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Imagine a bunch of strangers putting on a Shakespeare play in a day in York? Welcome to “Shakespeasy” at Theatre@41

Stranger things: Actors will meet up for the first time to stage a Shakespeare’s Speakeasy play in a day in York

SHAKESPEARE’S Speakeasy is heading to York for the first time on May 16, making its debut at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

“It’s Shakespeare, but it’s secret,” says the theatre’s website. “Can a group of strangers successfully stage a Shakespearean play in a day? Shakespeare’s Speakeasy is the place for you to find out.

“Taking an irreverent and entertaining view of the Bard’s work, this one-night-only production promises you an hilarious take on one of Bill’s best known plays. But which play will it be? Well, like all good Speakeasys, that’s a secret.”

Why so secret? Let artistic director Steven Arran explain: “We don’t actually unveil the play until the curtain goes up. ‘Speakeasys’ are supposed to be secret after all!  And if I unveiled our reason for choosing it, that will probably give the game away. You’ll just have to come along and find out.”

Introducing the cast: Claire Morley. No stranger to Shakespeare, having performed his words for many years in York with companies such as York Shakespeare Project and Well-fangled Theatre. Latterly had fun with the characters of Malvolio (ALRA North), Macbeth (Northumberland Theatre Company), Aufidius (1623 Theatre) and Titania (Hoglets Theatre). “Ready for the adrenaline rush of the Speakeasy, I’m also excited to get a shot at another character long on the bucket list,” says Claire. “For the May 16 event I’m helping them to create some connections in York.”

Shakespeare’s Speakeasy started in Newcastle upon Tyne on September 11 2018. “We performed our first show at a great Fringe venue, the Alphabetti Theatre, but post-pandemic we migrated to The People’s Theatre, where we’ve developed a very enthusiastic and loyal audience who have responded well to our anarchic and irreverent style,” says Steven.

“As to why we started, that’s a horse of many colours. I’d been working in Canada as an actor, where I performed in a lot of outdoor Shakespearean productions. In North America, Shakespeare was treated like a holy text with a major focus on treating every line as sacrosanct – the major focus being on the poetry.

“For me, this really detracted from the characters being real humans with human emotions, and I knew that it was the latter I was more invested in as an audience member.”

This prompted Steven to think of his experiences watching Shakespeare in the UK. “No-one was really staging Shakespeare in Newcastle, and I realised the majority of opportunities I had to watch in Newcastle was if the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company] or the National Theatre rolled through town at the Theatre Royal, and you’d pay top dollar for the privilege to watch a lot of posh boys and girls recite lines that you remembered from school,” he says.

“This did not make me feel included. The price made it feel like ‘a treat’ and the accents made me feel like Shakespeare was something for ‘them’, not for everyone. My drama school training had really opened my eyes that this should not be the case, and so I was resolved to cast local actors to produce shows for local audiences, in which they would see people like them reflected on the stage.

Introducing the cast: Tempest Wisdom, writer, director, performer and educator based in York. Specialises in clown, mask and Shakespeare, “making the Speakeasy a perfect fit,” Tempest says.

“Also, these plays are SO funny and entertaining, something lost in many productions, and I wanted to inject that excitement into my shows. Shakespeare’s audience was a rowdy lot for the most part, and we like ours to be too!”

Why begin in Newcastle? “No more exciting an answer than this is my home and I wanted to give my home opportunities that it didn’t already have,” says Steven. “When I was coming up as a young actor, the scene felt like a closed shop, and what little was being produced that we had access to felt very much of the ‘it’s grim up north’ variety.

“No-one was producing Shakespeare bar amateur dramatics groups, and even then it was often in a very affected style. After my experiences at drama school, where I was encouraged to use my own voice, I wanted to see more Geordies doing classical works without being forced to do an RP [Received Pronunciation] accent. It’s still something we run up against all the time though. People think Shakespeare and they think ‘posh’ and it’s simply not the case.”

Steven is the only core member of the Shakespeare’s Speakeasy production company. “One of primary aims is to ensure we employ as many directors and performers as possible, and so there is no wider team so to speak,” he says. “We employ and cast locally to give regional actors opportunities to direct classical pieces that they may not usually get a chance to professionally stage.”

Introducing the cast: Esther Irving, actor and theatre-maker from North Yorkshire with big passion for Shakespeare


This philosophy has led to the decision to spread Shakespeare’s Speakeasy’s wings to York in its sixth year. “The Yorkshire accent is so rich and versatile, and we want people to hear that on stage,” reasons Steven.

“A primary aim of Shakespeare’s Speakeasy is to champion local performers with local accents and disabuse people of the notion that Shakespeare is ‘posh’ or ‘done in a certain way’. We plan, eventually, to expand to several cities in the North. Venues in Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool have already been confirmed.”

So far Shakespeare’s Speakeasy has tackled Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy Of Errors, Macbeth, As You Like It, The Taming Of The Shrew, Love’s Labours Lost, Measure For Measure and Hamlet, some staged more than once.

“We mostly stick to the comedies, but have done a few tragedies, which our irreverent style has made a laugh riot,” says Steven. “It’s hard to make people feel the ‘feels’ of Hamlet in 70 minutes, so you may as well make them laugh at some of the more ridiculous elements.”

May 16’s inaugural York performance will be Shakespeare’s Speakeasy’s 13th show. “Unlucky for some, let’s hope it’s not us!” says Steven.

Introducing the cast: York actor Ian Giles, part of an international company that created Working Title for the York International Shakespeare Festival in April

Among those taking part will be Claire Morley, Esther Irving, Tempest Wisdom, Alice May, Ian Giles, Rowan Naylor Miles and Jake Wilson Craw. “We’ve assembled a really talented troupe for this production but, honestly, we could have cast the play three times over,” says Steven.

“It was humbling to see the enthusiasm we were greeted with by York’s acting community. Applicants came via word of mouth – actors who have worked with us voluntarily spread the word – and also through various social media groups. Theatre@41 and York Theatre Royal were also very gracious in spreading word of the opportunity. The cast has since had four weeks to learn their lines.”

The day will be a long and challenging one, but full of laughter and play too, for actors and director alike. “The actors will meet at 9am – the first time they meet in person – and do a line run of the whole play,” says Steven. “After that, we’ll spend the day, approximately eight hours, going through the show scene by scene, getting it on its feet and doing the basic business of blocking and tech on the fly.

“It’s a very collaborative experience. Actors are encouraged to share ideas they have for scenes, and we’ll give them all a try as long as we have the time. Whilst the directors always have a vision – we’ve done a Lion King version of Hamlet, Twelfth Night in a Butlins-style holiday camp – it’s really important for us to let the actors offer their suggestions. A good idea can come from anyone.”

The climactic performance will be fully teched and costumed. “Not to RSC standards, mind you. Expect cardboard sets, plastic swords and all manner of ridiculousness,” promises Steven. “This is Shakespeare as pure entertainment”.

