Robert Daws’ committee chairman Ray, left, and Mark Curry’s pedantic Councillor Donald Evans in Ten Times Table. Pictures: Pamela Raith
REVIEW: Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, The Classic Comedy Theatre Company, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york
IMPRESARIO and
prolific producer Bill Kenwright has his name on multiple shows that frequent
the Grand Opera House, from musicals to the Agatha Christie, Classic Thriller
and Classic Screen To Stage companies.
Now add The
Classic Comedy Theatre Company to that list, making their debut tour either
side of Christmas with Ten Times Table, Alan Ayckbourn’s “calamitous comedy by
committee” from 1977, the year when committees popped up everywhere to mark HM
The Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
Those stellar
names of British theatre, Kenwright and Ayckbourn, are complemented by a third:
Robin Herford, perennial director of The Woman In Black and much else, not
least past productions of Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves at the Stephen
Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and Relatively Speaking, Confusions, Bedroom Farce and Season’s
Greetings elsewhere.
What’s
more, Ayckbourn cast him as pedantic, punctilious, punctuation and procedure-obsessed
Councillor Donald Evans in his SJT premiere of Ten Times Table in January 1977.
Everything
sounded so promising for Herford’s touring production, not least a cast
starring Robert Daws, Robert Duncan, Mark Curry and Deborah Grant. Certainly,
more promising than the gloomy forecast that the River Ouse floodwaters could
be seeping beneath the Grand Opera House doors by 6am, prompting senior
management to stay on watchful guard through the night.
Thankfully, such concerns turned out to be a false dawn. Alas, Ten Times Table proved to be a damp squib too: that rare occasion when an Ayckbourn play just isn’t very funny any more.
Maybe we are spoilt by Sir Alan’s revivals of his classics at the Stephen Joseph Theatre each summer season; maybe they better suit the bear-pit setting of the SJT’s theatre in the round: more intimate, more inclusive, more apt for the combative nature of his vintage comedies. Maybe it is significant that Ten Times Table has never been among those revivals.
Misfiring: Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Ten Times Table fires blanks in Robin Herford’s touring production
Here in
York, on a proscenium-arch stage, as with the body of a giraffe, Ten Times
Table feels like the work of a committee. Or the work of a committee like the
one we are watching as they assemble maybe ten times around the table (although
your reviewer lost count).
Welcome to the “miscellaneous assemblage” of the Pendon Folk Festival committee, gathering beneath the erratic lights of the faded grand ballroom of the Swan Hotel, as Seventies as hotel grey gravy and over-boiled veg and as tired as the comedy in Michael Holt’s design.
The
pathway to the Pendon Pageant will be a bumpy one, all the more so for the
irascible, over-excitable disposition of chairman Ray (Robert Daws), who bores
everyone, audience included unfortunately, as he recounts Pendon’s most dramatic
news story of the past.
Now the 18th
century army massacre of the radical Pendon Twelve agricultural agitators is to
be re-enacted on pageant day. Ayckbourn duly sets up matching class warfare:
middle-class conservatism on one side, represented by smug Ray; his constantly
peeved, overbearing wife Helen (Deborah Grant); a mad, revolver-toting military
dog-breeder, Tim (Harry Gostelow), and ineffectual dullard Councillor Evans
(Mark Curry).
Always accompanying
Evans is his octogenarian mum Audrey (Elizabeth Power), the minute-taking but
pretty much deaf committee secretary who never delivers the minutes, dithering dottily
except when a drink or the chance to play the piano comes her way.
On the
other side, representing the agitators, is the truculent Marxist martyr, comprehensive
schoolteacher Eric (Craig Gazey), and his acolytes, the ever-underwhelming
Sophie (Gemma Oaten), even a disappointment to herself, and the almost impossibly
quietly spoken costume maker Philippa (Rhiannon Handy).
No idea
where he is, the sozzled Laurence (Robert Duncan) stumbles from marital crisis
to the next marital crisis.
Ayckbourn
depicts the minutiae of committee conduct with trademark mischief making but
somehow this Ten Times Table does not add up amid the personality and
ideological clashes. The power-driven Ray is as irritating as the banging on
the floor above; plenty of others follow suit, and, especially in the long
first half, the comedy feels too slow, too forced, the timing……..off.
Mark Curry’s pedantic Donald, right, with Robert Daws’ hapless committee chairman, Ray, in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, presented by Bill Kenwright’s Classic Comedy Theatre Company. All pictures: Pamela Raith
ALAN Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table is the one with “the committee from hell and a fete worse than death”.
Premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1977, when inspired by the myriad committees that formed for The Queen’s Silver Jubilee that year, Ayckbourn’s calamitous comedy by committee now forms the inaugural production by the Classic Comedy Theatre Company, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, from Monday.
This is the latest theatrical enterprise from impresario Bill Kenwright, whose Agatha Christie, Classic Thriller and Classic Screen to Stage companies are familiar to York audiences over the past 15 years in shows replete with star names.
Among the company, alongside the likes of Robert Daws, Robert Duncan and Deborah Grant, is Mark Curry, the former Blue Peter presenter, now 57.
Taking on the role of pedantic Donald brings back memories of his own encounter with Ayckbourn, artistic director of the SJT at the time, when Mark was pretty much straight out of drama school.
“Apart from auditioning for Alan back in the day, I’ve never met him since then, but I’d love to do as he’s such a brilliant man, and I’d love to sit him down and ask him about the characters in Ten Times Table,” he says.
