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REVIEW: Charles Hutchinson’s verdict on York Stage’s Kinky Boots ****

Bootiful moment for Damien Poole’s Charlie, left, and Samuel Lewis’s Simon/Lola in York Stage’s York premiere of Kinky Boots

York Stage in Kinky Boots, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York

YORK Stage director-producer Nik Briggs has made an astute judgement in deciding to bring out the British qualities that marked Julian Jarrold’s 2005 film version of Kinky Boots in his York premiere of Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s 2012 musical.

For all its parochial Northampton setting, the American coupling of writer Fierstein and songwriter Lauper had crafted a show more rooted in grander Broadway stylings.

Briggs has retained the glitz, but located the grit too, making Kinky Boots more in keeping with Billy Elliot, Calendar Girls or even Harold Brighouse’s 1915 comedy-drama Hobson’s Choice, while still striving to match the glorious drag staging posts La Cage Aux Folles and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical.

Whether on Broadway, in the West End or now at the refurbished Grand Opera House, Kinky Boots applies a thigh-high boot up the derriere to prejudice and intolerance, championing diversity and rallying to the cause of letting people be who they are.

The Price & Son factory in York Stage’s Kinky Boots

Charlie Price (Damien Poole) needs to learn that lesson, just as his father, factory boss Mr Price (Martyn Hunter), did before him.

“Inspired by true events”, the setting is Price & Son, a fraying shoe factory on its last legs, where Charlie feels duty bound to fill his late father’s outmoded shoes, even though factories all around have lost their sole and closed.

Girlfriend Nicola (Nicola Holliday) wants him to climb the property ladder in London, but Charlie has only gone there to please her, his boot laces still tied to his hometown and his family’s loyal workforce.

He needs more than a patriarchal conscience, however. He requires a new direction and so does Price & Son. Help sashays his way in the fabulous form of Lola (York stage debutant Samuel Lewis), an outré drag act, seeking sturdy yet slinky stilettos for not only his act but all his attendant Angels drag queens too.

Coming to blows: Finn East’s Don takes on Samuel Lewis’s Simon/Lola in a boxing challenge

Outwardly poles apart, nevertheless they find common ground: both Charlie from Northampton and Lola, boxer’s son Simon from Clacton, have endured struggles with meeting their fathers’ expectations.

Poole has all the assurance, singing craft and emotional connection that characterised his lead role as Buddy in York Stage’s Elf, but he has to negotiate the rather forced sudden switches in tone in Fierstein’s script that do not wholly convince.

The buzz surrounds Samuel Lewis’s swaggering, staggeringly good performance as Lola/Simon. What a singing voice, one to catch you like when you first heard Bronski Beat’s Jimmy Somerville.

He can do the drag queen moves too, the shrug, the catwalk twirl, the eyes, but what marks him out is his ability at characterisation: beneath the glam carapace, the waspish putdowns and the bold front of Lola, he shows Simon’s wounded core. The complete performance, in other words.

Second York Stage new signing Amy Barrett, who has moved to the city to teach drama, brings zest, resourcefulness, fun and not a little cheek to Lauren, the factory worker on the path from chorus line to lead. Nicola Holliday does not bat an eyelid at having to be myopic, miserable, irritating, as Nicola.

Bringing to heel: York Stage’s cast members pull on the boots for the finale to Kinky Boots

Finn East is a knockout, as he so often is as the factory neanderthal, Don, while Katie Melia’s Pat, Andrew Roberts’s Harry/Delivery Guy, Jack Hooper’s George and Jess Main’s Trish all have their moments. So do Harry Kennely and Harrison Turner-Hazel’s Young Charlie and Jacob Clarke and Tom Hampshire’s Young Lola.  

AJ Powell’s choreography brings out the best in both Lewis and the factory-worker ensemble, and seeing is believing with the cross-dressing Angels, where “they do boys like they’re girls”, as Blur once sang, with such swish relish.

Fierstein’s book is uneven, veering towards the histrionic on occasion, revelling in Lola’s drag queen but dragging a little too. Lauper’s lyrics are sassy; her songs are not overt pop hits but carry the panache and drama that big musical numbers should, especially Sex Is In The Heel and What A Woman Wants.

