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Sales pitch pays off as Dominic composes magical madrigal score for York Theatre Royal community play Sovereign

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.

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REVIEW: York Theatre Royal in Sovereign, King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, until July 30 ****

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.

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Once he studied history and politics in York. Now Sam Thorpe-Spinks stars in Henry VIII mystery thriller Sovereign at King’s Manor

Sam Thorpe-Spinks looks forward to performing Sovereign – “a crime drama in situ” – at King’s Manor. Picture: Alex Holland

SAM Thorpe-Spinks first made his mark on the York stage scene in student productions while reading History and Politics at the University of York.

He later trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and now returns to the city as one of two professional actors leading a 100-strong community cast and choir in York playwright Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Tudor-set thriller, Sovereign.

PlayingJewish sidekick Jack Barak to Irish actor Fergus Rattigan’s disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake in the York Theatre Royal co-production with the University of York, Sam’s role just happens to combine history and politics, as well as murder and mystery, in a story to be staged outdoors at King’s Manor, one of the key locations in Sansom’s novel, from Saturday (15/7/2023) to July 30.

“That’s why doing this play is interesting, having studied History and Politics at university here from 2011 to 2014. I remember being at Clifford’s Tower one night from three till five in the morning and not realising its historical significance at the time,” he recalls.

“My Jewishness is something I’ve only rediscovered in the past five years. My mother’s side of the family escaped the pogrom in the early 20th century, went to Belfast and set up a synagogue there.

“When I was at drama school, I was aware of antisemitism in the theatre world. Before that, my grandmother, Gillian Freeman, wrote the novel The Leather Boys [1961] and the screenplay [for Sidney J Furie’s 1964 film], writing the book based on her Jewish history.

“I got in touch with my Jewishness culturally, rather than through faith, and last year I set up Emanate with my friend Dan Wolff [his fellow actor-producer] to champion new Jewish writing. Last August, we sold out a two-night run of six short scenes by Jewish writers at the Kiln Theatre (formerly the Tricycle Theatre), and we’ll be going to the Soho Theatre (London) in August for two weeks with three new plays by Alexis Zegerman, Ryan Craig and Amy Rosenthal, exploring birth, marriage and death.

Sam Thorpe-Spinks playing a soldier in Quicksand at York Theatre Royal’s TakeOver festival in his University of York days

”So, my Jewish curiosity has filtered its way into my work. Once I finish Sovereign on the Sunday (30/7/20230), I’ll start rehearsals on the Monday for Alexis’s play, The Arc, the one that looks at marriage.”

Since June 14, his focus has been on rehearsals for Sovereign, linking up with Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and co-directors John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin’s community cast, whose rehearsal schedule for this summer’s world premiere had begun in March.

“Jack Barak is the Dr Watson role, the assistant, and there’s been a lot of fun acting alongside Fergus’s detective. Barak is certainly more the lovable rogue character of the detective duo. He’s not a strong man but he’s lot more equipped to sniff out trouble and deal with it – and he has a charming propensity to find women for himself,” says the six-foot tall, blue/green-eyed, black-haired Sam.

“He has a little love interest in the play that leads him into trouble, but the book series concludes with him marrying and having children, so he does learn about love!”

Kenny’s adaptation focuses on Sansom’s story of lawyer Shardlake and Barak being sent from London to York to await the arrival of Henry VIII at King’s Manor, only to be plunged into a mystery that could threaten the future of the crown when a York glazier is murdered.

“It’s such a privilege to be performing at King’s Manor,” says Sam. “Normally you have to use your imagination, but I don’t have to use any for this! York is steeped in Tudor times, and to be appearing in a play performed where the story happened is quite rare.

“The Minster is a constant reminder of the city’s history, so you can never escape the play, and that’s a good thing.”

Lead actors Fergus Rattigan, left, and Sam Thorpe-Spinks at King’s Manor, York, where Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s best seller will be staged from Saturday. Picture: Alex Holland

As for Henry VIII, already given a hard time in SIX The Musical at the Grand Opera House in late June, “they hate Henry in York, or certainly they do in this play,” says Sam. “He’s a southerner trying to exert his southern ways on the north, and both Shardlake and Barak are from the south too, so they’re treated with suspicion as well.”

Sovereign is Sam’s third play since leaving drama school, in the wake of Emanate and Peter Gill’s Something In The Air (Jermyn Street Theatre, London). “It’s the first one I’ve done on this scale, with so many cast members,” he says.

“The way Mike Kenny has adapted such a vast novel, bringing the characters into a palatable play that you can follow easily, he’s done an amazing job, keeping it really lean to the bone, and it feels like a play that was born to be performed by a community cast.

“You should see it because it’s a rich and colourful portrait of York in the 16th century, with murders, blood, treason and romance, and a cast of 100-plus performing in the actual location where the story took place. A crime drama in situ!”

No need for a sales pitch: Sovereign has sold out already.

York Theatre Royal and University of York present Sovereign outdoors at King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, from July 15 to 30. Tickets update: Sold out. Box office, for returns only,  01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Sam Thorpe-Spinks

What’s in a name? Sam Thorpe-Spinks

Sam: Hebrew origin, meaning “told by God” and “God hears”.