What did Ayckbourn say when he did audition you, Mark? “He said, ‘you’re not quite ready yet, but you have such energy’.” As perceptive as ever in his people-watching, Ayckbourn highlighted a characteristic that Curry has since brought to his career, whether on Blue Peter, in theatre roles or as a radio presenter.
As chance would have it, Ayckbourn still did play his part in Mark’s milk-teeth days as a professional actor. “I was in rep [repertory theatre] for about three years at Harrogate Theatre, when Mark Piper was the artistic director, and one of the parts I did was a non-speaking role in, ironically, Ten Times Table,” he recalls.
You’re fired! The Pendon Folk Festival committee meeting reaches crisis point in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table
“I played Max Kirkov, a really strange character who walks on and carries off the leading lady, played in that production by Jean Fergusson, who went on to be Marina in Last Of The Summer Wine for so many years.”
In fact, Mark knows Ayckbourn’s comedy very well, for this latest tour is his third encounter with Ten Times Table, a “predominantly sedentary farce” – the Scarborough playwright’s own description – set in the long-since grand ballroom of the Swan Hotel.
Here, a most miscellaneous assemblage has gathered to conduct the business of the Pendon Folk Festival, led by excitable chairman Ray. Unfortunately for Ray, his committee quickly divides as his wife Helen has a bone to pick.
Then add a nitpicking councillor, a Marxist schoolteacher, a military dog-breeder and an octogenarian secretary, and turbulence is on its way.
Second time around, Mark played Ray, the fulcrum of all the chaos, on a six-week tour. Now, director Robin Herford has cast him as Councillor Donald Evans, a character whose pen portrait for auditionees describes him as “a professional committee man who likes nothing better than a good agenda. A glasses-wearing pedant who is precise to the point of obsession; always accompanied by his mother, Audrey.”
“What made me do it this time was that Robin was directing. He was the first person to play Donald for Alan Ayckbourn in 1977, by the way, and I’d done Woman In Black at the Fortune Theatre in London, with Robin directing, as he always does with that play, in 1994.
“I remember saying to him, ‘I want to play the older guy [in Woman In Black]; I’m really ready for it’.”
Instead, Mark played The Actor, the younger role in Stephen Mallatratt’s play, but perhaps he could work on Herford during the Ten Times Table run to suggest he is even more ready now, 26 years on, to be cast as Arthur Kipps.
That’s all, folk. Another moment of despair at the Pendon Folk Festival committee meeting in the Classic Comedy Theatre Company production of Ten Times Table
Mark is no stranger to Ayckbourn plays, having appeared in Bedroom Farce, How The Other Half Loves, Season’s Greetings and Joking Apart too, and after resuming the Ten Times Table tour in late-January that began with six weeks of shows before Christmas, he is greatly enjoying the role of Donald.
“He’s described as ‘grey man’. Well, I’m grey now! He’s this pedantic, boring little man and it really bothers him when there’s a spelling mistake or grammatical error! Apparently, Alan had encountered someone like that in a committee meeting!
“Anyway, Donald, who still lives with his mum, is really obsessed with details. It’s a role as real as you could make it, and there’s so much more to this part than just being a boring little man.”
Mark is rather less enamoured by committee meetings. “I remember being on a tennis club committee at a lovely club in Horsforth. I volunteered and was very enthusiastic, but what I soon realised was that while we all had one thing in common – we all loved tennis – we were all different characters who’d end up arguing, even though we all wanted the club to thrive,” he recalls.
“You think, if this is what happens with a small-scale committee, imagine what it must be like when it matters on a world scale!”
What next might come Mark’s way? Would he, for example, fancy playing dame in pantomime, now that such a vacancy exists at a theatre not far from the Grand Opera House? “The dame is the only role I could do in pantomime now,” he says. “It would be lovely to do it.” Watch this space!
The Classic Comedy Theatre Company in Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Putting his big boots back on: York pantomime dame Berwick Kaler, pictured here in his last Theatre Royal show, The Grand Old Dame Of York, before retiring. Now the Grand Opera House beckons. Picture: Anthony Robling
BERWICK Kaler is back, as the Grand Old Dame of York transforms into the Grand’s new dame.
Now that the Grand Opera House will
be the home of his latest dame after 41 years at York Theatre Royal, both Dame
Berwick and Dick Turpin will ride again from December 12 to January 10 2021.
Kaler pulled on his big boots at the
Theatre Royal for the last time on February 2 2019 after announcing his
retirement from Britain’s longest-running panto damehood.
Giving that retirement its P45, in
favour of a re-boot, he will write and direct as well as star in Dick Turpin
Rides Again, as he takes back control [to borrow a Dominic Cummings mantra].
What’s more, he will be re-uniting on stage with sidekick stooge Martin
Barrass, villain David Leonard, ageless principal girl Suzy Cooper and luverly
Brummie AJ Powell.
This time, the re-formed Panto Five
will be on new terrain as the Grand Opera House owners, Ambassador Theatre
Group, team up with Qdos Entertainment, the most powerful pantomime brand in
the land.
Here Charles Hutchinson puts the questions to prolific theatre producer, director and Qdos Entertainment (Pantomimes) managing director Michael Harrison, Kaler’s fellow north easterner, who stands at number eight in The Stage’s Top 100 most influential people in theatre, no less.
Michael Harrison: managing director of Qdos Entertainment (Pantomimes), the panto powerhouse bringing Berwick Kaler’s dame out of retirement. Picture: Simon Hadley
Why bring back Berwick, Michael?
