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More Things To Do in Ryedale, York and beyond “the carriage ride of your life”. Hutch’s List No. 11, from Gazette & Herald

Katherine Lea: Making her Hotbuckle Productions debut in Pride & Prejudice

BUCKLE up for Austen’s sister act, Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes and Sheridan’s scandalous comedy of manners, plus music, art and poetry in the library, baroque and blues concerts and tragic opera, advises Charles Hutchinson.   

Ryedale play of the week: Hotbuckle Productions in Pride & Prejudice, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

IN artistic director Adrian Preater’s humorous, multi role-playing adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Hotbuckle Productions enter the world of the Bennets.

From headstrong Elizabeth to proud Mr Darcy, rich characterisations abound as five sisters deal with marriage, morality and misconceptions. “Hotbuckle up for the carriage ride of your life” with Joanna Purslow, Tomas Mason and company newcomer Katherine Lea. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Patricia Qua: Ceramicist and graphic designer taking part in York Open Studios for the first time in Hempland Drive, York

Art around every corner: York Open Studios, Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm

AS many as 156 artists and makers who live or work within a ten-mile radius of York will be welcoming visitors to 106 workspaces to show and sell their art, ranging from ceramics, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery and mixed media to painting, print, photography, sculpture, textiles, glass and wood. Among them will be 31 new participants. Full details and a map can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Look out for booklets around the city too.

Keeping an eye on things: English Touring Opera in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at York Theatre Royal

Opera of the week: English Touring Opera in Manon Lescaut, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm

ENGLISH Touring Opera returns to York in Jude Christian radical production of Giacomo Puccini’s heartbreaking Manon Lescaut, for which she brings incisive direction to her sharp, poetic new translation.

Puccini’s 1892 breakthrough hit presents a devastating depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms and the rigid double standards imposed on her by society. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

London Obbligato Collective: Opening the York Baroque+ Day at the NCEM

Classical concert of the week: London Obbligato Collective, York Baroque+ Day, National Centre for Early Music, York Saturday, 12 noon  

FORMED by Masumi Yamamoto, the new London Obbligato Collective focuses on “accompanied harpsichord sonatas”, where the harpsichord is given the solo role within the trio sonata texture, highlighting and enriching the colours and nuances of the instrument.

Next Saturday’s programme includes 18th century music by Felice Giardini, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Lydea Perkins, as Lady Teazle, and Joseph Marcell, as Sir Peter Teazle, in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling

Touring play of the week: Tilted Wig, Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 7.30pm Saturday matinees

JOSEPH Marcell, fondly remembered as Geoffrey the butler in the American comedy series Fresh Prince of Bel Air, stars in Seán Aydon’s new production of Richard B Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal, where gossip never goes out of fashion.

Marcell plays Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but she is starting to think that if her husband believes it, she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Florence Poskitt: Stepping in to play Kate in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew

Seventies’ Shakespeare play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday

IN a late change of cast, actor-musician Florence Poskitt, from the York musical comedy duo Fladam, is taking over the principal role of Kate in Maggie Smales’s production of Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, now set in 1970.

A psychedelic world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality, but Kate was born to be wild and wants a voice of her own. The times they are a’changin’ and the old order is dead…or is it? Let battle commence. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Redfish Blues Band: Returning to Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Redfish Blues Band, Ryedale Blues Club, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 25, 8pm

NOMINATED for Blues Band of the Year and Blues Album of the Year in the UK 2024 Blues Awards, Redfish Blues Band return to Malton with Christian Sharpe on vocals and guitar, Steve McGuckin on Hammond, Rod Mackay on bass and Steve Gibson on drums.

As witnessed on their Together Is Better album and Soho Rising (Girls, Girls, Girls) single, they play a delicious, bubbling gumbo of blues, soul, gospel and funk in live performances defined by energy and restraint. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Kai West’s poster for Bull’s Live At The Library day on May 19, based on the Cluedo board game design

Gig announcement of the week: Bull present Live At The Library, York Explore Library & Archive, Library Square, York, May 19, from 12 noon

YORK Explore and Please Please You team up with York band Bull for a day of music, art and poetry to celebrate Explore York’s tenth birthday and raise funds for York’s libraries. The climax will be a 6.30pm to 10pm gig by Bull, Marnie Glum, Rowan and performance poet Stu Freestone (tickets, tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives/1216274).

