David Abécassis’s Clown, left, Maria Gray’s Acrobat, Kiefer Moriarty’s Ringmaster, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theayre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
THIS circus has left town twice before, in 2021 after 23 days and 2023 after only three for a national tour, but all the stops are pulled out for the big top’s return under a new-ish name, Around The World In 80 Days-ish.
This time, at the height of the circus summer season, creative director Juliet Forster’s dandy adaptation has a bonus to go with the bonanza: a circus school for five to 11-year-olds to learn the tricks of the trade in a one-hour pre-show workshop. All the thrill of learning a skill with aerial artiste Maria Gray as well as the fun of the fair that follows.
At Thursday’s matinee, participating children take their seats, or rather they grab red-and-white striped cushions to sit on the “grass” newly “grown” to create a lawn from the stage-front to the stalls seating. White fencing acts as a perimeter, but not as a boundary as it turns out post-interval, when one young chap starts chipping in with a running commentary as David Abécassis’s servant Passepartout and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s spiv London detective Fix conduct an increasingly drunken conversation on a see-saw, where everything is in the balance.
Not a loose cannon: Maria Gray’s resolute record-breaking travel writer Nellie Bly. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Already a comic high-point of adroit manoeuvres and verbal fencing from past productions, it now has a new juggling ingredient: how to negotiate the scene while being “accosted” by the world’s young heckler. “He’s a baddie,” the boy helpfully advises. Fix in a fix? Not here, where the Edinburgh Fringe-bound Armitt-Brewster, actor, dancer, singer and physical comedian, handles the unexpected competition for attention with Chaplin-esque elan in tandem with the eyebrow-raising-Abécassis.
Armitt-Brewster, who will be appearing in his Skedaddle Theatre show A Brief Case Of Crazy next month, is typical of Forster’s canny casting for a globe-travelling tale that demands physical elasticity, verbal vigour and, yes, circus skills in a play within a circus show. Likewise the ursine, Abécassis, so at ease with his Lecoq-trained clownery, bonhomie and French accent.
We begin amid the bunting and lights of Verne’s Circus, where Kiefer Moriarty’s punctilious, flustered Irish Ringmaster is striving to pull the story’s strings with the aid/hindrance of his company of Abécassis’s Clown, Gray’s Acrobat, Ambika Sharma’s Trick Rider and Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower.
In the balance: David Abécassis’s Passepartout, left, and Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s detective Fix mid-negotiation in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Together they will tell the tale of Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days, wherein Moriarty’s upright, uptight, unflustered, unscrupulous, ever-punctual, tea-drinking Victorian English gent Phileas Fogg will strike a wager with his starchy, sceptical Reform Club cronies – represented by moustaches on sticks – that he can traverse the world in that time.
There will be a distraction, not that talkative little lad by the fence, but the rather more persistent New York World reporter Nellie Bly, who, spoiler alert, outdid the fictional Fogg by crossing the globe in only 72 days, setting off from New York on her 25,000-mile journey on November 14 1889.
Feminist, fearless, and full of wonder in her elegant travelogue prose, she is but one feather in the cap of the multi-role-playing Maria Gray, who pulls off American, North Eastern, Scottish, Welsh and Hull accents, as well spinning shapes in her solo aerial routine (recalling her role as Cobweb in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Eye Of York).
Kiefer Moriarty in a clowning scene in Around The Wold In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Nellie manages to wind up Moriarty’s exasperated Ringmaster and Fogg alike in her interjections, conducted at a different pace to the ever-racing Fogg as the revolving signage announces each new destination.
Writer-director Forster wastes no time in pricking the balloon that Fogg travelled in such a form of transportation. Only in screen versions, not the book. Imagination and ingenuity against the odds will play their part, as they do in Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps, playing across town at the Grand Opera House this week, and in Mischief’s “Go Wrong” roster of calamitous comedies.
Props and costumes, as well as dexterity and clowning, combine in conveying an elephant, a train, a trading vessel, whatever, in spectacular, often unexpected ways, peaking with slow-motion bridge collapse denoted by ladders in slow motion.
Rowan Armitt-Brewster’s Knife Thrower. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Fogg may be in a rush but the first act ironically is a little slow. Not so the superior second act, where the verbal to-and-fro becomes quicker and funnier and the circus acrobatics and physical set-pieces pile up under Asha Jennings-Grant’s movement direction. Edwin Gray’s sound design excels too, especially in an explosive scene, and Sara Perks’s designs and costumes are a vision.
Why, there is even romance in the slow-burning relationship of old-stick Fogg and Sharma’s Indian princess Aouda, who amusingly challenges stereotypes in a piece of metatheatre in keeping with Forster’s feminist vibe.
Around The World In 80 Days-ish, York Theatre Royal, July 27, 2.30pm, 7.30pm; July 29, 2pm; July 30, 5.30pm; July 31, 7pm; August 1, 2pm, 7pm; August 2, 6.30pm; August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
In suspense: Maria Gray’s Acrobat in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Kiefer Moriarty with fellow cast members Ambika Sharma, left, and Maria Gray in Around The World In 80 Days-ish at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
YORK Theatre Royal’s Around The World In 80 Days keeps coming around again, returning this summer for a third run, this time under a new-ish title.
Adapted and directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster from Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, the circus-themed production was first staged under Covid social-distancing restrictions on a circus trailer, visiting playing fields on all four corners of York in 23 days in August 2021.
That tour concluded in the Theatre Royal main house, where the Theatre Royal’s subsequent co-production with Tilted Wig opened its 2023 tour of England, Scotland and Wales on home turf in early February.
Now Forster’s adaptation returns with a new name, Around The World In 80 Days-Ish, and a new cast of Kiefer Moriarty as circus Ringmaster and globe-travelling Phileas Fogg, York actress Maria Gray as world record-chasing American investigative journalist Nellie Bly and Acrobat, Ambika Sharma as Aouda and Trick Rider, David Abecassis as Passepartout and Clown and completing the cast is Rowan Armitt-Brewster as detective Fix and Knife Thrower.
“The first time, it was right off the back of Covid, staged mainly on school playing fields, ending with the last four days inside the Theatre Royal, all with social distancing,” recalls Juliet. “Then we had only the first three days of the tour, so we feel it was a show that we hadn’t yet fully shared with Theatre Royal audiences.
“When Paul Crewes joined as chief executive last October, he mentioned that he’d really loved the show, so now it’s back with the addition of aerial work this time, which had been too much of a complication before, when we were dependent on the Covid restrictions, but we knew it could work indoors.”