“The best things fall out of the sky and I wasn’t expecting this
opportunity.
“I’m from Newcastle and I travelled all over the place to see
pantomimes; first Newcastle and Sunderland, then Darlington, and then I started
venturing to York and further, and I loved York Theatre
Royal’s show.
“If you see all the pantos everywhere, they can become like wallpaper,
but stumbling across Berwick in York was like a breath of fresh air. I’d never
seen anything like it. Stepping out of the script, as he does, I just loved it.
“I never really thought there was a place for it in what I did but was
more than happy to see it in Berwick’s pantos, and I did try to put some of
that madness in my shows, like I have for 16 years at Newcastle Theatre Royal.”
What struck you most about Berwick’s pantos?
“I like the way he has catchphrases that you don’t have to spend three
minutes introducing to the audience because they already know them.
“I like how he returns to things from previous shows, how he uses wild
titles and how he has cast members returning every year.
“It’s no secret that our most successful pantos are where the stars keep
returning: Allan Stewart, 20-plus years at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh; Billy
Pearce, more than 20 years at the Bradford Alhambra; Danny Adams and Clive Webb, 16
years at Newcastle Theatre Royal; Matt Slack at Birmingham Hippodrome.
“It’s true that pantomime is a celebration of local culture and that’s
why Berwick had that long run at the Theatre Royal.”
The final curtain for Berwick Kaler’s dame in The Grand Old Dame Of York on February 2 2019 at York Theatre Royal has turned out to be au revoir, not adieu. Picture: Anthony Robling
How did you feel when Berwick retired?
“The day after The Grand Old Dame Of York finished, and I was very tired
after directing three pantomimes and producing 30 shows that winter, I got very
emotional, thinking ‘this is the end of an era’. But I was also thinking ‘why
does Berwick want to retire in his early seventies, when he doesn’t have to
travel to do the show, he can go home every night?’”
How did Berwick’s dame resurrection at the Grand Opera House come to fruition?
“Mark Walters, the designer who Qdos have signed up for the London
Palladium and Newcastle Theatre Royal pantomimes and who used to design
Berwick’s pantos in York, got in touch on January 11 to say ‘Have you heard
what’s happening to the Theatre Royal panto?’ [with the news of a new creative
team being put in place].
“I woke up the next morning thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is over’.
‘Why is Berwick not coming back? One year off, now he should come back
refreshed.
“I wrote to Berwick and said ‘you don’t know who I am, but I put on
pantomimes and lots of other shows and I’m a massive fan of your pantos. If I
can get the Grand Opera House, would you do it? Would you talk?’.”
What happened next?
“Berwick’s agent contacted me the following day and it developed very
quickly from there.
“I just felt that Berwick’s panto was a little bit of pantomime history
that should continue.
“Qdos produce all the other Ambassador Theatre Group pantomimes, and I was
aware that Three Bears Productions’ contract was not being renewed. Normally
it’s about ‘big’ casting, but this was different. There was Berwick and all his
regulars.
“It happened quickly with Berwick and then we approached the other four
[Barrass, Leonard, Cooper and Powell], and there just seemed to be a passion to
make it happen.”
Re-uniting: villain David Leonard and perennial principal girl Suzy Cooper, pictured here in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal, will be back on stage with Berwick Kaler from December 12
Will you want more of “the same old rubbish” as Berwick calls it, or will you be seeking fresh elements to appeal to the regular Grand Opera House panto audience, who like plot, plenty for children to enjoy and popular songs?
“We want to make it a York pantomime. We have to grasp all the best bits
that have really worked for Berwick, and we also have to work out what’s the
best recipe for this opportunity to move forward in a different way.
“I remember the advice of a member of the audience in Newcastle, who
said: ‘Don’t ever change it, but keep surprising me’, and that’s what we have
to discover each time; how to do that.
“But Berwick’s panto format is very unique, and I feel that while he
wants to do it, and they all want to do it, and there’s an audience that wants
him to do it, then let’s continue doing it.
“What I do know is that more people still saw David, Martin, Suzy and AJ
in Sleeping Beauty than went to Snow White at the Opera House, by a considerable
margin, and by adding Berwick to the mix again, it will be interesting to be in
York next winter.”
Does the feisty side of Berwick, such as his “I’m b****y furious” outburst at the finale to the last night of Sleeping Beauty, worry you?
“Anybody that is passionate about what they do can have a reputation for
being demanding, but that goes with the territory.
“You expect anyone with a mind like that is going to challenge, always
wanting things to be better. I’m sure he only does it with the audience in
mind. It’s just about doing the best job for them.”
The new pantomime team at York Theatre Royal: associate director Juliet Forster, who will direct Cinderella, executive director Tom Bird and Evolution Productions producer Paul Hendy
Will there be a rivalry with the York Theatre Royal panto, now to be co-produced with Evolution Productions’ Paul Hendy and Emily Wood, presenting Cinderella for 2020-2021?
“I know Paul and Emily well. They’ve sat in my house. We might all be
panto producers but there’s no rivalry there, though I’d love to know why a
repertory theatre is teaming up with a pantomime company.
“Picking the Theatre Royal cast now, it will have to be star-driven,
otherwise who will go? But Paul is a very clever panto man, so he won’t be going
into it to get it wrong.
“Besides, there are more important things going on in the world than a panto ‘rivalry. It’s really not worth falling out when it’s only four of five weeks a year.”
