Kathryn Williams: Taking a late change of support and special guest in her stride at Pocklington Arts Centre
WEDNESDAY broke with the news that guitarist Matt Deighton, support and special guest on the first leg of Kathryn Williams’s Mystery Park Tour last autumn, would not be available for the second. All the shingles’ Hades, poor lad, had come his way. Get well soon.
Opening night in Pocklington was only two days away. Crumbs. Here’s where the rules of six degrees of separation came into play. Liverpool-born Kath and West of Scotland guitarist Memphis Gerald – so called after someone misheard his real name of Ben Fitzgerald – both live in Newcastle but had never met on the folk circuit.
However, they share a mutual friend in Louis Abbott of Glaswegian folkies Admiral Fallow, who put Kath in touch with Memphis. A few emails later to rearrange his diary, and Memphis was on board for Kath’s travels.
Three hours of rehearsals on Thursday introduced Kath to Memphis and Memphis to her songs, whose guitar parts he was still practising studiously in the still chill of night until 4am, nevertheless grateful to be “thrown onto this bill at the very last minute”.
“I can’t believe I met you only yesterday,” he would say to Kath between songs as they settled into their Pocklington groove. “I don’t think I could have learned these songs so quickly if they weren’t so gorgeous.”
Memphis had opened the show beneath his peaked cap with a solo set in the low light of three chintzy lampshades brought to Pock by Kath in the tour van driven by best friend Sarah Williams (who will be doing sterling work on the merch stall each night too).
His lyric “Flowers don’t decide where they grow from” caught the ear early on, and the politest protest song ever to grace these isles, We Will Die On This Hill, stood out with its celebration of the Right To Roam protestors’ UK Supreme Court triumph over their Dartmoor landlords, Alexander and Diana Darwall, in May 2025.
Memphis, by the way, has felt emboldened to send the ramblers his song; let’s hope they now sing it lustily as they ramble on, like Led Zeppelin were once wont to do.
Fuelled by a visit to Atlas, Pocklington’s artisan sourdough bakery and cafe in St Peter’s Square, Kath took to the stage where she had first played 25 years ago and had performed too when pregnant with son Ted (now present in long-haired teenage form in Friday’s audience with his shared love of music, especially T Rex and Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker).
As the tour title indicated, Kath concentrated her set on last September’s Mystery Park, her 18th album (if you include collaborations) in a career launched with cassette tapes at early gigs and her 1989 debut Dog Leap Stairs, made for £80.
For all her collaborations with Paul Weller, Ed Harcourt, Polly Paulusma, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Neil MacColl, Withered Hand’s Dan Wilson, Beth Nielsen Chapman and The Pond, her 12 years of hosting songwriting retreats for the Arvon Foundation, her bed-themed podcast Before The Light Goes Out, her 2021 novel The Ormering Tide and her art exhibitions at Start-Yard, Birkenhead and the Biscuit Factory (from May 8), there is still a delightfully cottage industry vibe to polymath Kath.
After all these years, her performance demeanour remains natural, at times almost apologetic, not afraid to fluff a guitar line, to consult her notes when setting up her Mellotron, or to make light of a request to adjust its M-shaped light to pink after its white brightness had dazzled one front-row occupant.
Kath loves a joke, a wry observation, a conspiratorial quip, a local reference or two, putting everyone at ease when faced both by Pocklington’s notoriously quietly appreciative audience and the first-night bedding-in of an admirably unflustered Memphis.
“I have a hole in my lip…I always drip,” she said with disarming rhyming candour. “It’s humbling when someone who’s played your songs for a day knows them better than you do,” she admitted after one sudden stop.
Turning 52 on Monday this week, Kath is now writing her most personal songs, rooted in motherhood and memory. “I think this album, more than anything, is a reflection of where I am in my life,” she told CharlesHutchPress in this week’s interview.
“A lot of songs on my other albums are works of imagination, flights of fancy, with fragments of what I’ve been doing. But this one places me on the bridge between parents getting older and kids getting older, and feeling that pull both ways.”
Alongside such high points as Goodbye To Summer, Gossamer Wings – co-written with “a young man who really needs your support, Paul Weller” – and a Big Thief cover, at the core of Friday’s set were three family reflections. Firstly, Sea Of Shadows, with its time-travelling account of eldest son Louis growing up in a story built around a sheriff’s star.
Next, This Mystery, a beautifully tender response to her father’s dementia and Parkinson’s Disease, in part inspired by the sight of a lorry driving over a vinyl record, smashing into fragments like dementia’s impact on our minds. “Well, that’s the happy songs over,” she deadpanned.
Lastly, Servant Of The Flame, for son Ted, with his love of playing computer games again and again, as she watched by his side, a line Kath repeated over and again as she pulled away from the microphone, until falling silent, just as Ted would fall into slumber.
Yes, these songs are personal, but they have that quality that Kath cherishes above all others in concert: connectivity.
She will remember Pocklington, February 20 2026 as “the night of the floppy plectrum” (when replacing a harder one that she gave to an audience member”, but also as the night when another commented the gig had made her “very happy”.
“I hope to see you in another 25 years,” Kath said at the close. “Hopefully they’ll have put some stair lifts in.”
Kathryn Williams: “Making songs in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides”. Picture: Emma Holbrook
KATHRYN Williams launches the second leg of her Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre tomorrow, fresh from celebrating her 52nd birthday on Monday.
“I was always disappointed I wasn’t born on Valentine’s Day, but I’ve discovered my birthday falls [a day later] on Lupercalia, the she-wolf festival, ancient Rome, Romulus & Remus and all that,” says Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer, songwriter, Arvon tutor, novelist, Before The Light Goes Out podcaster and watercolour and portrait artist.
Released on One Little Independent Records last September, Mystery Park is Kathryn’s 18th album: a deeply personal collection marked by emotional depth and lyrical precision in 11 reflective songs, “made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides”.
“This record is for anyone who’s felt something and kept it quiet,” says Kathryn. “For those private echoes. I hope these songs give people space to hear their own.