Introducing the cast: Jake Wilson Craw, actor and writer from Newcastle returning to Shakespeare’s Speakeasy ranks in York debut

Asked to define the characteristics of a typical Shakespeare’s Speakeasy experience, Steven says: “I’ve reached out to some loyal audience members for this answer, as well as my own thoughts. The characteristics would be funny and local. Chaotic. Very silly. We’re entertaining first and foremost.

“We want you to have a good time, and because of that we’re often irreverent, sometimes bawdy, and sometimes downright daft. We want you to see the people you know in your everyday life on stage, not vaunted legendary characters. You will always leave with a smile on your face.”

Looking ahead, will Steven be seeking to make Shakespeare’s Speakeasy a regular event in York? “Hopefully yes,” he says. “Since our inception, we’ve staged 12 productions in Newcastle and see no reason why our format cannot be replicated in York and other cities in the north.

“One of our primary aims is to give regional actors more work. You shouldn’t have to move to London to work in the field you love – and the only way to do that is to stage productions.”

Shakespeare’s Speakeasy York, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 16, 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Steven Arran: back story on North East actor, theatre maker and artistic director behind Shakespeare’s Speakeasy

Steven Arran: Artistic director of Shakespeare’s Speakeasy


“I WAS a professional actor for ten years. I trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and was lucky enough to work in the UK and North America. My interest in Shakespeare only really emerged during this time when we spent a term at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

“Being in that space, realising how the environment informed the play scripts and, most importantly, being encouraged to perform the text in my own accent and not an affected RP, really opened my eyes to how accessible Shakespeare could be.

“Seeing shows there whilst in the pit for £5 a pop didn’t hurt either. You can feel both financially and culturally excluded from Shakespeare and we aim to break down that assumption.

“I also wanted to give young local actors the opportunity to act in their own town, and to become familiar with classical plays, which they may have had no access to other than reading along in English class. (Not how we should be experiencing them).

“To date we’ve employed more than 80 actors from the North East and hope to do similar in different regions.”

Steve Arran’s profile on LinkedIn:

PROFESSIONAL actor, committed writer, passable stand-up, enthusiastic gamer, fanatical art historian and total cinephile. Very skilled in classical theatre and improvisation. Screenplays’ relation to historical events a speciality.

Did you know?

STEVEN Arran works with International House language school, helping non-English speakers to learn the language through acting in mini-Shakespeare productions.


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REVIEW: Lumar Productions in Sea Stones, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, till Saturday***

“The long night of the soul”: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich, left, and Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman in negotiation in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins

“SOMETIMES we touch, connect, brough together by the tide. Sometimes we grind each other into sand like millstones. Sometimes we just break apart.”

York writer Tim Murgatroyd, eight novels to his name, and now penning his debut play, likes a metaphor. First-time stage director Martin Handsley loves the sound of the sea, and so the crashing of waves will greet this week’s audiences and accompany scenes staged at a lonely, low-key cottage by the coast, where Phil Goodman (Mick Liversidge) has retired after working as a doctor in conflict zones such as Rwanda and Yugoslavia.

In a play about relationships between fathers and daughters, we first encounter Jana Ilich (Ukrainian-born mezzo-soprano and actress Polina Bielova) and her “businessman” father Ratko (Ian Giles).

The year is 2000, ten years after the Yugoslavian Civil War; Jana is a lawyer, determined to prepare war trial prosecutions. Her father, who has more than something of the night about him, is always away on business overseas. He demands she should stop compiling her evidence; she will not be told.

Subsequently Jana will appear very briefly in Goodman’s cottage, without being seen by him and without naturalistic explanation, a moment of intrigue that establishes her presence but puzzles at the same time, until the narrative black hole is filled in later.

Liversidge’s Goodman is looking in his mirror; he appears to have a blood pressure kit around his arm, but again with no elaboration from Murgatroyd’s script. Maybe a daily routine, maybe later explained by the revelation that he is a former doctor, but such a prop is a mere distraction if not used.

Terms and conditions: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich talks numbers with Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie, Goodman’s Icarus-inclined daughter. Picture: Chris Mackins

Suddenly, Phil’s long-absent daughter, Sophie (Raqhael Harte), arrives. They have not seen each for more than four years; she was brought up by her mother and stepfather (who she calls ‘daddy’ on the phone) since her parents’ split, which may explain her Scottish accent, as opposed to Phil’s north-eastern brogue.

Sophie is brusque, nervous, needs a bath, has chips on both shoulders, doesn’t want to talk, but will have to. She may drive a swish Alfa Romeo – too flash for dad Phil – but she is in big trouble. The year is 2008, as denoted by the large numerals on the calendar on the wall, the year when the banks crashed, and, spoiler alert, Sophie has hit the rocks over her hedge fund-dealing.

Phil may be as good a man as his surname would indicate, but not so in the eyes of his daughter, who still resents him from his absence in childhood days.

Here we have two head-strong daughters whose relationships with their fathers come from the Lear and Cordelia playbook. Stones in the sea that grind each other into sand, but can they learn to touch, to connect, to re-connect?

Would it surprise you to learn that Ratko’s dodgy business dealings (prostitution etc) have brought him into connection with Sophie? Enter Ratko and his heavies, two staying in the car, one out back, as he demands money owed by Sophie.

Cue a long, restless night of confrontation and negotiation, suspense and surprise, truths and lies, revelation and even redemption amid further appearances by Bielova’s spectral Jana. This is a reckoning of good deeds versus bad deeds, of the seeds of greed and the lure of corruption versus the human capacity for helping others rather than helping yourself to others’ goods. Compassion versus contempt too.

Father and daughter discussions: Ian Giles’s Ratko and Polina Bielova’s Jane Ilich in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins

Catching Monday afternoon’s dress rehearsal revealed a cast adept at building tension and intense, difficult relationships, matched by Murgatroyd’s ear for dialogue and astute perception of human complexities and contradictions.

The staging, however, worked against these attributes. The regular sight of the stage team taking the cottage furniture on and off and pulling the black-box curtain across the stage for scenes in Yugoslavia or by the sea broke the rhythm, a clunky manoeuvre that would have been eased by keeping the furniture in place and placing a curtain in front.

Since the dress rehearsal, music has been introduced to accompany the scene changes, but any re-staging of Sea Stones would require a design re-think.

Music already plays its part at the opening to the second half, Bielova parading her mezzo-soprano chops with haunting beauty to herald further troubles afoot.

A play for today drawn from recent yesterdays, Sea Stones marks a promising start for the Murgatroyd and Handsley partnership for York company Lumar Productions. Murgatroyd is already writing a second play, and Handsley has been bitten by the theatre bug, with a feel for the geometry and chemistry of staging scenes. Be assured he will furnish his next production with more finesse and less fiddling with furniture.