Thorpe: Derived from Old Norse or Old English, denoting a hamlet or village. Many place names in England have the suffix “thorp” or “thorpe”. Those of Old Norse origin abound in Yorkshire, Northumberland, County Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Spinks: ‘Spink’ (noun) denotes a finch or the sound of a particular bird cry. ‘Spink’ (verb) denotes a finch calling or chirping or making a characteristic sound.

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Fergus Rattigan plays the ‘Tudor Poirot’ in Henry VIII thriller Sovereign at King’s Manor

Lead actor Fergus Rattigan with a copy of C J Sansom’s novel Sovereign. Pictures: Simon Boyle

AS the poster pronounces, expect intrigue, conspiracy and a thrilling night out when York Theatre Royal’s 120-strong community cast stages Sovereign on location at King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York.

Leading the company in this open-air world premiere of York playwright Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Tudor-set thriller will be Irish actor and stage combat fighter Fergus Rattigan.

From July 15 to 30, Fergus plays disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake, working in tandem with assistant Jack Barak (fellow professional Sam Thorpe-Spinks, late of the University of York). This “detective” duo is in York awaiting the arrival of Henry VIII, only to be plunged into a murder mystery that could threaten the future of the crown.

“I’m a Plantagenet/Tudor nut, right through to this period, and I’ve worked at Shakespeare’s Globe on occasion,” says Fergus. “When I came to York in the summer of 2021, when the Covid restrictions were softened and we were allowed to travel, I did a Viking tour, visited the Minster and walked the City Walls, reciting bits of Richard III. My partner is a historian, by the way.”

The role of Shardlake is made for Fergus. “I read the script and thought, ‘well, yes, I know this world, I know these characters, I know what’s happening, and even the way the character is described as a ‘hedgehog’ and ‘brothel spider’: one of those insults that echoes Shakespeare’s hunchbacked Richard III – and I’ve played Richard III on Zoom for the company Shake-Scene Shakespeare.

Actors Fergus Rattigan, left, and Sam Thorpe-Spinks with Sovereign adaptor Mike Kenny

“I’ve also directed bits of Richard III for the Dublin Shakespeare Festival in the Tudor crypt at Christ Church Cathedral, when we did scenes all around the city.”

Fergus’s agent informed him of the York Theatre Royal production. “The minute I learned about it, I was, ‘yes, yes, I’m very interested’!” he recalls. “I was auditioned by Juliet Forster and co-director John R Wilkinson on Zoom and then I came for an interview with all three co-directors [Mingyu Lin is the third] to see if I would be comfortable working with a community cast and whether I’d be comfortable with my disability being portrayed on stage.”

The answer was an emphatic “yes”. He cherished both the “juicy role” role and the performing opportunity. “Not only do I love and study the Tudor period but Shardlake has my mindset. He’s a bit of an outsider, which is something I can relate to both as a disabled person in a world not designed for disabled people but as a foreigner from another country. I’m very used to that outsider nature.

“I see myself very much reflected in him. When he’s in front of the King, there’s a moment of embarrassment. I’ve felt that. I’ve been in public where everyone is staring at me for just being myself. As a short man I’ve had people laugh at me for no reason, things like that. Or have judged me when I turned up for a job and I’m half the size they thought I was going to be.

“Shardlake’s situation is surprisingly relatable. He keeps a lot of it to himself, which is quite true to life with a lot of disabilities. The amount people are going through internally is always worse than what’s happening externally.”

Fergus Rattigan, centre, in the rehearsal room for Sovereign

Fergus’s condition is dwarfism, or dwarf syndrome, to quote the medical term. He notes how pantomime productions are increasingly not using dwarf actors, some preferring puppets, for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

“I’ve worked with a group of seven actors for some time in Snow White. We were at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh last Christmas and I’ll be working with the same company next Christmas. But you see some theatres not doing that now – and it’s not the dwarf actors being asked about it. It’s people being offended on our behalf – and now on the poster it’ll still say ‘The Seven Dwarfs’ but in the script it’ll say ‘The Magnificent Seven’.

“I’d say the term ‘dwarf’ is fine. Everyone knows what you mean. There’s no confusion. There’s nothing derogatory about it. People think they are generic characters but it’s just more clear than it is for other characters that it’s our characteristic.”

Fergus had not read C J Sansom’s novels before Shardlake came his way. “But I don’t know how I hadn’t because I’ve read historical novels and fictional stories of the period, especially by Philippa Gregory, who happens to live in Yorkshire,” he says.

Before auditions began, he read Sansom’s source novel, first quickly, then more thoroughly to add Post-It notes. “You can tell he has researched the period thoroughly, and likewise Mike Kenny’s script refers loyally to the book,” says Fergus.

Fergus Rattigan at King’s Manor, where he will play the disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake

What stirred his interest in such novels and works of fiction? “It’s a weird thing. I got into Shakespeare very early on, but in Ireland we don’t have the focus on history the way you do over here, particularly not studying the War of the Roses,” says Fergus.

“So, I didn’t know what people were referring to when I came over here. I thought, ‘I must read about it’, and then I started to read historical novels and fictional works .”