“The cover artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.”
Kathryn expands: “I think this album, more than anything, is a reflection of where I am in my life. A lot of songs on my other albums are works of imagination, flights of fancy, with fragments of what I’ve been doing. But this one places me on the bridge between parents getting older and kids getting older, and feeling that pull both ways. So I would say it’s my most personally revealing album.
“Writing these songs, you have the responsibility towards the people who the songs are about. It’s a pressure you feel, like if you were writing a memoir, where you want them to recognise themselves, as well as not hating you [for what Kathryn has written].”
Twenty-seven years since she self-released her debut album, Dog Leap Stairs, made for £80, working through the night in various studios, she sees a weightier significance in Mystery Park’s songs. “This far into my career, when I’m only two years off 30 years of putting music out, I kind of feel it’s a legacy record, with songs about my dad, my sons, other people in my life, and I hope these songs cast their nets out long after I’ve gone.”
“That song then walked towards me like in a mist,” says Kathryn Williams of her experience of writing This Mystery
Centrepiece song This Mystery utilises the metaphor of Kathryn seeing a record being shattered by a lorry driver as a symbol of her father’s dementia, or “memory being unplayable in the form that it was in,” as she puts it. “But this is a song for him, not the disease. Anyone who has had a loved one diagnosed with this cruelty will know how you just want to paint their skies blue and make everything all right,” she says.
“I wrote the opening words of that song a few years ago at an Arvon Foundation songwriting retreat at Lumb Back where I was tutoring. I was waiting at these traffic lights just before Hebden Bridge, when the lorry drove over the record,” she recalls. “That’s when I got a phone call from my mum.”
Pulling over to one side, she received the message that her father had been diagnosed with dementia, compounding the image in her head of the shattered vinyl. “That song then walked towards me like in a mist,” says Kathryn. “It’s been hard to sing it when they’ve come to a gig.”
Yet her father’s love of music, rooted in his own days as a singer in a folk group, is a solace. “Even now I’ll start singing a Paul Simon song to him and he’ll know the pitch and the tune, though he won’t necessarily know what day or what time of day it is,” says Kathryn.
As her father’s dementia progresses – he no longer attends Kathryn’s concerts – “it’s like holding someone, trying to stop them from falling off the cliff, so it’s really difficult.
“Even though we don’t have the answers, the only thing we can do is live each day in love – and some beautiful things come from his inability to find the words like he once did. Like when he couldn’t express the wonder of the pink skyline, he said, ‘Look what’s come downstairs’.”
Sea Of Shadows, co-written with Neill MacColl and producer Leo Abrahams, is a tribute to eldest son Louis, in response to watching him grow from infant to adult. “Parenthood isn’t fixed,” says Kathryn. “We think we will have small kids forever, but time quickens and before we know it, we have huge humans living with us where once there was a little baby. I love singing this song and thinking of him through the different images and travelling through time”.
Kathryn Williams’s artwork for her Mystery Park album cover. “It’s based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets,” she says. “Each part of it ties into the songs – a map of memories”
Kathryn adds: “It’s not only about Louis; it’s also about me as a mother – and the amount of mothers who come up to me after a gig with tears in their eyes to say they really relate to that song. When listening to music, the one thing that really matters is if they connect with the song.
“That connectivity: that’s why I still continue to perform, despite finding it very difficult. I love the connection with the audience, so it’s about keeping up the energy and momentum on a tour, in spite of all the soul-sucking motorway travel.”
Closing track Servant Of The Flame was written for younger son Ted, capturing the act of sitting beside him while he plays video games: choosing presence, even in small moments, as an act of love, where Kathryn is “watching them evolve into their own identities. Seeing them struggle and hoping that they can navigate the ups and downs that we all face in life”.
Polly Paulusma is among Kathryn’s co-writers, penning Goodbye To Summer together on an Arvon retreat. “[We were] outside on two wooden chairs watching the dying sunlight tip off the wings of the swallows and the swifts,” Williams recalls. “The last hurrah of summer before they fly away. The seasons begin to mark more and more. How many summers do we have in one life? Will the birds fly back home? Polly writes in open tunings so the new paths to melodies felt giddying and fresh.”
One name leaps out from the credits above all others, Mr Paul Weller, Kathryn’s collaborator on Gossamer Wings, a song built from voice notes and texts, capturing a moment of creative chemistry born at a distance.
“This was the first thing we did together, working remotely,” she says. “Paul came up with the idea for the song and the title,” she says. “Then I researched ‘gossamer wings’, and I sent him quite a lot of texts, where he would reply, ‘well, that sounds like a lyric’.”
Such was Kathryn’s enthusiasm to show “I’m not lazy, I’m a good girl”, she recalls Paul once commenting, ‘that’s great, but you haven’t really involved me!’.”I was just trying to do my part!” she says.
Paul Weller: Co-writer of Gossamer Wings on Kathryn Williams’s Mystery Park album
“My eagerness to show him I was diligent made me barge on ahead without him on this one, but we pulled it together and I calmed the heck down for the second sitting. This was based on the title that Paul had and an idea of spirits breaking free from the constraints.”
Paul contributed vocals and Hammond organ to the recording, and they went on to write So Quietly together for Weller’s October 2024 EP Supplement: 66, featuring Kathryn on lead vocals and the late double bassist Danny Thompson on his last recording.
“Even yesterday [this interview was conducted on February 15], he sent a text to say lyrics I’d sent should be the first line of our next song together.”
Songs from Mystery Park will be predominant on her tour set list. “The majority of the gig will be the new material because I always think it’s a special thing to play them for the first time, when they also take on a different life from the record,” says Kathryn.
Songs from the back catalogue will feature too in the set, “though while some people forget songs they’ve written, I forget whole albums!” says Kathryn.
