Old York Theatre to perform Charlie Blanshard’s immersive debut play Jorvik at Barley Hall, York, on July 25 and 26

Oliver Strong’s Odin in Charlie Blanshard’s play Jorvik

EAST Yorkshire writer and actor Charlie Blanshard will present his debut full-length play, Jorvik, at Barley Hall, Coffee Yard, York, on July 25 and 26.

He first presented his hour-long show there on February 17 at the 2025 Jorvik Viking Festival, when it was pleasing to see a  theatre piece in a festival noted for its living history encampments, workshops, tours, traditional crafts, feasts, family events, boat burning, evening entertainment and dramatic combat performances.

“That’s why I made the show,” said Old York Theatre co-producer Charlie, whose imposing 6ft 2 frame and long hair would have befitted Viking times.

“When I was studying at Rose Bruford College, I made a short Viking film called Snake-In-The-Eye, which we shot in the Allfather Hall in Valhalla, as my final work on my MA in Actor Performer Training course.

“Dr Chris Tuckley [Jorvik’s head of interpretation and learning] gave me historical advice for that project, and I reached out to him again with this play. He put me in touch with Abi at Jorvik, I presented the script and asked if there was any way I could do it at Barley Hall.”

Old York Theatre’s logo

The answer was yes, whereupon February 17’s two performances led off a northern tour that took in The Brain Jar cocktail bar in Hull and the Monks Walk Inn in Beverley, where Charlie used to work, as well as crossing the Pennines to play a Manchester cabaret bar.

Jorvik, an immersive play set directly in the aftermath of the fall of Eoforwic to the Great Viking Army and its rebirth as Jorvik, will be staged once more in the Tudor Throne Room, the great hall at Barley Hall.

What will “immersive” involve, Charlie? “Every audience member will be cast as a member of the Viking Army with plenty of opportunities to get involved if you want to,” he says. “Everyone is part of the moment. It’s not a play to be sat at the back with popcorn!”

Directed by co-producer Jack Chamberlain, Charlie takes the role of Ubbe, son of Ragnar and leader of the Viking army, playing opposite Oliver Strong’s Odin.

 “The play leans heavily on the Viking mythos, rejoices in the fantastical and is delivered with the spirit of larger-than-life storytelling! We follow our protagonist; Ubbe, soaked in the blood of battle as he finds himself at a great banquet in his honour,” says Charlie.

Jorvik actor-writer Charlie Blanshard

“But in this mysterious throne room, not all is as it seems!. Jorvik is a play about loss, glory, family and celebrating life while we are still around to enjoy it. Expect big characters, song, fights and plenty of table banging.”

Defining Old York Theatre’s theatre style, Charlie says: “It’s theatre of myths and legends, legacy and mortality. We’re not focused on history; it’s storytelling about larger-than-life heroes and gods and focusing on their stories. Ultimately, we want people to come and have a good time and leave with a smile on their face.

“We tell the story in a mixture of styles, with moments of mythological verse and also modern language. It’s a mash-up to match the clash of two worlds, and every show will be different because each audience will add a unique element with their own story.

“It’s a performance that’s rooted in history and myth but lives and breathes today – and York is the perfect place to stage it because this is a city where history does live and breathe and you  can experience the legends of times before.”

Born in Londesborough, in the Wolds, and raised in Hull, Charlie has been drawn to York since regular weekend family trips in his childhood. “It really does feel like home every time I come to the city. Even as a young child, it captured my imagination. From the city walls to historic pubs, you think, ‘who has walked these walls, these streets?’, ‘who has sat before in these pubs?’. It’s a city that cannot deny its history.”

Charlie Blanshard in his Viking film Snake-In-The-Eye

Old York Theatre’s motto is “Theatre company rooted in Yorkshire, for the world. Anywhere, anytime, any place”. Hence February’s debut mini-tour headed  to a great hall, a cabaret bar, a cocktail bar and a pub.

“We hope to expand on that,” says Charlie. “We also want to appeal both to people who’ve been to a theatre a thousand times and those who’ve never been. So we want to break down barriers for people to go to a theatre show, as well as those who go to see Chekhov and Shakespeare, which is why we’re doing the play in cocktail and cabaret bars.”

Living in Hull on his return from London, Charlie has worked with Middle Child theatre company, based in Hull Town, and now with Old York Theatre. “I want to make work for the north,” he says. “The northern theatre scene called me back to make new theatre, bringing northern stories to northern audiences and breaking dwon that barrier of theatre being London-centric.”

