ONLINE sensation, comedian and author Daniel Foxx will bring his new stand-up show, How Lovely, to Pocklington Arts Centre on October 31.
Best known for his viral comedy sketches, Foxx has amassed millions of views across social media. His on-screen appearances span BBC One, BBC Three, ITV and Comedy Central and he has appeared live as tour support for Josh Widdicombe, Rosie Jones and Judi Love.
In How Lovely, Foxx reflects on how he was was determined to handle his Big Break-up with the grace of Julia Roberts, but didn’t, as he navigates the realities of dating in your 30s, a rising Le Creuset obsession and the pursuit of the perfect 12-step skincare routine, all while trying hard to emanate love and light.
Foxx’s debut show, Villain, toured internationally, including a sell-out run at New York’s SoHo Playhouse and London’s legendary Clapham Grand. He co-hosts the podcast Welcome To Hell with fellow comic Dane Buckley and is the author of the hit book Bedtime Stories For Privileged Children. His latest tour show will look to build on that momentum.
Foxx’s appearance adds to a packed 2026 comedy programme at Pocklington Arts Centre, where upcoming shows include Andy Parsons’ Please #@!$ To Mars on May 22 (8pm); Rich Hall’s Chin Music, June 10 (8pm), Hal Cruttenden’s Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It, June 12 and 13 (7.30pm); Neil Delamere in Reinventing The Neil, July 30 (7.30pm) and PAC Comedy Club, featuring Rob Deering, Eleanor Tiernan, Oliver Bowler and Tom Wrigglesworth, October 1 (8pm).
Daniel Foxx: “Determined to handle his Big Break-up with the grace of Julia Roberts”
Further dates for the diary are: Ignacio Lopez in Nada, October 3 (8pm); Simon Evans in Staring At The Sun, October 21 (7.30pm); Tez Ilyas’s Tez Things I Hate About You, October 23 (8pm) and Brian Bilston’s How To Lay An Egg With A Horse Inside, November 14, 7.30pm.
Pocklington Arts Centre’s Comedy Festival will take place on May 30, opening with Seeta Wrightson’s work-in-progress Fringe Preview of Middling at 1pm, followed by Out Of The Box at 2pm and Brennan Reece’s work-in-progress Fringe Preview of New Jokes at 2.45pm.
Marcel Lucont will present Les Enfants Terribles – A Game Show For Awful Children at 4pm. Then come Tom Neenan’s work-in-progress Fringe Preview at 4.30pm; Sarah Roberts’ work-in-progress Fringe Preview at 6.15pm and the Mixed Bill finale at 8pm, bringing together Lou Wall, Marcel Lucont, Tal Davies, Pravanya Pillay and Raj Poojara, hosted by Kiri Pritchard-McLean.
Who’s next as the death count rises in Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Manuel Harlan
AND then there were thrillers, music, spoken word and comedy gigs, a cricket legend show and smooth crooner tribute for Charles Hutchinson to recommend.
Thriller of the week: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Grand Opera House, York, November 22 to 25, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
AFTER Pick Me Up Theatre’s September staging at Theatre@41, Monkgate, here comes Lucy Bailey’s “genuinely terrifying” touring production of Agatha Christie’s best-selling 1939 crime novel, starring, among others, Andrew Lancel as William Blore, David Yelland as Judge Wargrave and Sophie Walter as Vera Claythorne.
Ten strangers – eight guests and a butler and his housekeeper wife – are lured to a solitary mansion off the coast of Devon. When a storm cuts them off from the mainland, the true reason for their presence on Soldier Island becomes horribly clear. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Spanish sarcasm of the week: Ignacio Lopez, YO1 Live Lounge, York Barbican, November 18, 8pm
SPANISH export Ignacio Lopez, from Live At The Apollo, The Now Show and Stand-Up Sesh, scrutinises his immigrant upbringing and family tree in a show about clashing cultures and never fitting in.
Sharing his biggest failures with a globe-trotting story of music, comedy and admin cock-ups, exotic outsider comedian Ignacio skewers Britain and Spain with an armada of stand-up sarcasm, silliness and songs. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Simon Brodkin: Screwed Up revelations from prankster at Grand Opera House, York
Comedy times two at Grand Opera House, York: Simon Brodkin, Screwed Up, November 18, 8pm; Lucy Beaumont, The Trouble & Strife, November 19, 8pm
THE most viewed British comedian of all time on TikTok, notorious prankster and Lee Nelson creator Simon Brodkin rips into celebrity culture, social media, the police, Putin, Prince Andrew and Jesus in his new stand-up show, Screwed Up. Nothing is off limits, from his mental health to his five arrests and his family.
An award-winning stand-up (and actress) before she met Leeds comedian and now husband Jon Richardson, Hull-born Lucy Beaumont lets slip on her rollercoaster world through a surrealist lens. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Not just cricket: Henry Blofeld discusses “flannelled fools” and much besides at York Theatre Royal
Chat show of the week: An Audience With Henry Blofeld, York Theatre Royal, November 20, 7.30pm
TEST Match Special alumnus Henry Blofeld, 84, will discuss rather more than the art of cricket commentary. “If you think you’re going to learn how to play a forward defensive, you’ll be sadly disappointed,” he forewarns.
