AS Madness and Sugababes canter up to York Racecourse, Charles Hutchinson picks his favourites from the upcoming entertainment runners and riders
Musical of the week: NE Musicals York in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 20 to 24, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees
CREATIVE director Steve Tearle’s cast of 30 features Finley Butler, Tom Henshaw and Tearle himself as three drag queens who take an epic journey from Sydney to Alice Springs across the Australian outback in their bus Priscilla.
“The journey is full of drama and dance routines but also so many laugh-out-loud moments,” says Tearle. “There’ll be costumes – 300 in total – that have never been seen before in York and the star of the show, the bus, will take your breath away.” Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Underground movement of the week: John Cale, York Barbican, from July 19 to October 24, 8pm
VELVET Underground icon John Cale, now 80, is moving his first British itinerary in a decade to the autumn. Tickets for Tuesday – the only Yorkshire gig of his seven-date tour – remain valid for the new date in October.
The Welsh multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer will be performing songs from a pioneering six-decade career that began in classical and avant-garde music before he formed The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed in New York in 1965. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Gig announcement of the week: Bob Dylan, Hull Bonus Arena, October 27
BOB Dylan will play Hull Bonus Arena as the only Yorkshire gig of his Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour 2021-2024 this autumn.
The Nobel Prize-winning American singer, songwriter and cultural icon last visited Britain in 2017 on his Never Ending Tour. This time the focus will be on his 39th studio album, June 2020’s chart-topping Rough And Rowdy Ways, his first set of original songs since 2012’s Tempest. Box office: hurry, hurry, to ticketmaster.co.uk.
One on, one off, tonight: cheers for Richard Ashcroft, Sounds Of The City, Leeds Millennium Square; tears for Tears For Fears, Scarborough Open Air Theatre
IN the Leeds outdoors tonight, Richard Ashcroft, frontman of Wigan’s Nineties’ rock gods The Verve, performs songs from his chart-topping band days and solo career in the wake of re-recording his prime work for 2021’s Acoustic Hymns Vol 1. Gates open at 6pm; support slots go to DJ Wayne and Cast. Last few tickets: millsqleeds.com .
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things they could do without: Curt Smith’s rib injury has forced Tears For Fears to call off tonight’s gig in Scarborough.
Yorkshire favourite of the week: Jane McDonald: Let The Light In, York Barbican, July 22, 7.30pm
WAKEFIELD singer and television star Jane McDonald plays her long-awaited Let The Light In Show in York, rearranged from the lockdown gloom of 2020.
The BAFTA award-winner, Cruising With presenter and Loose Women panellist will be joined by her band and backing singers for a night of cabaret song, laughter and fabulous dresses. Box office for last few tickets: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
On course for race days: York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Madness, July 22; Sugababes, July 23
CAMDEN’S Nutty Boys, Madness, return to the Knavesmire track next Friday, having first gone One Step Beyond there in July 2010. Once more Suggs and co will roll out such ska-flavoured music-hall hits as Our House, Baggy Trousers, House Of Fun, Wings Of A Dove, My Girl and Driving In My Car after the evening race card.
The re-formed original Sugababes line-up of Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena and Siobhán Donaghy are next Saturday afternoon’s act. The London girl group last appeared in York as long ago as 2003 with a line-up of Buchanan, Buena and Heidi Range at the Barbican Centre, as was.
Here come Freak Like Me, Round Round, Hole In The Head, Push The Button, Walk This Way and About You Now et al. Tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk.
Low-key festival of the week: Crawfest, Partings Lane, Ebberston, YO13 9PA, off A170, July 22 and 23, noon to midnight
THE line-up is in place for Crawfest, the family-friendly music festival held on farmland near Pickering, in memory of Alan Crawford, a friend of the organisers, who lost his life to Covid in 2020.
Next Friday will be headlined by The House We Built (9.40pm), preceded by Edwina Hayes (2pm); Paint Me In Colour (3.20pm); Nalgo Bay (4.20pm); Sean Taylor (5.30pm); Breeze (6.50pm) and Friday Street (8.10pm).
Next Saturday’s bill toppers will be Big Me (9.40pm), preceded by Kelsey Bovey (12 noon); Bongoman & The Bongomaniacs (1pm); Danny MacMahon (2pm); Beetlebug (3.15pm); Rocketsmith (4.10pm); Nalgo Bay (5.30pm); Red Box (6.50pm) and The Feens (8.10pm). Box office: tickettailor.com/events/crawfest/641880.
Romance of the summer: Emma Rice’s Brief Encounter, in The Round, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, July 22 to August 27
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs this new co-production of Emma Rice’s playful adaptation of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, presented in tandem with Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and Octagon Theatre, Bolton.
Rice turns Coward’s film inside out, adding joyous musical numbers and physical comedy while still maintaining the classic love story of the 1945 black-and-white original, where Laura and Alec are married – but not to each other – when a chance meeting at a railway station hurls them headlong into a whirlwind romance that threatens to blow their worlds apart. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.