Juliet’s adaptation introduces the real-life character of young journalist Nellie Bly, who actually did circumnavigate the world and in less time than the fictional Fogg. Her version sets up the pair as rival around-the-world travellers, putting the now largely forgotten Nellie Bly in the spotlight.
“Jules Verne’s story is a lot of fun as the characters race against time to complete a full circuit of the Earth, and in this version, fact and fiction also go head-to-head as Nellie Bly puts in an appearance,” says Juliet.
“It’s a joyful, very energetic, very silly and highly acrobatic re-telling of the story, delivering the kind of experience that live theatre does best.”
Crucial to the show’s success is the multi-role-playing format as the rag-tag band of travelling circus performers embarks on a daring mission to recreate the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s bid to traverse the globe in 80 days, embracing different modes of transport to navigate the frantic race. Expect aerial feats and acrobatics, hoop work and even feigned drunkenness from the versatile company
To the fore is Kiefer Moriarty’s Ringmaster and Phileas Fogg. “I saw Kiefer in Magic Goes Wrong and was looking for actors who’d been in Mischief’s ‘Go Wrong’ shows, as they understand how comedy works,” says Juliet.
“We met, he signed up, and I look forward to him bringing his own thing to his roles. He’s part of an entirely new cast, who can all bring their own angle, while keeping the DNA of what we know works well.”
Kiefer, who memorably held his breath for 12 minutes under water in Magic Goes Wrong, will be parading circus skills. “I’ve done whip-cracking skills before and I’ll be riding a mini-clown’s bike, which I rode for the first time at the press launch,” he says.
“I’ve never seen a live performance of Around The Days, but I’ve seen the David Niven film, which was my father’s favourite film, so we watched it quite often! I saw the Jackie Chan one as a kid, which was an OK film, I suppose, as the politest way to put it, and then there was the David Tennant one for the BBC that I haven’t seen. But performing in it will be my first live experience of it.”
He loves the thrill of live performance, whether in Magic Goes Wrong or now in Around The World In 80 Days-ish. “That’s where the magic happens, when the choreography is going right, the magic is going right, and I really love the choreography, getting involved with getting it in place,” says Kiefer.
“I’ve seen the trailer for this show [from the past productions], and there are some amazing set-pieces in it that I can’t wait to do.”
Around The World In 80 Days-Ish, York Theatre Royal, July 18 to August 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 2pm, July 24, 25, 29, August 1; 2.30pm, July 20, 27, August 3; 5.30pm, July 23, 30; 6.30pm, July 19, 26, August 2; 7pm, July 18, 24, 25, 31, August 1; 7.30pm, July 20, 27, August 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster
SCREENWRITER, novelist and playwright Anne-Marie Casey’s adaptation of Little Women will lead York Theatre Royal’s autumn season. Tickets for a special fundraising gala on October 2 go on sale today.
Running on the main stage from September 21 to October 12, Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster’s production will offer a fresh take on Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 coming-of-age novel set in Massachusetts, New England, where headstrong Jo March and her sisters Meg, Beth and Amy grow up during the American Civil War.
“We are thrilled to be staging an adaptation of such a much-loved classic,” says Juliet. “Louisa May Alcott’s story of Jo and her sisters finding their way in the world is so relatable to modern audiences and Anne-Marie Casey’s brilliant adaptation really brings to life the wonderful characters. We have such a great cast lined up and I can’t wait to get started later this year!”
Leading the cast as Jo March will be Freya Parks, who this year starred as bass-playing record shop worker Fiona in the BBC television series This Town and played Logan Somerville in an episode of the ITV detective drama Grace.
Ainy Medina will play Meg, after appearing in ITV’s Archie, and Helen Chong, from Cassie And The Lights, will be Amy.
Easingwold-raised Laura Soper, once a member of York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre before training at Bristol Old Vic, will return to the stage where she appeared in Hetty Feather and Swallows And Amazons, Damian Cruden’s last Theatre Royal production in 2019 after 22 years as artistic director. Fresh from touring with Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), she will take the role of Beth.
Returning to the Theatre Royal too will be York actress Kate Hampson, playing Marmee after taking the title role in the August 2022 community production of Maureen Lennon’s The Coppergate Woman. Her other stage roles include Mother/Mrs Perks in The Railway Children at Hull Truck Theatre in 2021.
A third returnee will be Caroline Gruber, linking up again with Juliet Forster to play Aunt March after appearing as Vashti in her York Theatre Royal Studio production of E M Forster’s The Machine Stops in 2016. Nikhil Singh Rai’s Laurie completes the casting by Ellie Collyer-Bristow.
The Theatre Royal show is presented in association with Pitlochry Festival Theatre, by arrangement with Lee Dean, and is designed by Ruari Murchison.
The October 2 gala performance will raise vital funds for York Theatre Royal’s continued work as a producing theatre and for the development of future community projects.
Members’ priority booking for the rest of the performances will open on July 3; tickets will go on general sale on July 8 at 1pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Did you know?
ANNE-MARIE Casey’s stage adaptation of Little Women premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in November 2011.
HE’S bad and he’s back. Paul Hawkyard will return to the villain’s role in the 2024-2025 York Theatre Royal & Evolution Productions pantomime after a year’s hiatus.
The towering Leeds-born actor and wildlife artist will play Abanazar in creative director Juliet Forster’s production of Aladdin, written by Evolution director Paul Hendy in a new York adaptation of the script he premiered at The Marlowe, Canterbury, last winter with Strictly Come Dancing alumnus Kevin Clifton as the baddie.
Clifton, by the way, is among The Marlowe’s record-breaking eight nominations for the UK Pantomime Association’s 2024 Pantomime Awards for Best Newcomer to Pantomime for his debut as Ivan Tochachacha, in essence Abanazar re-booted with a dancing moniker.
Writer Hendy was nominated too for Best Script, alongside Best Pantomime (over 900 seats), Best Dame, Best Lead, Best Magical Being, Best Supporting Artist and Best Contribution to Music.
Leeds-born actor Paul Hawkyard
The winners will be announced in an awards ceremony at G Live, Guildford, on June 18, when York Theatre Royal will be represented by Jack And The Beanstalk cast members Mia Overfield and Anna Soden.
Overfield is nominated in the Best Early Career Newcomer category for her role as Jack in her panto debut, a year after completing her musical theatre studies at Arden School of Theatre, Manchester.