Could the two theatres potentially be swapping their pantomime audiences?
“If there were 31,000 who saw Sleeping Beauty without Berwick – and there’s
no surprise that ticket sales fell when someone who’s an institution isn’t
there on stage anymore – then there’ll be those 31,000 here. I think there’s no
reason why we won’t have 40,000 people coming.
“It would be great to keep some of the regular Grand Opera House panto
audience too, if they’ve never experienced a Berwick Kaler pantomime. But I
also understand those who want something more traditional, though I think the
York audience is still stronger for a Berwick Kaler pantomime than a normal storyline-driven,
fairy-tale panto.
“In year one, people might go and see both.”
Will you be looking to inject young talent into the Grand Opera House pantomime, alongside the established team?
“I’m always mindful of who are the pantomime stars of tomorrow because
we’re not breeding them as we once were, like when they used to do a Blackpool
summer season or a sitcom.
“Today’s comedy stars do Radio 2 and Radio 4 shows and bypass panto, so
we have to find the new stars through other ways.”
Valentine’s Day engagement: Berwick Kaler will meet the box-office queues at the Grand Opera House panto ticket launch on February 14
Is there a chance that Mark Walters might design the Grand Opera House show, now that the ex-York Theatre Royal panto designer has signed to the Qdos stable?
“I’m talking to Mark about it now. If it wasn’t for Mark, I wouldn’t have
put that request in to Berwick to play dame again.
“We’ve met already about Humpty Dumpty for Newcastle Theatre Royal…and we’ll
discuss Dick Turpin Rides Again too.”
As a hugely successful pantomime producer and director yourself, with the London Palladium and Newcastle Theatre Royal to your name, what makes a good panto?
“Two things, I would say: comedy and magic. Not magic tricks, but that
sense of wonderment that you can’t put your finger on.
“The best pantomimes are the funniest ones. We can get terribly criticised
for not having as much plot as we could, but the best received shows have
always been more focused on comedy, set pieces and routines.
“The plot has to be there but the show must be funny and it has to have
a wow factor about it.”
Qdos Entertainment present Berwick Kaler in Dick Turpin Rides Again at the Grand Opera House, York, from December 12 to January 10 2021. Dame Berwick and his co-stars will launch ticket sales on February 14 from 10am at the box office. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Feel the chemistry Emma Lucia’s Girl and Daniel Healy’s Guy in Once , The Musical
Once, The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York
THREE weeks
into rehearsals at Toynbee Hall in London’s East End, the media were invited to
a press day where director Peter Rowe and musical supervisor Ben Goddard put
their 16-strong cast through their paces in exhilarating fashion.
Sometimes you can feel the magic in the air as early as that, sensing the chemistry between leads Daniel Healy and Emma Lucia and the bonding of the company of actor-musicians as they turned a rehearsal room into an Irish pub full of lusty singing and joyful playing.
You just knew the show was going to be good, but, glory be, it is even better than that. Having cherished John Carney’s micro-budgeted cult romantic Irish film starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova since 2007, yet aware that many still don’t know that charming movie, save maybe for its multi-award-winning song Falling Slowly, your reviewer urges you to fall immediately for this touring musical version. No time for slowness here.
Broadway, the West End and Dublin have all had a go at doing Once The Musical. Rowe and regular musical partner Goddard first united Scotsman Healy and Durham-born Lucia as Guy and Girl, jilted Dublin busker/vacuum cleaner repairman and immigrant Czech odd-jobs worker and musician, for shows in Ipswich and Hornchurch in 2018, and now they have found the perfect format for a touring version.
What a Guy: Daniel Healy in Once, The Musical
Designed by Libby Watson, the setting is an Irish pub, crammed with pictures and chattering life, where the cast rally the audience with songs familiar from The Pogues, Chieftains and Dubliners to set the Dublin craic.
Scenes are
played out against this backdrop, the musicians fading in and out of scenes,
sometimes acting like a Greek chorus as they lean in, in response to what is
unfolding between Healy’s Guy and Lucia’s Girl.
They are
first encountered as she watches him busking in the chill streets, singing to
his ex, now moved to New York, but still the subject of each pained song,
although he is on the cusp of giving up on those songs too.
Girl is open,
frank, funny for being so serious; Guy is taciturn, guarded, but the shared
love of music speaks volumes and she needs her vacuum cleaner mending. It duly arrives
as if out of thin air, shooting across the stage in one of the show’s many
humorous moments.
Big-hitting Falling Slowly is not held back. Instead, it forms their first song together in Billy’s unruly music shop, tentative at first as she picks out the piano lines, to accompany his singing, then joining in, their voices entwining and overlapping beautifully. Gradually, one by one, the musicians join in too: fiddle, guitars, mandolin, cello, squeezebox and more, in union, in sympathy.
Emma Lucia’s Girl saying hello to the piano – which musicians should always do, she says
Here, in a
nutshell, is why Once works wonders as a musical, being as much a celebration
of the power of music in Dublin’s fair city as a love story of ebb and flow,
rise and fall, surprise and revelation, over five all too short days.
The path of
love is never smooth, as we all know, but for those who have never seen Once,
it would be wrong to issue spoiler alerts of what ensues. Except to say, on the
way home you will want to discuss how the open-ended story might progress, if you
have any romantic bones in your body!
Healy and
Lucia are terrific leads: who would not fall for either of them?! His Guy is
generous, kind, a blue-eyed soul man of song and acoustic guitar playing; her Girl,
his new Czech mate, is feisty, fearless in the face of adversity in her adopted
city, and plays the piano exquisitely too.