Further performances: 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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York novelist Tim Murgatroyd’s debut play Sea Stones journeys into a dark night of the soul by the sea at Theatre@41, Monkgate

Father and daughter: Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie Goodman in the dark in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins

AFTER eight novels, with his ninth on the way, Tim Murgatroyd has written his debut play, Sea Stones, an emotional, suspenseful night of the soul when four people are brought together in a lonely house by the sea.

Two fathers. Two daughters. Each confronted with the consequences of the past as a high tide is turning and tests to their relationships are escalating. Tests that might cost them not only their dearest hopes and loves, but their very lives. “The truth can set you free. Or drown you,” says York writer Tim.

Sea Stones will be premiered from tonight (14/11/2023) at Theatre@41, Monkgate, by Lumar Productions, the York company run by film and stage director Martin Handsley, with a cast of Mick Liversidge as Phil Goodman, Raqhael Harte as Sophie Goodman, Ian Giles as Ratko Ilich and Ukrainian-born York Opera mezzo-soprano Polina Bielova as Jana Ilich.

Introducing the storyline, Tim says: “The play opens in 2000 in a small town in the former Yugoslavia celebrating a new millennium. It is ten years since bloody civil war tore the Communist federation apart, unleashing horrific ethnic conflict.

“But some legacies are not easily forgotten, especially when the victims find no justice and the so-called victors are unpunished, even rewarded.”

Roll forward to 2008: “All around the world, greed-fuelled banking systems are collapsing, creating new victims among the ‘little people’ who trusted in their institutions and leaders. New winners and losers, all over the world.

“But some people never accept losing. It’s not just the corrupt bankers who seek to claw back what they can. The stage is set in an isolated cottage by the sea for further crimes against the best sides of human nature: love, reconciliation and compassion. Or perhaps, this time, for redemption.”

Martin was captivated immediately by Tim’s compelling story on two grounds. “Sea Stones delves into the intricate tensions and dynamics between fathers and their daughters, a theme that resonated deeply with me as I’m the proud father of three girls,” he says.

Money talks in Sea Stones: Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie Goodman in negotiation with Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich. Picture: Chris Mackins

“This is also a story how history never quite dies. My personal experience as an aid worker during the Yugoslav Civil War [travelling from Leeds in 1992 to bring refugees from Bosnia to the UK] provided me with a profound understanding of the challenging circumstances the characters in the play find themselves in.

“Even in 2023, the world continues to grapple with the same issues that the play addresses. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine serves as a stark reminder that war and its aftermath still haunt us. That’s why we’re so excited to bring Sea Stones to life on stage, setting free the power of theatre to illuminate and provoke thought about the enduring challenges our world faces.”

Tim felt “more poacher than gamekeeper” when writing Sea Stones. “My career as a published writer has been exclusively as a novelist,” he says. “Eight in print to date, two of them translated into Chinese.

“I have written stories about Ancient China, a dystopian Yorkshire, even silent cinema musicians in York, but I had never written a play. So it came as a surprise when I found myself scribbling down stage directions, then dialogue, that would emerge as Sea Stones.

“It began with a man in a lonely cottage by a pebbly beach startled by the arrival of a car where no-one comes. Dark memories of the Yugoslav Civil War and anger at injustices in the world crept into his home with the sound of waves grinding the shingle.

“Then came a long-lost daughter corrupted by money and greed, dragging far worse in her wake, and the stage was set for conflict: love, morality, and bare survival. As the character Phil Goodman says: ‘Sometimes we touch, connect, brought together by the tide. Sometimes we grind each other into sand like millstones. Sometimes we just break apart’.”

First play for Tim, first stage directing challenge for Martin: “I’ve directed film before, which is completely different,” he says. “I never thought I’d enjoy theatre because it’s so ephemeral, whereas you put everything into getting the image right, you film it and it’s there forever.

“However, what I’ve learned with this production is that theatre’s ephemeral nature is what it’s about, being in the now, what’s going on live in front of you. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ve become a volunteer at Theatre@41, doing tech work, working behind the bar. I just love it.

The other father and daughter: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich and Polina Bielova’s Jane Ilich in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins

“The fact that Sea Stones is a great play and we’ve got great actors helps as well! I’ve been with this play for over a year, and still the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I hear certain lines being said.”

Whether as a novelist, or now as a playwright, Tim says: “At the heart of all this writing is storytelling. If you think about how humans understand the world, it’s through stories, with bigger narratives in plays and novels.

“With novels, you can use descriptions, whereas plays rely on what’s being stated or implied by the characters in speech, so the real challenge was to make sure the play’s dialogue was naturalistic, but not too naturalistic because I wanted to have deeper philosophical and emotional layers to the characters’ experiences.”

Sea Stones has taken three years to evolve. “That’s when Tim first contacted me and sent me a copy of the original script,” recalls Martin. “I read it but just didn’t think I’d be the one to stage it. But then Covid came along, and afterwards I just wanted to do something different after the film.

“Tim contacted me again, we got some actors together, did some readthroughs and made sure that the heart of the story would remain, but we would need to lose some of the dialogue to make it more pacy.”

Further challenges were to secure a theatre for the production and to find the right cast. Tick and tick, albeit with changes in one role. “We’ve ended up with the highly experienced Ian Giles as our fourth iteration of Ratko Ilich,” says Martin. “He’s bringing a level of confidence to the role that we were struggling with before, and lots of humour too, and we have an ensemble that gets on really well.”

Ian has made such an impact that Tim is writing a role expressly for him in his next play. Meanwhile, Tim and Martin have found a way to integrate Polina Bielova’s operatic singing in Sea Stones. “I can guarantee people will have tears in their eyes,” says Tim.

Actress and yoga teacher Raqhael Harte brings 15 years of acting and performance studies, coupled with a few years of York productions, to her role as troubled daughter Sophie. “She’s a Scottish actress and when she auditioned, I just loved her accent and knew it work really well in the play,” says Martin. “Her character is jarring, and her voice can be quite jarring too, so she’s the whole package.”

“These characters can be contradictory in their beliefs and behaviour because people are contradictory,” says Sea Stones playwright Tim Murgatroyd

Summing up his play, Tim says: “Essentially it’s about two parallel father-daughter relationships, with each one casting light on the other, and from that they learn lessons, some hard, some redemptive, but all of them life-changing.

“In many ways, the play is designed to work on two levels: the parent/child relationships and the wider content of the world, referring to the Yugolsav war and to the 2008 banking crisis, with questions about corruption and  human behaviour in a difficult, flawed world.

“That makes it incredibly relevant to today, where there’s corruption that’s pretty much not even hidden now, and all the violence and war that we see on our TV screens every night. We ask, ‘are we powerless? What can a good parent do?’.”

Important to Tim too was the need to make the characters believable. “Looking at human nature, these characters can be contradictory in their beliefs and behaviour because people are contradictory, and you have to get that complexity across – which can be challenging for everyone involved, not only the writer.