As on the tour’s first leg from October 5 to November 15 last autumn, She will be accompanied on guitar by Matt Deighton after he opens each show with a solo set. “For this tour, we’ve made a double A-side of our versions of Sea Of Shadows and Servant Of The Flame, from The Glasshouse [formerly Sage, Gateshead],” says Kathryn.
Look out for limited-edition seven-inch vinyl copies, housed in sleeves in five colours designed and made by Kathryn’s family, on the merchandise stall, run by her “wonderful best friend”, Sarah Williams, who will be driving the tour van too.
Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour, with support and special guest Matt Deighton, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow (20/2/2026), 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Kathryn Williams: Folk singer-songwriter, Arvon songwriting tutor, novelist (The Ormering Tide, 2021), Before the Light Goes Out podcaster, watercolour & portrait artist
Mystery Park track listing:
Thoughts Of My Own; Goodbye To Summer, co-written with Polly Paulusma; Gossamer Wings, co-written with Paul Weller; Tender, co-written with Polly Paulusma; This Mystery; Sea Of Shadows, co-written with Neill MacColl & Leo Abrahams; Move Me, co-written with Beth Nielsen Chapman; Knew You Forever; Sunsets and Servant Of The Flame.
Musicians on Mystery Park:
Kathryn Williams, vocals; Leo Abrahams,guitar, bass, keyboards, ukulele & piano, also album producer, arranger and mixer at The Shelter; Neill MacColl, guitar, vocals; Polly Paulusma, vocals, guitar (track 2 & 4); Paul Weller, vocals, Hammond organ (track 3); Ed Harcourt, piano (tracks 5, 6, 7 & 10), mariachi bass (track 7), vocals (track 10); Chris Vatalaro, drums, piano (track 9); David Ford, harmonica (track 7); Emma Smith, violin (tracks 5, 6 & 7).
Did you know?
KATHRYN Williams is hosting her Striking Features art exhibition at Start-Yard in Birkenhead, from January 16 to February 20 to coincide with the Mystery Park Tour (opening hours, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm). Among the tour dates from February 20 to March 29 will be Future Yard, Birkenhead, on February 24.
Showcasing her work as a painter, the show features an intimate collection of portraits painted on matchboxes, alongside delicate watercolours and limited-edition prints. The collection captures character, emotion and quiet beauty, reflecting Kathryn’s style at the intersection of music and visual expression.
“I’ve been offered another exhibition in Newcastle, where it will open at the Biscuit Factory on May 8,” reveals Kathryn, who trained at art school in Newcastle and has designed the artwork for several of her album covers, such as Dog Leap Stairs and Mystery Park.
Kathryn Williams’s podcast
Did you know too? KATHRYN is working on the third series of her bed-themed Before The Light Goes Out podcast, lining up her latest interviewees to explore the gap between wake and sleep.
In each episode, Kathryn talks to a special guest from the world of music or literature about “what they do as they enter the realm of sleep, what has changed for them over the years and other things”.
What is Lupercalia?
THIS ancient Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 15 with its rituals to drive out evil spirits, promotes health, fertility and purification. It is tied closely to the founding legend of Rome and the Lupercal cave, where Romulus and Remus were nurtured allegedly by a she-wolf.
Victoria Delaney in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills. Picture: John Saunders
FROM Dennis Potter to Stephen Sondheim, showman P.T. Barnum to a Phil Collins tribute, Charles Hutchinson is spoilt for cultural choice amid the incessant rainfall.
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight to February 28, 7.45pm, except Sunday and Monday; February 21 and 28, 2pm matinees
FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade, makes her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.
Seven children are playing in the Forest of Dean countryside on a hot summer’s day in 1943. Each aged seven, they mimic and reflect the adult world at war around them. Their innocence is short lived, however, as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Blue Remembered Hills director Fleur Hebditch
Spooky adventure of the week: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in The Addams Family Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Flying Ducks Youth Theatre undertake a whimsical, spooky musical adventure into the delightfully dark world of the hauntingly eccentric Addams Family on a night of unexpected revelations.
When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” boy, chaos ensues. As the two families converge over dinner, secrets are revealed and the true meaning of family is put to the test. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Kathryn Williams: Opening Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre
Time’s shifting tides of the week: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour 2026, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, 8pm
KATHRYN Williams, the Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer-songwriter, novelist, podcaster, tutor and artist long celebrated for her quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision, promotes her 15th studio album, last September’s Mystery Park, with support and special guest guitarist Matt Deighton in tow.
Opening her 12-date tour in Pocklington, 2000 Mercury Music Prize nominee Williams marks 27 years of diverse, multi-faceted music projects with a reflective, textured work, made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides. “This is the most personal record I’ve made,” she says. “The artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Megson’s Debs Hanna and Stu Hanna: Performing at Helmsley Arts Centre on Friday
Folk gig of the week: Megson, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
FOUR-TIME BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards nominees and double Spiral Earth Awards winners Megson combine heavenly vocals, lush harmonies and driving rhythmic guitars, topped off with northern humour.
Hailing from Teesside and now based in Cambridgeshire, husband-and-wife folk roots duo Debs Hanna (vocals, whistle, piano accordion) and Stu Hanna (guitar, mandola, banjo) followed up 2023 studio album What Are We Trying To Say with Megson – Live In Teesside, recorded at Stockton-on-Tees Arc in 2025. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Ryedale film event of the week: Summit Stories, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm
THIS evening of adventure films to raise funds for the Scarborough & Ryedale branch of Mountain Rescue England & Wales features a variety of exciting off-piste adventures, such as ski mountaineering, mountain climbing and mountain biking.