Dan Bottomley’s
hapless, bandy-legged, hopelessly romantic, fiery Billy pickpockets plenty of
scenes and Ellen Chivers, last seen in York last summer in the Theatre Royal’s Swallows
& Amazons, is even better as wild-spirited Czech Reza.
From Enda Walsh’s witty, whimsical, love-struck script to Hansard and Irglova’s impassioned songs, you must see Once, a wonderful show that blows away weeks of panto wars and politics, to herald a new year of theatre in York. In fact, it is so enjoyable, you could go not once, but twice…and make sure to arrive early to see York buskers Rachel Makena, Florence Taylor, Owen Gibson and Peter Wookie taking turns pre-show and in the interval in the foyer bar.
Customer experience manager Lauren Atkins, left, deputy customer experience manager Laura Castle, ticketing and sales manager Beth Scott and York Teaching Hospital Charity community fundraiser Joe Fenton with the Grand Opera House bucket collection cheque in the York theatre’s auditorium. Picture: David Harrison
THE Grand Opera House, York, is to donate £8,765 to the York Teaching Hospital Charity from bucket collections held at performances in 2019.
The donation will go towards “helping to fund the extras to improve
healthcare facilities above and beyond the NHS making patients feel better”.
Joe Fenton, the hospital charity’s community fundraiser, said: “We’d like to say a huge thank-you to the Grand Opera House and to everyone who generously donated at the bucket collections held across 2019.
“The incredible amount that has been raised is truly inspiring and will
go a long way in improving the staff and patient experience across our
hospitals.
“The money will be used benefit a number of wards, including the Children’s
Ward, Dementia, the Renal Unit and our Maternity Bereavement Suite, so thank
you for your fantastic support.”
Clare O’Connor, theatre manager at the Cumberland Street theatre, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to have contributed nearly £9,000 (£8765.17) to numerous departments – Renal Unit, Children’s Ward, Dementia Appeal and Butterfly Appeal – in the hospital over the past 12 months, in conjunction with the wonderful York Teaching Hospital Charity.
“Without the very generous donations of our audience members, and the time kindly given by volunteers for collections, we wouldn’t have achieved so great a figure, which means so much to all the staff at the Grand Opera House.”
Clare continued: “The patients and relatives who use these departments
at York Hospital will benefit greatly from these funds, which will improve
their experience during a difficult time, and we look forward to more
successful fundraising over the next 12 months. Thank you.”
The tour poster for Viva La Divas starring Katya Jones, Nadiya Bychkova and Janette Manrara. Picture: Colin Thomas
STRICTLY Come Dancing professional trio Janette Manrara, Katya
Jones and Nadiya Bychkova will be on tour this summer, making a
song and dance of Viva La Divas at the Grand Opera House, York, on June 16.
Collaborating with the original producers of Viva La Diva, first
performed in 2007 with dancer Darcey Bussell and singer Katherine Jenkins, this
glamorous show will pay tribute to stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood,
Broadway and West End musical theatre, modern pop divas and female icons with
the greatest impact on the Strictly dancers.
In this all-singing, all-dancing musical extravaganza, Katya, Nadiya and
Janette will star with a cast of dancers and singers as they celebrate Marilyn
Monroe, Madonna, Beyonce, Judy Garland, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez and many
more.
Running from June 14 to July 16, the tour has further Yorkshire dates at
Halifax Victoria Hall on June 23 and Bridlington Spa on the last night.
Miami-born Janette Manrara became a Strictly professional in 2013 after performing at the 2009 Academy Awards, appearing in season five of the American version of So You Think You Can Dance, being a principal dancer on Glee and starring in the stage show Burn The Floor for three years.
Among her Strictly highlights was lifting the Christmas Glitter Ball trophy twice with celebrity partners Aston Merrygold and Melvin Odoom. Looking ahead to the summer tour, Janette says: “I’m so excited to be touring the UK with two of my best friends, Katya and Nadiya – and what a show it’s going to be.
“We’ll be celebrating the glitz, the glamour and style of the greatest
divas in showbiz. We’re going to have so much fun bringing this show to
audiences across the UK and I can’t wait. It’s going to be a blast.”
Before making her Strictly debut in 2016 , Russian dancer Katya Jones and her dance partner Neil Jones won the WDC World Show Dance Championships and three titles at the World Amateur Latin Championship.
After her Strictly partnership with politician Ed Balls in 2016, for her second series Katya was partnered with actor Joe McMadden, the pair duly lifting the Glitterball Ball trophy as 2017 champions.
“To tour Viva La Divas across this beautiful country this summer with two incredible dancers, who happen to be my very close friends, is a dream come true,” says Katya.
“How the three of us managed to keep everything a secret for
so long I’ll never know. Finally, we can shout it from the roof tops:
girls on tour! It’s going to be epic.”
Ukrainian-born Nadiya Bychkova made her Strictly debut in 2017 as a
two-time world champion and European champion in ballroom and Latin ‘10’ Dance,
partnering former England goalkeeper David James in the 2019 series.
“I’m thrilled to be part of the Viva La Divas tour this summer,” she
says. “We have an incredible team working on what will be a dazzling show that
I can’t wait for audiences everywhere to see.
“It’s going to be a stunning spectacle full of the elegance, style and
attitude, befitting of the greatest divas’ legacies. And to be touring with two
incredible friends in Janette and Katya is simply the dream team.”