“What I’m hoping the audience will take from the play is not only an emotional journey but also a lot of tension because the potential for violence is always lurking in what I’ve written, so in that sense it’s not just about their relationships but also about survival.”

As indicated by the title, the sea is a significant character in the play too. “A lot of the meaning of the play comes from the dialogue, but plenty will come from metaphors too, where you’re trying to connect the audience with places and feelings they have experienced. The sea is perhaps the best example of that,” says Tim. “It represents movement and change, and characters being swept along by the tide of history.”

From the moment of arrival in the John Cooper Studio, audiences will be surrounded by the rhythmic roll of crashing waves with the high tide on its way. “I love the sound of the sea, and we use it as background in pretty much all the scenes set at the cottage,” says Martin.

The poster for Lumar Productions’ Sea Stones at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Tim adds: “It’s almost like a musical soundtrack in this play. There’s a theory that we evolved from aquatic apes and that’s why we have this immediate bond with the sea.”

Sea Stones is “as uncomfortable as possible” for the audience, or “intimate”, as Tim prefers to describe the viewing experience. “By creating four contrasting characters, I can show the different facets of humanity, so we see good in the play, sometimes incredibly heroic good deeds, but also the bad in people, the potential for corruption, which creates dramatic tension,” Tim concludes.

Lumar Productions present Sea Stones, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (14/11/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Running time: 100 minutes plus interval.

Back story: Lumar Productions

SMALL independent film, video and theatre production company dedicated to creating innovative content and storytelling, delivered with energy and passion. Its latest film feature, Wiccan, is scheduled for release in 2024.

The company is run by Martin Handsley, an IT professional, who reinvented himself after a life-altering event as an actor, writer, producer and director.

Writer’s profile: Tim Murgatroyd

READ English at Hertford College, Oxford University, and now lives with his family in York. Internationally acclaimed author of several novels of historical fiction, a dystopian series, whose latest novel, October 2022’s The Electric, is set in the glamorous world of silent cinema in York in 1919.

Former weekly columnist for The Press, York.

Sea Stones is his first play. His next novel, Dust Of The Earth, will be published next year.

For a preview of Sea Stones, visit: https://youtu.be/pviM6iKB0dw

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Sat ****

And then there were ten: standing, Mark Simmonds, left, Martyn Hunter, Mike Hickman, Andrew Roberts, Ian Giles, Rory Mulvihill and Andrew Isherwood; seated, Jeanette Hunter, left, Florence Poskitt and Jessica Murray, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s And Then There Were None

NOT to be mistaken for Lucy Bailey’s “21st century reinvention” of Agatha Christie’s best-selling crime novel, bound for the Grand Opera House in November, this is the first of three Pick Me Up productions, made in York, one per month, this autumn.

For the record, Pick Me Up producer Robert Readman secured the rights for staging And Then There Were None before the Fiery Angel, ROYO and Royal & Derngate co-production emerged over the horizon.

He had put in place an autumn season to show off all the talents at Pick Me Up’s disposal: experienced hands for the “straight play”, Christie’s posh house party thriller; blossoming youths in The Worst Witch in late-October, and musical comedy exponents in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein the following week.

Readman is a Christie aficionado – he could pick her as his specialist subject for Mastermind – but decided to spread the directorial workload for the season ahead, having already cast And Then There Were None before the handing the reins to cast member Andrew Isherwood to steer a film noir-style nail biter.

Law and order: Rory Mulvihill’s judge, Sir Lawrence Wargrave, left, and Andrew Isherwood’s Detective William Henry Blore

Readman will direct Young Frankenstein, preceded by Rosy Rowley overseeing The Worst Witch, but his creativity is at play in And Then There Were None too in his design for a Christie murder mystery set in 1939 with Europe on the brink of war.

Christie had talked of a bleak house that should feel like it had long been empty, furnished but stark and unwelcoming. Readman, with his collector’s eye for acquiring props, furniture, costumes and more besides at his Chicken Sheds warehouse in Bubwith, delivers the period look to the T. 

Furniture from a friend’s house move, tick. A redundant fireplace from another friend’s refurb, tick. The glass-framed doors from York Theatre Royal’s production of Private Lives, tick. The ten little soldier boy models, from Readman’s research, tick. An Ercol chair from the Readman family stock, tick.

He assembles them on an end-on/side on set that dominates the Theatre@41 black box, deliberately so to give Isherwood’s production an oppressive, claustrophobic air. There will be no escape from Soldier Island, off the Devon Coast, for the eight house guests, butler and his housekeeper wife, assembled there at the intriguing invitation of a certain Mr and Mrs U N Owen (whose identity and whereabouts shall indeed remain unknown).

Passing judgement: Jessica Murray’s Emily Brent vents her spleen at Florence Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne in And Then There Were None

One by one, they are introduced to the audience, first the husband-and-wife staff Rogers and Mrs Rogers, played by husband-and-wife Martyn and Jeanette Hunter, Martyn delightfully understated, Jeanette gone, spoiler alert, all too soon.

Not before Rogers follows instructions to play a sternly delivered recording that declares all of them to have a wicked past and a secret destined to seal their fate, each being marked for murder.

As the weather turns thunderous, cutting the island rock off from the mainland, let the bloodbath begin, the toy soldiers disappearing one by one with each murder, in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme on display above the mantelpiece.

Andrew Roberts has a cameo, West Country accent and all as Fred Narracott, delivering the guests to the island, before re-emerging as spiffing, fast-living, flippant Anthony Marston. Florence Poskitt’s outwardly level-headed but on-edge Vera Claythorne is welcoming guests on the Owens’ behalf; Mike Hickman’s devil-may-care Captain Philip Lombard likes to be seen keeping spirits up and his spirit intake up even higher.

What the butler saw or did he? Martyn Hunter’s Rogers and Jeanette Hunter’s Mrs Rogers in And Then There Were None

Andrew Isherwood soon sheds the dodgy accent of his cover as a wealthy South African, Davis, to be revealed as retired Detective William Henry Blore.

Ian Giles’s old boy, General MacKenzie, appears to be losing his marbles; Jessica Murray’s disapproving religious zealot Emily Brent knits feverishly, and Mark Simmonds’ Dr Armstrong is as earnest as brown bread.

Rory Mulvihill’s Sir Lawrence Wargrave is wont to dominate, a judge by profession, with a  permanent black-cap countenance and a voice that commands the stage and those around him alike.

Isherwood’s direction skilfully steers a path through dark humour, heightened tensions and chilling revelations, capturing Christie’s scathing dismissal of so many restrictive institutions, and his cast applies both light and increasing shade. 

Ian Giles’s General MacKenzie holds forth in And Then There Were None as Florence Poskitt’s Vera Claythone looks on quizzically

Hickman’s mysterious Lombard is particularly good at keeping up a front; Poskitt may be associated with wide-eyed, squishy faced comedy but here delves into disturbing inner turmoil, a revelation that affirms she should not be pigeonholed.