A word too for the band, under Stephen Hackshaw’s direction in the first week, and especially for Jessica Douglas, who has dashed back from her wedding to resume musical-director duties for week two.

As for the boots, they even outstrut York hen parties on a Saturday night.

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York Stage’s Kinky Boots is a shoe-in for drag-queen drama and bootilicious songs

 Samuel D Lewis’s drag queen Lola, centre, has a laugh with the Angels ahead of York Stage’s York premiere of Kinky Boots opening tomorrow

THE stage has always been the place to break down boundaries first, to give everyone a voice, to celebrate individuality but common humanity too.

All the more so in this age of diversity and letting people be whom they are, when the York premiere of West End hit Kinky Boots can apply a particularly glittery boot up the backside to prejudice and intolerance in the wake of such drag staging posts as Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert and La Cage Aux Folles.

Nik Briggs’s company York Stage will be pulling on the thigh-high boots and staggering stilettos from tomorrow (16/9/2022) to present the York premiere of a joyous show with 16 songs by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Tony-winning Harvey Fierstein to add yet more sparkle to the newly refurbished Grand Opera House.

Leading players Damien Poole (Charlie Price) and Amy Barrett (Lauren) get to grips with a thigh-high boot

“What perfect timing,” says Nik of a storyline where young Charlie Price must step into his late father’s outmoded shoes to run Price & Son, a fraying Northampton shoe factory on its last legs.

“Charlie has to take over this ageing institution that his father has looked after so dutifully at a time when all the other shoemakers are closing. In the light of what’s happened in the past week [with the passing of HM The Queen], it’s even more poignant, especially when they talk of Charlie.

“But it’s also an uplifting show, so it’ll be a lovely show for people to see at this time when they need a lift.”

Charlie’s Angels: Damien Poole’s Charlie Price with two of the Angels in Kinky Boots  

Charlie’s girlfriend wants him to climb the ladder in London, but he seems tied by the laces to his hometown, his workforce, especially when help swishes into view in the unlikely but fabulous form of Lola, a drag queen supreme in need of sturdy yet slinky stilettos for not only Lola but all the Angels that strut their stuff and fluff with him.

“The whole show is based around the story of two men who grew up in the 1980s and Nineties, trying to deal in different ways with the legacy of their father. Simon/Lola’s father, who was a boxer, didn’t want him to explore his love of female clothes, whereas Charlie was always expected to take over the family business, and they come together at that point.”

Based on the true story of Steve Bateman saving a small shoe factory in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, by deciding to focus on fetish footwear, Kinky Boots has had two lives, both as a 2005 British comedy-drama film, directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, and as the Lauper-Fierstein musical directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell of Hairspray and Legally Blonde The Musical fame.

“We’ve now struck a better balance that allows the story to come across better,” says York Stage director and producer Nik Briggs

“When I saw the musical, I hadn’t seen the film, and it jarred on me as a British tale that came across as very American musical, whereas the film was very British in character,” says Nik. “I felt the musical needed to be stripped back to look at what it is to be a man in this toxic environment. I think we’ve now struck a better balance that allows the story to come across better.”

Turning his thoughts to American pop singer Cyndi Lauper’s songs, Nik says: “There are a lot of ballads, which is not what we think of from Cyndi’s pop career, but she can write a really good ballad: Soul Of A Man; Hold Me In Your Heart; Not My Father’s Son, Charlie and Lola’s ballad, which really encapsulates the story.

“The music has that electropop vibe of the late-1990s, but still feels modern and that comes through in the performances of the drag queens, so it’s very entertaining.”

The Angels size up the shoe boxes for Kinky Boots

York Stage’s cast of 25 will be led by Damien Poole, playing Charlie Price after his outstanding turn as Buddy in York Stage’s November 2021 production of Elf The Musical, and company debutant Samuel D Lewis as Lola. 

“Samuel happens to be Emily Ramsden’s best friend [Emily played Audrey II in York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors at York Theatre Royal this summer], and he’s got a voice like the male equivalent of Emily. He can belt almost as high as she can!” says Nik.

“Samuel is from South Yorkshire and he’s been travelling the world on cruise shows as a vocalist/performer, but he had a gap in his diary that’s enabled him to do our show.”