Created by elite athletes from around the world, the Faction Collective’s 150 Hours From Home, Blair Aitken of British Backcountry’s 10 In A Weekend, Commencal’s Dolomites and Jessie Leong’s The Last Forgotten Art contain scenes to take the breath away. The mountain rescue team, by the way, supports adventurers when things go wrong and conducts day-to-day searches and rescues off the beaten track. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
Seriously Collins: Taking Phil Collins at Face Value in tribute to solo and Genesis years at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute gig of the week: Seriously Collins – A Tribute To Phil Collins & Genesis, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 8pm
RETURNING by popular demand, Seriously Collins relive the hits of Phil Collins and Genesis, taking a musical journey through the songs that defined an era, echoing Collins’s soulful solo sound and re-creating the energy, intricacy and intensity of his more expansive original band. Expect “no gimmicks, just a genuine tribute to one of the greatest artists of our time”. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Lee Mead, centre, as showman P. T. Barnum, surrounded by actor musicians and circus acts in Barnum: The Circus Musical, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
Touring musical of the week: Bill Kenwright Ltd in Barnum: The Circus Musical, Grand Opera House, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
MUSICALS leading man Lee Mead plays the most challenging role of his career, stepping into P. T. Barnum’s shoes and on to the tightrope as the legendary circus showman, businessman and politician in Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring production of the Broadway musical.
Mead leads the cast of more than 20 actor-musicians (playing 150 instruments), acrobats and international circus acts as, hand in hand with wife Charity, Barnum finds his life and career twisting and turning the more he schemes and dreams his way to headier heights. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Maggie Smales’s Madame Armfeldt and Libby Greenhill’s Fredrika rehearsing for Wharfemede Productions’ A Little Night Music
Sondheim show of the week: Wharfemede Productions in A Little Night Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, February 24 to 28, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
SET in turn-of-the-century Sweden, A Little Night Music explores the tangled web of love, desire, and regret through Stephen Sondheim’s signature blend of sophistication, humour and hauntingly beautiful music, not least the timeless Send In The Clowns.
Directed by Helen “Bells” Spencer, Wharfemede Productions’ show combines the York company’s hallmark attention to emotional depth, musical high quality and character-driven ensemble storytelling. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Levellers: Revisiting Levelling The Land at York Barbican this autumn. Picture: Steve Gullick
Gig announcement of the week: Levellers, Levelling The Land 35th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, October 29
BRIGHTON folk-rockers Levellers have been among Britain’s most enduring and best-loved bands for nearly 40 years, their success built in part on the anthems that comprised their platinum-selling second album Levelling The Land, whose 35th anniversary falls on October 7.
To mark the occasion, Levellers will head out on a UK and European tour from October 16 to November 21, playing many songs from that album, alongside fan favourites from their extensive catalogue. Hotly tipped Essex punk duo The Meffs will support. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am from https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/levellers-2026/.
The March To Coppergate, when 500 Vikings parade through York city centre on February 21 in a highlight of the 2026 JORVIK Viking Festival
THE Vikings are invading York once more while the Dark Skies Festival is full of stars in Charles Hutchinson’s tips for adventure and artistic discovery.
Festival of the week: JORVIK Viking Festival, York, February 16 to 22
YORK is gearing up for another action‑packed February half‑term as the JORVIK Viking Festival brings a week of hands‑on history, craft activities and Norse‑themed entertainment to the city’s streets and historic venues.
Organised by York Archaeology, Europe’s largest Viking festival promises an accessible programme for families, featuring a mix of free drop‑in events and low‑cost bookable sessions designed to spark curiosity in young Vikings and their grown‑ups. The full programme and tickets are available at jorvikvikingfestival.co.uk.
Milky Way over Ravenscar at the North York Moors National Park Dark Skies Festival. Picture: Steve Bell, North York Moors National Park
Celebrating jewels of the night sky: North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Parks Dark Skies Festival, nightly until March 1
NORTH York Moors and Yorkshire Moors National Parks celebrate their 11th Dark Skies Festival this month. Discover activities at night to heighten the senses, such as night runs, canoeing and night navigation, astrophotography workshops, stargazing safaris, children’s daytime trails, art workshops and mindful experiences.
Full details of nocturnal activities at the two International Dark Sky Reserves, at the peak of the stargazing season, can be found at https://www.darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk/north-york-moors-events and https://www.darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk/yorkshire-dales-events.
Day Fever: Turning York Barbican into a dance floor this afternoon
Dance moves on St Valentine’s Day: Day Fever, York Barbican, today, 3pm
FULL of revellers ready to party to the best feelgood music, personally curated by Jon McClure of Sheffield band Reverend And The Makers, the gang behind Day Fever guarantee an afternoon of no-holds-barred fun times and dancing. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Fladam Theatre duo Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano at Helmsley Arts Centre
Children’s show of half-term week: Fladam Theatre in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 2.30pm
FLADAM Theatre, the York actor-musician duo of Adam Sowter and Florence Poskitt, return with an intergalactic musical adventure ideal for ages four to ten. Meet out-of-this-world pianist Norma, who dreams of going into space, like her heroes Mae Jemison and Neil Armstrong, but children can’t go into space, can they? Especially children who have a very important piano recital coming up.
When a bizarre-looking contraption crash-lands in the garden, is it a bird? Or perhaps a plane? No and twice no, it’s a piano, but no ordinary piano. This is a cosmic piano! Maybe Norma’s dreams can come true in a 45-minute show packed with awesome aliens, rib-tickling robots, and interplanetary puns that will have children shooting for the stars. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
For whom the Bells toll: The Best Of Tubular Bells I, II & III, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE Best of Tubular Bells I, II & III celebrates Mike Oldfield’s iconic and seminal musical pieces on a 26-date 26 date UK tour featuring an expansive live group, led and arranged by Oldfield’s long-term collaborator Robin Smith.
1973’s Tubular Bells will be performed in full, complemented by extended sections of 1992’s Tubular Bells ll and 1998’s Tubular Bells lll, as well as worldwide hit single Moonlight Shadow. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Hottest ticket of 2026 in York: Jodie Comer as defence lawyer Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie at the Grand Opera House. Picture: Rankin
Recommended but sold out already: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, Grand Opera House, York, February 17 to 21, 7.30pm plus 3pm Thursday and Saturday matinees
JODIE Comer returns to her Olivier and Tony Award-winning role as lawyer Tessa Ensler in the “Something Has To Change” tour of Suzie Miller’s Prime Facie in her first appearance on a North Yorkshire stage since her professional debut in Scarborough as Ruby in the Stephen Joseph Theatre world premiere of Fiona Evans’s The Price Of Everything in April 2010.