Now he is at the centre of one such story, Sovereign. “It’s fiction and conspiracy on top of history, where Shardlake gets to step in as the Poirot of his period. He just tends to be in the right place – or the wrong place! – at the right or wrong time, depending on how you look at this little ‘hedgehog’ man,” says Fergus.

“There’s pressure to get the performance right, but you can also make it your own. You’re not trying to find your unique slant on Hamlet but to find the character, seeing how big or small to make his character, how proud he is as a proper lawyer or ashamed of his disabilities.

“For me, acting is about reacting to those around me and responding to that – and this time it’s a cast of 120.”

York Theatre Royal presents Sovereign outdoors at King’s Manor, York, July 15 to 30. Tickets update: SOLD OUT. Box office for returns only:  01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

Copyright of The Press, York

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Raven alert! CBeebies’ James Mackenzie to play the villain in York Theatre Royal pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk

On the dark side: James Mackenzie, alias CBeebies’ Raven, is to play the villain in York Theatre Royal’s pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk

JAMES Mackenzie follows in the CBeebies’ footsteps of Maddie Moate last winter and Andy Day in 2021 in being signed up for the York Theatre Royal pantomime.

The Scottish actor and game show host, 44, will play the villainous Luke Backinanger in the “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fun family pantomime” Jack And The Beanstalkfrom December 8 2023 to January 7 2024.

Moate appeared as Tinkerbell in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, preceded by Day’s Dandini in Cinderella.

Mackenzie will turn to the dark side in the fourth panto collaboration between the Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions, having played the immortal, leather-clad warrior in CBBC’s fantasy adventure game show Raven. 

James Mackenzie: “Strutting his stuff as the bad boy of panto” at York Theatre Royal this winter

He was the original lead character in the multi-Bafta award-winning show Raven from 2002 to 2010. This mysterious warlord led young warriors on a quest to test their skills and win their heart’s desire in a show that garnered cult status, spanning 15 series filmed in far-flung exotic locations such as India. Its popularity saw it air from Canada to Australia and places aplenty in between.

Mackenzie has worked for many theatre companies, such as the National Theatre of Scotland, and has performed all over Britain in everything from Macbeth to the Proclaimers’ musical Sunshine On Leith. He has been a regular in BBC Scotland’s soap opera River City and made guest appearances in Still Game and Outlander.

Over the past few years, he has been introduced to a new CBeebies’ generation as James in Molly And Mack. He has been part of the CBeebies Christmas shows and performed on stage at Shakespeare’s  Globe for CBeebies Shakespeare. Like most Scottish actors, he has appeared in Taggart more than once.

Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, who will be directing Jack And The Beanstalk, says: “We are delighted to welcome James Mackenzie to the cast for this year’s panto.  James is such a well-loved children’s TV personality and we can’t wait to see him strut his stuff as the bad boy of panto.”

Robin Simpson: Returning to the dame’s role in Jack And The Beanstalk

Mackenzie will perform alongside the already announced Robin Simpson in his fourth Theatre Royal panto. Simpson played the dame in The Travelling Pantomime in 2020, the British Pantomime Award-nominated Ugly Sister Manky in Cinderella in 2021 and Mrs Smee in All New Adventures of Peter Pan last winter.

He will be on dame duty in Jack And The Beanstalk, with further casting to be announced for a show that promises “stunning sets, lavish costumes, breath-taking special effects and lots of pantomime magic”.

Evolution’s co-founder Paul Hendy is writing the script once more, as he did for the past three pantos.  

Tickets are “proving popular”, with a special family ticket offer available for all performances: £75 for bookings with three tickets, including at least one adult and one child, saving up to £52, or £100 for bookings with four tickets, including at least one adult and one child, saving up to £68. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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After CBeebies’ Romeo And Juliet, Alex Phelps and Juliet Forster reunite for Around The World In 80 Days circus escapades

On your bike: Alex Phelps, front, in rehearsal for his dual roles as the Ringmaster and Phileas Fogg in Around The World In 80 Days

TILTED Wig are teaming up with York Theatre Royal for a nationwide tour of Around The World In 80 Days – in 171 days, to be precise – after a month of rehearsals in York.

Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s first toured all four corners of York in August 23 days in 2021, not in a hot-air balloon, but on a trailer, in the tradition of travelling players going from town to town.

Forster’s circus-themed production played four York playing fields – Carr Junior School, Copmanthorpe Primary School, Archbishop Holgate’s School and Joseph Rowntree School – followed by a last stop, back indoors, at the Theatre Royal, where producers Tilted Wig’s new tour of England, Scotland and Wales will open from Thursday to Saturday.

In Forster’s version, Verne’s original characters are transformed, embracing different modes of transport in Phileas Fogg’s fictional frantic race to travel around the world in 80 days.

One original cast member, New Zealander Eddie Mann’s sharp-witted Knife Thrower and Detective Fix, will be joined by Alex Phelps’s resolute Ringmaster and unscrupulous Fogg; actor-puppeteer Katriona Brown’s Acrobat and real-life globe-traveller Nellie Bly; Wilson Benedito’s Clown and Passepartout and Genevieve Sabherwal’s Trick Rider and Aouda.