In her home-city panto, Soden played Dave the talking cow, a very different kind of pantomime cow, in a scene-stealing turn that has led to her nomination in the Best Supporting Artist category.
Meanwhile, back to Aladdin in York, where Hawkyard will be renewing his fruitful, feisty pantomime partnership with regular dame Robin Simpson, returning for his fifth successive Theatre Royal panto.
Rev-olution: Robin Simpson and Paul Hawkyard roar onto stage in their irreverent Ugly Sister double act Manky & Mardy in York Theatre Royal’s Cinderella
Hawkyard and Simpson received a UK Pantomime Awards nomination for their Ugly Sister double act Manky & Mardy in 2021-2022’s Cinderella, then bonded in baddie badinage over the next winter as Captain Hook and Mrs Smee respectively in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan.
Hawkyard and Simpson first worked together in the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre company at the Eye of York, sharing a dressing room from the day they started. In 2022, they reunited for Harrogate Theatre’s HT Rep season of three plays in three weeks, Simpson appearing in all three, Abigail’s Party, Gaslight and Men Of The World; Hawkyard in the first and last.
They will be joined in Aladdin by CBeebies and CBBC presenter Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring. Further casting will be announced shortly.
Tickets for Aladdin’s run from December 3 to January 5 2025 are on sale on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
She likes to moove it, moove it: Anna Soden’s Dave the talking cow in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor
YORK Theatre Royal pantomime stars Mia Overfield and Anna Soden are in the running for the 2024 UK Pantomime Awards.
Mia is nominated in the Best Early Career Newcomer category for her role as Jack in her panto debut in Jack And The Beanstalk, a year after completing her musical theatre studies at Arden School of Theatre,Manchester.
In her home-city panto, Anna played Dave the talking cow, a very different kind of pantomime cow, in a scene-stealing turn that led to her nomination in the Best Supporting Artist category.
Mia Overfield’s Jack with the giant Blunderbore in Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: S R Taylor
Anna, who grew up in York, was a member of York Youth Theatre for a decade and was part of the young people’s ensemble for Theatre Royal shows, including The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum and the 2006 panto Cinderella.
In 2020, she appeared as the bass guitar-playing Fairy in York Theatre Royal’s socially distanced Travelling Pantomime, toured to York community centres under Covid restrictions.
The awards ceremony, held in association with Stagecoach, will take place at G Live, Guildford, on June 18 after the 70 judges had their busiest year yet in the awards’ third year, collectively visiting 259 venues to see 728 performances across the UK.
Reason to be cheerful: 2024 UK Pantomime Awards nominees Mia Overfield and Anna Soden. Picture: S R Taylor
Among them, Jack And The Beanstalk was the third pantomime produced on the Theatre Royal stage in partnership with panto specialists Evolution Productions, directed by Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and written by Evolution’s Paul Hendy.
After Cinderella, All New Adventures Of Peter Pan and Jack And The Beanstalk, the team will reunite for the 2024-2025 Theatre Royal pantomime, Aladdin, from December 3 to January 5, when Robin Simpson will return for a fifth winter as the Dame, joined by CBeebies and CBBC presenter Evie Pickerill as the Spirit of the Ring.
Evie, who has guest starred on Blue Peter, has been hosting CBeebies since 2018 and during that time she has performed leading roles in their Christmas and Shakespeare productions too.
Evie Pickerill: CBeebies presenter will reunite with York Theatre Royal pantomime director Juliet Forster for Aladdin
Aladdin director Juliet Forster will be directing her for a second time. “I’m absolutely delighted to be welcoming Evie to York Theatre Royal’s stage this Christmas. I worked with Evie on CBeebies’ Romeo & Juliet– she made a wonderful Juliet and was a joy to work with.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing her bring her unique, lovable style to pantomime. We are so lucky to have her, and York audiences are in for a treat!”
Aladdin writer and Evolution producer Paul Hendy enthuses: “We’re delighted Evie Pickerill will be joining Robin Simpson in our spectacular production. I’ve been lucky enough to see Evie in pantomime before and know that she’s going to bring a sparkle and flare to the show that our audiences will adore! This really is shaping up to be our biggest and funniest show ever!”
Evie is no stranger to pantomime, having played Cinderella and Snow White previously, and she also performed in the musical Shout! at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after first appearing in the show during her Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts studies. Last year she hosted her first radio show on Heart North West.
Alongside her passion for the arts, Evie is a supporter of several children’s charities, taking part in fundraising events for Comic Relief and Children In Need and becoming a champion for Place2Be in 2022.
Robin Simpson: The dame with the golden pun, confirmed for fifth successive York Theatre Royal pantomime
ACTOR and storyteller Robin Simpson’s diary for 2024 is filling up already.
Now playing Dame Trott in castellated Clifford’s Tower and afternoon tea dresses in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal until January 7, he will return for dame duty for a fifth York winter in succession in Aladdin from December 3 to January 5 2025, once more co-produced with Evolution Productions, written by Paul Hendy and directed by Juliet Forster.
“It’s always lovely to be the first to be announced for the cast, and to be coming back again,” he says. “It’s nice to be wanted!”
On top of that, via social media ahead of official confirmation from Scotland, the Yorkshireman has revealed his audition success to be part of Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s company for the 2024 Summer Season from May 31 to September 26.
In the meantime, Robin, who lives near Huddersfield, is revelling in his latest turn at the Theatre Royal. “I’ve been performing here for nearly 20 years now in all sorts of shows,” he says. “My first-ever show in 2005 was Mike Kenny’s The Little Mermaid, which we performed in the Studio.”
After his flexible Dame at the double in a choice of shows on The Travelling Pantomime tour of community venues under Covid restrictions in 2020, followed by his Ugly Sister Manky opposite Paul Hawkyard’s Mardy in Cinderella in 2021 and Mrs Smee in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan last winter, his Dame Trott is the classic dame per se.
Robin Simpson’s Dame Trott in York Theatre Royal’s Travelling Pantomime under Covid reglations in 2020
“Jack And The Beanstalk is one of the more traditional stories that a pantomime can be based on, being an old English folktale. This is the first year at York Theatre Royal – apart from the Travelling Pantomime in 2020 – that I’m playing a traditional dame character,” says Robin.
“She’s my first ‘proper’ dame here: working class, with a couple of kids. The Sisters in Cinderella are a different concept and Mrs Smee was a henchman for Captain Hook, as Peter Pan doesn’t have a traditional dame, and instead I shared the comic role with Jonny Weldon’s Starkey! Dame Trott is the mother to the title character and that’s a very traditional role for the dame to play.”