Free activities include open mic-style performances run by Bull frontman Tom Beer in the Marriott Room from midday, featuring Gabbie Lord, Maggie, Gilles, She Choir, Filipe, Old Time Rags, Eve Thomas & Co and more,  plus art workshops for all ages hosted by Izzy Williamson (lino printing, 1pm) and Bull bassist and illustrator Kai West (T-shirt design and screen printing, 12 noon to 2pm) in the Garden Room, with donations welcome.

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Alex digs beneath the Surface to bring out the comedy in The School For Scandal

“Joseph Surface is selfish, hypocritical, vain, manipulative,” says The School For Scandal actor Alex Phelps. ” I’d say he would think he’s quite charming too!” Picture: Anthony Robling

GOSSIP never goes out of fashion, whether in the 1770s, 2020s or 1950s, the new setting for Tilted Wig’s production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s Georgian comedy of manners The School For Scandal.

“We wanted to allow our audience to get to as close to the heart of the play as possible and sometimes the baggage that goes with 18th century theatre, all the wigs and ruffles, can feel like a barrier,” reasons director Sean Aydon, ahead of next week’s run at York Theatre Royal.

“The actors of the 1770s would be wearing the height of fashion and we wanted our audiences to get a sense that these people were wealthy, stylish and take great care of their personal appearances.

“However, it didn’t feel right to set it in the modern day as the world of the play has very different rules to our own, particularly with regards to marriage as a financial agreement.”

Sean continues: “We felt the middle of the 20th century would be a great place aesthetically as our audience could enjoy the vibrant colours and evocative textures, appreciating its style while knowing we are not in our 21st century world.

Alex Phelps’s Joseph Surface, left, seeks to deceive Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling

“It also allows us to play with some recognisable comedy tropes from the Fifties, including some rather brightly coloured telephones.”

Aydon’s cast is led by Joseph Marcell, once the butler in NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, now the lordly, wealthy aristocrat Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but if her husband believes it, she may as well give it a go.

Enter into the scandalous scenario one Joseph Surface, played by Alex Phelps, whose adroit comedy talents last graced the York stage in February 2023 in Tilted Wig’s touring collaboration with the Theatre Royal in the circus-themed Around The World In 80 Days in the dual roles of the Ringmaster and the unscrupulous globe-trotting Phileas Fogg.

Earlier Alex had stolen the show when playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek with such brio in Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age take on Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre at the Eye of York in June 2019.

Introducing his latest role as Joseph Surface, Alex says: “Lots of things are going on beneath that surface. He’s selfish, he’s hypocritical, he’s vain, he’s manipulative. I’d say he would think he’s quite charming too, which is a deception. That’s his undoing in a way, thinking he’s got it all going on, but then it all begins to unravel.”

Alex Phelps in the role of the Ringmaster/Phileas Fogg in York Theatre Royal and Tilted Wig’s co-production of Around The World In 80 Days in 2023. Picture: Anthony Robling

Phelps’s Surface succeeds in convincing Sir Peter that he is the epitome of goodness. “Initially it goes incredibly well for him, and he manages to get inside Sir Peter’s head, but then he tries to seduce his wife.”

Wrong move. “The reason I love playing this kind of character is that they have so far to fall. That lovely twist of someone thinking they’re the best thing in the world and convincing everyone else of that too, but then they begin to fall very quickly, as they try to be high status but do so in a way that betrays them. When you play against that barrier, it becomes funnier.”

Alex is working with director Sean Aydon for the first time. “It’s been really wonderful,” he says. “We discovered that Sean had been in the third year at my drama school – Manchester School of Theatre – when I was in my first year, but you don’t really mix with the third years, who are busy doing plays, so I didn’t get to know him there. It’s only now, ten years later, that we’ve done that.”