Since that February tour, Charlie has appeared in York community arts collective Next Door But One’s May tour of Sarah McDonald-Hughes’s How To Be A Kid to primary schools, bookended by public performances at York Explore and Friargate Theatre, York. He played six-year-old Joe, a dinosaur-fixated dreamer, in a story of family, friends and fitting in, built around a study of young carers, mental health and social care.

Old York Theatre in Jorvik, Barley Hall, Coffee Yard, York, July 25 and 26, 7pm. Box office: yat.digitickets.co.uk/tickets

Charlie Blanshard’s Joe in Next Door But One’s How To Be A Kid in May. Picture: James Drury

REVIEW: Next Door But One in How To Be A Kid, next stop Friargate Theatre, York 17/5/2025, 12 noon and 3pm

Tucking in: Becky Heslop’s Molly and Charlie Blanshard’s Joe with George Green’s Mum in Next Door But One’s How To Be A Kid. All pictures: James Drury

First published on May 16 2025

YORK community arts collective Next Door But One has been touring How To Be A Kid to primary schools and Out Of Character at York St John University this week, bookended by public performances at York Explore and Friargate Theatre.

CharlesHutchPress was among the audience of adults and children at the first of two shows in the Marriott Room, a regular, wood-panelled location at York Explore for NDB1’s work.

Sarah McDonald-Hughes’s hour-long play for seven to 11-year-olds and their grown-ups has its roots in a Paines Plough premiere in London, but as ever with NDB1, associate director Kate Veysey’s production has been informed, indeed influenced and rubber-stamped by working with communities with lived experience of the subject. In this case, young carers, young people in care and the Out Of Character theatre group, whose members have experience of mental health issues.

Hence NDB1 has teamed up with Our Time Charity to raise awareness of mental health, young carers and those in care. A play can go only so far. Our Time Charity can go further.

Becky Heslop’s Molly and George Green’s Taylor in How To Be A Kid

McDonald-Hughes’s story of family, friends and fitting in certainly plays its part in highlighting the work of a group that often goes unspoken, maybe even unknown: young carers. Young carers such as Molly (played by Becky Heslop).

She is 12 years old; her dinosaur-fixated dreamer of a kid brother, Joe (Charlie Blanshard), is six. When, spoiler alert, Nan (George Green) dies, Mum (Green again) is so grief stricken, she becomes house-bound, even bed-bound. 

Molly must cook, do the dishes, make sure Joe brushes his teeth, get him ready for school, find time for homework and look after Mum. How can she still be a child under such duress?

At one point, Joe is packed off to live with his dad; Molly, meanwhile, is placed in a care home for six weeks, where she befriends Taylor, soon her bestie with a mutual love of dancing.

Charlie Blanshard’s Joe lets out a dinosaur roar in How To Be A Kid

Scenes are short, likewise sentences are snappy, to make revelations even more startling. Character changes are no less swift, with the impressively diverse George Green being the quintessence of multi-role-playing: at the last count, nine! Namely, Taylor/Abby/Mum/Nan/bus driver/social worker Michelle/teacher Miss Johnson/monosyllabic McDonalds  worker/swimming pool cleaner. Everything’s gone  Green, to borrow a 1981 New Order song title.

And yes, you read that right: swimming pool cleaner. Under Kate Veysey’s direction, How To Be A Kid enters a world of magic realism where Molly is at the wheel of a car, Joe beside her, in his dinosaur top, as they head off to the baths, closed at night to the public, yet magically open to them.

Veysey, whether working with Youth Theatre Royal Youth Theatre or now with NDB1 and Out Of Character, has a way of making theatre work for young and older alike, and here she elicits delightful performances from the chameleon Green, Heslop’s resourceful Molly and Blanshard’s ever-imaginative Joe, as full of wonder and humour as pathos and bewilderment.

Why should we see How To Be A Kid, CharlesHutchPress asked the cast. “Because it’s a beautifully epic, hilarious adventure rooted in reality,” said Blanshard.

“It’s fun, it’s honest and it’s playful,” says How To Be A Kid actress Becky Heslop

“It’s fun, it’s honest and it’s playful. They are the three words to describe it – and there’s lots of cake and dinosaurs and dancing,” said Heslop. “It turns a light on grief, mental health and carers in a positive way.“

“I think it’s fun that means something, an hour of escapism, where you learn something, but not in a preachy way,” said Green.

Your reviewer couldn’t have put it better, so take their word for it. How To Be A Kid is child’s play with a serious message, one that states how everything can be changed by communication. In this case by talking with mum, not staying mum.

Make that two messages, because McDonald-Hughes places great store in the power of imagination and creativity in pursuit of joy and hope. In a nutshell, the tools of theatre.

Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/york/friargate-theatre/how-to-be-a-kid/.

Next Door But One’s poster for How To Be A Kid