expression of the power and joy of the arts, including new works from Indian composer and performer Supriya Nagarajan, Angela Elizabeth Slater, David Lancaster, Steve Crowther, David Power, Athena Corcoran-Tadd and James Else.
Curated by James Else in partnership with the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the programme comprises: Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Prelude; Angela Elizabeth Slater, Weaving Colours; Paul Honey, Une Valse Assez Triste; James Else, Freedom Dances and David Lancaster, The Compendium Of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
Then follow Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Pas de Deux; Tom Armstrong, Aunt Maria’s Dancing Master; Paul Honey, Pizzìca; Athena Corcoran-Tadd, To You; Supriya Nagarajan, Mohanam Raga; Steve Crowther, Once Upon A Time Harlequin Met His Columbine; David Power, Something In Our Skies; Susie Hodder-Williams & Chris Caldwell, Light Dances and Athena Corcoran-Tadd , Hope Is A Boat.
The musicians will be: Susie Hodder-Williams, flutes; Chris Caldwell, saxophone and bass clarinet; Richard Horne, vibraphone and percussion; Supriya Nagarajan, voice, and Paul Honey, piano.
Chris Caldwell, Susie Hodder-Williams and composer James Else will give a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm with a complimentary glass of wine or juice.
Tickets are on sale at latemusic.org or on the door.
In Focus: The Wedding Present return to Leeds University roots to play Stylus on May 9, 7.30pm
Returning home: Former Mathematics degree student David Gedge outside Leeds University Union, where he will lead The Wedding Present in a 40th anniversary performance at Stylus
DAVID Gedge returns to Leeds University with The Wedding Present, playing Stylus to mark 40 years since he formed the band in his days of studying Mathematics on the campus.
Billed as “Back To Where It All Began”, this Leeds University Union gig brought David back north from his Brighton home on April 14 to re-visit early landmarks in The Wedding Present story to promote both this anniversary celebration and York writer-director Matt Aston’s upcoming musical Reception, inspired by Gedge’s songs for The Wedding Present and Cinerama. More on that August 22 to September 6 show at The Warehouse, Slung Low’s theatre space in Holbeck, later.
The Stylus gig will be the first of two Yorkshire engagements for The Wedding Present in quick succession. On May 10, Gedge’s band will be hooking up with Peter Hook & The Light (Best of Joy Division & New Order) The Farm and Spear Of Destiny on the Interzone bill at Scarborough Spa.
“We did it in Newcastle last year too. It seems to be Peter Hook’s festival – Interzone is a Joy Division song, isn’t it,” says David. Doors open at 4pm with tickets available at seetickets.com and scarboroughspa.co.uk.
Charles HutchPressmet up with David on the day of the photo-shoot, over a light bite in the university student union refectory, the scene of many a gig down the years.
“If I’m honest with you, I studied Mathematics here because I found it quite easy,” he says. “I remember at school finding Maths lessons a doddle. I just clicked with it. My other A-levels were Biology and Physics, and I never knew how I would then use it, but being in a band band is what I’d always wanted to do, really from the age of five, where there are photographs of me playing the recorder, pretending to be in a band.
“From schooldays onwards, I was always in bands. The simple answer is I never decided to do it; it was just always going to be the case. I thought, ‘I’ll go to university, doing Maths will be dead easy and I’ll have a lot of time to do other things’.
“It turned out to be more difficult than I expected and a lot of work, so I kind of regretted doing it – but I got a 2.2, then started to do a MSc, but then the band took off.”
Rising from the ashes of The Lost Pandas, The Wedding Present “kind of existed from 1983-84 but with different line-ups”. The first single, Go Out And Get ‘Em, Boy!, emerged in May 1985 – hence this 40th anniversary gig – with vocalist and guitarist Gedge and bassist Keith Gregory by then being joined by fellow Leeds University alumni Peter Solowka (guitar) and Shaun Charman (drums).
“Actually our first gig was in Allerton Bywater, a mining village half an hour from here, at The Shires Club. The second, third and fourth were here, at the university. We’ve played the Refectory at least once, maybe twice; the Tartan Bar, the R H Evans Lounge and the Riley Smith Hall, as we were getting bigger.
“This will be the first time we’ve played Stylus. We haven’t played the university for years, as we usually play either the O2 Academy or, for a smaller gig, the Brudenell Social Club.”
David has never kept count of how many musicians have passed through the Wedding Present ranks in the past four decades. “I don’t know how you define it, because sometimes you need a stand-in and we’ve had musicians come in as extra players,” he says.
At Stylus, David will be fronting a line-up he had had in place for a couple of years: Vincenzo Lammi on drums; Paul Blackburn on bass and Rachael Wood on guitars (and vocals too). “Weirdly, like me, they’re all based in Brighton, though Vinny is from Sheffield, Paul, from Southport, and Rachael, from Derby, so we’re all northerners. Brighton’s a nice place to be, but it’s expensive.”
Playing in The Wedding Present after 40 years “feels the same”. “It hasn’t changed. The strange thing is, if it’s 40 years, you think of The Rolling Stones or Status Quo, but actually, no, it’s The Wedding Present now.
“Rock’n’roll was a youth culture, but those who who enjoy it now are our age and are still going to gigs, so the whole genre has grown.”
Suzy Cooper’s Queen of the Fairies, Hippolyta, in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
GARY Oldman will not be the only former Berwick Kaler co-star returning to a York stage in 2025.
Suzy Cooper, for more than 20 years the ditzy, posh-voiced, jolly super principal gal in the grand dame’s pantomimes, will lead Nik Briggs’s cast alongside York-born actor Mark Holgate in the dual roles of courtly Hippolyta and Theseus and the quarrelling Queen and King of the Fairies, Titania and Oberon, in York Stage’s reinvention of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from May 6 to 11.