Alex has revelled in Sean’s adaptation. “The language has stuck entirely to its period, with Sean not trying to change its 1777 style. Sheridan’s razor-like wit really comes through, but what Sean has done is set it in 1950 with a minimalist set with three telephones on plinths,” he says.

“Like Richard Bean did so well with One Man, Two Guvnors [relocating Carlo Goldoni’s play from 1746 Italy to 1963 Brighton], in Sean’s version, 18th century social conventions for men are still there in 1950, but what Sheridan did was to give women incredible power in the play: they are the driving force.”

Alex Phelps, middle, back row, playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s Twelfth Night in York in 2019

Working on stage with Joseph Marcell has been rewarding too. “I’m blessed in the sense that each night I get back to sit back and learn from him and his skills and his crafts. He’s been at the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company], on the board at Shakespeare’s Globe, and he has such incredible amount of experience, I would be a fool, as someone who loves this craft, not to watch him and learn from him,” he says.

“Sometimes, I’ll sit there with puppy dog eyes, thinking, ‘gosh, I’m on stage with one of the greats, someone with comedy in his bones’. He’s a lovely man and a great actor.”

Alex has learned to be alive to the unpredictability of live performance, how a show, especially a comedy, can change from night to night. “When you’re on stage, all your senses are heightened; you listen to see if the audience is coming with you, if a laugh makes something work. It’s incredibly elusive because it’s different every night. Like a bar of soap, sometimes it slips, but sometimes you catch it!”

Tilted Wig in tandem with Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Joseph’s journey from the butler in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air to aristocratic Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal

Joseph Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal. Picture: Ant Robling

THE last time Joseph Marcell played York Theatre Royal, the March 2020 visit of Alone In Britain was stopped mid-run by the imposition of Covid restrictions.

Next week, he returns in Tilted Wig’s production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal in the lead role of Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but she starts to think that if her husband believes it, she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it.

Now 75, Saint Lucia-born actor and comedian Marcell is best known for his NBC sitcom role as Geoffrey, the snooty butler, in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air from September 1990 to May 1996.

His other TV credits include Mammoth and I Hate You for the BBC and this year he is to appear in Candice Carty-William’s Queenie on Channel 4.

His prolific stage credits include the Young Vic’s Hamlet with Cush Jumbo; Kathy Burke’s Lady Windermere’s Fan; extensive work with Shakespeare’s Globe, such as the titular role in Bill Buckhurst’s King Lear and Derek Walcott’s Omeros, as well as seasons at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He is taking to the road in Seán Aydon’s staging of The School For Scandal after starring in Chiwetel Ejiofor’s debut feature film, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind.

Alex Phelps and Joseph Marcell in a scene from Seán Aydon’s production of The School For Scandal. Picture: Ant Robling

Here he discusses his latest stage role; The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air; Sir Patrick Stewart; leaving electrical engineering for theatre; Saint Lucia and Queenie.

How does Sir Peter Teazle fit into the plot of The School For Scandal?

“Sir Peter is an aristocratic, wealthy and well-respected lord. He decided to marry. A country girl was chosen after a fairly long courtship. The difference in their ages and outlook has become a constant issue.

“Lady Teazle has become a full member of the WITS, a set of gossip mongers. Sir Peter is at his wits’ end. This school for scandal is the bane of his life and the cause of the endless bickering. However, he loves and cares for Lady Teazle.

Would you agree with Sheridan’s 1777 play being called “one of the greatest comedies ever written”?

“Yes, I would agree. The language, settings, characters and themes are amusing. And at the time of the play’s first production that aspect of comedy had not been enjoyed by a British audience.”

What differentiates Tilted Wig’s staging of The School For Scandal from past productions?

“We are set in the 1950s. Although we are not in wigs and frock coats, the sentiment of those times as best as we can imagine is fully respected. The characters are of a time gone by and we are totally respectful to the language, because without that there is no play The School For Scandal.”

Lydea Perkins’s Lady Teazle and Jospeh Marcell’s Sir Peter Teazle in The School For Scandal

Will today’s audiences be scandalised by The School For Scandal?

“I am not too sure of that. But I am certain that within the world of the play a modern audience would empathise. Gossip and scandal to me is not the actual story; it’s the embellishments that happen in the retelling of the tale. We, a modern audience, really do understand the importance of ‘fact-checking’.”