Around The World In 80 Days director Juliet Forster

Phelps had first made an impression on Forster when playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek with such brio in Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age take on Twelfth Night for Shakespeare Rose Theatre in York in June 2019.

“That was the first time I’d seen Alex performing, though we’d met at Theatre By The Lake, and I was really keen to consider Alex for the role of Phileas Fogg last time around in 2021, when there were only two names I wanted on my list: Alex and Emilio (Iannucci), but Alex was already committed to doing Justin’s House for CBeebies.”

This time around, Emilio decided not to do the tour, much as he would have like to do so, opening the door for Alex.

“I was doing the CBeebies’ Christmas show when Juliet contacted me, and had a Zoom meeting with her while I was in the dressing room for Dick Whittington And His Cat,” he recalls. “I managed to find a quiet little corner where the wi-fi worked, while everyone wondered what was going on!”

And so, as fate would decree, Juliet has ended up working with both her preferred picks for Fogg.  “It does feel like it was meant to happen this way,” she says. “It’s not that you have to typecast a particular role, but there is something about the essential nature, or spirit, of a person that sits right with the role, and that was the case with both Emilio and Alex.

Alex Phelps: Actor noted for his comic skills of physicality and playfulness

“One of my strengths as a director is how I cast and I do a lot of work through the casting process, where interpretation of a character is a big part of that, and if someone is not quite aligned with my thinking…

“But Alex is completely right for it. Playfulness is really important in this role, and I would find it hard to work with someone who didn’t want to be playful, which also brings out the truthfulness.”

Alex concurs: “It’s an important element that can be overlooked, but you’re putting on a play that’s all about ‘playing’. Like two people playing tennis, you’re on either side of the net, and the other person has to hit it back.

“The audience are ahead of the cast – the circus performers playing Verne’s characters – where they know the goal is to complete the journey in 80 days, so the excitement is: how will they get there in that time?

“It’s a comedy, and I really believe great comedy has to tread the razor’s edge of great tragedy, as it does in Aguecheek’s case too, where’s it all very tragic for Aguecheek but very funny for the audience.”

Alex has been studying Buster Keaton for his latest role. “I’ve gone back to his films for Fogg because what he’s so good at is how his face never changes, but all his physical expression comes through his body and that tells the audience everything they need to know,” he says.

Alex Phelps’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek, back row, centre, with Cassie Vallance’s Fabian and Fine Time Fontayne’s Sir Toby Belch, winding up Claire Storey’s Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre’s Twelfth Night in York in 2019. Picture: Charlotte Graham

Juliet and Alex have worked together before, joining forces when she directed CBeebies’ version of Romeo And Juliet, recorded under lockdown restrictions. “Having seen how funny he is physically as an actor and knowing what a genuinely lovely person he is, I kept nagging the CBeebies’ producer to cast Alex as Mercutio, which was going to be a small role but needed someone who would fill it with personality immediately,” she says.

“Under Covid conditions, we had proximity devices to stop you getting within two metres of each other, lunch was at separate tables; everyone had to be completely separate  at the hotel.

“It was difficult not to want to direct close-up, and you could only be close to someone for a maximum of 15 minutes in a day, but none of us got Covid, so maybe it was the best way to work, even if it was a bizarre experience.”

Alex would go on to do more CBeebies’ shows, not least being asked to join Justin Fletcher’s Mr Tumble in Justin’s House and making Christmas specials.

Now it is time for his playful Phileas Fogg to fly under Juliet’s direction.

Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal present Around The World In 80 Days at York Theatre Royal on Thursday, 2pm and 7.30pm, Friday, 7.30pm, and Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Also: Cast, Doncaster, July 5 to 8; castdoncaster.com. Age guidance: five plus.

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Tom Bird bids farewell to York Theatre Royal after 5 years of momentous change

Tom Bird: Goodbye York Theatre Royal, hello Sheffield Theatres. Picture: Esme Mai

CHIEF executive Tom Bird is leaving York Theatre Royal after five years on February 3 to take up the equivalent post at Sheffield Theatres, England’s largest producing theatre complex outside London.

Head hunted for a post he “just couldn’t turn down”, he will migrate southwards to replace Dan Bates, who exited Sheffield last year after 13 years to become executive director of Bradford’s UK City of Culture 2025 programme.

From February 6, North Easterner (and Newcastle United fan) Tom he will be in charge of the South Yorkshire trio of Sheffield’s Crucible, Lyceum and Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse (formerly the Studio), working closely with artistic director Robert Hastie and interim chief exec Bookey Oshin, who will stay on as deputy CEO, and the senior team.

He leaves behind a York Theatre Royal where he has overseen an emphasis on community productions and the showcasing of York talent; the departure of innovative artistic director Damian Cruden after 22 years and Britain’s longest-running pantomime dame, Berwick Kaler, after 41; the promotion of Juliet Forster to creative director with a programming team, and new partnerships with Emma Rice’s Wise Children company (and in turn the National Theatre) and Evolution Productions for the pantomime’s new chapter.

Such change could be planned, but then there was Covid, a shadow cast from March 2020, one that not only shut down the theatre in lockdown but led to redundancies and later the loss of £250,000 takings in a flash when the Christmas and New Year week of Cinderella last winter fell foul to a glut of positive tests.