In his tenth anniversary of producing and directing shows at the Grand Opera House, Briggs relocates his debut Shakespeare production from the court of Athens to Athens Court, a northern council estate, where magic is fuelled with mayhem and true love’s path still does not run smooth, set to a Nineties and Noughties’ dancefloor soundtrack of Freed From Desire, No Limits, Show Me Love, Everytime We Touch et al as Shakespeare meets Shameless.
Presented as York Stage’s first co-production with the Cumberland Street theatre, Briggs’s ‘Dream’ will feature a new score by musical director Stephen Hackshaw. “Whilst not being a musical, the show will include a live band alongside powerhouse vocals that York Stage are famous for with their musical production,” says Nik.
Mark Holgate and Suzy Cooper in rehearsal for York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Suzy last trod the Grand Opera House boards in dowager dame Berwick Kaler’s valedictory pantomime after 47 years on the York stage in Robinson Crusoe And The Pirates Of The River Ouse, the final curtain falling on January 6 2024.
“It will be lovely to be back in York, performing at the Grand Opera House again,” says Suzy. ““I’ve not worked with Mark before, but he did the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre season in York the same summer that I did it at Blenheim, when we brushed shoulders in that amazing tent when we gathered for the start of the second summer. It’s going to be a lot of fun working with him.
“For ‘Dream’, the lovely Nik rang me and said, ‘it’s a very unusual thing we’re doing, a co-production with the Grand Opera House, and would you like to play Hippolyta?’. I didn’t need to think about, and not to have to audition was music to my ears!”
Mark’s career has taken in the Royal Shakespeare Company, Cheek By Jowl, Sheffield Crucible and theatres across the UK, as well as such roles as Banquo in Macbeth and Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre seasons in 2018 and 2019 in his home city.
Forest fireworks: Mark Holgate’s Oberon in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
He last performed on a York stage in Riding Lights Theatre Company’s staged reading of Maryland, Lucy Kirkwood’s “howl” of a protest play, directed by Bridget Foreman at the Friargate Theatre in November 2021.
Mark’s participation in York Stage’s ‘Dream’ was “actually all down to my Dad”. “He has always been a great support of my acting career,” he says. “He read an article in The Press and sent it over to me, about York Stage putting on ‘Dream’ and that they were holding auditions. I dropped Nik a line, came to York Stage to meet him and that was that.”
Reflecting on the contrast between his past Shakespeare experiences, including Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, and now with York Stage, Mark says: “The main difference is the rehearsal schedule. A lot of the cast have 9-5s and so rehearsals have worked around people’s availability. Whereas I would rehearse for three or four weeks consecutively, with this production you could have a gap of two weeks before being back in the room again.
“So you really have to be on your game at keeping track of everything you’ve discovered and set in rehearsal. Working in this way is completely new to me. It definitely keeps it fresh and exciting.”
Suzy Cooper: “Making decisions organically about how we’ll play Hippolyta’s relationship with Theseus”
Suzy adds: “Mark and I have had around five days’ rehearsals, which though it sounds really scary, as you’d normally do three weeks, but actually they’re intense days, so I just have to keep calm and carry on!
“We’re still undecided, right up to the last minute, making decisions organically about how we’ll play Hippolyta’s relationship with Theseus, where she’s been won as a prize, but maybe she’s not unhappy about that. Wait and see!
“It’s trickier than Titania, and you know me, I need to get my [acting] shoes on to get my feet rooted in a role.”
What are the challenges of playing two roles, Theseus and Oberon, in one play, Mark? “Remembering who I am playing in each scene. Only joking! Theseus is quite tricky as, once you’ve seen him in the first scene, he doesn’t appear again right till the end. Keeping hold of his journey after playing Oberon in between will be the challenge.
Mark Holgate’s Oberon and Suzy Cooper’s Hippolyta, centre, with Sam Roberts’s Demetrius, left, Amy Domeneghetti’s Helena, Will Parsons’ Lysander and Meg Olssen’s Hermia in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“I’m really looking forward to taking them on to the Grand Opera House stage. Both of my daughters have performed there but I never have. They beat me to it.”
York Stage’s ‘Dream’ calls on Mark to do a double act at the double with Suzy Cooper’s Hippolyta and Titania. “Suzy and I have never worked together but we have crossed paths. On the first day of rehearsal I was a bit nervous as usual on the first day. Like the first day of school. Then Suzy entered the room, I walked over and gave her a hug and all my nervous energy disappeared.
“She has been an absolute joy to work with and I really look forward to sharing the Grand Opera House stage with her.”
Both Suzy and Mark have “previous” form for appearing in Shakespeare’s most performed comedy. “I’ve never played Titania before, but I did play the fairy, Mustardseed, and Snout the Tinker in Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s production at York Theatre Royal, with Malcom Skates as Bottom and Andrina Carroll as Titania, and then Peter Quince in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s production at Blenheim Palace in 2019, the summer when I also played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth,” says Suzy.
“Suzy has been an absolute joy to work with and I really look forward to sharing the Grand Opera House stage with her,” says Mark Holgate
“Those nights doing ‘Dream’ were so joyful, when director Juliet Forster said ‘just trust in what you do’, but Nik’s show is a very different ‘Dream to any I’ve seen or done before, with Nik’s wonderful design and working with a composer. It’s the youngest, most exciting version I’ve experienced. I’m seeing out my history in the play with these new actors.”