Comer’s Tessa is a thoroughbred young barrister who loves to win, working her way up from working-class origins to be at the top of her game: prosecuting, cross examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. An unexpected event, however, forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge. Box office for returns only: atgtickets.com/york.
Thom Feeney in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ Blue Remembered Hills
Child’s play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Blue Remembered Hills, York Theatre Royal Studio, February 18 to 28, 7.45pm, except Sunday and Monday; 2pm, February 21 and 28
FLEUR Hebditch, former Stephen Joseph Theatre dramaturg for a decade, makes her Settlement Players directorial debut with Dennis Potter’s stage adaptation of his 1979 BBC Play For Today drama.
Seven children are playing in the Forest of Dean countryside on a hot summer’s day in 1943. Each aged seven, they mimic and reflect the adult world at war around them. Their innocence is short lived, however, as reality hits. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Spooky adventure of the week: Flying Ducks Youth Theatre in The Addams Family Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 19 to 21, 7pm plus 2pm Saturday matinee
YORK company Flying Ducks Youth Theatre undertakes a whimsical, spooky musical adventure into the delightfully dark world of the hauntingly eccentric Addams Family on a night of unexpected revelations.
When Wednesday Addams falls in love with a “normal” boy, chaos ensues. As the two families converge over dinner, secrets are revealed and the true meaning of family is put to the test. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Kathyrn Williams: Opening Mystery Park Tour at Pocklington Arts Centre
Folk gig of the week: Kathryn Williams, Mystery Park Tour 2026, Pocklington Arts Centre, February 20, 8pm
KATHRYN Williams, the Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based folk singer-songwriter, novelist, podcaster, tutor and artist long celebrated for her quiet emotional depth and lyrical precision, promotes her 15th studio album, last September’s Mystery Park, with support and special guest guitarist Matt Deighton in tow.
Opening her 12-date tour in Pocklington, 2000 Mercury Music Prize nominee Williams marks 27 years of diverse, multi-faceted music projects with a reflective, textured work, made in the quiet margins of motherhood and memory, shaped by time’s shifting tides. “This is the most personal record I’ve made,” she says. “The artwork is my own painting, based on the willow pattern from my grandmother’s tea sets. Each part of it ties into the songs: a map of memories.” Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Katherine Jenkins: Playing York Barbican on 25th anniversary tour
Concert announcement of the week: Katherine Jenkins, York Barbican, October 15
WELSH mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, 45, the biggest-selling classical artist of the 21st century, will play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue of her 25 Year Anniversary Tour. Tickets will go on sale at 10am on February 20 at https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/katherine-jenkins-2026/.
“Reaching 25 years in music is incredibly emotional, but this tour is truly a celebration of the fans who have been there from the very beginning,” she says. “To be heading out across the UK and Ireland for 18 special shows feels less like a celebration of a career and more like a reunion with old friends, and I can’t wait to stand on stage, look out into those familiar faces and share it all over again.”
Russell Hicks: In action at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, and The Wardrobe, Leeds on his This Time It’s Personal tour
In Focus: Comedy gig of the week, Russell Hicks, This Time It’s Personal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm
LAST year, Russell Hicks was just Happy To Be Here on his tour travels, discussing his life in the UK after moving from the USA.
Now the improvisational Californian comedian is looking inwards on his latest tour that visits Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight and The Wardrobe, Leeds, on February 22 (7.30pm). “This year it’s about…me. I’m back. And This Time It’s Personal,” he says, explaining the show title.
Deciding to leave the Trump-era politics to the likes of Jon Stewart, “I thought I would talk about more personal things, which is a challenge because I’m reactive to the climate, having done this thing of being a fish out of water [in Happy To Be Here].
“I’ve done that thing of discussing British culture through an American perspective on Instagram and Facebook, and I write Dear Diary entries about moving to Britain. I’ve done stuff on Marmite and Wetherspoons, as an American who knows nothing about this culture and is very honest about it, but they’re mostly just jokes.
“Like in America, I’m seen as a drinker; in England, I’m a legend (when it comes to drinking). That gave me an outline to talk about the UK versus the USA, and having done that, now I’m looking at myself in my new show, trying to sharpen my perspective, where I’m 42 now and so you get to the point where you’re more reflective.”
Russell continues: “That’s kind of the hallmark of being this age. At 35/40, people are starting to look at where they are and what got them there, good or bad. As in any culture, there is so much attention paid to early choices and early paths through life, but then there’s no guide to what to do in a capitalist society after 40. Then it’s just about maintenance.”
Do not mistake This Time It’s Personal for a navel-gazing exercise. “I’m very sensitive that that might be boring, where people do this show that can best summed up as ‘why I’m not successful’. But in my show, I’m celebrating being a comic and the experiences that I have,” says Russell.
“An audience member once came up to me and said, ‘comedians are like university drop-outs: they’re smart but they make the worst choices’. In a comedy club, I’m always in the moment, but then once I’m outside, I’ll look at what makes me uncomfortable. It’s that thing of thinking that you’re talking about yourself but actually you’re talking about all of us.”
As ever, Russell will be weaving improvisation into his shows in York and Leeds. “Improvisation, for me, is just something that’s inevitable. It’s the only way that I know how to perform, bringing in more as I talk about myself, and I’m always happy to find something in the room and then go off track,” he says.
“It’s just exciting. There’s a purity of connection. Being on stage, it’s the closest you get to hanging out with someone, making them laugh.”
As for the jokes, “I always know a joke’s really worked when they’re laughing uncontrollably at something and then have a hard time trying to re-tell it!” he says.
One final question: do you have any memories of past York visits, Russell? “One night in York, I went on a ghost walk before the show, then died on stage. I was like my own ghost that night!”