Mulvihill, latterly flourishing in diverse roles beyond his musical theatre leading-man prowess, is in terrific form once more, his grave Wargrave judging everyone to damnation.  

Will Nicholson and Adam Coggin’s lighting blends in just right with each scene’s tone and Readman’s scenery in Isherwood’s engrossing production that benefits from one other Readman decision: replacing the play’s happier ending with the novel’s original darker denouement, with permission from the Christie estate. Right again, Robert.

Performances: 7.30pm nightly, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster artwork for And Then There Were None
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And now there are ten as Pick Me Up Theatre announces September cast for Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. UPDATED 18/9/2023

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for September’s production of And Then There Were None at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. Eight strangers receive an intriguing invitation to a posh house party on Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast.

These house guests are to be met by the butler and his housekeeper wife…And Then There Were Ten, but not for long.

So begins Agartha Christie’s groundbreaking whodunit And Then There Were None, to be staged by York company Pick Me Up Theatre under Andrew Isherwood’s direction at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from September 22 to 30.

Grave expression: Rory Mulvihill, cast as Sir Lawrence Wargrave, the retired judge, in And Then There Were None

What the guests have in common is a wicked past that they are unwilling to reveal and a secret destined to seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. As the weather turns, the bloodbath begins and one by one they are brutally murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme.

“Cut off from the mainland, they are each accused of a terrible crime. When one of the party dies suddenly, they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number,” says producer Robert Readman. “The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but also is preparing to strike again… and again.”

See Emily play up: Jess Murray, cast as “ruthlessly religious” knittijng fiend Emily Brent in And Then There Were None

Director Isherwood will be among Pick Me Up’s “fabulous cast of the county’s finest”, playing William Blore alongside Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne; Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard; Rory Mulvihill’s Sir Lawrence Wargrave; husband and wife Martyn and Jeannette Hunter’s butler Rogers and housekeeper wife Mrs Rogers; Andrew Roberts’s Anthony Marston; Ian Giles’s General John MacKenzie; Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong and Jess Murray’s Emily Brent.

Pick Me Up’s Facebook page is introducing Christie’s “motley characters” one by one in an on-going series. First up: meet Rory Mulvihill’s judge, Sir Lawrence Wargrave. “The Judge…you wouldn’t want to cross him,” forewarns Readman’s profile notes.

What the butler’s wife saw: Jeannette Hunter, picked to play housekeeper Mrs Rogers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s And Then There Were None

“Recently retired, he is intelligent, cold and commanding. During his years on the bench, he had a reputation as a ‘hanging judge’ – a judge who persuaded juries to bring back guilty verdicts and sentenced many convicted criminals to death. He should be right at home then.”

Next meet Jeanette Hunter’s Mrs Rogers. “She is the housekeeper in a big posh mansion where eight perfect strangers have been invited to spend the weekend by an unknown host. She is rather timid, has a dominating husband and she tells us she’s ‘always left to do the dirty work’,” says Readman.

Mysterious, confident, cunning: Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard

“And there’s plenty of it in And Then There Were None but take nothing at face value in this twisty tale of murder and revenge! Jeanette’s character might not be all she seems.”

Step forward dodgy character number three: Jess Murray’s Emily Brent. “She is a ruthlessly religious woman who reads her Bible every day,” says Readman. “She might devour the good book – but her actions are anything but Christian. And she knits – like those ghouls from the guillotine!”

Does Martyn Hunter’s butler Thomas Rogers look shifty? Find out from September 22 to 25

Next up: Mike Hickman’s Philip Lombard. “A mysterious, confident and cunning man, we think he was maybe a mercenary soldier in Africa? Anyway, it looks like Mike Hickman isn’t about to take any prisoners in this role…Could he be the guilty one?” ponders Robert.

Who’s next? “Here comes Thomas Rogers…A respectable and reliable butler. Or is he? Don’t you think he looks a bit shifty? And Martin Hunter plays the part perfectly. Come and find out if he dunnit in Agatha Christie’s corking murder mystery,” says Robert.

Ian Giles’s General John Gordon McKenzie: “Upstanding”…or does that not stand up to appraisal?

How about Ian Giles’s General John Gordon Mackenzie? “He’s an upstanding military man – or is he?” asks Robert. “One of eight seemingly random guests invited to a mysterious house party in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, how could anyone think our Ian Giles could be the one wot dunnit?”

Who is Andrew Roberts playing? “This handsome devil (see below) is Anthony Marston: a rich, swanky guy who likes fast cars and fast living,” says Robert. “He seems to have no conscience but is he a murderer?”

If looks could kill…but is Andrew Roberts’s Anthony Marston the murderer in And Then There Were None

Back in York after an Edinburgh Fringe run in York musical comedy duo Fladam’s children’s show Green Fingers, Flo Poskitt takes the role of former governess Vera Claythorne, who comes to Soldier Island as secretary to fellow guest Mrs Owen.

“Flo’s Vera is clever and capable, but she is also super-nervy and suffers from attacks of hysteria, so don’t cross her off the murderer suspect list just yet,” says Robert.

“Clever and capable, but super-nervy too”: Flo Poskitt’s Vera Claythorne in And Then There Were None

“Don’t trust him – even though he’s a doctor,” he forewarns of any encounter with Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong. “The other seven guests certainly don’t. In fact Armstrong is high up the suspect list because – well, he knows media stuff, doesn’t he?! He could easily bump someone off (if he wasn’t always yearning after a large glass of scotch).

“So, is Mark Simmonds our man in And Then There Were None? If you’ve read Agatha Crhsistie’s book or seen the films, no spoilers please!”

High up on the suspect list: Mark Simmonds’s Dr Edward Armstrong

And now there are ten

INTRODCING retired Inspector William Henry Blore, director Andrew Isherwood ‘s on-stage contribution to And Then There Were None.

“He should know his way around a crime scene and be a dependable chap in a crisis – like the one ten strangers find themselves facing at a weird house party in Christie’s nail-biter,” says Robert. “But really…when the killing starts – is the former policeman your best hope?”

On closer inspection: Andrew Isherwood looks judgemental in his guise as retired Inspector William Henry Blore

Ten Little Soldiers: the back story of a sinister nursery rhyme

THIS epigraph appears at the start of Agatha Christie’s 1939 murder mystery novel, And Then There Were None, foretelling the ten deaths (spoiler alert!) that will occur on Soldier Island.

Ten Little Soldier Boys went out to Dine, one choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine  Little Soldier Boys stayed up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight  Little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon; One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

Seven Little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six  Little Soldier Boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five Little Soldier Boys going through a door; One stubbed his toe and then there were four.

Four Little Soldier Boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three Little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was One.

One  Little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none. 

Did you know?

THE island and Art Deco hotel of the same name that inspired Agatha Christie to write both And Then There Were None and the Hercule Poirot mystery Evil Under The Sun are for sale at £15 million: namely Burgh Island, off the south Devon coast. The sale includes Christie’s beach house, where she wrote, on the cliff edge.