Tickets for the tour go on general sale at 10am on Friday at ticketmaster.co.uk and vivaladivasshow.com; York tickets on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Emma Lucia’s Girl and Daniel Healy’s Guy performing Falling Slowly in Once The Musical. Pictures: Mark Senior
DANIEL Healy and Emma Lucia are playing the lead roles together in Once The Musical not once, but twice.
They first did so in the regional premiere in Autumn 2018 at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch.
Now, that production’s director and musical director, the regular team of Peter Rowe and Ben Goddard, have reunited the duo for the first British tour that opened this month (January) and will play the Grand Opera House, York, from February 3 to 8.
First a cult, micro-budget Irish film written and directed by John Carney in 2007, then a Broadway, West End and Dublin show, Once The Musical tells the uplifting yet yearning story of the hopes and dreams of two lost souls, a jilted Dublin street busker and a more positive Czech musician, who unexpectedly fall in love across five short days in the Southern Irish capital city.
“I’ve managed to fool a few people with my Irish accent, thinking I really must be from Dublin,” says Scotsman Daniel Healy:
The touring cast of 16 will be led by Scotsman Healy as Guy and Lucia, from Durham, as Girl, whose chemistry was apparent immediately when press and media were invited to meet the company three weeks into rehearsal at Toynbee Hall in London’s East End: a question-and-answer session introduced with rousing renditions of Irish pub and ceilidh songs and the show’s opening scene.
This peaked with Healy and Lucia’s performance of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová’s Oscar-winning signature song Falling Slowly, with all the actor-musician cast playing their part around them, “leaning into the story” in the pub setting.
Daniel’s relationship with Once goes back to “a long time ago”. “My first run-in with the show was when I was doing a show in LA [Los Angeles] called Backbeat and I had an audition for the Broadway version of Once but couldn’t do it because of various reasons,” he recalls.
“But then I understudied the lead and played one of the main characters, Eamon [the music studio manager where Guy and Girl record their album] in the London production, when I understudied Ronan Keating.”
Daniel Healy’s Guy, Emma Lucia’s Girl and Samuel Martin’s Bank Manager in Once The Musical
Daniel is a singer-songwriter in his own right, and friendship with the Boyzone singer turned into a co-writing partnership that elicited Keating’s single Breathe. “After he heard one of my songs, Ronan said, ‘I’d really like to write with you’, so I ended up writing six songs with him and touring with him in his band,” he says.
Emma saw Daniel in Once in the London production. “I was still at Mountview drama school, and doing Beautiful, the Carole King musical, on tour at the time [making her professional debut as Marilyn and understudying the lead role],” she says.
“Then I heard there was going to be a production of Once in Ipswich, and I know the musical director, Ben Goddard, from doing a couple of classes led by him at Mountview.
“You’d do all the songs you’d thought of doing for auditions and he’d give you tips and advice.”
Emma landed the role of Girl after two auditions, and it was only then that she met Daniel for the first time for rehearsals.
” I’ve always loved theatre,” says Emma Lucia. “My dad used to do a lot of am-dram and I knew it was something in my life I always wanted to do”
“Peter and Ben auditioned us separately and they must have felt we would have chemistry once we were put together,” she says. The partnership worked a treat – “we get on really well” – and there was immediate talk of a tour.
“But we needed a producer,” says Emma. “I didn’t think it was going to happen, so it was a quite a surprise when it did, but we’re so pleased,” says Daniel.
“The producers have given Peter and Ben complete control as they loved the show as it was in Ipswich.”
Hearing Emma’s Czech accent on stage in the rehearsal room and then her North Eastern one in the interview reveals how much work she put into preparing for the role. “I’d only met one person from the Czech Republic in my life, and briefly at that, so I contacted the Czech Embassy and they put me in touch with two Czech girls who were here for six months and loved the show!” she says.
It’s not like I’m playing Titus Andronicus, but I do empathise more with the human struggle than the musical one,” says Daniel Healy
“So, we met for a cup of coffee and talked about the show, and I recorded their voices and asked any questions that I felt I needed answering.”
Likewise, Daniel’s Dublin accent sounds spot on. “I think, without being big-headed, I’ve got an ear for accents,” he says. “I’d ask Irish friends too, and it’s all about not being afraid to ask.
“Though being Scottish doesn’t make it easier to learn because, when accents are close to each other, like these two, they’re actually more difficult to separate…but I’ve managed to fool a few people with my Irish accent, thinking I really must be from Dublin!”
Daniel and Emma’s instrumental skills are as important to their roles as their singing and acting. “My dad’s a guitarist, and I did musical theatre from the age of five, and TV dramas and films too, and I’ve now got a parallel career as a singer-songwriter,” says Daniel.
Emma Lucia as Girl in Once The Musical, playing the Grand Opera House, York, in early February
“I could never call myself a busker, but I have busked in the past, but I sympathise more with Guy’s struggle with not having the courage to follow through with his dreams when you hope you can make it as a singer-songwriter.
“It’s not like I’m playing Titus Andronicus, but I do empathise more with the human struggle than the musical one.”
Emma’s path to Once began with an itch to dance from the age of three. “I just couldn’t stand still,” she recalls. “Then I picked up on playing the piano [the instrument she plays in Once] at five years old.
“I’ve always loved theatre. My dad used to do a lot of am-dram [amateur dramatics] and I knew it was something in my life I always wanted to do.”