Occupation: Exuberant, provocative stand-up comedian noted for weaving improvisation into material, and writer of weekly journals of life as an ex-pat.
Appeared on: Channel 4, BBC and ITV. Starred as loveable Texan Coach Hughes in Prime Video series Lovestruck High, narrated by Lindsay Lohan. Written for and starred in ITV’s Stand Up Sketch Show. Won Channel 4 competition series Captive Audience with his fully improvised stand-up.
Track record: Won Prague Fringe Festival 2024. Headlined at every major UK club, including The Stand, Glee Club and Up The Creek. Residency at Top Secret Comedy Club in London. Comperes at Leeds and Reading Festival. Curates indie venues, historic theatres such as Hammersmith Apollo, and private members clubs. Endorsed as Global Talent by Arts Council England in 2022.
What else? Regularly entertains studio audiences at Have I Got News For You, The Last Leg and As Yet Untitled. Works Stateside with legendary Hollywood clubs The Comedy Store, The Improv and The Laugh Factory. As voice actor, he has lent his voice to Sky Comedy and Great Big Story and works for international brands in global campaigns.
Still more? Presenter on Yahoo Entertainment. Opens shows regularly for friends Axel Blake (2022 winner of Britain’s Got Talent), Simon Brodkin and Al Murray. Multiple film roles include appearing Edgar Wright’s The Running Man (2025) and Amazon MGM Studios romantic comedy Maintenance Required (2025) on Amazon Prime. Posts Dear Diary series on Instagram, gaining millions of views.
Previous tours: The Age Of Hicks, 2022; Next Level, 2023; first national UK itinerary, Happy To Be Here, 2024-2025, discussing his life in the UK.
Latest tour: This Time It’s Personal, January 23 to June 5.
Reflection of the day: “I still can’t believe I get to make people laugh for a living, travel the world and, most importantly, not wake up early on Monday mornings.”
Kathryn Williams and Withered Hand’s Dan Willson: Playing Selby Town hall tonight and Otley Courthouse tomorrow
KATHRYN Williams is a prolific solo singer-songwriter but she loves a creative partnership too.
Her latest collaboration, with Scottish indie folk troubadour Dan Willson, alias Withered Hand, brings the duo to Selby Town Hall tonight and Otley Courthouse on Thursday to showcase their album Willson Williams, released on One Little Independent Records on April 26.
Already, Liverpool-born, Newcastle-based Kathryn has recorded 2008 album Two with Neil MacColl; teamed up with Anna Spencer, from the punk band Delicate Vomit, for The Crayonettes’ 2010 children’s record Playing Out: Songs For Children & Robots and made the 2012 album Pond with Fairground Attraction’s Simon Edwards and singer-songwriter Ginny Clee.
Add to that list her 2016 release Resonator, a set of jazz standards crafted over six years with jazz musician and vibraphone player Anthony Kerr; 2017’s Songs From The Novel Greatest Hits, to complement Laura Barnett’s novel about a fictional singer-songwriter, Greatest Hits, and her 2021 Christmas album, Midnight Chorus, recorded remotely in Zoom sessions with playwright and former Poet Laureate Dame Carol Ann Duffy.
“I’m a serial collaborator! Overall, it’s been 25 years of putting out albums, and I want to be someone who’s always learning, always happy sharing a creative process, always travelling on different roads,” says Kathryn, who turned 50 in February.
The partnership with Willson has its roots in a chance meeting in a spiegeltent at the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival, curated by Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen.
“I thought we’d first met at Fence Collective festival in Fife, but Dan doesn’t remember that, so we say it was the spiegeltent,” says Kathryn. “It’s strange; we have loads of the same friends in the music business, like James Yorkston, Rachel Sermanni and Kathryn Joseph, so when he came up to say hello, I gave him a big hug because I felt I knew him already!
“I’d read that he hadn’t written or released anything for a while, so I got in touch afterwards, tweeting him: ‘What kind of songs would we write together and what would they sound like?’.”
Dan thought she must have sent it to the wrong person. Not so. Whereupon Kathryn travelled up to his Edinburgh house, with curiosity to find an answer to her questions but with no plans to write an album together.
“I just thought we could do a song for his new album or for someone else, but slowly we built this friendship over our writing, and then last year Dan put out his first record for nine years, How To Love [his first since News Gods in 2014]. It was our writing that got Dan back into doing his own album,” she says.
Kathryn and Dan continued travelling to each other’s homes for writing sessions, as he recalls. “We talk and spend time together, and then it’s almost like the next time we sit down to write, a synthesis of late-night kitchen conversations become distilled into the songs,” says Dan. “It’s hard to separate who’s done what and where the songs sprang from. The writing and the friendship with Kath rejuvenated my own songwriting process enough to be able to do this.”
Williams and Willson were boosted by receiving funding from Creative Scotland, enabling them to enlist prime Scottish musicians for the recording, made with producer Rod Jones – Idlewild’s guitarist – at Post Electric Studio, the site of a former brothel incidentally, in Leith.
Step forward Louis Abbott, from Admiral Fallow, Graeme Smillie, from Arab Strap and The Delgados, Kris Drever, from Lau, Chris ‘Beans’ Geddes, of Belle & Sebastian, Pete Harvey, of Modern Studies and Kenny Anderson, alias King Creosote.
“When we got the funding, we were like, ‘what is our dream team of Scottish musicians who could be on the record?’, so it was a beautiful thing to be able to do it with them all. We were just grinning from ear to ear,” says Kathryn, who gives an example of the participants’ enthusiasm.
“We were so lucky that Dan and I had just done a BBC 6Music live session for Marc Riley’s show with Louis Abbott, Admiral Fallow’s lead singer. He ended up playing drums on the album because he’s one of those people who can play everything.
“It was beautiful that everyone was really excited to be there, and we just couldn’t feel any happier.”
Kathryn and Dan share common ground in their creativity: “As we’ve got to know each other as friends, we’ve found we’ve had the same issues of imposter syndrome, not feeling we’re good enough or that people won’t like us,” she says.