Reflecting on the gradual progression of the Theatre Royal partnership with Evolution, Robin says: “You never want to get stale with what you do, and it’s lovely to have new people in the cast. Apart from the one-off Travelling Panto, we’re only in our third year, so it’s still quite a new partnership, and though there’s a house style developing, it will be a while before we fully find our own style.
“The pantomimes have been great, the scripts are excellent and I never worry about the changes in the cast because they’re always cast really well. It’s a joy to work with them.”
This season is not the first time that Robin has Trotted out his Dame Trott in York. How does she differ in 2023-2024 from the simpler version in the 70-minute Travelling Pantomime? “She has a different costume on. Otherwise, she’s very similar as I’m a one-trick pony. She’s slightly older,” he says.
Robin Simpson in storytelling mode
How did Robin spend his 2023? “I did a season of plays in Eastbourne over the summer and I filmed a couple of episodes of Coronation Street,” he says. “I play the vet and I put Maureen Lipman’s dog, Cerberus, to sleep [Note of clarification: Lipman plays Evelyn Plummer]. A few years ago, I put Ken Barlow’s dog, Eccles, to sleep as well. Every few years they ring me up to put a dog out of its misery and make the nation cry.
“I’ve also had my busiest year with regard to my storytelling. I performed at Blenheim Palace and Sledmere House [near Driffield], and over the summer I had a busy time with the Summer Reading Challenge in libraries all over England. I also performed Magic, Monsters & Mayhem at Rise@Bluebird Bakery in Acomb in September, with magical stories of monsters, lots of comedy and audience interaction. The storytelling side of things is getting bigger all the time, which is nice.”
Robin has been cruising too. Work or pleasure? “Oh, work, but only just,” he says. “Classic is a show I did at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 and I thought that that was that, but it was booked by Cunard Cruises for their Mediterranean trip, leaving from Naples, visiting places like Barcelona. Written by Peter Kerry and Lyndsay Williams, it’s very funny and fast paced, racing through the 42 greatest works of literature in one hour. It’s a crazy show but a lot of fun.”
Crazy show? Fun? That would sum up Jack And The Beanstalk too, a show marked by Robin’s skills of comedic interaction and improvisation. “You need to leave your ego at the door, be willing to play and not take yourself too seriously,” he says of the art of playing pantomime.
“It’s a balance between childishness and professionalism. Improvising is a really tricky thing but if you listen to your fellow actor, accept their suggestions and be willing to go with the flow, you shouldn’t go wrong. It keeps things fresh.”
Jack And The Beanstalk runs wild at York Theatre Royal until January 7; Aladdin, December 3 to January 5 2025. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Aladdin tickets are available from £15; family tickets for the best seats are £81 for a family of three and £108 for a family of four.
Robin Simpson’s Ugly Sister Manky, in the sidecar, and Paul Hawkyard’s Ugly Sister Mardy, at the wheel, in York Theatre Royal’s Cinderella in 2021
One final question for Robin
Are you hot to Trott?
“You’d have to ask my wife.”
Did you know?
ROBIN Simpson has played three roles in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.
1. Chartered surveyor Graeme Lewis, June 2004.
2. The Surgeon, operating on pregnant Kylie Platt’s ruptured spleen, February 2013.
3. The Vet, putting Ken Barlow’s dog, Eccles, to sleep in April 2020, followed by Evelyn Plummer’s canine, Cerberus, in March 2023.
Did you know too?
PAUL Hawkyard, Robin Simpson’s fellow Ugly Sister in Cinderella and Captain Hook to his Mrs Smee in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan last winter, has painted a picture for an 80th birthday present for Robin’s mother, featuring a portrait of her dogs.
In Focus: Matthew Curnier on playing Billy Trott and his past careers as a marine biologist and science teacher
Matthew Curnier’s Billy Trott, front, left, with Robin Simpson’s Dame Trott and Mia Overfield’s Jack Trott in Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: S R Taylor Photography
How did you land the role of dim-witted Billy Trott in Jack And The Beanstalk?
“I’d actually met Juliet [director Juliet Forster] already for an audition for the UK tour of Around The World In 80 Days that she was directing. It may have been in January, and what I then didn’t realise was that Juliet worked at York Theatre Royal.
“It was only later that I learnt that Juliet had asked for my self-tape for the pantomime audition, and not the co-producers, Evolution Productions. I feel very honoured to have been chosen.”
What other roles have you played in pantomime?
“I’ve been doing panto comic for ten years now and love it every time. I’ve always played the panto comic, because I just love being able to play the fool, especially around Christmas when you get to just be a Silly Billy!
“When I’m a little older and a little wiser, I hope that I’ll be able to move onto playing Dame. In the meantime, I’m watching and learning, and only time will tell.”
What are the characteristics of your panto role?
“Hopefully I’m able to bring a lot of silliness and dimwittedness, and there’s the lovely relationship between the comic and the dame too. There’s something wonderful about being the comic, where you can work with the dame, and each time the dynamic is different, depending on who you play opposite. With every dame, there’s not been a single year gone by where I’ve not learned something from them.
“What I tend to do in my performance is a lot of physical comedy, falling over, slapstick, being stupid! That really plays to the kids, and with all that energy, you can bring a lot of competitiveness to the song-sheet too.
“The ‘cleverer’ stuff can grow out of the partnership with the dame. That’s the two-tiered levels of comedy in panto: the children’s stuff and then all those double-entendres that go over the kids’ heads, and the one-liners, but I always lean to the over-exuberant, hapless dimwit.”
Where and when did you see your first pantomime and what was your reaction?
“I remember going to the theatre from time to time as a child. I think we went to see Gilbert & Sullivan shows (because I had an aunt who loved them and often performed in them) and the local village panto. It just always looked like the actors were having a lot of fun. And so I knew pretty early on that I wanted in.”
You were born in Paris, moved to this country at a young age and grew up bilingually. Do you do much work in France/French?
“I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to work in both countries. While most of my work is here in the UK, the last project I did in France was the recording of a beautiful audiobook; an epic novel written in Alexandrine verse – a little bit like Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter but instead of ten beats in a phrase, there are 12, which suits Latin-rooted languages a little better. It was so wonderful.
“It’s helpful being able to speak French and sound French. It also seems to get me seen for some nice projects here in the UK. For example, I often do voice work in French and play French characters. This year I had a role as a French sommelier in Industry series three for the BBC. Mais oui, mais oui!”