Mark was part of Juliet Forster’s cast for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre production of ‘Dream’ at the Eye of York in 2018. “The audience just love it,” he says, exploring the 1595 play’s abiding popularity. “Apart from theatre being a great form of escapism, the play itself is such a fantastic piece. It has great characters, it’s funny, dramatic, poetic, and in this production the songs, movement and storytelling from a superb ensemble will really blow your socks off.
“I hope people come to see it because it will be so different to the idea of Shakespeare that you have in your head. It will be a lot of fun. It’s on for only one week, so get those tickets booked.”
York Stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees . Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Dream casting: York Stage’s poster artwork for Suzy Cooper and Mark Holgate’s participation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The artwork for Shakespeare’s Speakeasy at York International Shakespeare Festival
“IT’S Shakespeare, but it’s secret”.Can a group of strangers successfully stage a Shakespearean play in a day?
Shakespeare’s Speakeasy is the place find out as part of York International Shakespeare Festival at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow at 7.30pm (box office, yorkshakes.co.uk).
Directed and produced by Steve Arran, for one night only this production offers an irreverent and entertaining take on one of Bill the Bard’s best-known plays, crammed into only 60 minutes.
“Five actors are given a script with their lines and cues and must learn it over the course of a month without ever meeting each other,” says Steve. “On the day of performance, the actors meet for the first time and rehearse for six hours before staging a 100 per cent ‘not-all-serious play’ from the canon.
“But which play will it be? Well, like all good Speakeasy shows, that’s a secret. The only way to find out is to come inside.”
Like last year’s inaugural York Shakespeare Speakeasy, when he played Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, one of the actors will be Ian Giles, soon to reveal his Bottom in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Grand Opera House, York, from May 6 to 11 (box office, atgtickets.com/york).
Ian Giles’s Bottom in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set on a northern council estate
Climb every mountain: Rebecca Jackson in the role of Maria in Steve Tearle’s production of The Sound Of Music for NE Theatre York
THE spring weather may be perking up, but Charles Hutchinson still finds reasons aplenty to stay in the dark for cultural satisfaction.
York musical of the week: NE Theatre York in The Sound Of Music, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
IN its centenary year, members of Strensall Women’s Institute have accepted NE Theatre York creative director Steve Tearle’s invitation to play the abbey nuns in this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
The show brings back special memories for Tearle, who played Kurt Von Trapp at the age of 11 in a professional tour in his first role in any show. This time he plays his favourite part, Max Detweiler. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Cracking the whip: Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity Jane in Calamity Jane, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Mark Senior
Whip-cracking touring musical of the week: Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
WEST End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher takes the title role of fearless, gun-slinging Calamity Jane, the biggest mouth in Dakota territory and always up for a fight, in North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster’s touring production, based on the cherished 1953 Doris Day movie.
When the men of Deadwood fall hard for Chicago stage star Adelaid Adams, Calamity struggles to keep her jealousy holstered. Here come The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away), The Black Hills Of Dakota, Just Blew In From The Windy City and Secret Love in this Watermill Theatre production, choreographed by Nick Winston. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Got it taped: Gary Oldman with the reel-to-reel tape machine in Krapp’s Last Tape at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1989.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Andy Bell: New songs, solo favourites and Erasure hits at York Barbican tonight
York gig of the week: Andy Bell, Ten Crowns Tour, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm
ERASURE singer Andy Bell opens his tour at York Barbican on the eve of Friday’s release of his third solo album, Ten Crowns, ten tracks of dazzling, joyous pop, produced and polished in Nashville, inspired by the dancefloor and gospel, available on vinyl, CD (standard and 2CD versions), gold cassette and digitally via Crown Recordings.
Bell’s set combines new compositions with favourites from his solo catalogue and Erasure hits aplenty. His band features his principal Ten Crowns collaborator and co-writer, Grammy-winning American producer Dave Audé, who opens tomorrow’s show with a DJ set. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Guitar Legends: Terrific riffs galore at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute show of the week: Guitar Legends, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm,
GUITAR Legends celebrates the music of iconic guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Prince, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler and Jimi Hendrix.
Through a blend of live music, visuals and anecdotes, the show takes a journey through rock history, showcasing tenor vocal prowess and guitar virtuosity. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Learlike: Greensleeved tell Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear from the distaff side at York International Shakespeare Festival
Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival presents Greensleeved in Learlike, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, Saturday, 2pm
GREENSLEEVED, a female-led pan-European ensemble, premiere their show Learlike in York, presenting Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear but this time told by his daughters. These tyrant-children are newly in power but old in their ability for manipulation and deceit. Or are they? Even in the most corrupt homes the roots of resistance grow deep.
Greensleeved comprises performers who met at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: Amber Frances (Belgium), Ariela Nazar-Rosen (Poland/USA), Lucy Doig (Scotland), Julia Vredenberg (Norway) and Cecilia Thoden van Velzen (Netherlands). For the full programme to May 4 and tickets, head to: yorkshakes.co.uk.
Rob Auton: Any eyeful tower of ocular comedy at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall
The eyes have it: Rob Auton: The Eyes Open And Shut Show, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, Saturday, 7.30pm
“THE Eyes Open And Shut Show is a show about eyes when they are open and eyes when they are shut,” says surrealist Barmby Moor/York comedian, writer, artist, podcaster and actor Rob Auton. “With this show I wanted to explore what I could do to myself and others with language when eyes are open and shut…thinking about what makes me open my eyes and what makes me shut them.” Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Scouting For Girls: Heading for York and Leeds in 2026
Gig announcement of the week: Scouting For Girls, York Barbican, March 17 and Leeds O2 Academy, March 24 2026
LONDON trio Scouting For Girls will accompany the 2026 release of a new studio album with a 22-date tour that takes in York Barbican and Leeds O2 Academy next March. General ticket sales open at 10am on Friday at yorkbarbican.co.uk and academymusicgroup.com.