Pick Me Up Theatre in And Then There Were None, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 22 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, September 22, 23, 26 to 30; 2.30pm, September 23, 24 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Recommended age: eight plus.

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ***

Ian Giles, front, leading Adam Price and Joy Warner in Adieu La Vie in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War at Theatre@41, Monkgate

PICK Me Up Theatre are staging Oh! What A Lovely War to mark the 60th anniversary of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop premiere at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

Why else Robert Readman and co-director Johnny Holbek are reviving this old stager is not so clear on encountering the veteran work of Sixties’ agit-prop; rather like the surfeit of voices that are sometimes a struggle to comprehend in the absence of head microphones.

Body mics do the hard-working company no favours, especially Ian Giles’s all-important master of ceremonies, whose deadpan punchlines fall flat when dying in the muffled air. In contrast, the regular toots on his whistle could not have been shriller.

Ironically, when your reviewer – seated up on the mezzanine level – couldn’t decipher what the drill sergeant was shouting, it turns out it was supposed to be gibberish, but the joke was lost after the uncertainty caused by the earlier encounters with the lack of clarity.

Alison Taylor, front left, and Beryl Nairn performing En Avant!

Oh! What A Lovely War, constructed as a searing satirical chronicle of the First World War, as told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment, was a landmark in British theatre history, prompting the intrigue surrounding Pick Me Up’s revival.

Likewise, Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film account of the working-class Smith lads, Jack, Freddie, Harry and George, seeing initial hope swallowed up by the mud and stench of the trenches, resonated amid the Sixties’ vibe of Make Love, Not War.

From Blackadder Goes Forth to Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse and Private Peaceful, Sam Mendes’s 1917 to this year’s BAFTA-winning All Quiet On The Western Front, the Great War continues to provoke eloquent, elegiac reflection across the arts and literature.  

Oh! What A Lovely War is closest in spirit to Blackadder in the trenches, in its sense of futility, chiming with Winston Churchill’s maxim in favour of dialogue over destruction. “Jaw Jaw is better than War War,” he forewarned, and in turn Oh! What A Lovely War has plenty of jaw jaw about war war, while making a song and dance of it with familiar music-hall songs from the Great War period and hymns fitted out with new lyrics to give them a satirical snap.

Florence Poskitt, left, Maggie Smales and Marlena Kelli in the Kamerad! Kamerad! vignette in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War

Against the John Cooper Studio’s back wall, ever more damning statistics of the body count are typed out across the screen, the factual counter to the officers’ cavalier attitude to so many wasteful deaths of the working-class cannon fodder.

They have the show’s most shuddering impact, ensuring that a sense of righteous anger prevails, as does a haunting sorrow, further enhanced by the presence of a junior ensemble.

However, the strident tones of surrealism, in part set by the Pierrot costumes with their out-of-period elasticated waists, always feels one step removed from connecting. Likewise, you can see the ever-willing cast having to push too hard to make the satire amusing in a show that starts to drag on, like the war itself.

Readman and Holbek’s period-piece production seeks to break down theatre’s fourth wall, often through Giles’s conspiratorial asides, sometimes through music-hall repartee, but the best scenes are self-contained, most notably for the Christmas Day exchange of gifts in No Man’s Land and the grotesque grouse moor shooting-party bluster among those making money out of the war (in a haunting forerunner of Covic contracts).

James Willstrop and Sanna Jeppsson, front, with the Pick Me Up Theatre ensemble performing Row Row Row

Inspired by Charles Chiltern’s radio series that combined First World war statistics with songs, Littlewood’s piece was constructed through improvisation and credited to the company of performers. In the spirit of that gestation, Pick Me Up’s multi role-playing troupe of troops is credited by a list of cast names and not by character, and it is very much an ensemble piece, teamwork to the fore, although James Willstrop, Florence Poskitt, Alison Taylor and in particular Craig Kirby stand out.

Accompanied by Natalie Walker’s piano-led band, the songs transition from hope to despair, from perky to poignant, from Belgium Put The Kibosh On The Kaiser to I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier.

Reviving Oh! What A Lovely War does not evoke nostalgia and nor should it. Instead, it feels and looks out of its time, like Richard Lester’s 1967 film How I Won The War. Some vignettes still work, elsewhere the satire has tired or lost coherence over 60 years.

What hasn’t changed? War, huh, yeah, what is good for? Absolutely nothing. Except anti-war songs.  

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (6/4/2023) and tomorrow, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster artwork for Oh! What A Lovely War
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What her grandad did in the Great War, now singer Marlena Kellie is re-creating in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oh! What A Lovely War

Marlena Kellie, left, going through her Oh! What A Lovely War solo with Pick Me Up Theatre musical director Natalie Walker

ART is imitating life for singer Marlena Kellie, who has joined Pick Me Up Theatre’s 60th anniversary production of Oh! What A Lovely War.

From March 31 to April 8, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, she will play her part in re-creating the shows her grandfather would have performed in during the First World War, singing the lead on Now You’ve Got Yer Khaki On.

Devised and presented by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in 1963 before being turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969, Oh! What A Lovely War is a satirical chronicle of the Great War, told through songs and documents in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment.

This photograph of a First World War entertainment troupe shows Marlena Kellie’s grandfather, Richard Palmer, centre, with his first wife, Marion Williams, next to him in the nurse’s uniform

While rehearsing, Leeds jazz singer and actress Marlena realised the costumes and songs from Robert Readman’s production were reminiscent of her own family’s acting career.

“My grandfather, his first wife and my grandmother were all in entertainment troupes during the First World War,” she says. “I found some wonderful old photos of them all – and they are the real-life versions of what we’re doing on stage.”

Marlena’s Romany grandfather, Richard Palmer, had an act he would perform at travelling fairs and later in the music hall, and he was part of Fred Karno’s circus too.

This troupe of Pierrots – dressed exactly as the original cast of Oh! What A Lovely War would have been – features Marlena’s grandfather, Richard Palmer, and her grandmother, Greta Palmer

Marlena’s parents, Eddie Palmer and Shirley Kellie, travelled the country with their own club act, settling down when Marlena was three years old.

Carrying on the Romany tradition, Marlena can sometimes be found telling fortunes but concentrates on club singing and acting. She was one of the trifle-bearing women seen charging joyfully along in last winter’s Argos Christmas advert!

“I used to be embarrassed by my ‘otherness’ in school, but now I embrace it,” she says. “I live with two fabulous drag queens and a lovely little dog called Whoopie.

Marlena Kellie’s parents, Eddie Palmer and Shirley Kellie, who toured their cabaret act for many years

“I can’t quite believe how life has led me to Oh! What A Lovely War but it feels like it was meant to be.  My parents are sadly no longer with me, but I very much feel I am carrying on the family tradition.”