Instead, expect his colourful life story in a tongue-in-cheek show, full of after-dinner anecdotes and meandering digressions where Blowers pokes fun at himself and his TMS gaffes and his subjects veer from intergalactic travel to horticulture to mountaineering. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The Trials Of Cato: Twisting folk into new shapes at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: The Trials Of Cato, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm
2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners The Trials Of Cato pay homage to the folk tradition while twisting old bones into something febrile and modern, combining stomping tunes and captivating stories.
Formed in Beirut, Lebanon, the Welsh/English band have been based in Britain since 2016, releasing the albums Hide And Hair in 2018 and Gog Magog, named after the mythical giant of Arthurian legend and a Cambridgeshire hilltop, last year. Mandolin player and vocalist Polly Bolton has joined the trio after leaving The Magpies. Support act will be Annie Dressner, once of New York City, now of Cambridgeshire. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk
Jess Gardham: On Navigators Art & Performance’s Basement Sessions bill at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York
Underground movement of the week: Navigators Art & Performance, The Basement Sessions, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, November 25, doors, 7pm
YORK creative hub Navigators Art & Performance launches the Basement Sessions series of Music, Spoken Word and Comedy – Live, Local and Loud! with a bill of performers from the York area and “a few surprises up the sleeve”.
In the line-up are punk/post-punk/alt. rock/indie band What Fresh Hell, playing their farewell gig; pop, soul and acoustic singer-songwriter Jess Gardham; comedian John Pease; performance artist Carrieanne Vivianette, exploring the legacies of radical women through voice, movement and improvisation, and jazz-turned-punk Battle of the Bands finalists Attacker TV. Box office: bit.ly/nav-base-1 or on the door.
Stepping out of the shadow: Atila Huyesin celebrates the music of Nat King Cole at the NCEM, York
Tribute show of the week: Atila Huseyin in King For A Day: The Nat King Cole Story, National Centre for Early Music, York, November 26, 7pm
ATILA Huseyin combines live music, narration and projected archive images and footage in his concert celebration of one the 20th century’s greatest vocalists and entertainers, Nat King Cole. of the Twentieth Century: Nat King Cole.
Accompanied by world-class musicians, Huseyin performs such favourites as Nature Boy, Unforgettable and When I Fall in Love alongside stylish reworkings of his lesser-known gems. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Chris McCausland: Warming up at Selby Town Hall for a year of travels on his 2024 Yonks! tour
Looking ahead: Chris McCausland, Yonks!, Grand Opera House, York, November 10 2024
LIVERPUDLIAN comedian Chris McCausland will follow up his 140-date Speaky Blinder tour with 104 shows on his Yonks! travels in January to May and September to December 2024. Why Yonks? “I’ve been called an ‘overnight success’, even though I’ve been doing this for yonks,” he reasons after more than two decades on the stand-up circuit.
This year, McCausland, 46, has hosted his own travel series, Wonders Of The World I Can’t See, on Channel 4. His Work In Progress show at Selby Town Hall on Wednesday (8pm) has sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
In Focus: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company Autumn Theatre Festival, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, November 21 to 25
Helen ‘Bells’ Spencer: Leading the musical theatre workshop for age 16 upwards at Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company Autumn Theatre Festival
THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company will raise funds for the JoRo with a participatory four-day theatre festival that kicks off with Pirates Of Penzance: Come & Sing on Tuesday at 7pm and closes with a concert performance of the much loved Gilbert & Sullivan opera on Saturday at 3.30pm. This is an opportunity to throw yourself into G&S over a week of fulfilling fun.
JRTC will hold an open rehearsal for next February’s production of Kander & Ebb’s musical murder mystery Curtains on Wednesday at 7pm: a chance to sit in the stalls and peek at how a show is put together, hopefully with no spoiler of whodunit!
Musical director and actor James Robert Ball will lead the Youth Musical Theatre Workshop for seven to 15-year-olds on Thursday at 7pm, when he will look at such theatre skills as vocal technique and acting through song while working on a number that attendees will have the option of performing during the interval of the Saturday Night Musical Theatre Quiz.
JRTC principal actress Helen ‘Bells’ Spencer will oversee Friday’s 7pm Musical Theatre Workshop for age 16 plus, featuring audition skills and top tips, acting through song and vocal techniques. Again, participants can sing in the interval at Saturday’s quiz.
A Tech Demo & Backstage Tour will be held at 2pm on Saturday, when participants can venture behind the scenes and meet the tech team for demonstrations of light and sound equipment.
The festival will conclude with Saturday’s aforementioned quiz night: a chance to play for prizes and bragging rights as teams of up to four are challenged to show their musical theatre knowledge.
Tickets cost £5 per event, £12 for three or £16 for full festival access at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