What is the best bit of gossip you have heard about yourself?

“That I am an American actor. That I am married to an American woman from California and a British woman from Berkshire at the same time.”

How did a young actor born in Saint Lucia and living in London get cast in an American TV comedy, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air? Didn’t Patrick Stewart have something to do with it?

“Ah, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Well, I was touring the Universities of Southern California with an organisation called ACTER (Alliance for Creative Theatre and Research), which was created by Sir Patrick Stewart and Professor Homer Swander, of UC [University of California] Santa Barbara, under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Tilted Wig’s poster image for The School For Scandal

“We were playing in Los Angeles in 1987 in a five-person production of Measure For Measure directed by Patrick Stewart. I played Angelo and three other roles. This flagship company was created for actors who had played leading roles in the plays of William Shakespeare, and our presence in Los Angeles, especially under the RSC banner, was a theatrical event. Anybody who was anybody came to the theatre over those days.

“Then, in 1990, Brandon Tarticoff (NBC) and Quincy Jones decided to produce the show The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. They needed an English butler and one of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Someone remembered me as Angelo in Measure For Measure; searched and located me, and then made me an offer, which I would have been foolish to refuse. So yes, Sir Patrick Stewart created the space for me. And for that, I am very grateful.”

Are you still recognised from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air and do you keep in touch with co-star Will Smith and the cast?

“Yes, I am very much recognised. From America to Zimbabwe. Wherever in the world I visit. We do all keep in touch and have a biannual lunch in Malibu, California. These reunions are fun.”

How much of a culture shock was it when you and your family moved from Saint Lucia in the Caribbean to Peckham in London in the mid-1950s?

“My father had been resident for a year before the family joined him. We arrived via Genoa, Italy, to Waterloo, London, in November. The fog and the cold temperature was a shock but the denuded trees with no leaves was astonishing. The paraffin heaters took a long time to get used to. Having to play cricket in the rain was boring.”

Last time at York Theatre Royal for Joseph Marcell: Playing Inspector Esherick in Alone In Berlin in March 2020

You trained as an electrical engineer, so how did the acting start?

“Purely by accident. There was a theatrical event in London at that time called The World Theatre Season, created by a man called Michael Saint-Denis. I went to a play by the American Negro Theatre.  I believe the play was called Black New World. They were later to become the lauded Negro Ensemble. That was it for me. I found my road to Damascus. I said goodbye to electrical engineering.”

Your TV break came in Empire Road, a contemporary soap with an almost completely black cast, on the BBC in 1978. How difficult has it been to get diverse roles?

“In my opinion, I believe it is more difficult in these times. The loss of the repertory theatres and the advent of streaming has not been helpful. There’s nowhere to learn and practise the craftsmanship required.”

The last time you were appearing at York Theatre Royal in Hans Fallada’sAlone In Berlin, the theatre had to close mid-run because of the Covid epidemic. How much of a disappointment was that?

Joseph Marcell: Returning to York Theatre Royal

“A great disappointment. The role of Inspector Esherick, a detective in 1930s’ Berlin, was a dream of a role for a non-white actor. The director, James Dacre, had the imagination to cast me in that role. Very brave of him too. Such a talented director. In one move the diversity aspect was vanquished, for a while.

“And yes, the Covid pandemic did cut us off in our prime. Thankfully we have all survived and are in good health. Yet Alone In Berlin was a tremendous production and should have had a much longer life.”

You will next be seen on TV in Queenie, an adaptation of Candice Carly-Williams’s bestseller, on Channel 4. Who do you play?

“Grand Pa Wilfred. Of ‘the Windrush Generation’, he’s a lovely man who has embraced the situation in which he finds himself. One of the unsung heroes of the Caribbean migration to the United Kingdom.”

Tilted Wig in tandem with Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

A quartet of questions for director Seán Aydon

Seán Aydon: Directing Tilted Wig’s production of The School For Scadal, set in 1950

Are you doing your production in period or in a modernised setting?