Before becoming an actor, you studied marine zoology and marine mammalogy. which took you all over the world. Why make the switch to acting?
“It’s true, my very first career was in marine zoology and mammology. I became a marine biologist and was able to conduct research, primarily in whales and dolphins in fabulous places like Canada, Scotland, Kenya. The results of the research were often for conservation purposes. I absolutely loved doing this work and saw some breathtaking nature.
“After a few years, my other burning passion – which was theatre and acting – started calling very strongly. From the age of 12, I knew that I wanted to be an actor but it never seemed ‘possible’ or ‘realistic’.
“I think I found out a little later than other people that it is, actually, a job and so once I found out that I could go to drama school and get an agent, I thought I would chance my luck, going to drama school at the age of 30.
“I trained at the London Centre, and post-drama school, I did quite a lot at the Actors Class with the wonderful Mary Doherty, who I would consider as my acting mentor, teaching young actors the professional side of being an actor: how to market yourself, how to do auditions, etc. She’s been a real guide to me.”
What prompted you to become a qualified secondary science teacher?
“Well, a very wise person (hiya Mum!) once told me that I could do whatever job I pleased in life, but it did have to permit me to stand on my own two feet financially speaking. I was living in Kenya at the time, working on a marine biology conservation project, when I had an epiphany: I just knew that I had to come home and try to be an actor.
“But as everyone knows, there are no guarantees in finding work as an actor. So, repeating my mum’s words in my mind, I decided to become a secondary science specialist teacher (and use my marine biology background) so that in between acting work, I could earn enough money with supply teaching and/or private tuition.
“I planned to do two years as a teacher; the first would be my teacher-training year, the second would be my probationary year before I became fully qualified. Teaching in secondary schools was utterly fantastic; every day was a rollercoaster and I eventually ended up leaving the classroom after five years.”
Do you have any unusual interests or activities, apart from marine zoology and teaching, away from acting?
“Yes, I love doing algebra. (This is obviously untrue: I’m actually rubbish at maths). This is a great question to ask…and I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time and haven’t yet found the time or courage to do this…and so stating it here will commit me…it will force me to do it…one day I’m going to get my paraglider’s licence. Because why not?.There, I’ve said it out loud now!”
Do you have any York or Yorkshire connections?
“Well, not really. Although, having said that, my English grandparents were Yorkshire folk. My Grandad grew up in Huddersfield and my Gran was a Sheffield lass, so maybe there are a few drops of Yorkshire blood in me after all. It’s a pleasure to become acquainted with it this year.
“The panto press launch in September was my first time in York. I walked from York station to the theatre and though I was told it would take 11 minutes, looking at all the sights on the way, it took me half an hour, on such a beautiful day too.”
Can you teach an old dame new tricks? Ask Zeus the border collie, working in tandem with Robin Simpson’s lead actor (ho ho), Dame Trott, in Jack And The Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal. All pictures: S R Taylor Photography
YORK Theatre Royal’s pantomime partnership with Evolution Productions is one of gradual evolution, rather than revolution.
A first year under Covid social distancing in 2020 had daft sausage Josh Benson, fellow York actor Anna Soden’s Fairy and Robin Simpson’s dame leading the Travelling Pantomime cast to community centres and village halls and laid the foundations for the fruitful axis of Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and Evolution writer-producer Paul Hendy.
It is to be dearly hoped magician Benson’s time will come again in a York panto – you will have to head to Darlington Hippodrome to see his Muddles in Snow White this winter – but Forster and Hendy are in tandem once more and Simpson’s dame has become the Theatre Royal panto’s affable, quick-thinking, fleet-footed fulcrum, already signed up for Aladdin next winter.
Mia Overfield’s Jack with the giant Blunderbore…or Boris for short in Jack And The Beanstalk
Very welcome too is Strawberry Lion theatre-maker Soden’s first Theatre Royal panto appearance since those 2020 travels, cast as – pull the udder one – the groundbreaking character of Dave the Talking Cow, male by name, but very definitely female and a triple threat to boot as feisty bovine performer/hoofer, fabulous singer and trumpet player in the Walking On Sunshine finale.
Her startling version of I’m Just Dave, borrowed from this year’s biggest, pinkest movie, Barbie’s I’m Just Ken, is typical of the topical cultural antennae under Forster-Hendy’s control.
But let’s go back to the beginning, the only slow section of a show whose momentum builds and builds. Artichoke wand in hand, Nina Wadia’s cajoling Fairy Sugarsnap opens the curtain to a stage empty but for two tech team staff removing equipment. That’s novel!
Wanderful: Nina Wadia’s Fairy Sugarsnap
Commanding scenery to appear, with the powers of a Prospero, she introduces the audience to the wonders of pantomime, character by character, in the setting of Giggleswick, a funny name that does what it says on the tin: make you giggle, like Wadia herself.
For first timers, reflecting the new, younger age of the Theatre Royal pantomime post-Berwick Kaler, this is a gentle stepping stone, if a little laboured for the serial panto-goer. Plot is somewhat put on hold, but then it is little more than bean there, done that anyway, and enjoyment rises quickly.
Especially once James “Raven” Mackenzie’s blackbearded Scottish baddie Luke Backinanger (cue an Oasis lyric gag later on), Soden’s loquacious Friesian and Simpson’s Dame Trott make their entries. The latter attired in a fortified Clifford’s Tower dress beneath a balloon headgear, the first in a fashion parade of fabulous, off-the-wall dame costumes by Michael J Batchelor and Hazel Fall (complemented throughout by Ella Neal and Amy Chamberlain’s cast costumes and Helga Wood and Michelle Marden’s sets, especially for Cloudland).
CBeebies star James Mackenzie’s Luke Backinanger leading a zombie dance with the ensemble
Former chief executive Tom Bird was loathe to build up too many returnees after the years of Dame Berwick’s Infamous Five, but continuity combined with innovation is the way forward. Simpson’s knowing, ever game dame, so appealing to children and adults alike, is the key, here playing with a new toy, the Drone of Love, a piece of camera kit that lets Simpson home in on men in the audience as the same’s potential new beau/victim for the rest of the show.
This is the moment of lift-off for Jack And The Beanstalk, rather more than the misbehaving beanstalk-inflating transformation scene that has Simpson ad-libbing deliciously in surprise.