 If the shoe fits: Daniel Poole prepares to play Charlie Price in Kinky Boots

Another York Stage debutant, Amy Barrett, will play the show’s leading lady, Lauren, the assembly line worker. “Originally from the North East, she’s recently graduated from Oxford University, and she’s now teaching drama at schools in York,” says Nik. “She turned up at the auditions having heard of our company and she just filled the room with fun.”

When it comes to the kinky boots for Kinky Boots, “the postman keeps looking quizzically at me as he brings these boxes to the door, and I’ve been getting some very interesting sites popping up on the screen on my laptop,” says Nik.

York Stage presents Kinky Boots at Grand Opera House, York, from tomorrow (16/9/2022) to September 24. Performances: 7.30pm, Friday, Saturday, Tuesday to Saturday; 2pm, 6.30pm, Sunday; 2.30pm, Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Copyright of The Press, York

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More Things To Do in York and beyond when life is swings & roundabouts, not all doom & gloom. List No 98, from The Press

All Swings And Roundabouts, by Adele Karmazyn, from her Pleasure Gardens exhibition at Village Gallery, York

POLITICAL division and soul power, sturdy stilettos and string sextets, doomed comedy and surreal gardens spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest for the week ahead.

Exhibition of the week: Adele Karmazyn, Pleasure Gardens, Village Gallery, Colliergate, York, until October 25

YORK Open Studios regular Adele Karmazyn is exhibiting new works in Pleasure Gardens, demonstrating her love of Victorian antiquities and oddities, weathered surfaces and nature.

Using her digital camera, scanner and Photoshop, Adele creates playful, surprising, surrealist digital photomontages, printing the images on to archival paper before hand-finishing with paint, pastel and gold leaf.

Drawing on idioms, metaphors and musical lyrics for narrative inspiration, she chooses her characters, then brings them back to full colour, intertwining them with creatures big and small, coupled with delicate foliage.

Nostalgia of the week: Giants Of Soul, York Barbican, Saturday (10/9/2022), 7.30pm

HOSTED by Smooth Radio’s Angie Greaves, the three-hour revue Giants Of Soul assembles performers from the late-1970s to the modern day, who have notched 18 British top ten smashes and 47 top 40 entries between them.

Step forward The Lighthouse Family’s Tunde Baiyewu; Grammy winner Deniece Williams; Rose Royce’s Gwen Dickey, on her farewell tour; Alexander O’Neal; Jaki Graham; Janet Kay and American Candace Woodson, who will be accompanied by an all-star ten-piece band of British and American musicians. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Chris de Burgh: Playing songs and telling stories at York Barbican

Rescheduled show of the week: An Evening With Chris de Burgh, His Songs, Stories & Hits, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm

BRITISH-IRISH singer-songwriter Chris de Burgh heads to York for a night of songs, stories and hits, showcasing his latest album, 2021’s The Legend Of Robin Hood, on guitar and piano.

Born Christopher John Davison in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, de Burgh will be delivering “an exciting evening full of your favourite songs”, accompanied by a large lighting production. Here come The Lady In Red, Don’t Pay The Ferryman and A Spaceman Came Travelling. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Howell of anguish: Comedian Daniel Howell peers through the gloom in search of hope in We’re All Doomed

Doom’s day booking of the week: Daniel Howell, We’re All Doomed, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm

WOKINGHAM comedian, YouTuber, presenter and author Daniel Howell’s new solo show, We’re All Doomed, finds him as stressed and depressingly dressed as ever but nevertheless resisting temptation to give into apocalyptic gloom.

Armed with sarcasm, satire and a desire to skewer everything deemed wrong with society, Howell vows to find hope for humanity or at least to “laugh like it’s the end of the world (because it probably is)”. Prepare for savage self-deprecation, soul-searching and over-sharing of his deepest fears and desires. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Tim Lowe: Programming York Chamber Music Festival at the NCEM

Festival of the week: York Chamber Music Festival 2022, National Centre for Early Music, York, September 16 to 18

ARTISTIC director and cellist Tim Lowe turns his festival focus on the string sextet repertoire in the company of Tristan Gurney and Jonathan Stone, violins, Sarah-Jane Bradley and Scott Dickenson, violas, and Marie Bitlloch, cello, plus Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson.