The cover artwork for Kathryn Williams and Withered Hand’s album Willson Williams
“We call it the skeletal voice, and we get to voice those fears or worries to each other. We both understand it – and I’m actually a really big fan of his albums because he’s so witty and funny and open.”
One overarching theme emerged in their writing process, Kathryn and Dan being mutually in the grip of grief, mourning for loved ones. “The initial premise and starting point for us was discussions and open conversations on bereavement,” they recall. “We’d both lost friends who were also in the public eye, and we talked about the strange place between personal loss and the communal grieving of a public figure we knew.”
Kathryn elaborates: “Dan had lost his brother Karl and then his friend Scott Hutchison [frontman of Scottish band Frightened Rabbit], and I’d lost my dear friend Jeremy Hardy [the Aldershot-born stand-up comedian and BBC Radio 4 regular panellist],” she says.
“As we got to know each other as we were writing songs, the things we’d been going through came to the fore in the theme of grief. But when you say ‘it’s an album about grief or loss’, people would assume it would be morose, but I think it has a sunshine feel. It’s uplifting, inspiring, comforting, and the whole thing was a joy to create and then go into the studio with these amazing musicians to record.”
Typical of Kathryn’s assertion is Our Best, the first song that the duo wrote together. “Kath arrived in Edinburgh with a refrain that we worked up into the chorus of this song,” says Dan. “Together we built a delicate structure around it, tentatively letting our voices harmonise and support each other, embodying the idea of doing what we can do in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds and changes”.
Or, as Kathryn puts it, in the face of loss, “having to do our best without you…and remembering advice from those who have gone to ‘not waste your life’.”
The track Elvis takes its title from Costello, not Presley. “That was the last show we went to in Edinburgh before lockdown. My friend Steve Nieve [Costello’s regular keyboard player] was playing with him at Usher Hall and offered us tickets,” says Kathryn.
“The song was a reaction to that gig, and as with a lot of the songs, it came from our experiences together, talking about touring, being on the tour bus. After the gig, we chatted with them backstage, and when Dan and I came out by the stage door, elation quickly turned to deflation when the crowd realised it was only us!”
Kathryn and Dan are playing their 17-date May tour as a duo, combining acoustic and electric guitar and Kathryn’s mellotron. “It’s just me and Dan because, one, we couldn’t afford anyone else and, two, no-one else was available,” she says.
“We’re our own support act too. I’ll do a 20-minute solo set, so will Dan, then after a break, we’ll do the complete album. That’s three gigs for the price of one!”
Away from making and touring her music, Kathryn has hosted three series of her podcast Before The Light Goes Out, with a fourth “under wraps”. “It involves me interviewing artists, poets, novelists, musicians and songwriters about sleep, with me asking each of them the same questions,” she says.
Why ‘Sleep’? “The whole point of it is that I love going to sleep listening to podcasts, ones that keep the voice calm,” reasons Kathryn, whose guests have included Steve Nieve, Scottish writer Kirsty Logan, The Magic Numbers’ Romeo and Michele Stodart, Neil MacColl, Kate St John, Rachel Unthank, David Ford, Chris Difford, Marry Waterson, The Anchoress, mystery novelist Ann Cleeves, poet Clare Shaw and, yes, Withered Hand.”
Looking ahead, Kathryn’s next album will be a solo work. “It’s already written and recorded, and it’ll come out early next year,” she says. “I think it’ll be called Mystery Park. That’s the current title. It’s quite a personal album, quite minimal too, going back to my roots.”
Kathryn Williams & Withered Hand, Selby Town Hall, tonight, 8pm, and Otley Courthouse, Thursday, 8pm. Box office: Selby, 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk; Otley, 01943 467466 or otleycourthouse.org.uk.
Willson Williams track listing:
Arrow; Grace; R U 4 Real?; Our Best; Shelf; Wish; Sweetest Wine; Weekend; Sing Out; Elvis; Big Nothing.
All songs written by Kathryn Williams and Dan Willson except Sing Out, written by Cat Stevens.
Musicianson the album:
Kathryn Williams, vocals, guitar and mellotron; Dan Willson,vocals and guitar; Louis Abbott, drums, percussion and backing vocals; Graeme Smillie, bass; Chris ‘Beans’ Geddes, pianos, organ, mellotron and synth; Kris Drever, guitar; Pete Harvey, cello; King Creosote (Kenny Anderson), accordion and backing vocals; Jacqueline Irvine, backing vocals and mellotron; Rod Jones, producer and engineer at Post Electric Studios, Leith; Miles Showell: mastering at Abbey Road, London.
Dawn French: Frank confessions of a comedian at York Barbican
FRENCH comedy, a very English murder thriller, state-of-the-nation politics and police procedures stir Charles Hutchinson into action for the week ahead.
Comedy gigs of the week: Dawn French Is A Huge Twat, York Barbican, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm
HER show is so named because, unfortunately, it is horribly accurate, says self-mocking comedian and actress Dawn French. “There have been far too many times I have made stupid mistakes or misunderstood something vital or jumped the gun in a spectacular display of twattery,” she explains.
“I thought I might tell some of these buttock-clenching embarrassing stories to give the audience a peek behind the scenes of my work life.” Tickets update: Limited availability at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Tonight, meanwhile, Sarah Millican plays a Work In Progress gig at Pocklington Arts Centre at 8pm. Sold out already alas.
A scene from Original Theatre Company’s touring production of Torben Betts’s new play, Murder In The Dark, starring Tom Chambers and Susie Blake. Picture: Pamela Raith
Thriller of the week: Original Theatre Company in Murder In The Dark, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
TOM Chambers and Susie Blake star in Torben Betts’s new ghost story chiller cum psychological thriller, set on New Year’s Eve, when a crash on a deserted road brings washed-up singer Danny Sierra and his dysfunctional family to an isolated holiday cottage in rural England.