Exuding an air of positivity, she feels a strong connection with her role as Girl. “She sees it as her mission to help other people, and I empathise with that as I love to do that myself,” says Emma.
Once The Musical runs at Grand Opera House, York, from February 3 to 8. Box office: 0844 871 3024, at atgtickets.com/York or in person from the Cumberland Street theatre.
THE Grand Opera House, York, plays host to two tribute shows this week, first hitting the high notes with The Best Of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons on Friday.
The Simon & Garfunkel Story follows on Saturday in a return visit to the Cumberland Street theatre.
From the creators of The Barricade Boys comes the Frankie Valli show, a high-pitched celebration of the career of four New Jersey boys, who started singing under a streetlamp.
Sherry, My Eyes Adored You, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Walk Like A Man and December 1963 (Oh, What A Night) all feature in a show performed by cast members from Jersey Boys and other West End shows.
The Simon & Garfunkel Story
After a run at London’s Vaudeville Theatre and a worldwide tour, the tribute show to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel is back on the road with Adam Dickinson’s Simon and Cameron Potts’s Garfunkel.
Using projection
photos and original film footage, the 50th anniversary celebration features a
full band performing Cecilia, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Mrs Robinson et al.
Tickets for the two 7.30pm performances are on sale on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Daniel Healy, left, as Guy, Emma Lucia, as Girl, and Samuel Martin, as the Bank Manager, in Once The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, next month. Pictures: Mark Senior
ONCE seen, never forgotten, but you won’t have seen Once like this before, except in…Ipswich or Hornchurch.
First a cult, micro-budget Irish film written and directed by John Carney in 2007, then a Broadway, West End and Dublin show, Once The Musical embarks on its first British tour in January, playing the Grand Opera House, in York, from February 3 to 8.
Telling the uplifting yet yearning story of the hopes and dreams of two lost souls, a Dublin street busker and a Czech musician, who unexpectedly fall in love, Once is being directed by Peter Rowe with musical supervision by his regular cohort Ben Goddard.
The cast will be led by Scotsman Daniel Healy as Guy and Emma Lucia, from Durham, as Girl, reprising their roles from 2018’s premiere at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch.
The company invited press and media to meet them three weeks into rehearsal at Toynbee Hall in London’s East End: a question-and-answer session introduced with rousing performances of Irish ceilidh songs and the show’s opening scene, leading to Healy and Lucia’s performance of the Oscar-winning signature song Falling Slowly, with all the actor-musicians playing their part around them, “leaning into the story” in the pub setting.
“This production is very different to the West End,” says Ben. “We very much started, as we would do with any story, any musical, by taking it off the page and then basically trying to get as many people as possible into the story we present on stage.”
Peter says: “What’s particular about this production is that everyone on stage is telling the story and that gives it a real charge. We have skilled actor-musicians trying to re-create the acoustic sound of Irish pub songs, and rather than trying to make it a bigger razzmatazz production, we want to draw people in.”
Emma Lucia as Girl in Once The Musical
This reflects the song-writing of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová that frames Irish playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh’s story of the Guy and the Girl’s relationship across five short Dublin days.
“Glen is a singer-songwriter who writes thoughtful songs from the heart, and so our production is an extension of that,” says Ben. “That’s the difference from other musicals: the music really does the job for you.”
Peter says: “You can feel that the band are impressed by this man, his voice and his music, and they become part of the flowering of his songs.”
He and Ben have worked regularly in the actor-musician world of theatrical performance. “That’s pretty much what we done with all the work we’ve done together, but putting the band together for this show has been very challenging, bringing together the right collection of people,” says Ben.
“Not just how they each play, but how they play together and work together, so that we have a combination of people to make the story work.”
Peter concurs: “Seeing an ensemble of 16 with all that skill, swapping instruments, will be a pleasure for the audience.” Ben rejoins: “I think we’ve found a combination where the levels of performance are pretty much at a peak, which is hard to find, with everyone showing their powers of musicianship and their acting chops.”
Peter’s research took him to Dublin for the “terrible task” – said with his tongue in his cheek – of visiting as many pubs as possible, combining the pleasures of an Irish pint with taking photographs of the pub interiors and the musicians playing there, and now bringing that atmosphere to the stage.
“It’s an unrequited love story, the most painful of all love stories, and that’s why Once really gets to people,” says director Peter Rowe of Guy’s plight in the Irish musical
At its heart, Once is a love story. “But it’s also an unrequited love story, the most painful of all love stories, and that’s why Once really gets to people,” says Peter.
“It’s the lives that you don’t live that you think about: if only you had turned left rather than right, and everyone recognises that story in the songs. And these are not musical theatre songs where people get to the point where they can’t say anything more without bursting into song.
“Here it’s a different convention. The songs in Once stand alone; they’re mostly solo songs or duets that are being sung in the street or Billy’s music store, so they have a naturalistic place in the story.”
Ben adds: “The story in Once came from an already written collection of songs, and with those songs being strong, a very strong story followed. At the start, the Guy seems quite repressed when he talks to the Girl, but then all the passion he felt in his failed relationship comes pouring out in his songs.”
Working in tandem with their regular choreographer, Fran Jaynes, Peter and Ben have made a point of changing the way musicians were used in past productions of Once The Musical. “When we saw it in London, they were on stage, to the left and to the right, watching what was going on, but, for me, they never really felt part of it,” says Ben. “But we’ve been involved in actor-musician work for a long time, and we’ve found it really potent to take their involvement further.”