All the while Mia Overfield’s Jack – short for Jacqueline – Trott and her daft brother Billy (Matthew Curnier) grow into their roles, especially once Overfield moves more to the fore as the story demands and Curnier inserts himself in a bouncing ball (ostensibly a giant tomato), only his head sticking out, and somehow changes costume (in a new development on debuting this physical comedy last winter).
Robin Simpson’s Dame Trott, in the Clifford’s Tower frock designed by Hazel Fall, with Matthew Curnier’s Billy Trott, left, Mia Overfield’s Jack Trott and the ensemble
Continuity? The return of the Trolley of Puns, turning pantomime into puntomime, this time on the theme of dog breeds on picture boards, that is all the better for a Simpson slip-up. The inevitable ghost scene, but with a new finale, typical of Forster’s determination never to settle for the conventional.
Look out, here come the perennial digs at “desolate, desperate, depressed” Hull; political putdowns aplenty, for Braverman and Sunak, and Blunderbore the giant being re-named Boris, while Wadia adlibs a Cop28 quip when fluffing a line.
Then add Hayley Del Harrison’s choreography, as joyous for the ensemble of Villagers and Zombies as it is for the lead shakers and moovers (in the case of Dave the Talking Cow). On song too is Robert Louden’s musical direction, playful (listen out for the entry for EastEnders star Wadia), vibrant and varied, topped off by Mackenzie and Soden duetting on trumpet at the close.
All the right mooves: Anna Soden hoofing it as Dave the Talking Cow
Innovations? Dame Berwick introduced film to pantomime, and now Juliet Forster reinvigorates it with the aid of Ed Sunman’s video production wizardry, peaking with a send-up of boy band tropes (Mackenzie’s Luke Backinanger is so called after being turned down for a boy band in younger days). By this point, Jack And The Beanstalk has become by far the best of the Evolution shows so far.
Luke Backinanger’s weather-making machine – for his plans for world domination via climate change – lends itself to revamping the dame’s water slapstick scene. Long may it rain, unexpected final flourish et al.
The surprises and delights keep coming, from the Giant being joined by a grumpy teenage son, Darren (who “hates sleeping”), to Simpson’s costume as a piano-playing Elton John, so clever that it requires a double-take before another fiesta of song title puns.
Giant steps are what you take: James Mackenzie’s Luke Backinanger and Anna Soden’s Dave the Talking Cow with Blunderbore and grouchy teenage son Darren
One more talking point: Dave the Talking Cow is not the only animal to tread the boards. Making his stage debut is a scene and headgear-stealing border collie by the name of Zeus – from god to dog in one step!
This three-time Young Kennel Club Crufts champion is trained by Anna Auster (whose mum goes to the same York art class as Forster’s husband, leading to a conversation about Zeus appearing in the show).
The dame and dog partnership – each negotiating an obstacle course with very differing results – is as unpredictable to Simpson, canine and audience alike. Best in Show winner, no question, in a panto that, like Jack’s beans, will grow and grow.
Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Only stools and farces: Matthew Curnier, left, James Mackenzie, Mia Overfield and Robin Simpson send up boy band tropes in With A Little Help From My Friends with more than a little help from Ed Sunman’s video wizardry
Punch Porteous – Lost In Time writer Robert Powell with actors Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood
PUNCH Porteous is an ordinary man with an extraordinary predicament, lost in time in York.
While the city shape-shifts around him, he is catapulted unpredictably into different eras of its history from c.70 to c.2023.
Dazed and confused, Punch wakes to find himself among both famous and ordinary people in a “multi-media drama experience” conjured by York poet Robert Powell, creative practitioner Ben Pugh and producer John Beecroft, inspired by the city’s past and one of its most remarkable ancient churches, All Saints North Street.
York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster is supporting the production too, overseeing rehearsals, working with the creative team and actors Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood.
Running at All Saints from tomorrow (26/10/2023) to Saturday at 7pm nightly, the York-made Punch Porteous – Lost In Time Lost uses spoken word, film, sound and performance to draw imaginatively on York’s history to tell the tale of a sometimes comic, sometimes soulful, rogue: York’s very own legendary Punch Porteous, soldier, philosopher, worker (when absolutely unavoidable), husbandman and connoisseur of ale.
When Punch awakes, homeless and yet oddly at home, the city changes around him through Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, Georgian, Victorian and our own times and back again! Now Punch, suffused with sights and sounds from the past, will make an appearance in the unique setting of All Saints.
The project is the first of its kind at the church and aims to attract new audiences to appreciate this historic place of worship. This week’s performances follow a three-year restoration of All Saints North Street’s medieval painted and stained glass, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which attendees can view during the interval.
Robert Powell, York Civic Trust’s writer-in-residence, says: “It’s very exciting to be in the final run-up to the production, and to be working with All Saints and such a dynamic team of artists. The church has been a real inspiration to us, as I’m sure it will be to audiences.
“They will be able to hear about Punch’s eccentric adventures and the rich history of York – its rivers, streets, strays, and stories – in one of its most extraordinary sites. And of course we’re expecting the evasive Punch to turn up during each performance.”
Bishop Glyn Webster, priest-in-charge at All Saints North Street, says: “The church has a long history of commissioning works of art and – thanks to money raised by National Lottery players – we are delighted to be able to continue this tradition by commissioning a performance that celebrates our wonderful church, the city of York, and the people who have lived and worshipped here through the centuries.”
York Civic Trust’s “blue plaque” for legendary York character Punch Porteous
Writer Robert Powell discusses the York legend of ever evasive Punch Porteous with CharlesHutchPress
What is the story behind Punch Porteous?
“A few years back, a friend who was raised in York told me a story about someone called Punch Porteous – a story he’d heard from his father – who’d won some money at York Races, had a tin hip-bath with beer at the Red Lion pub, and then offered it for free to passers-by at the tram stop on Market Street.
“I wrote a poem about that, but this character haunted me. I thought that if someone like that was floating in time like a sort of legend, it would be a great way of exploring York’s past in an unusual way. I began to write a series of poems, and the play has come from those.
“By the way, Charles, have you met this guy?” [Answer: No! Not knowingly. Still awaiting that knock-out Punch encounter.]
How did the multi-media structure of spoken word, film, sound, and performance come to fruition?
“It’s a way of combining skills and disciplines to create something that plays quite joyfully with different genres. Something a bit different for audiences too, something surprising. They say that the past is a different country, so to evoke it creatively, you need different tools! Working with Ben and John Beecroft has enabled this cross-disciplinary approach of sound and words and film.”