“We wanted to allow our audience to get to as close to the heart of the play as possible and sometimes the baggage that goes with 18th century theatre, all the wigs and ruffles, can feel like a barrier.

“The actors of the 1770s would be wearing the height of fashion and we wanted our audiences to get a sense that these people were wealthy, stylish and take great care of their personal appearances.

“However, it didn’t feel right to set it in the modern day as the world of the play has very different rules to our own, particularly with regards to marriage as a financial agreement. We felt the middle of the 20th century would be a great place aesthetically as our audience could enjoy the vibrant colours and evocative textures, appreciating its style while knowing we are not in our 21st century world. It also allows us to play with some recognisable comedy tropes from the Fifties, including some rather brightly coloured telephones.”

Would you agree that Sheridan’s play is “one of the greatest comedies ever written”?

“I think it’s absolutely one of the best comedies ever written! You can see so many hallmarks of contemporary comedies and the great plays and films of modern times. It’s a classic sitcom plot with wicked wit, alongside slapstick, farce and some very silly physical comedy.

“Working on it, it seems easy to see its influence on so many of our favourite comedies from Blackadder to Noises Off.”

What differentiates this staging of The School For Scandal from past productions?

“This production really puts the relationship between the actors and the audience first. It is truly theatrical, an experience you can’t have on your sofa. At the same time, I think our new setting will make it feel very easy to relate to and understand from the very off while celebrating everything that makes this play exceptional.”

Will today’s audiences be scandalised by The School for Scandal?

“I don’t want to spoil anything, but those ghastly scandal-makers get what they deserve. In that respect it feels very contemporary; as a nation, we’re still pretty obsessed with the gossip columns!

“But I think our audiences will leave feeling rather warm and fuzzy – and with sore sides of course.”

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REVIEW: Is resistance futile in Alone In Berlin at York Theatre Royal?

Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel and Jay Taylor’s SS Officer Prall in Alone In Berlin

Review: Alone In Berlin, York Theatre Royal/Royal & Derngate Northampton, at York Theatre Royal, until March 21. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

IT is rare to have a perspective on the Second World War from within Germany itself, presented on stage or screen.

What’s more, Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret was a Broadway musical rooted in Anglo-American Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical 1945 novel The Berlin Stories, set in Weimar Republic Berlin in 1931 with the Nazi Party on the rise. There could be no more cynical voice than that of the nightclub Emcee; entertainment at any price.

This year, New Zealander Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, a satirical account of the last year of World War Two, as seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old Hitler Youth enthusiast in a German town, garlanded nominations aplenty in the Hollywood awards season but opprobrium in equal measure. How did it end? With the boy and a newly free Jewish girl dancing to David Bowie’s Heroes, sung in Deutsche.

Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich, Clive Mendus’s Benno Kluge and Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie in Alone In Berlin

Alone In Berlin is a different beast altogether, still with songs (more of which later), but far removed from the powder and paint, mirage and murk of Weimar cabaret or a small-town boy’s loss of innocence. The source novel, based on a true story, was written by a German, the maverick Hans Fallada, responsible for Little Man, What Now? too.

Also known aptly as Every Man Dies Alone, it was published in 1947 – the year Fallada died of a morphine overdose – but not in English until 2009.

Since then, there has been Vincent Perez’s 2016 film with Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson and now this York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-production, translated and adapted by playwright and political satirist Alistair Beaton and directed by James Dacre, the Northampton theatre’s artistic director.

We watch it through the 2020 filter of grim, vulnerable times, in a year of floods, storms, immigration intolerance, Brexit’s cold shoulder, myopic political leaders, and now the creeping spread of Coronavirus. “This is war,” an exhausted Italian doctor said yesterday.

Resistance movement: Charlotte Emmerson’s Anna and Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in Alone In Berlin

On the one hand, there is heightened awareness of the need for collective responsibility, but, on the other, a fear that other factors may over-power it, and where does that leave individual action as we wash our hands ever more feverishly? We are indeed, as everyone is in Fallada’s book, very much alone, and seemingly not in control of our destiny.

Such a feeling prevails in Alone In Berlin, where the central question is whether an individual can make a difference through courageous acts of protest when standing up against the drowning tide of Nazism.