“We’ll play four of the very greatest sextets: Boccherini, the first string sextet, as far as we know; Brahms’s heart-warming/glowing Sextet in B flat; Richard Strauss’s sextet embedded at the beginning of his last opera, Capriccio, and Tchaikovsky’s joyous recollection of his favourite place in his Souvenir de Florence.” Full programme and ticket details at ycmf.co.uk.

Angels in Kinky Boots: York Stage’s musical is a shoe-in for joyous songs and staggering stilettos at the Grand Opera House, York

Musical of the week: York Stage in Kinky Boots, Grand Opera House, York, September 16 to 24

FACTORY owner Charlie is struggling to save his family business. Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. Both live in the shadows of their fathers in seemingly different, yet surprisingly similar ways.

Learning to embrace their differences, they create sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen.

Up step York Stage director Nik Briggs and choreographer A J Powell to oversee a joyous show with 16 songs by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Tony-winning Harvey Fierstein. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.

Effie Ansah (Sephy) and James Arden (Callum), left, in rehearsal for Pilot Theatre’s Noughts & Crosses at York Theatre Royal and on tour. Picture: Robert Day

Political drama of the week: Pilot Theatre in Noughts & Crosses, York Theatre Royal, September 16 to 24

YORK company Pilot Theatre revive their award-winning production of Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel of first love in a volatile fictional dystopia, first toured in 2019.

Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought in a segregated society of racial and social divides. As violence breaks out, the teenagers draw closer, but their forbidden romance will lead them into terrible danger in this exploration of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Phil Ellis: Headlining The Comedy Network’s first triple bill at Selby Town Hall

Comedy launch of the week: The Comedy Network at Selby Town Hall, September 18, 7.30pm

PITCHING up at Selby Town Hall for the first time this autumn, The Comedy Network is launching a series of showcases of national circuit acts, each night featuring a master of ceremonies, support act and headliner.

First up will be Edinburgh Comedy Award panel prize winner Phil Ellis; Mancunian actor and comedian Katie Mulgrew, daughter of Irish humorist Jimmy Cricket, and compere Travis Jay, a writer for Spitting Image. Box office:  01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk or on the door from 7pm.

York National Book Fair in the Knavesmire Suite

Looking for a book? York National Book Fair, Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, today, 10am to 5pm

“BRITAIN’S largest antiquarian book fair” is booked in for its second day in the Knavesmire Suite with all manner of book sellers, book binders and restorers, books, maps and prints to discover.

In its 48th year, this Provincial Booksellers’ Fairs Association event brings together an array of rare and antiquarian booksellers offering material for sale to collectors, scholars, dealers, readers and the curious. Items are priced from only a few pounds up to many thousands. Complimentary tickets can be booked at yorkbookfair.com; alternatively, pay £2 on the door.

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Jordan Fox’s return to the stage as Jack is a dream true after anything but Beautiful year

“He’s just a dreamer, who wants to be up in the clouds,” says Jordan Fox of playing Jack. “I can get on board with that: I’m an actor; I can get lost in stories” Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

EVERYTHING should have been Beautiful for Jordan Fox in 2020.

“I was in the tour of Beautiful, the Carole King musical, at the start of the year, and then that got cancelled by the pandemic lockdown,” says the West End actor from West Yorkshire. “The tour had been such fun, but when I got back to London from Cardiff, I got the email to say ‘Don’t go to the next theatre’.”

Based in London for the past couple of years, starring in Kinky Boots and Friendsical, the Friends-parodying musical, Jordan has moved back to Yorkshire in lockdown.

Now he finds himself in the title role – Jack, not the allotment staple – in York Stage’s pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, from Friday at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.

“Me and Nik [writer-director Nik Briggs] went to university together at Bretton Hall [the Grade 2 listed building on the Yorkshire Sculpture Park estate, near Wakefield]. It was like Hogwarts! I loved it!” says Jordan, who studied there from 2006 to 2009.

“I was in the first year when Nik was in the second year and we ended up doing some projects together and getting on really well.”

Now 32, Jordan says: “We’ve chatted a few times, but because he’s based in York and I’ve been in London we’ve kind of missed each other’s paths. So, it feels really lovely to be doing this panto.