From the moment they arrive, inexplicable events begin to occur…and then the lights go out, whereupon deeply buried secrets come to light. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Robin Simpson: Pantomime dame and storyteller, bringing Magic, Monsters and Mayhem to York tomorrow afternoon. Picture: Joel Rowbottom
Children’s show of the week: Magic, Monsters and Mayhem with Robin Simpson, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, tomorrow, 4.30pm
YORK Theatre Royal pantomime dame Robin Simpson – he will be playing Dame Trott in Jack And The Beanstalk this winter – switches to storyteller mode to journey back to magic school on Sunday afternoon.
He will be telling stories of wonderful creatures, exciting adventures and “more magic than you can wave a wand” as he places the audience in charge of an interactive show ideal for Harry Potter fans. Suitable for Key Stage 2, but smaller siblings are welcome too, along with Potter-potty grown-ups. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk.
Hannah Baker, left, Harvey Badger, Eddie Ahrens and Rachel Hammond in Mikron Theatre’s A Force To Be Reckoned With. Picture: Anthony Robling
Police spotted operating in the vicinity: Mikron Theatre in A Force To Be Reckoned With, Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, tomorrow, 4pm
IN Amanda Whittington’s new play for Marsden travelling players Mikron Theatre, fresh from police training school, WPC Iris Armstrong is ready for whatever the mean streets of a 1950s’ northern market town can throw at her.
Joining forces with fellow WPC Ruby Weston, they make an unlikely partnership, a two-woman department, called to any case involving women and children, from troublesome teens to fraudulent fortune tellers. Box office: 07974 867301 or 01904 466086, or in person from Pextons, Bishopthorpe Road, York.
Kathryn Williams and Polly Paulusma: Songwriters at the double at Pocklington Arts Centre
Songwriting bond of the week: Kathryn Williams & Polly Paulusma: The Big Sky Tour, Pocklington Arts Centre, Tuesday, 8pm
AS label buddies on One Little Independent Records, Kathryn Williams and Polly Paulusma met on a song-writing retreat. They wrote songs together and tutored courses at Arvon Foundation and as their friendship developed and strengthened, they supported each other over lockdown.
It seemed a foregone conclusion that they would tour together at some point. Finally, those Thelma and Louise dreams – hopefully without the killing or the cliff finale – come true on a month-long itinerary, playing solo sets and uniting for a few songs. Box office: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Mike Skinner: The Streets’ composer-turned-filmmaker discusses his debut film in Q&A appearances at Everyman Leeds and Everyman York
Streets ahead: Mike Skinner’s film The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light and Q&A, Everyman Leeds, September 21, 8pm; Everyman York, September 25, 7pm
THE Streets’ Mike Skinner presents his debut feature film, the “neo-noir” clubland thriller The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, in an exclusive Q&A tour to Everyman cinemas.
Birmingham multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Skinner funded, wrote, directed, filmed, edited and scored his cinematic account of the seemingly mundane life of a DJ whose journey through London’s nightclubs turns into a tripped-out modern-day murder mystery. Each screening will be followed by a live question-and-answer session with Skinner, giving an insight into the music and story behind the film. Box office: thestreets.co.uk.
Mark Thomas: Comedian stars in Ed Edwards’s one-man play England And Son at York Theatre Royal Studio
Political drama of the week: Mark Thomas in England And Son, York Theatre Royal Studio, September 22, 7.45pm; September 23, 2pm and 7.45pm
POLITICAL comedian Mark Thomas stars in this one-man play, set when The Great Devouring comes home: the first he has performed not written by the polemicist himself but by playwright Ed Edwards.
Edinburgh Fringe award winner England And Son has emerged from characters Thomas knew in his childhood and from Edwards’s lived experience in jail. Promising deep, dark laughs and deep, dark love, Thomas undertakes a kaleidoscopic odyssey where disaster capitalism, Thatcherite politics and stolen wealth merge into the simple tale of a working-class boy who just wants his dad to smile at him. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Rowntree Park, by Jo Rodwell, one of 26 printmakers taking part in the York Printmakers Autumn Fair
Print deadline: York Printmakers Autumn Fair, York Cemetery Chapel and Harriet Room, September 23 and 24, 10am to 5pm
IN its sixth year, the York Printmakers Autumn Fair features work by 26 members, exhibiting and selling hand-printed original prints, including Russell Hughes, Rachel Holborow, Michelle Hughes, Harriette Rymer and Jo Rodwell.
On display will be a variety of printmaking techniques, such as linocut, collagraphs, woodcut, screen printing, stencilling and etching. Artists will be on hand to discuss their working methods and to show the blocks, plates and tools they use.
Sir Alan Ayckbourn: The truth will out when he takes to the SJT stage tomorrow afternoon. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
In Focus:Theatre event of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Truth Will Out, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tomorrow, 2.30pm
IN a rare stage appearance, Sir Alan Ayckbourn plays Jim in a rehearsed reading of his Covic-crocked 2020 SJT premiere Truth Will Out, joined by John Branwell, Frances Marshall and the cast of his 89th play, Constant Companions.
Truth Will Out is an up-to-the-minute satire on family, relationships, politics and the state of the nation, wherein everyone has secrets. Certainly former shop steward George, his right-wing MP daughter Janet, investigative journalist Peggy and senior civil servant Sefton do.
Enter a tech-savvy, chippy teenager with a mind of his own and time on his hands to bring their worlds tumbling down, and maybe everyone else’s along with them, in Ayckbourn’s own “virus” storyline, written before Coronavirus stopped play.
“It’s ‘the one that got away’, with most of the cast in place, and we even did a season launch,” says Sir Alan. “The play was one of my ‘What ifs’: what if a teenager invented a virus that brought the whole thing down. A ‘virus’ play, like Covid, with the virus escaping and the play ending in the dark, waiting till dawn.”
Racism, trade unionism and infidelity all play their part in Truth Will Out too. “It’s a melting pot of wrongdoings,” says Sir Alan. Tickets update: limited availability on 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