Hard-working carpenter Otto Quangel (Denis Conway) and worn housewife spouse Anna (Charlotte Emmerson) have just learnt that their only son, Marcus, has died in action, honourably serving the fatherland, the letter says, but they see no honour in it. Nor does his fiancée Trudi (Abiola Ogunbiyi), who joins the Resistance movement, although the subsequent arc of her story shows how ultimately alone everyone is under duress.

Yes, they had voted for Hitler – more precisely Otto told Anna which way to vote, she says – with Hitler’s promise of jobs to end the Depression, but they had since grown disillusioned. Their boorish, bragging bully of a neighbour Borkhausen (Julius D’Silva), feels empowered to persecute the Jewish woman next door; he and petty criminal Benno Kluge (Clive Mendus) are exploiting the vulture opportunities of Nazism’s tyrannical grip.

Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie, centre, with Charlotte Emmerson’s Anna and Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in the shadows

What would you do in such testing circumstances? Keep your head down? Keep making coffins as carpenter Otto now is? Or start a campaign of civil disobedience, as Otto decides he must, no matter how small the defiant act, prompting him and then Anna to write to write messages on postcards he stealthily distributes across Berlin, calling on fellow Germans to resist?

Most fall into the hands of the authorities, represented in Fallada’s suffocating story by Gestapo officer Inspector Escherich (Joseph Marcell), a veteran policeman, adapting to do what he must do to survive, and his superior, SS Officer Prall (Jay Taylor), ambitious, merciless, the embodiment of all the very worst Nazi stereotypes.

Once the trail leads to Otto – spoiler alert – the most telling scene has Otto confronting Escherich’s expediency. “You don’t believe in anything,” he scolds him. That shocks Escherich to the core, and in turn it challenges us too, to cling to our beliefs, to cling to hope for the better path, to defy, to resist, if necessary, and to go it alone as the starting point, but with conviction that others will follow.

Dacre’s meticulous, methodical production is one of very high production values, and devastating performances by Conway, Emmerson and Marcell in particular, but it is not wholly successful.

Omnipresent angelic statue: Jessica Walker’s Golden Elsie

Beaton’s script sometimes sails close to the prosaic, and Jessica Walker’s omnipresent angelic statue Golden Elsie, matching the black and white of Jonathan Fensom’s stark set and Nina Dunn’s video designs, will be a divisive figure for audiences.

Essentially a one-woman Greek chorus, she is more reporter than commentator, and while she may echo Weimar cabaret in style, Orlando Gough has given her dissonant, flatlining operatic songs, always eluding a tune and relentless as toothache. This is probably deliberate, but the sheer number of songs is a drag on the play’s momentum.

Jason Lutes’s illustrations from his graphic novel Berlin are used brilliantly, Charles Balfour’s lighting is in turn dazzling, oppressively dark and intimidating; Donato Wharton’s sound design is exemplary.

Ultimately, Alone In Berlin, will have an impact beyond those fault lines in its telling. It will make you think, reflect, whether alone, or better still, together in the bar afterwards. Hopefully, too, it will make you want to make a difference, to push back against the crush, to be the first flutter of the butterfly’s wing.

Charles Hutchinson

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Joseph Marcell’s journey from what the Bel-Air butler saw to what the Gestapo inspector sees in Alone In Berlin

Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson as Otto and Anna Quangel and Joseph Marcell as Inspector Escherich in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Geraint Lewis

JOSEPH Marcell will be in York from March 3, appearing as a Gestapo inspector in the British premiere stage adaptation of Alone In Berlin at the Theatre Royal.

“As a non-white actor, I don’t get to play Nazis, so it’s a terrific boon to be playing Inspector Escherich,” he says, now settled into the second week of performances at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton, York Theatre Royal’s co-producers of Alistair Beaton’s adaptation, directed by James Dacre.

Best known for his six seasons as the dry, sardonic butler in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1996, the St Lucia-born, Peckham-raised Marcell has played Othello in 1984 and King Lear in 2014 in a career that has taken him to the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the West End and Broadway.