Roy Stride, vocals, piano and guitar, Greg Churchouse, bass guitar, and James Rowlands, drums, last payed York Barbican in October 2021. Next year’s shows will mark the 15th anniversary of their Everybody Wants To Be On TV album too.
Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity in Nikolai Foster’s production of Calamity Jane. Picture: Mark Senior
MUM knows best. West End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher has played Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables, Veronica Sawyer in Heathers: The Musical and Wednesday in The Addams Family, as well as originating the role of Cinderella in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, but her mother reckoned there was one role her South Harrow daughter was born to play.
Namely, the gun-slingin’, tough-talkin’, hard-ridin’ American frontierswoman Calamity Jane, the feisty tomboy role immortalised by Doris Day in the 1953 film and last played on tour on the Grand Opera House stage by Jodie Prenger in February 2015.
Mrs Fletcher’s instinct was spot on. Here was a Calamity waiting to happen, you could say. Carrying her mum’s hopes, Carrie Hope is whip-smart in The Watermill’s cracker of a touring production as York audiences experience her musical theatre chops for the first time, having seen her only in Love Letters, her exploration in song of all forms of love, from romantic to maternal, unrequited to obsessive, at York Barbican last October.
What a fabulous voice she has, even if the emotional release of the serenading Secret Love was shared with a women in the row behind your reviewer, who could not resist joining in with every line. Please, please desist.
Perhaps now is the time to introduce a singalong performance for every familiar touring musical to abate this selfish trend. If not, dear audiences, show better instinct when to join in, pretty much at the cast’s invitation here for reprises of Deadwood Stage and Black Hills Of Dakota.
Seren Sandham-Davies’s Katie Brown, the wannabe showgirl in Calamity Jane. Picture: Mark Senior
The 2025 Calamity Jane carries all the hallmarks of the 2015 version: direction by North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster; co-direction and choreography by Nick Winston; set and costume design by Matthew Wright; musical supervision and orchestration by Catherine Jayes, topped off by the witty touch of the plush Grand Opera House being covered by a worn, faded, ropey one to transform the York theatre into the financially stricken Golden Garter theatre in Deadwood, South Dakota.
A lonesome banjo is attached, the first sign that this will be an actor-musician musical, where even Carrie Hope Fletcher joins on coconuts to mimic the sound and motion of a horse and carriage.
Complementing Wright’s nostalgic palette of colours in his evocation of the Deadwood City of Summer 1876, Tim Mitchell’s lighting compounds the sense of being amid the summer dust, dry heat, bluest skies and wild life of the Midwest, where Calamity Jane’s entrance is held back to enable maximum impact after talk aplenty about of how she “tried to behave like a man but couldn’t help lovin’ like a woman”.
Fletcher looks right at home in buckskins and britches, hands on her gun belt, quips on her lips, Dakota accent on a roll. Her Calamity whips up a storm; she sure can crack a wisecrack and she is as abrasive as coal tar soap once was, but behind the brassy front of this game gal is a vulnerability that steadily seeps through, especially when her romantic feelings are exposed.
Fletcher’s Calamity does not need to fire a gun to make an impact on each return, and crucially for the light, humorous tone of Foster’s production of Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster and Charles K Freeman’s musical, Fletcher’s performance is suffused with fun to go with the games being played.
Falling out: Vinny Coyle’s Wild Bill Hickok clashes with Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity. Picture: Mark Senior
Caught up in those games are Vinny Coyle’s Wild Bill Hickok and Luke Wilson’s Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin, as they squabble over Seren Sandham-Davies’s young maid and wannabe singer Katie Brown.
As in 2015, Jayes’s orchestrations bring out the golden ripeness of such familiar songs as The Deadwood Stage, The Black Hills Of Dakota and A Woman’s Touch in a rip-roaring show where the actor-musician skills on all manner of acoustic instruments add so much to the joy. Winston’s choreography peaks with the hoedown euphoria of Hoedown.
You will go wild for Coyle’s old-fashioned leading man, Wild Bill Hickok, a guitar slinger as much as a gun slinger when he sings Higher Than A Hawk, while you can feel Wilson’s smitten Gilmartin turning up the room temperature on an already warm night.
Above all, just as her mum predicted, Fletcher carries all before her as Calamity, a whip-crackin’ winner of a goodtime, goofball musical hit.
Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
York Dance Works dancers join Carrie Hope Fletcher on The Deadwood Stage at Grand Opera House at Calamity Jane matinee
Pink stetson gathering:Lead actress Carrie Hope Fletcher and the York Dance Works dance team on stage at the Grand Opera House, York, before Wednesday’s matinee of Calamity Jane, the 100th performance of the 2025 tour
YORK Dance Works’ adult dance team met multi-award-winning West End actress and singer Carrie Hope Fletcher to relive their ‘Deadwood Stage’ moment at the Grand Opera House on Wednesday.
That afternoon they watched Carrie playing the title role in the matinee to celebrate their love of the whip-crackin’ American musical.
Before the 2020-2021 pandemic, the dance group learned a routine to The Deadwood Stage to be performed in a showcase event. When lockdown was imposed, the team continued to learn the routine virtually, enabling the group to keep in touch and dance their way through a challenging period. The dancers eventually performed the routine live in 2022 and have not forgotten it since.
York Dance Works principal Catherine Finta says: “When we were learning the routine online, it became a highlight – to dance, chat and have a social catch-up in what was quite a lonely time.