York Theatre Royal chief executive Tom Bird, centre, with creative director Juliet Forster and Evolution Productions director and pantomime writer Paul Hendy

“We were on to our fourth Cinderella by then,” recalls Tom. “It was impossible to continue. It couldn’t have happened in a worse week. Losing those performances was awful, even though we  got going again for the last performances.”

Twelve months on, Tom bids farewell with the Theatre Royal in a healthy position. “There’s money in the bank; there’s a great team working here; the pantomime is reinvigorated; the programming is good; there are excellent partnerships in place. I’m really proud of everything we’ve done,” he says.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a mission as such as I guess I wanted to learn that mission as I went along, and I certainly think the Theatre Royal is in a strong position. The relationship with Arts Council England is so important, and to still be on the NPO scheme [for National Portfolio funding for £1.8 million for 2023-2026) is so important.

“If I have one regret – and I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to run Sheffield – it is that it would have been nice to now have had two or three ‘normal’ years at York Theatre Royal as it’s such a wonderful place.”

Looking back on becoming the Theatre Royal’s executive director at 34 – he would later change the title to chief executive – after he and his family moved to York in December 2017, Tom says: “It was a massive change because my unofficial title at the Globe [Shakespeare’s Globe in London] was ‘Mr International’, producing a tour of Hamlet to 189 countries, but my personal circumstances had changed already.

A scene from The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal’s 2022 community play. Picture: Jane Hobson

“We’d moved out to Kent; I’d been working as executive producer nationally and internationally, and though there was a lot of gloom about regional theatre at the time, I just thought, I’d love to get back north, to run a theatre.

“We’d co-produced plays to York, and there’s just something about the Theatre Royal, the building; the gorgeous auditorium.”

Nevertheless, Tom admits he was in for a surprise. “At first I thought, if you just transplanted London theatre here, it would work, but that was not the case,” he says. “York is a city of inequality, not the city that you would expect, and therefore not the theatre you would expect. You need to offer a cultural menu that caters for everyone. You have to fully fit in with the needs of the community, which is an exciting thing to do.

“After Damian left (in summer 2019), we wanted to make sure that we would be programming in a more collaborative way than we’d done before.  I think there’s since been the same amount of co-producing of shows, but we also said we wanted to do ‘very Yorkshire’ productions, like The Coppergate Woman community play and David Reed’s world premiere of Guy Fawkes last autumn.

“We’ve created the programming team, led by Juliet Forster, with associate director John R Wilkinson and resident artists, that naturally produces a wide range of voices and makes sure everything is rigorously tested as to what we will put on that stage and why.”

Wise Children’s co-production of Wuthering Heights with the National Theatre and York Theatre Royal

Community theatre is crucial, Tom says: “It’s what audiences want. It’s absolutely what people in the community say they want to see. The audiences for our community plays are phenomenal. July’s production of CJ Sansom’s Sovereign is already on track to sell out. York wants theatre shows that tell stories of the city and we’ve always tried to do that in an experimental way, which leads to us taking risks.”

For all the weight of its history, York needs to be averse to standing still. “The city has to make sure it’s always being dynamic in its culture and outlook, otherwise it will take on the profile of being frozen in aspic,” warns Tom.

“That’s why we did a hippy-trippy, Covid-influenced Viking story [The Coppergate Woman] and a dark comedy version of Guy Fawkes that people didn’t expect. You have to be ambitious and surprising. That’s a word we use all the time: the reward for York audiences is to be pleasantly surprised.”

As for the changing of the old guard in the pantomime, Tom says: “I’m conscious that it’s what I’ll be remembered for here, which is a shame. Bringing down the curtain on something is not what I want to be remembered for, but, to an extent, whoever had my job at the time, was going to have to deal with it in some way.

“Maybe someone else would have taken a different route, or taken it earlier, but I worked on three of Berwick’s pantomimes, so it wasn’t as though I didn’t know what I was dealing with, but there was an issue coming down the road in ten to 15 years’ time , maybe earlier: family audiences were not coming to the panto in2017-2018, so what was going to happen in future years?

“I’d grown an affinity with the company in those three years, as everyone does; you realise the exceptional quality of performers like David Leonard, but in all conscience, I could not responsibly leave the situation as it was.

Berwick Kaler playing Molly Motley in his last York Theatre Royal pantomime, The Grand Old Dame Of York, in 2018-2019. He co-directed and wrote the next year’s show, Sleeping Beauty, his last involvement with the Theatre Royal panto after 41 years

“I got a lot of public criticism – and a lot of private criticism too – and really there was a lack of understanding of what I was trying to achieve in making the change, which may have been my fault as I could have it explained it earlier, but everything I said at the time still stands.

“The audiences were declining and there was no obvious way of turning it around with that product still in place, and I would say that the decision to go into a partnership with Evolution Productions has been proved to be the right one.

“The new pantomime is still growing and we know there’s still work to do, but we’re really happy with how it’s going.”

After such highlights as The Travelling Pantomime’s socially distanced performances to York neighbourhoods in the first winter of Covid, the Love Bites and Green Shoots showcases for York professional theatre-makers, the Wise Children/National Theatre/York Theatre Royal co-production of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and Tom’s groundwork for Kyiv City Ballet’s first ever British visit in June, he moves to Sheffield in the year he turns 40.