Now, as Inspector Escherich, he must track his quarry through ever-narrowing circles of totalitarian hell in Fallada’s story set in Nazi-era Berlin in 1940, where factory foreman Otto Quangel (played by Denis Conway) and his wife Anna (Charlotte Emmerson) join the German Resistance after their son’s death.

Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich with Clive Mendus as Enno Kluge and Jessica Walker as Golden Elsie in a scene from Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Based on true events, Alone In Berlin becomes a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door, as the quietly courageous dissident couple stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime, defying Hitler’s rule with the smallest of acts. Such actions prompt Marcell’s meticulous, methodical Escherich to seek to catch them.

“I hadn’t been aware of the novel beforehand, though I’ve since read it after I landed the role,” says Joseph, 71. “It’s really difficult to get a German perspective on wartime life in a German city in the Second World War, but Fallada presents the story of the working ‘stiff’ who has to survive in Berlin.

“This is a story that’s not told: the story of an ordinary German in the war, when we usually hear of heroes and villains.”

Joseph continues: “People seeing the play so far have been a little surprised that it’s full of domestic drama rather than jackboot marching, but it’s the story of an ordinary man [Otto Quangel] who gets to breaking point, and regardless of what might happen, he has to take a stand.”

“For Escherich, it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Geraint Lewis

Escherich is fighting for his own survival as a policeman who has been made a member of the Gestapo. “Now he’s no longer a policeman, but paramilitary, and you find him almost succumbing to the violence of the Gestapo,” says Joseph of his flawed character.

“He’s the opposite of Otto, who has to stand up for what he believes in, whereas for Escherich it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival.”

Analysing Escherich’s character further, and in particular once he has to work for the Gestapo, Joseph says: “He’s in it, but he’s not of it,” he says. “He’s a survivor, who has integrity, and though he works for the Nazis, he doesn’t realise he’s a Nazi.”

As part of his research for the role of Escherich, Joseph met up with a friend who was a “bigwig” at the Imperial War Museum in London. “He explained to me that detectives who worked for the Gestapo were seen as [the equivalent of] rock stars,” he says.

Joseph Marcell in rehearsal for Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan

“But they saw themselves as detectives first, who dealt with facts, and handling facts was something they had been trained to use all their lives, rather than rounding up six chaps and beating them up for information.”

While a sense of impending doom hangs over Alone In Berlin from the first beat, says Joseph, “what makes the story special is that it’s not about kings and queens and admirals, but an ordinary man struggling for survival.

“It makes you ask yourself, ‘would I resist or simply survive?’. ‘What would I have done in that situation?’.”

Who is “alone in Berlin”, Joseph? “They are all alone. In the end, it’s Otto and Anna who are alone, but the inspector is alone too. He has no interaction with ordinary people, except in trying to solve a ‘crime’. They must each take their individual journey,” he says.

Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich interrogating Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Joseph, who was raised in Peckham, South London, from the age of nine, and trained initially to be an electrical engineer, has played a multitude of roles in a distinguished career. One so distinguished that he has been made a cultural ambassador of St Lucia, his Caribbean homeland, and he sits on the American board for Shakespeare’s Globe.

“All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear [in King Lear for Shakespeare’s Globe in 2014],” he says. “The wonderful thing about Lear is that it’s the story of king who degenerates into a state of hopelessness but then re-emerges, essaying on the nature of kingship.

“After two years of playing Lear, I was exhausted, but with age and exhaustion comes the knowledge that though you seek perfection, there’s no chance of it. Each role requires an honesty, a dedication, whether it’s Hamlet, Othello or Lear.”



Recalling his six years starring with a young Will Smith in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air in the 1990s, Joseph says: “The most important thing at that time was being a highly successful television star. I couldn’t go to an event without NBC having a word about what I could say, what I should wear, so it’s a completely different process.

Joseph Marcell in the role of Geoffrey Butler, the butler, in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air

“I was employed to play a role and people say I played it successfully – and nothing succeeds like success in America.

“I didn’t go to ‘butler school’, but I did speak to someone in Britain and two in Los Angeles about what being a butler entailed. The role was written by satirists from the New Yorker magazine and it was up to me to make it truthful.”