Have you worked with Ben Pugh previously?
“Yes. Ben and I made a film called The River Speaks in 2017, based around my poems about the rivers Ouse and Foss. Then, with Kitty Greenbrown, we made two short film-performances for York Theatre Royal as part of their post-Covid Love Bites and Green Shoots programmes. Ben is a terrific producer, but also a talented creative in his own right.”
How have you found the experience of working with actors Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood?
“For me, this was a great new adventure and pleasure. I’ve always liked to hear other voices read my poems, but in this case Nick and Imogen have created fully developed characters and brought the words and stories wonderfully to life. Through them, my characters surprised me, as if I was meeting them for the first time. The written page walks and talks – and also sings, as you’ll see!”
Actors Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood rehearsing a scene from Punch Porteous – Lost In Time
How did Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster become involved?
“Juliet’s involvement has been an unexpected gift and asset for us. She is always hugely interested in York stories. She liked the work we’d done with the Theatre Royal previously and seems to really empathise with the poems and the story – or maybe just fallen in love with the elusive Punch Porteous! We could hardly have done the production without her experience and skills, and access to the Theatre Royal facilities.”
What led to All Saints North Street being the venue for Punch Porteous – Lost In Time?
“Ever since seeing the medieval windows at All Saints a few years ago, I felt an affinity with this church with its squint and spire and proximity to the river. In particular, the ‘Pricke of Conscience’ window, illustrating the last 15 days of Creation and containing lines from a 14th century poem, seemed to call to me as a writer.
“I was sure it could be the seed for a story about York’s deep past, and the threats of our times – Covid, climate change – and about the lives and loves and fears of ordinary people through the ages. I wondered what woud happen if Punch Porteous walked into the church – over the centuries and again now. So when the church offered this commission, we leapt at it.”
Punch Porteous – Lost In Time runs at All Saints North Street, York, October 26 to 28, 7pm. Tickets: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/punch-porteous-lost-in-time/
ALL Saints North Street, York, is open daily for visitors from 10am to 4pm, with a Thursday lunchtime service at 12.30pm and Sung Mass at 5.30pm on Sunday evenings.
Did you know?
A SQUINT, also known as a leper-hole or hagioscope, is a viewing device in a medieval church. It takes the form of a small opening, cut through a chancel arch or wall, to enable worshippers in an aisle or side chapel to see and follow the ceremonies at the altar.
The poster for Punch Porteous – Lost In Time at All Saints North Street
Sovereign composer Dominic Sales with musical director Madeleine Hudson at a rehearsal for the York Theatre Royal community play. Picture: Simon Boyle
THE York Theatre Royal Choir may be pretty much out of view to the side of the King’s Manor courtyard in this summer’s community play, but its contribution is central to the impact of Sovereign.
Come rain or more rain, the choir performs Dominic Sales’s compositions under the musical directorship of Madeleine Hudson, who has held that post since the choir’s formal formation in 2016.
Dominic, who played his part in setting up the choir, has past experience of Theatre Royal community plays, having provided the music for In Fog And Falling Snow at the National Railway Museum in July 2015.
“From what I remember, the opening was amazing with this steam train arriving in the style of Zadok The Priest. I was ripping off Handel completely!” he says.
“But normally I tend to forget what I’ve written as soon as I’ve written it. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but probably yes, as it stops me from writing the same thing again!”
The community choir grew out of the 2015 production. “We set up a choir just for that show and originally it wasn’t going to continue afterwards, but they so loved working with Maddie [Madeleine Hudson] – this Irish lady who I’d worked with before – that they wanted to continue.
“I’d suggested Maddie should be the musical director, and they really had their moment in that show in the second half in the tent. It was the biggest cast I’ve ever worked with. Ginormous! Just waiting for 250 people to get on stage takes long enough!”
Emerging from a couple of years of “doing a little online stuff for small companies” under the pandemic cloud, Dominic wrote speculatively to Juliet Forster at the Theatre Royal, where he had provided the score for her 2014 production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and had first made his musical mark in Leeds company Tutti Frutti’s touring shows.
Dominic Sales, left, working with York Theatre Royal choir members during rehearsals for Sovereign. Picture: Simon Boyle
“I had no idea Juliet now had the role of creative director,” he says, but his Sales pitch could not have been more productive. “She said ‘yes’ to me doing this show, delightfully without giving me any brief, other than details of the setting and the synopsis.”
Co-directed by Juliet, John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin, Sovereign is a Tudor-set thriller, adapted by prolific York playwright Mike Kenny from CJ Sansom’s novel, with Henry VIII’s visit to King’s Manor at the story’s core.
“Vocal music was the most popular music of the time – Baroque music – and so I’ve written a score for a choir with room for 36 voices per performance in the courtyard,” says Dominic.
“Recorder features too as it was also very popular in Tudor times, and we’re delighted to have an international recorder player, Carmen Troncoso, who’s a PhD student in the Early Music department at the University of York, playing in the show.”
Dominic has taken his inspiration from madrigals. “I was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral in my schooldays, when I was made to sing in a madrigal group on Saturday mornings with Mr Thompson in a shed in a field that was called the music department,” he recalls.
“Being a chorister was a great thing to do, but having to sing madrigals every Saturday morning was the downside!”
Nevertheless, madrigals make for a magical sound at King’s Manor, where the 63 choir members share out the performances. “The choir is taking the weight of the score, underscoring the dialogue, so it’s quiet and atmospheric with a few moments where they get to let rip,” says Dominic. “As with most of my scores, I’ve written music to get talked over.
“The choir has 44 musical cues, singing material that’s quite dark because it’s a pretty dark and sombre story. The way I tend to approach writing the music is to gain a general overview of the characters and the story and then sketch out the songs. So you have the play’s thematic material to then create the sound world for it.
Dominic Sales and Madeleine Hudson: Renewing a York Theatre Royal partnership forged at In Fog And Falling Snow. Picture: Simon Boyle
“It’s quite functional what I do, the most artistic element being that creativity and then being functional in making it fit in with each cue.”
Dominic, who studied composition and performance at the University of Huddersfield, is a “percussionist by trade”. “My tutor was Chris Bradley, principal percussionist for Opera North, and I then played triangle for Opera North. Someone’s got to do it!” he says. “My mum came to watch me performing at Sadler’s Wells, which was great, but she could only see my hands!”
Since 2015, he has taken the drum seat for the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, recording and touring the world with the dapper combo. “Before that I had ‘depped’ for the drummer that had the job before me. He left, and I felt very lucky to get the gig as it was a dream come true. It’s enormous fun,” he says.