“Nik messaged me and said, ‘I know you’re based in London but we’re looking for Yorkshire actors’, and I said, ‘well, I’m coming back, can I do it?’.”

Jordan was born in Bradford and grew up in Huddersfield and his family now lives in Holmfirth. “I’ve moved back home, living with my partner in Holmfirth, and if I get a West End show again, I’ll rent down there and keep the house up here,” he says.

He performed in Lawrence Batley Theatre pantomimes in Huddersfield in his childhood. “Then, in 2014-2015, I was Peter Pan in Peter Pan with Dean Gaffney as my Captain Hook, and now I’m doing Jack And The Beanstalk, so I’ve had a green theme to my pantos, it seems!”

Deep into tech week now for his role as Jack, Jordan says: “The great thing that Nik has done with the script is that he’s really massively acknowledged the present pandemic situation, with all the social distancing.

Feeling good to be back: Jordan Fox in an early rehearsal for York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

“We make lots of references: we can air-hug, play air guitar, without us breaking any rules. We’re using a traverse stage design too [with the audience seated in bubbles to either side], and we can really fill that space in a different way when, even though we can’t do traditional panto things, we can figure out new ways and it’s always nice to do that.”

Jordan is enjoying reacquainting himself with the pantomime world for a second time. “For me, there was a really big gap between doing it when I was young and then getting back into it for Peter Pan, and now it’s good to be doing it again,” he says.

“I love the simple fairy-tales, the silliness of it all, whereas normally [with musicals] you don’t ever have the free rein to do anything like that. With panto, if something goes wrong, it’s great to be able to include the audience in it.”

As for playing Jack, Jordan says: “As I’ve read him, he’s northern, probably sounding like I did before going to London! I’ll be letting my Yorkshire heritage take over.

“He’s just a dreamer, who wants to be up in the clouds. I can get on board with that: I’m an actor; I can get lost in stories! Jack is simplistic in his ideals, not weighed down by anything. Instead of the norms of adulthood, he’s still letting himself dream, which we can all connect with.”

Dreams have been put on hold in Covid-19 2020. “It was so disorientating when Beautiful stopped. A lot of actors, when we’re not working in shows, work in bars, teach kids, do gigs, basically anything where there’s a crowd, but because everything stopped, it was an anxiety-ridden couple of months,” says Jordan.

“It felt like the world falling from beneath you, but luckily I had some savings, and I started doing some ‘assisting engineering’ work, basically handing people tools.”

Then came Nik’s invitation to climb a beanstalk in a York theatre. “This is a dream come true and I’m so happy to be here,” says Jordan. “It’s been so frustrating for the theatre world this year, when it seems like the Government doesn’t make the effort to go and get someone like [theatre producer] Cameron Mackintosh to ‘tell us what we should be doing’.”

Treading the boards once more at last, Jordan says: “When you come to a show, you never leave the theatre the same person as when you arrived, and that’s what we’ve all been missing.”

Dare to dream, like Jack, like Jordan, of better times ahead. In the meantime, enjoy the uplift, the joy, the daftness, of pantomime.

York Stage presents Jack And The Beanstalk at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from December 11 to January 3; show times, Monday to Saturday, 2pm and 7pm; Sundays, 1pm and 6pm; Christmas Eve, 12 noon and 5pm; New Year’s Eve, 12 noon. Box office: online only at yorkstagepanto.com. Please note, audiences will be seated in household/support bubble groupings only. 

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REVIEW: York Stage Musicals venture outdoors for first time in Rowntree Park ****

Emily Ramsden, left, Joanne Theaker and May Tether performing at the Rowntree Theatre Amphitheatre in York on Sunday night. Pictures: Jess Main

REVIEW: York Stage Musicals At Rowntree Park, Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Tickets update: Sold out.

NIK Briggs and Jessica Douglas were “so sick of bad news about the arts”, the York Stage Musicals duo decided they had to “do a thing…anything”.

Three weeks later, the director and musical director are staging three nights of open-air, socially distanced, family-favourite concerts of musical-movie hits at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre in YMS’s first ever outdoor show.

The three-night run that began last night sold out within a week. Quick work all round, not least by Adam Moore’s Tech 247, who set up the stage in only two hours yesterday afternoon.