Peter adds: “We could see the show’s potential as an actor-musician piece, and we just felt we could do more with it, making the most of the ensemble.”
In what way? “Using everybody on stage at all times, it’s like a European troupe of actors, where they all tell the story,” says Ben.
“But we also spent a long time trying to get the right chemistry in the whole cast, though the two leads, Daniel and Emma, had to come first.”
Once The Musical runs at Grand Opera House, York, from February 3 to 8 2020. Box office: 0844 871 3024, at atgtickets.com/York or in person from the Cumberland Street theatre.
Brendan Cole in Show Man, dancing its way to the Grand Opera House, York, next month
HEADING for York on February 25, ballroom dancer Brendan Cole’s Show Man will be his last big band production after ten years of touring five shows.
Just to be clear, the former Strictly Come Dancing star is not retiring but song-and-dance concert tours on such a theatrical scale will be consigned to the past after Live & Unjudged in 2010, 2011 and twice in 2012; Licence To Thrill in 2013 and 2014; A Night To Remember in 2015 and 2016; All Night Long in 2017 and 2018 and now Show Man in 2019 and 2020.
“This will be my last big band tour after touring for so many years,” says the 43-year-old New Zealander, who will be bringing Show Man to the Grand Opera House next month.
“I’ve loved every second of being on the stage with my friends, who have now become family. It’s time for something different and I’m honoured to be taking Show Man out for one last run.
Taking Show Man out for one last run: Brendan Cole launches the second leg of his 2019/2020 tour
“I’m so proud of this production and I’m going out on a high. If you love live music from one of the best touring bands and exciting and emotive dance, this is the show for you.”
Back on the road from February 19, Show Man draws its inspiration from the magic of theatre and the movies, combining Cole and his hand-picked championship dancers and eight-piece big band and singers with laughter and chat throughout.
Choreography will be high energy, up close and personal, complemented by the lighting and special effects. Expect a cheeky Charleston to Pencil Full Of Lead, a sexy Salsa to Despacito, music fromBeggin’ to Bublé, plus numbers from The Greatest Showman and La La Land.
‘I’m really excited to be bringing back Show Man, having toured this production early in 2019. This is my most exciting tour to date; it’s so dynamic and theatrical, much more so than any previous tour,” says Brendan, who you may remember lifted the very first Strictly Come Dancing glitterball trophy when partnering news presenter Natasha Kaplinsky in 2004.
” I’m particularly proud of Show Man because of its theatricality,” says Brendan Cole
“We have five male dancers, three female dancers, choirs, a violinist and brand new staging, which allows the choreography to be exciting and different; bigger and better lifts, some very strong theatrical numbers, as well as a new-look set. It really is something special. My aim is to wow the audience and give them everything they’d expect and much, much more.”
Why stop doing such big-scale shows now? “I’m giving myself options for the future,” says Brendan, who, by the way, spent the Christmas season in pantoland, playing the Spirit of the Ring in Aladdin at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking. “My days of playing Aladdin are over!” he quips. “I’m not hired for my looks!”
Back to Show Man being his last tour on the grand scale. “The thing is, with these big band tours, I’ve been doing it for ten years now; it takes a year to put each one together and I don’t have the time to do that anymore.
“Since I left Strictly at the end of 2017, I’m delighted to say I’ve been crazily busy. I’m involved in The X Factor, I’m doing some other TV shows. There’s a show that’s just been filmed for Channel 4, though I can’t go into detail yet!”
“There’s that moment I really enjoy, when a dance has just finished, and there’s a hush, as if the audience are almost in a state of trance…,” says Brendan Cole
For now, the focus is on enjoying the second leg of Show Man shows. “It was Katie Bland who came up with the Show Man title, because it’s a show with all the different aspects of dance, taking it on a more theatrical slant and movie influenced too, such as The Greatest Showman and Dirty Dancing.
“Katie said, ‘you are ‘the showman’, and after seeing The Great Showman, I knew I had to include it in the show.”
Not only will there be a big band, but also a choir at the Grand Opera House. “We use local singers, anyone from 12 years old to young adults, and they range in number from 12 to 27 each night,” says Brendan.
Looking back over ten years of shows, “My favourite was my first, Live & Unjudged, when it was very raw,” he recalls. “But I’m particularly proud of Show Man because of its theatricality.”
My aim is to wow the audience and give them everything they’d expect and much, much more,” says Brendan Cole
What comes next for Brendan, the showman dancer? “Something much more intimate,” he says, “One of the things I’ve tried to do is make Show Man more intimate, but that’s a hard thing to do in a big band show.
“But I have no plans for the next move yet, because I’d like some time out as it’s gruelling, taking hours and hours to put the content together and then the company together for a show like Show Man. I want to take some time out with my family.”
Such is his love of dance shows and dancing itself, Brendan will be back. “It’s the magic of it. Creating a story between two people in a dance. That little bit of magic for two and a half, three, minutes. It’s storytelling without words, and as people watch, they create their own stories,” he says.
“It’s the waltzes that I really love. There’s a real beauty to them. Then there’s that moment I really enjoy, when a dance has just finished, and there’s a hush, as if the audience are almost in a state of trance…”
…And, there, in a nutshell, is why Show Man will be a chapter, rather than the closing chapter, in Brendan Cole’s dance story. He has a vision beyond 2020.
Brendan Cole, Show Man, Grand Opera House, York, February 25, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/York