Truthfulness in a role is always important to Joseph, as is the never-ending pursuit of perfection. “After a hit role like Geoffrey Butler, in many cases actors might retire and live on their hard-earned gains, but I am an actor and I want to act and I want to do it perfectly, and that’s what I want to continue to do,” he says.

“That TV role has afforded me choice and I have to say I do what I want to do and I’ve been lucky enough that people think I can do it. That’s why I get to make three films and do four stage roles each year.”

” All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Manuel Harlan

On Monday this week, Joseph was taken to lunch at Claridge’s, in Mayfair, to discuss an upcoming movie role. “I’m going to be in my first Western, Trees In Texas, a film with a lot of African-American history in it,” he reveals.

“I’ve finished a film made in Mexico, an Hispanic production called The Exorcism Of God, directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, and there’s a BBC piece I might be doing, playing an exorcist.”

As for the stage, he has one Shakespearean role he would still love to play: Prospero, the protagonist with magical powers in The Tempest. That will surely come his way.

York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate, Northampton, present Alone In Berlin, York Theatre Royal, March 3 to 21. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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York Theatre Royal to co-produce world premiere of Alone In Berlin

Denis Otway, as Otto, Charlotte Emmerson, as Anna, and Joseph Marcell, as Inspector Escherich, in York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton’s Alone In Berlin. Picture: Geraint Lewis

REHEARSALS are under way for the York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-production of the world premiere of Alone In Berlin.

Charlotte Emmerson, Denis Conway and Joseph Marcell will lead an ensemble cast, directed by the Royal & Derngate artistic director, James Dacre, and rehearsed in Northampton, where the play will open next month before its York run from March 3 to 21.

Hans Fallada’s novel has been translated and adapted for the stage by Alistair Beaton. Furthermore, the premiere will feature illustrations 25 years in the making by graphic novelist Jason Lutes – from his book Berlin – who collaborates with designer Jonathan Fensom,video designerNina Dunn and lighting designer Charles Balfour. 

Cabaret singer Jessica Walker will perform original songs composed by Orlando Gough, complemented by composition and sound design by Donato Wharton.

Set in 1940, Alone In Berlin portrays life in wartime Berlin in a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door.

Based on true events, the storyline follows a quietly courageous couple who stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime. Through the smallest of acts, they defy Hitler’s rule, facing the gravest of consequences. 

This timely story of the moral power of personal resistance tracks Otto and Anna as they negotiate the insidious effects of absolute power on every aspect of daily life. When they decide to make a stand in their unique way, the Gestapo launch a terrifying hunt for the perpetrators.

Otto and Anna find themselves players in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the forces of the state: a game that will eventually lead them down through ever-narrowing circles of totalitarian hell.

Described by Italian Jewish chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer Primo Levi as “the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis”, Alone In Berlin re-entered the bestseller list three years ago – almost unheard of for a 20th century literary classic – as its themes began to resonate across the world once more.

Although regularly adapted for stage productions across Europe, this York and Northampton co-production, presented in association with the Oxford Playhouse, will be the first time Fallada’s masterpiece has been seen on a British stage.

Dacre’s cast will be led by Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson as Otto and Anna Quangel and Joseph Marcell as Inspector Escherich. Conway played opposite Poldark leading man Aidan Turner in Michael Grandage’s The Lieutenant Of Inishmore and is known for his extensive work at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and on screen in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley, John Crowley’sBrooklyn and Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Emmerson’s many credits include title roles in Marianne Elliot’s Therese Raquin (National Theatre) and Laurie Sansom’s The Duchess Of Malfi (Royal & Derngate) and leads in Chekhov’s major plays in productions directed by Peter Stein, Lucy Bailey and Trevor Nunn.

Best known for playing Geoffrey Butler, the butler, in the 1990s’  television series The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, British actor and comedian Marcell was last seen at Royal & Derngate in King John, while his numerous credits for Shakespeare’s Globe include the title role in King Lear.

York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-produced Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge last year, directed by Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

Tickets for the York run of Alone In Berlin are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.