Cast members celebrate the 100th performance of the 2025 tour of Calamity Jane with cake and balloons on the Grand Opera House stage stage on Wednesday
“Normally, we finish routines and move on to the next one, but with the stop/start uncertainty of the lockdowns, we worked on this one for longer than usual. When we were finally able to, we wanted to perform this on stage, pink stetsons and all, and finally did in summer 2022.
“When we heard Calamity Jane was coming to York, we immediately booked a dance group outing to see the fabulous Carrie Hope Fletcher and the amazing cast.”
Wednesday’s matinee also marked the 100th performance of the Calamity Jane tour. Among the cast is Samuel Holmes, who plays Francis Fryer, having last appeared at the Cumberland Street theatre in the 2012 tour of Monty Python’s Spamalot.
“I’m very excited to be doing our 100th performance, especially in such a beautiful theatre,” he says. “It’s a very special theatre with lots of special memories for me. The audiences are so amazing, and the reactions to the performances have been brilliant. So, if you can get a ticket, come down and see us as we’d love to celebrate the hoedown and the party with you”.
Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity Jane in Nikolai Foster’s touring production of Sammy Fain’s musical at the Grand Opera House, York
WEST End leading lady, author and vlogger Carrie Hope Fletcher returns to York from tomorrow to Saturday in the title role in Calamity Jane at the Grand Opera House – much to her mum’s delight.
Something about the gun-slingin’, tough-talkin’, hard-ridin’ frontierswoman immortalised by Doris Day in the 1953 film made her reckon it was a role that Carrie was born to play.
How could she say No when the offer came through to the 32-year-old South Harrow actress, whose credits include Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables; Veronica Sawyer in the original West End production of Heathers: The Musical; Wednesday in The Addams Family; Beth in the arena tour of The War Of The Worlds and originating the role of Cinderella in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.
“My mum had always said I would be a good Calamity Jane, and through the entirety of my adult career she has always said she would love to see my playing the part,” says Carrie. “It’s her dream role for me. So I looked into it and listened to the songs and watched the movie starring Doris Day and fell in love with it. Doris is such an icon. Though I did have to prepare my mum not to get her hopes up as things do fall through and you never know what might happen.”
“It’s so wonderful Calamity is not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it,” says Carrie Hope Fletcher
Mum knows best, however! Since January, Carrie has been leading North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster’s cast in the good-hearted Western musical comedy, following the likes of Carol Burnett, Barbara Windsor, novelist Lynda La Plante, Toyah Willcox and Jodie Prenger, who played Calamity on its last Grand Opera House visit in February 2015.
Carrie loves how the fearless, feisty Calamity pushes her as a performer. “I am relatively new to the whole world of Calamity Jane, but it’s a dream role in terms of her as a character,” she says of a whip-crackin’ woman “prone to making a few blunders and mistakes”. “She is the romantic lead, gets a great love story, has an amazing female friendship with Katie Brown and gets all the cracking, belty numbers.
“She ticks all of those boxes and it’s so wonderful she’s not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it. Parts like that are really rare and she has been great fun to get to know.”
The subject of femininity plays out in Calamity’s relationship with Wild Bill Hickok, the Howard Keel-originated role now played by Vinny Coyle. “There are conversations between her and Wild Bill where he says ‘Why can’t you be more feminine?’,” says Carrie. “She goes through a Cinderella story finding it, but ultimately ends up going back to who she is comfortable as, and being loved and accepted for it. And it’s all hidden within this funny, farcical story.”
Carrie Hope Fletcher: West End leading lady, musical theatre singer, author, vlogger and sister of McFly’s Tom Fletcher
She is not daunted by singing songs such as The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away) and Secret Love forever associated with Doris Day. “I have a good mindset about the pressure that comes with that,” she says. “You can’t please everyone as everyone has different versions of what they want the character to be. If you tried to please people, you would come up with this warped version that isn’t anyone’s dream version.
“I feel like I have been entrusted with the role and I need to be the one to decide who this version of Calamity Jane is. And if people don’t like it, they don’t like it. But if they do, it means all the more.”
Alongside her theatre work, Carrie has published a series of books for young people and accrued more than 500,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. She last appeared in York last October in Love Letters, her exploration in song of all forms of love, from romantic to maternal, unrequited to obsessive, at York Barbican.
As always, she found joy in singing, joy that transferred to the audience too. “That’s what people latch on to. Maybe the joy I get from it separates me from others. That’s what people connect to,” she says. “I do think that musical theatre is based in expressing emotion, and if you’re not feeling it one night, then it won’t transmit to the audience.”
The tour poster for Calamity Jane starring Carrie Hope Fletcher
Now her focus is on being on the road in Calamity Jane for the best part of a year, necessitating being away from her husband, fellow performer Joel Montague, and their daughter, Mabel, who will join her for some of the dates, however.
If juggling motherhood and appearing in a major tour were not enough, Carrie has mastered a new skill while working on Calamity Jane. Her cast cohorts are actor-musicians, and not one to be left out, she can be spotted picking up an instrument – a somewhat unusual one.
“I got the coconuts to play,” she says. “I am the horse! So while everyone else is incredibly talented with the saxophone and the trumpet and cello, I’ll be focusing on the coconuts.”
Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, April 29 to May 3, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Gary Oldman in the York Theatre Royal auditorium, where his production of Krapp’s Last Tape is in its second week. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
FANCY serving on a jury in a true crime thriller? Find out how in Charles Hutchinson’s guide to going out.
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1989.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
James Bond Concert Spectacular: Celebrating the music of the long-running film series. Picture: Bryan Marshall
Film music event of the week James Bond Concert Spectacular, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
CAROLINE Bliss, who played Moneypenny in The Living Daylightsand Licence To Kill, will be the compere for Q The Music’s James Bond Concert Spectacular, sharing anecdotes from her film appearances.