In the words of Lord Kerslake, chair of Sheffield Theatres Trust board: “We have appointed a driven, experienced and creative leader who will help shape the next chapter of this world-class organisation.”

Just as Tom Bird has shaped York Theatre Royal’s future too.

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York Theatre Royal to stage CJ Sansom’s Tudor thriller Sovereign as community play on grand scale at King’s Manor in July

On the king’s manor: The Sovereign figure of Henry VIII (Mark Gowland) stands over York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, playwright Mike Kenny and, front, Juliet’s co-directors John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin at the launch of the Theatre Royal’s community production of Sovereign. Picture: Ant Robling

IN the climax to York Theatre Royal’s Sovereign Season, a community cast will stage a majestic outdoor summer production in the grounds of King’s Manor in Exhibition Square.

Adapted for the stage by prolific York playwright Mike Kenny, the world premiere of CJ Sansom’s York-based Tudor thriller will run from July 15 to 30 under the direction of Juliet Forster, John R Wilkinson and Mingyu Lin.

York Theatre Royal is seeking to assemble a cast of 100 adults and young performers aged nine and over from this month’s auditions for a production “on a grand scale”.

The use of King’s Manor could not be more apt, given Sansom’s setting of the story in Tudor York in 1541, when the Council of the North would meet there.

History records that St Mary’s Abbey, in Museum Gardens immediately behind King’s Manor, was suppressed by Henry VIII in 1539, destroying most of the monastery. King’s Manor – or Abbot’s House as it was known – survived, however, and continued to be the Council of the North’s headquarters.

In anticipation of an “ostentatious” Royal visit by Henry VIII and Queen Catherine Howard in 1541, the city of York repaired and improved the building. The royal party duly occupied the manor house for 12 days, their visit leading to the building becoming known as King’s Manor.

In Sansom’s York of 1541, the play follows lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak who await the arrival of Henry VIII on his northern progress.

Tasked with a secret mission, Shardlake is protecting a dangerous prisoner who is to be returned to London for interrogation. When the murder of a York glazier plunges Shardlake into a deep mystery that threatens the Tudor dynasty itself, he must work against time to avert a terrifying chain of events.

Told through the voices of the people of York, the Theatre Royal production promises to release all the intrigue, conspiracy and thrills of Sansom’s novel. Alongside the community ensemble, two professional actors will star in the production too. Rehearsals begin on April 15, taking in two weekday evenings and Saturday daytimes in the lead-up to the tech weeks from July 3 and 10.

Already the Sovereign Season has taken in the world premiere of David Reed’s Guy Fawkes, with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s political thriller Julius Caesar still to come from June 13 to 17, directed by Atri Banerjee.

“A lot of the plays in the season deal with different forms of leadership and resistance; what’s good leadership; what’s good sovereignty,” says Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster.

“The jewel in the crown is CJ Sansom’s historical thriller Sovereign, the third book in the Shardlake trilogy, where Henry VIII came up here to sort out the northern rebels, beat us into line and show his power in his northern progress.”

York playwright Mike Kenny: Adapating CJ Sansom’s Sovereign for the York Theatre Royal community production

Welcoming the chance to adapt Sovereign, Mike Kenny says: “It will push the form of community theatre in all sorts of ways. I got invited to a conference in Montpellier [France] about large-scale community theatre, and though I’d never thought of it as being a very British thing, I was asked to talk about the York experience of staging community plays.

“I was aware, as I was talking through the experience, that every time we’ve done such a play, we were pushing the envelope because, in York, we don’t take the pre-digested version, we take the local story and push it.

“In this instance, I don’t think anyone has done that with a whodunit like this one, where Shardlake, the central character is disabled and gets a lot of stick because of that.”

Mike continues. “The book is set in 1541, well before Shakespeare’s play Richard III was written [1592-93], which reflected attitudes towards disability. It’s an interesting development in community theatre to have a disabled actor in the lead role.”

Co-director John R Wilkinson points out: “Shardlake’s sidekick is Jewish, another prejudice of that time.”

Mike rejoins: “That’s particularly potent in York, where the play is set, more than 300 years after the Massacre at St Clifford’s Tower, where the Jewish pogrom happened in 1190. A couple of the scenes are set there, so it’s pushed the boat again.”

Juliet says: “It’s the first time we’ve done an adaptation as a community play. Normally we take history and creative a fictional history, like we did for Blood + Chocolate, In Fog And Falling Snow, Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes and The Coppergate Woman.

“This time, there’s already an historical fictional narrative and we’re then bringing out the really strong York connections.”

Mike notes how: “One of the things that hit me hard was how Henry VIII was directly responsible for the end of the medieval Mystery Plays, which had been a Catholic tradition in York. They came to an end in Henry’s time, finally being stopped 20 years after his visit.”

Just as the revived York Mystery Plays have set the benchmark for community productions in the city, so York Theatre Royal continues to relish picking up the baton and taking that theatrical form in new directions.