He has played drums and percussion for numerous symphony orchestras and for West End shows too, latterly Anything Goes at the Barbican. “My favourite was An American In Paris, no big names in the show, but it was the wonderful Broadway production of the Gershwin musical,” says Dominic.
“The West End is great but you’re doing the same thing night after night, and you have to get your head round that if you’re doing it for a year, when it comes down to muscle memory. I tend to do shows with larger bands – there were 18 in the pit for Anything Goes- whereas a lot of modern shows have smaller bands.”
Composer (for 30 years), percussionist for bands, orchestras and stage shows, and record label founder to boot, Dominic has one more string to his bow: he teaches at the London College of Music. Not that he is one to bang his own drum for such polymath skills.
York Theatre Royal and the University of York present Sovereign at King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, until July 30. Tickets update: Sold out.
Did you know?
DOMINIC Sales is the founder and director of Jellymould Jazz, a boutique record label with worldwide distribution at the forefront of the British jazz scene.
Sleuth and sidekick: Fergus Rattigan’s Matthew Shardlake with Sam Thorpe-Spinks’s Jack Barak in Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Sovereign in the King’s Manor courtyard. Picture: Charlotte Graham
FIRST the bad news. Not the July weather forecast, but the Sold Out notices denoting you are too late to book for the rest of the fortnight run of this summer’s York Theatre Royal community play.
Such has been the demand to see Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Tudor-set thriller in the very place where the biggest chunk of this best-selling sleuth story is set: King’s Manor, so re-named from the Abbot’s House to mark Henry VIII’s visit to the city with his latest queen du jour, Catherine Howard.
Staged in partnership with the University of York on its city campus, Sovereign plays out in the courtyard, the one with the tree at its epicentre and steps that add both height and dramatic statement to co-directors Juliet Forster, John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin’s grand production.
Aside from the front row, each capacity house of 240 is protected by a canopy from the rain, leaving the cast of 100 to battle with the elements, as they did last night and rather more so amid Saturday’s heavy downpours.
Kenny, a veteran of York outdoor productions from 2012’s The York Mysteries in the Museum Gardens and Blood + Chocolate on the city streets, even has Sovereign’s Greek chorus – or Women of York Chorus, to be precise – defy the rain with a knowing Yorkshire shrug. They will comment on a woman’s lot in Henry’s world with feminist ire too, resonating with the #MeToo era.
In our age of “levelling up”, but not levelling truthfully with the people, Kenny makes much of the north-south divide in Sovereign, right from the opening scene where Mark Gowland’s gouty, vainglorious Henry makes claim to godlike status, to the chagrin of Rosy Rowley’s no-nonsense God on a York Mystery Plays wagon on the other side of the stage.
As the play unfolds, towards its close after two hours and 45 minutes, Kenny makes a series of bullet pronouncements on the division between Protestant South and Papist North. Not only did Henry take land from Yorkshire landowners and dissolve the monasteries of God’s Own Country, but he put a stop to the Mysteries, seeing them as Catholic propaganda. History will tell you the wagons rolled on for a while longer, but then fell silent until the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Henry is a hated figure in York in Sansom’s story, as he seeks to impose the Royal Progress of 1541. The “Southerans” are unwelcome, not only “Fat Harry”, but also disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake (Fergus Rattigan) and his Jack-the-lad Jewish sidekick, Jack Barak (University of York history and politics alumnus Sam Thorpe-Spinks).
Shardlake is mocked as a bottled spider by Henry, a crouchback by others; Joe Hooper’s Fulke Radwinter takes against Barak and Shardlake, taunting Barak about the events of March 16 1190, the Massacre of the Jews at Clifford’s Tower.
At Clifford’s Tower in Sovereign the body of Robert Aske, convicted of high treason by Henry, is still hanging five years after his execution in 1537. Plenty more bodies will pile up by the play’s end, more in the tradition of Jacobean tragedies.
Thorpe-Spinks has called Barak “Dr Watson to Shardlake’s Holmes”, but he rather more reminds you of Dennis Waterman’s Terry McCann in Minder with his feisty willingness to challenge all comers and eye for the ladies. Or one lady in particular, Livy Potter’s resourceful Tamasin Reedbourne, as Potter continues her run of winning performances in recent months.
Rattigan makes for a wily and worldly Shardlake, but lawyers have a bad name in this world – another dig delivered with comic timing in Kenny’s canny script – and so he becomes a more complex character as Sansom’s stinging story progresses. Not a conventional hero, not morally straight-backed, but remorseless as a Poirot. By comparison, Thorpe-Spinks’ lovable Barak is a little under-used, but then he is preoccupied with Potter’s Tamasin.
Shardlake and Barak have been sent north to keep an eye on political prisoner Edward Broderick (Nick Naidu-Bock, haunted and haunting), but the murder of a York glazier finds the plot thickening like a bechamel sauce.
So much is bubbling away in Sansom’s story: Matthew Page’s Giles Wrenne earnestly seeking to challenge Henry’s right to the throne; the Conspiracy at work; Scarlett Rowley’s insouciant Queen Catherine playing away from home with Josh Davies’s former beau Thomas Culpeper (or Culpepper in this version); Maurice Crichton’s curmudgeonly Yorkshireman Maleverer in peak scene-stealing form.
Not only does this community play have a chorus but an even larger York Ensemble for crowd scenes and dance numbers steered by movement director Hayley Del Harrison, and a King’s Ensemble for more north-south shenanigans.
The directing triumvirate achieves a balance between scenes on a physical grand scale and ones of more intimacy of a psychological nature. As for spectacle, look out for dramatic entrances by horses and a bear, courtesy of Animated Objects’ animal heads, and a cock-fighting scene too.
Dawn Allsopp’s set design works in happy union with King’s Manor, Hazel Fall’s costume designs are a Tudor delight and Craig Kilmartin’s lighting design plays to daylight’s progress into night. Out of view, to the side, apart from musical director Madeleine Hudson’s outstretched arms, is the choir, but their contribution is vital, commenting in song on what is ensuing through Dominic Sales’s wonderful compositions.
Yes, Sovereign could be shorter, and in a future staging it probably would be, but Mike Kenny has worked his Midas touch once more. York Theatre Royal is ahead of the game too: a television series of Sansom’s stories is on its way.
York giving Fat Harry the proverbial two fingers will live long in the memory.
Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