Focusing not only on Bond theme songs, such as Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die and Nobody Does It Better, the show also pays homage to the complete canon, covering chase music, incidental cues and suites from across the series. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
You are the jury: Murder Trial Tonight III, in court at York Barbican on Tuesday
Courtroom drama of the week: Tigerslane Studios presents Murder Trial Tonight III – The Doorstep Case, York Barbican, April 29, 7pm
“THIS isn’t just a theatre play; it’s a social experiment,” says Murder Trial Tonight’s West End director, Graham Watts. “We aim to challenge perceptions and engage our audience in a way that goes beyond traditional theatre.”
Welcome to Tigerslane Studios’third season of Murder Trial Tonight – The Doorstep Case, wherein storytellers, technicians and performers break down the fourth wall and bring true-crime stories to life. The show begins on screen, giving the backdrop to the case, followed by a live murder trial, with the audience as the jury. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Carrie Hope Fletcher: Shooting from the hip and lip in Calamity Jane at the Grand Opera House, York
Whip-cracking musical of the week: Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, April 29 to May 3, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
WEST End leading lady Carrie Hope Fletcher takes the title role of fearless, gun-slinging Calamity Jane, the biggest mouth in Dakota territory and always up for a fight, in North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster’s touring production, based on the cherished 1953 Doris Day movie.
When the men of Deadwood fall hard for Chicago stage star Adelaid Adams, Calamity struggles to keep her jealousy holstered. Here come The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away), The Black Hills Of Dakota, Just Blew In From The Windy City and Secret Love in this Watermill Theatre production, choreographed by Nick Winston with musical supervision by Olivier, Grammy and Tony Award winner Catherine Jayes. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Karine Polwart’s poster artwork for her Feather & Ether Tour show at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Karine Polwart, Feather & Ether Tour, Pocklington Arts Centre, April 30, 8pm
THIS year marks 25 years since Karine Polwart embraced a full-time career as a Scottish folk singer and 20 years since she scooped three BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards with her debut solo album Faultlines.
Her Feather & Ether Tour is a rare chance to enjoy her in intimate, conversational solo performance. Expect a clutch of new songs and wonder tales and an night of curiosity and compassion from Polwart, songwriter, theatre-maker, broadcaster and storyteller, whose work evokes a richness of place, hidden histories, scientific enquiry and folklore. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Learlike: King Lear re-told from the distaff side in the UK premiere at the York International Shakespeare Festival
Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival presents Greensleeved in Learlike, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, May 3, 2pm
GREENSLEEVED, a female-led pan-European ensemble, premiere their show Learlike in York, presenting Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear but this time told by his daughters. These tyrant-children are newly in power but old in their ability for manipulation and deceit. Or are they? Even in the most corrupt homes the roots of resistance grow deep.
Greensleeved comprises performers who met at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: Amber Frances (Belgium), Ariela Nazar-Rosen (Poland/USA), Lucy Doig (Scotland), Julia Vredenberg (Norway) and Cecilia Thoden van Velzen (Netherlands). For the full programme to May 4 and tickets, head to: yorkshakes.co.uk.
Rob Auton: Any eyeful tower of ocular comedy at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall
The eyes have it: Rob Auton: The Eyes Open And Shut Show, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, May 3, 7.30pm
“THE Eyes Open And Shut Show is a show about eyes when they are open and eyes when they are shut,” says surrealist York/Barmby Moor comedian, writer, artist, podcaster and actor Rob Auton. “With this show I wanted to explore what I could do to myself and others with language when eyes are open and shut…thinking about what makes me open my eyes and what makes me shut them.” Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Scouting For Girls: Heading for York and Leeds in 2026
Gig announcement of the week: Scouting For Girls, York Barbican, March 17 and Leeds O2 Academy, March 24 2026
LONDON trio Scouting For Girls will accompany the 2026 release of a new studio album with a 22-date tour that takes in York Barbican and Leeds O2 Academy next March. Fans who pre-order the Wolfcub Edition at scoutingforgirls.os.fan will receive access to a ticket pre-sale that opens at 10am on April 30. General sales follow from 10am on May 2 at yorkbarbican.co.uk and academymusicgroup.com.
Roy Stride, vocals, piano and guitar, Greg Churchouse, bass guitar, and James Rowlands, drums, last payed York Barbican in October 2021. Next year’s shows will mark the 15th anniversary of their Everybody Wants To Be On TV album too.
In Focus: NE Theatre York in The Sound Of Music, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 29 to May 3, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday
NE Theatre York’s cast for The Sound Of Music at the JoRo
TWO Marias, two Captain Von Trapps, three groups of Von Trapp children and multiple members of Strensall Women’s Institute, plus a dog, add up to NE Theatre York’s production of The Sound Of Music.
In its centenary year, Strensall Women’s Institute has accepted creative director Steve Tearle’s invitation to play the abbey nuns – and sing several big numbers – in the heartwarming Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
The show brings back special memories for Tearle, who played Kurt Von Trapp at the age of 11 in a professional tour in his first stage role.
NE Theatre York creative director Steve Tearle with his dog Millie Bell
“I’ve always loved this show, and remembering my experience of it always fills me with joy. Fast forward to 2025 and I get to produce this famous musical and play my personal favourite part in the show, Max Detweiler,” says Steve, whose dog, Millie Bell, will make an appearance in the canine role of Max’s dog.
Tearle’s cast features newcomers aplenty to the stage. “NE Theatre prides itself on giving people of all ages the confidence to perform on stage, and this is the perfect opportunity with more than 20 people who have never performed before,” he says.