Richard Upton stands out front in Sunday’s concert

“A huge thank you to our audience tonight!” tweeted producer Briggs afterwards. “We loved performing for you!!”

They did indeed. Emily Ramsden, Ashley Standland, May Tether, Joanna Theaker, Richard Upton and late addition Conor Mellor, professional performers all, with York Stage credits to their name, could not have looked more glad to be back on a stage when theatres remain in the dark but thankfully outdoor shows are on the rise.

Tonight and tomorrow, the singing six will take to the blow-up polytunnel stage again, attired in black, cocktail party dresses on one side, suits on the other, Upton and Standland in white shirts, Mellor more informal in a black T-shirt.

Joanne Theaker in the solo spotlight

Picnicking audience members sit in Covid-secure designated bubbles, arranged in a crescent on the grass hillside opposite the bandstand stage that could, indeed should, be used more often each York summer.

As evening turns to night over the unbroken 100-minute span of the concert, the light show within the tubing matches the songs’ subjects and moods, while also picking out keyboardist Douglas’s fellow musicians: drummer Andy Hayes, guitarist Neil Morgan, bassist Rosie Morris and keyboard player Sam Johnson.

Songs from Hairspray, Grease, Cats, Cabaret, West Side Story and The Greatest Showman are to the fore, and a selection on the theme of Green is particularly inspired. Likewise, the teasing introduction seeking a diva to sing Hopelessly Devoted You that settles on…Conor Mellor, who should have been away at sea this month, after returning to York from his Caribbean cruise-ship shows in April, but is still grounded by the pandemic.

As darkness descends, Emily Ramsden, left, Ashley Standland, May Tether, Richard Upton, Joanne Theaker and Conor Mellor bring Sunday’s concert to a close

Highlights are many, from Ramsden’s All That Jazz and Saving All My Love For You to Tether’s Memory and Theaker’s Cabaret; Upton’s Luck Be A Lady to Tether and Standland’s Summer Nights. Mellor hits the heights in Kinky Boots’ Soul Of A Man, while Upton and Theaker’s Elephant Love Medley, from Moulin Rouge, is the fast-moving arrangement of the night.

How else could the show end but with Dirty Dancing’s uplifting I’ve Had The Time Of My Life, although social distancing ruled out any attempt at the film’s infamous climactic lift.

If Covid-19’s social-distancing requirements have reinforced the suitability of the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre for open-air shows, then at least something good has come out of these killjoy times for the York musical theatre and live music scene.

Conor Mellor, back home in Bishopthorpe from the Caribbean, wins the Best Socks In Show award while singing Soul Of A Man

Delighted by the response of singers, musicians and audiences alike to these Rowntree Park shows, Briggs says: “It’s just been overwhelming. I knew us ‘Theatre Crew’ who work in it were desperate to get back, but we didn’t appreciate how much it meant to our audiences!! Here’s to Bravery going forward. Give us a space and York Stage will get a show on.”

Alas, that show will not be September’s Covid-scuppered production of Kinky Boots, but in mentioning “Bravery”, Briggs is echoing the sentiments of one of last night’s outstanding numbers, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. “I am brave, I am bruised…And I’m marching on to the drum I beat, I’m not scared to be seen, I make no apologies, this is me,” the lyrics assert.

Such positivity, in the face of understandable Covid fear, is the way forward, step by step, drum beat by drum beat, for deeply bruised live entertainment. Not recklessness, no-one would suggest such a course so irresponsibly, but a combination of ambition and practicality, as shown by Briggs and Douglas.

York Stage Musicals producer/director Nik Briggs and musical director Jess Douglas
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Put on your Red Shoes and dance to the September screen season at the SJT

Ballet ho: Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes will be a highlight of the SJT’s September screen and stream season

WEST End musicals, ballet, a waltz king and new and classic British films will be on the big screen at Stephen Joseph Theatre through September.

The Scarborough theatre re-opened its Art Deco cinema at the end of August, with a comprehensive programme of measures for the safety and comfort of cinema patrons, such as limited capacities and aisle access for every pair of seats booked.

The SJT has been awarded the VisitEngland We’re Good To Go industry standard mark, signifying its adherence to Government and public health guidance, and full details can be found at sjt.uk.com/were_back. The films and streams will be open captioned (OC), by the way.