York Theatre Royal presents CJ Sansom’s Sovereign at King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, from July 15 to 30. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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York Theatre Royal teams up with Tilted Wig for second Around The World In 80 Days travels, this time going nationwide

The cast for Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal’s Around The World In 80 Days

TILTED Wig are teaming up with York Theatre Royal for a nationwide tour of Around The World In 80 Days from February 2 to July 22 2023. Rehearsals will begin in York next Monday.

Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s story first toured all four corners of York in August 23 days in 2021, not in a hot-air balloon, but on a trailer, whose sides could be dropped down for the set to be built around, in the tradition of travelling players going from town to town.

Forster’s circus-themed production played four York playing fields – Carr Junior School, Copmanthorpe Primary School, Archbishop Holgate’s School and Joseph Rowntree School – followed by a last stop, back indoors, at the Theatre Royal, where Tilted Wig’s new tour of England, Scotland and Wales will open from February 2 to 4.

In Forster’s version, Verne’s original characters are transformed, embracing different modes of transport in the frantic race to travel around the world in 80 Days. Original cast member Eddie Mann will be joined by Alex Phelps, Katriona Brown, Wilson Benedito and Genevieve Sabherwal, who each multi-role as the rag-tag band of travelling circus performers embarks on a daring mission to recreate Phileas Fogg’s journey.

Eddie Mann: Returning to the roles of the Knife Thrower and Detective Fix

Phelps will play the determined Ringmaster and Fogg, having appeared in As You Like It for Shakespeare’s Globe/CBeebies, When Darkness Falls for Park Theatre and Hamlet for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre.

Actor and puppeteer Brown will be the Acrobat and Nellie Bly; Sabherwal, the Trick Rider and Aouda; Wilson Benedito, the Clown and Passepartout, and New Zealander Mann, the sharp-witted Knife Thrower and Detective Fix.

Writer-director Forster said in 2021: ““There was a risk that a show would have a stuffy gentlemen’s club, outdated feel to it because it’s a male-dominated story, so I thought, ‘how do we make it a play for today?’. That’s when I decided to put Nellie Bly’s story in there too.”

For the uninitiated, Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, an American journalist, industrialist, inventor and charity worker, who made her own record-breaking trip around the world – and did so with more alacrity than the fictional Fogg.

The original York Theatre Royal cast for Around The World In 80 Days in August 2021, including Eddie Mann, centre. Picture: Charlotte Graham

“I read her book about going around the world: a beautiful piece of travel journalism with such lovely detail, and I thought, ‘maybe we should just do her story’, but then I decided, ‘no, let’s look at finding a form for a play that fits bit both stories in’,” Juliet said.

Move forward to 2023’s revival, and the director says: “I was amazed that we generally know more about Jules Verne’s fictional characters than we do about Nellie Bly. I knew I had to tell her story. I found that this approach allowed interesting themes to emerge around whose stories get told, whose stories dominate and who should stand aside to give space to the untold ones.”

Tour producer Tilted Wig Productions was formed in 2017 by Katherine Senior and Matthew Parish, who have more than 15 years of experience producing and touring plays throughout the UK, taking 20-plus productions on the road, such as Philip Meeks’s Murder, Margaret, and Me, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Picture Of Dorian Gray.

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster: Writer-director of Around The World In 80 Days

“Our shows now tour around some of the biggest theatres in the UK, yet our original ethos has always remained the same: whether Titled Wig are producing a classic play or a vibrant new adaptation, we always aim to inspire a bright and innovative creative team to take our stories UK-wide,” they say.

Juliet is joined in the production team by set designer Sara Perks; lighting designer Alexandra Stafford; composer and sound designer Ed Gray; movement director Asha Jennings-Grant and fight director Jonathan Holby.

Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal present Around The World In 80 Days at York Theatre Royal on February 2, 2pm and 7.30pm, February 3, 7.30pm, and February 4, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Also: Cast, Doncaster, July 5 to 8; castdoncaster.com. Age guidance: seven plus.

The tour poster for Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal’s Around The World In 80 Days

UPDATE 9/1/2023

REHEARSALS have begun today for Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal’s six-month tour of Around The World In 80 Days.

Gathering for the first time were Wilson Benedito, left, Katrina Brown, Genevieve Sabherwal and Alex Phelps. Missing was fifth cast member Eddie Mann, who will join rehearsals later. Picture by Anthony Robling.

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REVIEW: All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, York Theatre Royal, until January 2 2203 ****

Hook, line and singer: Paul Hawkyard’s Captain Hook in his big nuumber in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan. All pictures: Pamela Raith

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions present All New Adventures Of Peter Pan at York Theatre Royal. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk 

THE show title signifies changes afoot and freshness, but York Theatre Royal knows continuity is important too.

In the third year of the pantomime partnership with Evolution Productions – with a fourth year already rubber stamped for Jack And The Beanstalk next winter – Juliet Forster remains the director, Paul Hendy, the writer, and Hayley Del Harrison, the choreographer.

Children’s favourite Faye Campbell returns too, alongside the double-the-trouble double act of Paul Hawkyard and Robin Simpson, Cinderella’s award-nominated Ugly Sisters last year and now villainous Captain Hook and dame Mrs Smee respectively.