NE Theatre York in rehearsal for The Sound Of Music
“We’re producing the show with all the elements that everyone loves but keeping with the West End trend of scaled-back sets and using lighting effects to highlight the action. The focus, as always, will be on the talent of the actors on stage and giving everyone a moment to shine.”
Maia Beatrice and Rebecca Jackson will alternate the role of Maria while Matthew Clarke and Chris Hagyard will do likewise as Captain Von Trapp. NE Theatre stalwart Perri Anne Barley will play Mother Abbess; Ali Butler and Aileen Hall will take turns as Baroness Elsa. Tearle is joined in the production team by musical director Joe Allan.
NE Theatre’s production coincides with a brace of landmarks: the 60th anniversary of Robert Wise’s film starring Julie Andrews as the singing nun and the 90th anniversary of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.
Rebecca Jackson in the role of Maria in Steve Tearle’s production of The Sound Of Music for NE Theatre York
Quick refresher course: The Sound Of Music is based on the real-life story of the Von Trapp family of singers, one of the world’s best known concert groups in the era immediately preceding the Second World War.
When Maria, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey, becomes governess to a widowed naval captain’s seven children, she brings a new love of life and music into the home. Among the much-loved songs are My Favourite Things, Climb Every Mountain, Do Re Mi, Sixteen Going On Seventeen, Edelweiss and The Sound of Music.
A number of tickets are being given to charities. Hurry, hurry to secure a seat as April 29, May 1 and May 2 are down to “last few tickets”, availability is limited for April 30 and both May 3 performances have sold out. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Gary Oldman in reflective mood in the dressing room as he returns to York Theatre Royal to perform Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, now into its week of press shows. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
YORK International Shakespeare Festival’s tenth anniversary programme is among Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations as April blossoms.
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1987.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns and additional seats on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Katy Stephens’ White Witch and Aslan the lion in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Ellie Kurttz
Touring show of the week: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
STEP through the wardrobe into the kingdom of Narnia for the most mystical of adventures in a faraway land. Join Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter as they wave goodbye to wartime Britain and say hello to Mr Tumnus, the talking Faun (Alfie Richards), Aslan, the Lion (Stanton Wright), and the coldest, cruellest White Witch (Katy Stephens).
Directed by Michael Fentiman, this breathtaking stage adaptation brings magical storytelling, bewitching stagecraft and stellar puppets to CS Lewis’s allegorical novel. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Philipp Sommer: Delivering his riposte to Shakespeare’s hatchet job on Richard III in Re-Lording Richard 3.0
Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival, until May 4
YORK International Shakespeare Festival is marking its tenth anniversary with a programme incorporating artists from the Netherlands for the first time; Croatia for Marin Drzic Day; Ukrainian artists from Ivano Frankisk and Bulgaria.
Among the highlights will be Berlin actor Philipp Sommer’s riposte to Shakespeare’s hatchet job on York’s own Richard III, Re-Lording Richard 3.0 (tomorrow); Olga Annenko’s Codename Othello (Friday); York company Hoglets Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Mischief with Team Titania and Team Oberon (Saturday); Stillington writer/actor/director Alexander Wright’s immersive, existential Hamlet Show (April 28 to 30); Ridiculusmus’s Alas! Poor Yorick (April 29) and the Shakespeare’s Speakeasy play in a day (May 2). For the full programme and tickets, head to: yorkshakes.co.uk.
George Young’s Henry VI in York Shakespeare Project’s Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3. Picture: John Saunders
Condensed play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, “I Am Myself Alone”, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
UNIVERSITY of California Santa Barbara theatre professor Irwin Appel, artistic director of Naked Shakes, directs York Shakespeare Project in his condensed, physical theatre version of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy.
A bare space, a crown and a throne meet an ensemble cast in a powerful show of “actor-generated theatricality and transformation”, wherein they tell a cautionary tale of power and greed that charts how a tyrant can rise in a torn and broken society. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Pip Cook, left, Josie Morley and Keeley Lane in Badapple Theatre Company’s revival of Kate Bramley’s The Thankful Village, playing York Theatre Royal Studio from today
Wartime memorial of the week: Badapple Theatre Company in The Thankful Village, York Theatre Royal Studio, today to Saturday, 7pm plus 2.30pm matinees, today and Saturday
IN a new departure for Green Hammerton touring company Badapple Theatre, writer and artistic director Kate Bramley will be playing a live score for the first time to accompany her poignant First World War comedy-drama The Thankful Village.
A story of hope, humour and humanity is seen through the eyes of three Yorkshire women from the same rural household, below and above stairs. Left behind to cope after their men-folk march off to Flanders, Pip Cook’s Edie, Keeley Lane’s Victoria and Josie Morley’s Nellie each face up to the challenges in their own way as they wait anxiously for news of their loved ones far away. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Matt Goss: Tipping his hat to The Hits & More at York Barbican on Friday. Picture: Paul Harris
Pop concert of the week: Matt Goss, The Hits & More, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
MATT Goss, the Bros pop pin-up-turned-Las Vegas showman, says: “Trust me, what I’ve learnt over the years being on countless stages around the world, this will be your best night of the year.”
Now living in central London after many years of blue skies in America, Goss, 56, will be celebrating all he has achieved in his music career and beyond in a rock’n’roll show, but still with a horn section (featured previously in the Matt Goss Experience show with the MG Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic at York Barbican in April 2023). Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Comedy gig of the week: Hilarity Bites Comedy Club, Clayton Jones, Dawn Bailey and Chris Brooker, Milton, Rooms, Malton, Friday. 8pm
HEADLINER Clayton Jones, the 2017 Last Minute Comedy Comedian of the Year winner, covers everyday topics of marriage, children, being mixed race, school life and growing up in London in his observational comedy.