The West End Musical Season presents Kinky Boots (captured live) on September 3 at 7pm. In Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein’s musical, Charlie has inherited a failing shoe factory and goes into partnership with drag queen Lola to save the business.

The Tony Award-winning Lincoln Center Theater production of The King & I (captured live) will be shown on September 10 at 7pm. Filmed at the London Palladium in 2018, it tells the story of Anna, hired by the King of Siam to serve as an English teacher in his palace in an attempt to modernise his country. 

Romance 1945 style: Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller in I Know Where I’m Going!

The September film programme opens with Summerland, British writer-director Jessica Swale’s account of a reclusive writer, Alice, who has lived in a small Kent town for years and is regarded by the locals as a witch.

During the Second World War, Alice’s sequestered life is upended when Frank, an evacuee from the London Blitz, is left in her care. Despite initially resolving to be rid of him, Alice finds herself and her emotions reawakened by him.

Alice is portrayed in her younger days in the 1940s by Gemma Arterton and later by Scarborough-born Penelope Wilton. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Tom Courtenay also star in the screenings on September 4 at 7pm, September 5 at 2pm and 7pm, September 8 and 9 (OC) at 7pm and September 10 at 2pm.

In British-writer director William Nicholson’s Hope Gap, Annette Benning and Bill Nighy play Grace and Edward, whose idyllic life in a British seaside town is torn apart when he tells her he is leaving for another woman after 29 years of marriage. 

Showing on September 11 at 7pm, September 12 at 2pm, September 15 and 16 September at 7pm and September 18 at 7pm, Hope Gap also stars Steven Pacey, who played Bertie Wooster in Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s By Jeeves, the first show at the SJT when it moved into the former Odeon cinema in 1996.

The dark side: Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, 40th anniversary remastered edition

Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back, considered by many to be the finest of all the Star Wars films, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2020 with a remastered edition, to be shown on September 12 at 7pm, September 17 at 2pm and September 22 at 7pm (OC).

Based on a George Lucas story, Star Wars: Episode V of the epic American cinematic space opera is the one where Darth Vader is determined to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side, Master Yoda trains Luke to become a Jedi Knight, while his friends try to fend off the Imperial fleet.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s cult romantic classic I Know Where I’m Going! will be screened in remastered HD on September 19 at 2pm and 7pm, when WEA film studies tutor George Cromack will give an introduction.

The 1945 film follows the emancipated Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) as she tries to reach a remote Hebridean island for her wedding and meets naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey) on the way.

Released in January, Robert Eggers’s black-and-white psychological anti-thriller The Lighthouse is still the bleakest film of this bleak, bleak year, as can be witnessed on September 23 at 7pm and September 24 at 2pm and 7pm.

Darkness in The Lighthouse: Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as island lighthouse keepers battling with their
sanity in 1890s’ New England

Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson play lighthouse keepers struggling to keep their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.

A disparate group of women seeks to disrupt the 1970 Miss World competition in Philippa Gowthorpe’s 2020 comedy-drama Misbehaviour, showing September 25 at 7pm, Saturday 26 September 26 at 2pm and 7pm and September 29 at 7pm (OC).

Held in London, the contest was hosted by comedian Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear) and was the first to be won by a black woman, Jennifer Hosten, Miss Grenada (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Keira Knightley, Jessie Buckley, Phyllis Logan, Keeley Hawes, Lesley Manville and Rhys Ifans also join the starry cast.

Music and ballet complete the SJT’s September line-up. First, Andre Rieu’s Magical Maastricht: Together In Music (captured live) celebrates 15 years of hometown concerts as the King Of Waltz brings the joyous atmosphere of his open-air concerts in Maastricht to the big screen on September 18 at 7pm and September 20 at 2pm.

Landmark victory: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, as Jennifer Hosten, Miss Grenada, the first black winner of the Miss World competition, in Misbehaviour

Then, Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes (captured live) dances on to the McCarthy screen on September 30 at 7pm and October 4 at 2pm.

Bourne’s Olivier Award-winning adaptation of Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film has dazzled audiences across Britain and the United States with its tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world.

Cinema tickets at the SJT for films cost £7, concessions £6; Circle members/NHS/under-30s £5; for event cinema, including ‘captured live’, £12; for live streams, £17.