Meanwhile, York actor Ian Giles, who will play the Master of Ceremonies in Pick Me Up’s production, has found an image of his paternal grandfather, Sergeant William Giles, from Christmas Day 1915.

It shows his grandfather with men of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry at Fleurbaix, near Béthune, northern France. “He is the sergeant standing upright pretty well at the
centre of the photograph,” says Ian.

“I can’t quite believe how life has led me to Oh! What A Lovely War but it feels like it was meant to be,” says singer and actress Marlena Kellie

” It was found in my nan’s purse when she died in the mid-1970s. She had carried it with her everywhere. Gramp survived the war and lived well into his eighties.”

In a moving scene in the play, British and German soldiers sing carols and have a drink together over the barbed wire of No Man’s Land.

Ian, by the way, directed Oh! What A Lovely War in September 1972 in Newcastle at what is now the home of Northern Stage. “The late Freddie Jones, who was rehearsing Peer Gynt at the time, used to sneak in every night to watch my ending, which he found profoundly moving,” he recalls.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 31 to April 8, 7.30pm, except April 2 and 3; 2.30pm, April 1, 2 and 8. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

York actor Ian Giles’s paternal grandfather, Sergeant William Giles, with men of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry on Christmas Day 1915 at Fleurbaix, near Béthune

Did you know?

MARLENA Kellie played Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar in her debut for York Musical Theatre Company at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, in November 2019.

Here’s Jonny Holbek, adding directing and sketch comedy to his theatrical portfolio

Jonny Holbek: Actor, director, sketch comedy performer

YORK actor Jonny Holbek is stepping out of the ranks to co-direct Pick Me Up Theatre’s 60th anniversary production of Oh! What A Lovely War.

Last seen on stage as the emotionally damaged Tobias Ragg in York Light Opera Company’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at York Theatre Royal in February and early March, he is working alongside artistic director Robert Readman at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

“I’ve not done much directing before,” he says. “I directed a concert/show for York Light, A Night With The Light, at Friargate Theatre in June last year and also did some assistant directing for Nik Briggs for York Stage Musicals’ The Flint Street Nativity in 2019.

“This time it’s in between assistant directing and directing. It’s co-directing, which is the toughest form of directing in terms of presenting a coherent production.”

How has the partnership worked out with Robert? “I missed some of the early rehearsals because of doing Sweeney Todd, with Robert doing a lot of the early blocking. Then we worked on scenes in separate rooms, and for the last two weeks it’s been entirely me, while Robert has been busy building the set.”

The collaboration emerged through Jonny expressing an interest in co-directing. “Robert suggested working on Oh! What A Lovely War, a piece that I didn’t know, but I know very well now,” he says.

“I’m really glad I said yes. What a great show it is. I’m so pleased to get to know its full cycle, its humour and its darkness.”

Devised and premiered by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London in 1963 before being turned into a film by Richard Attenborough in 1969, this satirical chronicle of the Great War is told through music-hall songs, hymns with rewritten verses and vignettes in the form of a seaside Pierrot entertainment, accompanied by statistics of the growing body count on the war front.

Jonny Holbek, fourth from right, leading the singing in God, That’s Good! in York Light Opera Company’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street at York Theatre Royal

“The first thing to say is that so many people died absolutely needlessly, and this show gives us the chance to explore that situation and find the absurd comedy in it, or in this case the careful juxtaposition of comedy and the horror of war,” says Jonny.

“One minute, the audience will be laughing at something; the next, they will be bulldozed by a harrowing image, a shocking fact – and when you make them feel an emotion, they feel it even more.

“The songs have a powerful impact too. A lot of the audience will know most of them, certainly the music-hall ones that provide the sense of pride and excitement the soldiers would have been feeling at first. That gives the show its energy, and then the other side of warfare comes through: the wistful songs that become gut-wrenchingly haunting.”

Contrasting directing with acting, Jonny says: “Firstly, they’re obviously very different disciplines, although they do overlap. In terms of performance, in both roles, you look for the comedy, the drama, and the nuances in the piece.

“Directing, I find it more rewarding helping others to find and highlight the various levels of light and dark to keep the audience interested; whether a scene needs to be reined in or played bolder.

“You also have that tricky balancing act of trying to encourage the best performances, without causing stress or knocking morale.”

Jonny’s daytimes find him working for the Rural Payments Agency, part of DEFRA. By night, he is a regular on the York stage, adding another string to his bow with The Dead Ducks, the sketch comedy troupe he has joined, made up mostly of University of York post-grads, such as Tommy Harris and Eloise Ward.

“We do little shows every few weeks,” he says. “The last one was in a big lecture room at the university, and we’ve also played The Den at Micklegate Social. This summer we’ll be playing the Edinburgh Fringe at one of ‘theSpace’ venues. No show title yet.”

Summing up his love of performing (and directing too), Jonny says: “It’s the camaraderie you build, putting together something in such a tight time frame. I haven’t found anything like it outside the arts. That buzz.”

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Secret is out as Pick Me Up Theatre return with amateur premiere of Adrian Mole

Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast members: back row, Toni Feetenby, left, Alan Park, Ian Giles, Andrew Isherwood and Emily Halstead. Middle row: Adam Sowter, left, Flynn Coultous, Jack Hambleton, Florence Poskitt, Freddie Adams, Guy Wilson and Alexandra Mather. Front row: Sandy Nicholson, left, Flynn Baistow, Benedict Wood and Dotty Davies. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen Photography

DIARY entry, April 6th 2021. Robert Readman announces Pick Me Up Theatre’s Christmas show for 2021 will be the Broadway hit SpongeBob The Musical.

Diary entry, December 5 2021. No, it won’t be. Robert is directing Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ The Musical instead, booked into Theatre@41, Monkgate, York from December 8 to 18,

SpongeBob The Musical may yet re-emerge down the line in winter 2023, but Robert made the call to pick up Pick Me Up’s theatre-making for the first time since March 2020’s Covid-curtailed run of Tom’s Midnight Garden with the musical version of the trials and tribulations of Sue Townsend’s teenage diarist.

“It’s my kind of show,” says Robert. “I love British musicals; I loved the TV series and I loved Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole books.

“Pick Me Up will be doing a season of works by British writers in spring 2022, with George Stagnell starring in both Billy in March and Shakespeare In Love in April, and when we got the chance to do Adrian Mole, I knew we had to do that as this winter’s show – though I didn’t actually know it would be the British amateur premiere until the writer [Pippa Cleary] told me.

Toni Feetenby’s Pauline Mole and Jack Hambleton’s Adrian Mole from Pick Me Up Theatre’s Team Townsend

“But it’s perfect timing for us to do the show now because the story runs from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve.”

Robert and musical director Tim Selman are working with a cast of experienced York hands such as Sandy Nicholson, Andrew Isherwood, Adam Sowter, Florence Poskitt, Alan Park and Alexandra Mather and two sets of teen talents, rather sweetly designated as Team Sue and Team Townsend.