Ship-shape and bristling fashion: Robin Simpson’s dame, Mrs Smee

Having a CBeebies TV presenter to the fore last year in Andy Day proved a hit, and so science whizz Maddie Moate fronts the poster and flyer campaign this time as a feisty, fearless, even fractious Tinkerbell.

What’s new? The story for a start, still rooted in JM Barrie, but for the next generation. Wendy Darling is now Wendy Sweet (Theatre Royal newcomer Francesca Benton-Stace), mum to single-minded Elizabeth (Campbell), who craves her own flight to Neverland with Peter Pan (Jason Battersby). Elizabeth is more of a feminist, never attracted to Peter in the way Wendy was, but very much a dab hand at the “Lizzie Mother” role to the Lost Boys and Lost Girls.

There’s a new Newfoundland nanny dog in the house too, Nana being replaced by Minton, who leaves a mark on the show in more than one way. Naughty, Minton.

The father of the house, Hawkyard’s Mr Sweet, still turns into Captain Hook; Simpson’s dame makes a rather smaller leap for pantokind from home help Mrs Smee to Hook’s henchperson Mrs Smee. Likewise, Jonny Weldon, actor since childhood and social media comedy-sketch phenomenon since Covid lockdowns, switches from butler Mr Starkey to Hook’s other henchman, Starkey.

Balancing act: The Black Diamonds in acrobatic mode in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan

The double act becomes a mischief-making trio, Hawkyard’s dandy, intemperate Hook still ridiculously vainglorious but the butt of multiple jokes as shock-haired cheeky chappy Weedon and Simpson’s savvy dame conduct a pun fight to the last.

Oh, how writer Paul Hendy loves a pun, no matter how convoluted the set-up, and when it is combined with visual gags in a fish-name routine, reprising the magazine-title routine from 2020’s Travelling Pantomime, the jokes really get their skates on, faster, funnier, fishier.

Act One hits its stride amid the mayhem of Hawkyard, Simpson and Weldon struggling to manoeuvre a boat across the stage, dangerously close to the orchestra pit, reducing fourth occupant Moate’s to fits of laughter on the stern. This scene, already ripe for improvisation, will grow ever more chaotic as the run progresses.

Moate’s beaming Tinkerbell had made her first entry from above, flying high over the stage. Soon Battersby’s Pan, a magical, mysterious yet damaged perennial child, will lead Campbell’s Elizabeth across the London night sky to a duet of Take That’s Rule The World and onwards to Neverland in a gorgeous video projection by Dr Andy.

Drop in. centre: Maddie Moate’s Tinkerbell makes her entry as Faye Campbell’s Elizabeth and Jason Battersby’s Peter Pan look on

Later, in Act Two, Simpson’s Mrs Smee will emerge from on high too to the accompaniment of the James Bond theme, now playing flipper-clad Caroline Bond on a hoist that stubbornly refuses to touch the ground despite Simpson’s increasingly desperate pleas. Comic timing is exquisite here, and again, for all Simpson’s self-sacrificing physical discomfort, this scene is sure to expand.

Hendy and director Juliet Forster love the magic of pantomime as much as the comic mayhem rendered by haughty Hawkyard and co. This applies equally to Helga Wood, Michelle Marden and Stuart Relph’s set design, for London house, island and aboard the Jolly Roger, and to Harrison’s fizzing and fun choreography, and they are never happier than when magic and mirth elide in the Mermaids, beautiful and shimmering at first, but then turning into gossipy fish wives.

Benton-Stace’s scene-stealing Myrtle the Mermaid gives the outstanding vocal performance under Benjamin Dovey’s musical direction, run close by Hawkyard’s riotous Guns N’ Roses number, Neil Morgan guitar solo et al.

Cultural references play their part, from departing Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock to departing Dr Who Jodie Whittaker; Moate is granted a brief science bit about the sun; Campbell’s Elizabeth turns on the girl power and dance captain Emily Taylor drives on her troupe of Lost Boys and Girls with boundless energy.

Jonny Weldon’s Starkey, piratical mischief maker in chief

Big, big cheers go to the show’s speciality act, East African acrobats Teddy, Muba and Mohamed, alias The Black Diamonds, who defy the compact space to pull off dazzling feats of athleticism.

“All New” these adventures may be, but the increasingly tedious Sweet Caroline is an unimaginative choice for the song-sheet singalong. Not so good, so good, alas. Far better is the impact of Duncan Woodruff’s fight direction for Hook’s clashes with magic-powered fairy Tinkerbell, Elizabeth and Pan alike.

Michael J Batchelor and Joey Arthurs’ beautiful but bonkers costumes for Simpson’s dame keep topping the last one, and it is lovely to see the Theatre Royal walkdown scene in full pomp once more in gold, cream and white.

Something of the darkness of Barrie’s original story is lost in pursuit of pantomime frolics, but York Theatre Royal and Evolution unquestionably have found their groove, their own schtick, that appeals to children and adults alike.Simpson’s convivial dame is already confirmed for next year, another sign of continuity in this new age for the Theatre Royal pantomime.

“Lizzie Mother’s” storytelling sit-down: Maddie Moate’s Tinkerbell, left, and the Lost Boys and Girls listen to Faye Campbell’s Elizabeth. Jason Battersby’s Peter Pan prefers to keep watch