To book, go to sjt.uk.com/whatson or call 01723 370541, Thursday to Saturday,  11am to 4pm, when the box office also is open for in-person bookings.

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“Wherever you have a camera, we have a class” is the new school rule as York Stage School goes on screen

York Stage School principal Nik Briggs with fellow On Screen teachers Jessica Douglas (singing/musical theatre), left, Danielle Hill-Mullan (musical theatre) and Joanne Theaker (acting/musical theatre)

YORK Stage School will celebrate its second birthday from behind closed doors but with the launch of on-screen activities.

“Wherever you have a camera, we have a class,” will be the new school rule, prompted by Government strictures brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Principal Nik Briggs says: “After a brilliant two years, where we have worked with hundreds of students and seen them flourish in our classrooms, we now face the possibility of not being able to work with them under the current Government guidance for some time and the necessary social distancing and self-isolation policies that come with that.

“Consequently, we are fully committed to ensuring our students are always kept safe and well and will not be running classes while schools are closed to students.”

Cue York Stage School’s new “homework” instead. “It is with this in mind that we have been busy working on this new project, which will see us joining up with lots of our teachers’ contacts from the theatre, TV and film industry to introduce our exciting new programme, York Stage School…On Screen, over the coming weeks and months.”

Are you ready to watch, explore, react and create, asks Nik.“If so, then sign up, stop waiting in the wings…and join us on screen for a programme where we’ll be sending out weekly briefs, scripts and stimuli to children via email and through videos from both our regular teachers and special weekly industry-professional guest tutors,” he says.

Homework for when you must stay at home: York Stage School prepares to launch Stage School…On Screen

Students will have six days to watch the videos, explore the stimuli given and then react and create their own videos at home. “These will then be sent back to us at York Stage School HQ,” says Nik.

“Children will receive feedback on their creations via email and video calls from our staff; each week we will celebrate their work across our social channels with weekly industry recognition from our guest tutors.”

To take part, students will need either a mobile phone, tablet or PC with a built-in camera and microphone, plus an internet connection and an email address. “This can be either their own or a parent’s,” says Nik.

“While we will be using the York Stage School social media channels to celebrate students’ work – if parents are happy for their child’s image to be broadcast – access to these is not needed to take part in the project.” 

The first “issue” of York Stage School…On Screen is being given away free of charge. “This is in order for you to decide if this programme is something your child will enjoy and genuinely benefit from,” reasons Nik. “After the initial week, there’ll be a weekly charge of £10 to take part. To receive the first issue, please sign up by clicking Register Now on the website, yorkstageschool.com.”

Mary, Mary, very contrary: Fiona Baistow., left. and Florence Poskitt clash over who plays Mary in York Stage Musicals’ The Flint Street Nativity last Christmas

​Putting on his other cap as artistic director of York Stage Musicals, Nik says: “At the moment we are very much all up in the air with regards to shows.

“We were scheduled to be performing Bugsy Malone at the Grand Opera House from April 23 to 26, but that has now been cancelled, now that theatres have been closed in response to the Coronavirus epidemic. However, we do hope for the children’s sake to remount this at a later date.”

York Stage Musicals had a trio of premieres in the pipeline too: Sondheim On Sondheim, Kinky Boots and Soho Cinders. “We had just auditioned for the UK premiere of Sondheim On Sondheim’s run at the John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate, from May 20 to 23, but casting has had to be put on hold,” says Nik.

“This will mean the production will now have to take place at a later date, hopefully in the autumn.

“Our big September show is the York premiere of Kinky Boots at the Grand Opera House from September 10 to 19, and at the moment no changes have been made on this production’s scheduling.”

Nik is still hopeful too of bringing another alternative Christmas show to the John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate in the wake of 2019’s gleeful production of Tim Firth’s The Flint Street Nativity.

“After that success, we’ve now secured the rights to bring George Stiles and Anthony Drewe’s Soho Cinders to the city for the first time ever,” says Nik.

“This musical romp transports the classic Cinderella story to the streets of Soho, where the action is definitely more suitable for an adult audience and the ugly sisters are more Gemma Collins than Berwick Kaler!”

Watch this space for regular updates.