“They’re all aged either 13, early-14 or late-14, but they’re different in height, so what I did was to match each team to Adrian’s height. Team Sue – Flynn Baistow’s Adrian, Benedict Wood’s Nigel, Dotty Davies’ Pandora and Freddie Adams’ Barry – all turned out to be from Lancashire, apart from Benedict,” says Robert.

“Team Townsend – the taller Jack Hambleton’s Adrian, Flynn Coultous’s Nigel, Emily Halstead’s Pandora and Guy Wilson’s Barry – happen to be all from Yorkshire.

“Although Sue Townsend was a Leicester writer, and set her stories there, we’ll be using northern accents, which suits the characters just as well.”

Team Townsend’s Flynn Coultous as Nigel and Emily Halstead as Pandora in The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

In the cast too is veteran actor and drama teacher Ian Giles, who played his part in Sue Townsend’s rise as a writer. “In the summer of 1977, I was appointed artistic director of the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, and one of my innovations was to create a writers’ group for local people,” he recalls.

“The then unknown Leicester housewife Sue Townsend was among those who came along. She was in her thirties, from a council estate, had worked as a factory worker and shop assistant, and was very shy. She only attended because her partner, Colin [Broadway], told her to give it a go, though she used to love reading the likes of Dostoevsky.”

Ian put Sue forward for a Thames Television Writer’s Bursary and her manuscript for Womberang duly won the Thames Television Playwright Award, setting her on the path to writing plays for the Royal Court and the Adrian Mole series of books.

Coming full circle, Ian, now 72, will play grumpy old Bert Baxter in the Mole musical. “He’s an 89-year-old curmudgeon, so that should be easy for me!” he says, delighted to be reconnecting with his Townsend past.

“I’m surprised the Adrian Mole books aren’t on the school curriculum, because the issues raised are still so pertinent. The first book is 40 years old now, and the books were like the Harry Potter books of their time. Only the Bible and Shakespeare outsold them!”

Toni Feetenby’s Pauline Mole and Flynn Baistow’s Adrian Mole from Team Sue

Re-joining the discussion, Robert says: “We love Adrian Mole because it’s a boy expressing how awful life is when you’re going through puberty. The young cast find it very funny, but it’s interesting to see how differently they interpret their characters, especially the two Adrians.

“What works best is the fun Sue had in having all the characters being seen through Adrian’s lens.”

“And with a working-class ethic to it,” says Ian. “Sue was writing from council-estate  experience, growing up not far from where playwright Joe Orton grew up. There’s a lot of Sue in the character of the mother, Pauline.

“It’s all pertinent to the 1980s when it was written, but it also resonates with all teenage experiences that people go through.”

Robert adds: “Because of the ‘80s’ retro culture that’s going on now, young people are wise to that, which makes it a good time to do this show.

Time to brush up: Ian Giles’s curmudgeonly Bert Baxter makes his point to Jack Hambleton’s Adrian Mole

“But what’s nice about the music is that Jake and Pippa have not pastiched the Eighties’ pop style. They’ve made their own style of music, so you will enjoy the story being in a musical structure, with some lovely balladry, and a lot of sadness and heartbreak in there, and the parents and classmates being given good songs as well as the leads.”

The John Cooper Studio will be set up as a traverse stage with the audience in raked seating to either side and on the mezzanine level above. “The set design will feature two houses, one to either side, with everything going on in between,” says Robert.

“The reason I’ve done that is because all the scenes are quite short and it moves at a pace, so you can’t have lots of scenery to move around, slowing it down.”

Now make a date in your diary to see Adrian Mole, Pandora and co at Theatre@41.

Pick Me Up Theatre present Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, The Musical, John Cooper Studio, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 8 to 18, 7.30pm, except December 11 and 12; 2.30pm matinees, December 11, 12 and 18. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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How actor Ian Giles played his part in the rise of Adrian Mole writer Sue Townsend

Ian Giles’s Bert Baxter and Jack Hambleton’s Adrian Mole in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾, The Musical. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

YORK actor and drama teacher Ian Giles played his part in the rise of writer Sue Townsend in his days in Leicester.

Now, 72-year-old Ian is to play grumpy old Bert Baxter in Townsend’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ in Pick Me Up Theatre’s musical production at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from December 8 to 18.

“In the summer of 1977, I was appointed artistic director of the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, and one of my innovations was to create a writers’ group for local people,” he recalls.

“The then- unknown Leicester housewife Sue Townsend was among those who came along. She was in her thirties, from a council estate, had worked as a factory worker and shop assistant, and was very shy. She only attended because her partner, Colin [Broadway], told her to give it a go, though she used to love reading the likes of Dostoevsky.”

What happened next, Ian? “The chairman of the group managed to get hold of a manuscript off her for Womberang, and on the strength of that first play, I put Sue up for a Thames Television Writer’s Bursary, and she got it,” he says.

“Michael Billington [the esteemed Guardian theatre critic], who was on the panel, told me it was the funniest thing he had read in years.”

Womberang won the Thames Television Playwright Award, and Townsend was on her way, writing Bazaar And Rummage (1982) and The Great Celestial Cow (1984) for the Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea.

Townsend first penned what became The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ as a one-man show: a workshop production starring Nigel Barnett as Nigel, rather than Adrian, Mole, recounting the diary he had written when he was aged 13 and three quarters.

“We think we then changed it to Adrian, because Nigel Mole sounded too like Nigel Molesworth [the subject of Geoffrey Willans’s series of books about life in English prep school St Custard’s], but the BBC say they changed it!” says Ian.

Either way, Adrian became the name when Sue was invited to convert the play into a novel. “She was a dramatist first and was very happy to write the novel as it meant she could use only one voice, Adrian’s, to tell his story,” says Ian.

“Published by Methuen in 1982, it went stratospheric,” says Ian. So much so, The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ and its 1984 sequel, The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole, made Townsend the best-selling British author of the 1980s. A further six books in the series took sales worldwide past the 20 million mark.

Inevitably, the books were adapted for the radio, television and theatre. “Sue worked on the first musical version, which was a play with songs, and then came the first West End theatre version,” says Ian.

Robert Readman’s York company, Pick Me Up Theatre, will be presenting the latest musical adaptation by Jake Brunger (book and lyrics) and Pippa Cleary (music and lyrics), premiered at the Leicester Curve in March 2015.

“They’d formed a partnership while studying music and contacted Sue about doing a musical, but sadly she died [on April 10 2014) before the premiere,” says Ian.

Now the story comes full circle for him as he takes to the stage as Sue’s character, the 89-year-old curmudgeon Bert Baxter. “Sue became resident writer at the Phoenix, and I moved on, and now the theatre is called the Sue Townsend Theatre in the place where I worked for four years, when  she took her first step into writing plays.”

Pick Me Up Theatre present Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, The Musical, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 8 to 18, 7.30pm, except December 11 and 12; 2.30pm matinees, December 11, 12 and 18. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.