Newly turned 50, affable Dawn Bailey views life as a mum through happy specs and giddy knickers (in her own words). Host Chris Brooker combines infectious energy with original material and inspired improvisation. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Josienne Clarke: Performing the songs of Sandy Denny with full folk-rock band at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Across The Evening Sky: Josienne Clarke Sings The Songs Of Sandy Denny, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, 8pm
MELANCHOLIC singer, songwriter and interpreter of traditional song Josienne Clarke leads a full folk-rock band – guitar, piano, bass and drums – in a new show dedicated to Sandy Denny, whose songs are her “north star – a constant guiding light”.
“If I can take one young fan of mine and introduce them to Sandy, in a context that they can grab hold of,” she says. “If they like my music, they will love Sandy. And that would be the whole concept sorted. To pass it on, so that these songs can go on forever.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Full steam ahead: The train journey scene in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York
IF you did not head over to Leeds Playhouse between November 18 and January 25 for the most spectacular show of the Yorkshire Christmas season, then you can still venture into Narnia via the wardrobe as Michael Fentiman’s breathtaking production has further magical life, like Aslan, on a long tour.
The narrow Grand Opera House stage is smaller than the Playhouse’s cavernous Quarry Theatre, but much of the grand scale has been retained, except for Katy Stephens’ White Witch no longer rising high above the auditorium in the climax to Act One.
It matters not a jot as that scene still carries its own frightening, shivering beauty amid the flurry of snowflakes in a show replete with magic and illusions by Chris Fisher and wondrous puppetry, designed by Max Humphries and directed by Toby Olie. The wow factor keeps on rising.
Marking the 75th anniversary of C S Lewis’s 1950 novel, and based on the original production by Sally Cookson, this show finds the perfect balance of storytelling and spectacle, delivered by a cast of actor-musicians who are as likely to switch instrument as character as they perform Barnaby Race and Benji Bower’s score rooted in English folk music suffused with the energy of Irish jigs.
Set and costume design by Tom Paris, working from Rae Smith’s original design, are complemented by Jack Knowles’s stellar lighting design and Tom Marshall’s sound design that fills the Grand Opera House auditorium like no other show.
Katy Stephens’ White Witch comes face to face with her nemesis Aslan in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Picture: Ellie Kurttz
Pre-show, a pianist in military attire and pith helmet plays favourite tunes of the wartime era, setting the scene for an enchanted story where the Pevensie children will become caught up in a very different battle in Narnia.
Yet the costumes for the Narnian creatures will remind you of the other war the children have left behind: from goggles for Ed Thorpe’s Mr Beaver, to an airman’s flying jacket for Alfie Richards’ Mr Tumnus and a gas mask for Shane Antony-Whiteley’s lupine Maugrin, who moves and fights on all fours with the aid of crutches that propel him around the stage in leaps and bounds.
Typified by Antony-Whiteley’s Maugrin, Shanelle ‘Tali’ Fergus’s choreography is as much physical theatre as ensemble dance and graceful poise for Stephens’ White Witch, all played out on a revolving set that facilitates going into the wardrobe and out the other side into frozen, faraway Narnia, with its signature lamp post atop a piano.
Seen through the eyes of the Pevensie children, evacuated to the avuncular Professor’s Scottish lair, Lewis’s torrid, allegorical tale is told with a sense of wonder as Lucy (Molly Francis, understudying for Kudzai Mangombe), Edmund (Bunmi Osadolor), Susan (Joanna Adaran) and Peter (Jesse Dunbar) “meet new friends, face dangerous foes and learn the lessons of courage, sacrifice and the power of love”. All four deliver terrific performances, with bags of humour and pathos, and room for mistakes and rivalries on a rapid learning curve of empowerment.
Set-pieces deliver time after time, from the journey north on a train, whose individual carriages light up to musical accompaniment as they are carried above heads as the steam hisses, to Aslan miraculously vanishing from his, spoiler alert, resting place. The stage floor lights up to denote the crackling of ice; the huge puppet of Aslan, steered by puppeteers, will rise to his haunches, as impressive as Joey, the horse in War Horse.
The Pevensie children in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe: Edmund (Bunmi Osadolor), Peter (Jesse Dunbar), Susan (Joanna Adaran) and Lucy (Kudzai Mangombe)
All life is here in Fentiman’s company, from Richards’ deceitful but devastated faun Mr Tumnus to Stanton Wright’s embodiment of Aslan’s noble demeanour (standing alongside the roaring puppet); Thorpe and Anya De Villiers’ bickering Mr and Mrs Beaver to Kraig Thornber’s triple bill of roles as the Professor, Father Christmas and Wise Owl. And yes, a comment is made that this is not the season for Christmas!
Stephens brings all her Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Globe gravitas to the White Witch, putting the vile into evil that made you swear the Grand Opera House had suddenly turned colder on each entry.
Praise too for the work of fight director Jonathan Holby, musical director Ben Goddard and hair and make-up designer Susanna Peretz. If you see the show elsewhere, that praise will extend to aerial director Gwen Hales.
In the words of director Michael Fentiman: “This production celebrates the magic of live theatre. It is a celebration of the possibilities of the collective imagination and the boundless wonders of individual skill.”
How right he is, and what a special, powerful. moving, beautiful production it is. Make sure to rush to the wardrobe: five-star theatre awaits.
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. Also Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, September 23 to 27, 7pm plus 2pm Wednesday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees (box office, 01274 432000 or) and Hull New Theatre, September 30 to October 4, 7pm and 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees (box office, hulltheatres.co.uk). Age guidance: six upwards.
