
Gary Oldman in rehearsal for his return to York Theatre Royal in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, now heading into a week of press shows. Picture: Gisele Schmidt
YORK International Shakespeare Festival’s tenth anniversary programme is among Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations as April blossoms.
York theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, until May 17
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman returns to York Theatre Royal, where he made his professional debut in 1979, to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since 1987.
“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Tickets update: check availability of returns and additional seats on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Counterfeit Sixties: Swinging into Sixties’ recollections at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre tonight
Tribute show of the week: The Counterfeit Sixties Show, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm
THE Counterfeit Sixties pay tribute to 25 acts of the Swinging Sixties in a show encompassing everything from that golden pop age, from the clothes to flashbacks of television programmes, adverts and clips from the original bands.
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Dave Clark Five, The Kinks and The Monkees all feature in a hit parade performed by musicians who have worked with The Searchers, The Ivy League, The Fortunes and The Tremeloes. Tickets update: Limited availability on 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Some Enchanted Evening: Celebrating Rodgers and Hammerstein with the English Musical Theatre Orchestra at the Grand Opera House, York
Show tunes of the week: English Musical Theatre Orchestra presents Some Enchanted Evening, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm
EXPERIENCE the grandeur of Broadway as the English Musical Theatre Orchestra serenades you with show tunes from I Could Have Danced All Night ,People Will Say We’re In Love and You’ll Never Walk Alone to Getting To Know You and My Favourite Things.
Two star vocalists join the orchestra of 26 musicians, placing the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein centre-stage in renditions of songs from Oklahoma, The Sound Of Music, South Pacific and The King And I. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Full steam ahead: next stop Grand Opera House, York, for The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe on 2025 tour
Touring show of the week: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Grand Opera House, York, April 22 to 26, 7pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
STEP through the wardrobe into the kingdom of Narnia for the most mystical of adventures in a faraway land. Join Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter as they wave goodbye to wartime Britain and say hello to Mr Tumnus, the talking Faun (Alfie Richards), Aslan, the Lion (Stanton Wright), and the coldest, cruellest White Witch (Katy Stephens).
Directed by Michael Fentiman, this breathtaking stage adaptation brings magical storytelling, bewitching stagecraft and stellar puppets to CS Lewis’s allegorical novel. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Philipp Sommer: Performing Re-Lording Richard 3.0 at York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium on April 24 at 7.30pm as part of York International Shakespeare Festival
Festival of the week: York International Shakespeare Festival, April 22 to May 4
YORK International Shakespeare Festival is marking its tenth anniversary with a programme incorporating artists from the Netherlands for the first time; Croatia for Marin Drzic Day; Ukrainian artists from Ivano Frankisk and Bulgaria.
Among the highlights will be Berlin actor Philipp Sommer’s riposte to Shakespeare’s hatchet job on York’s own Richard III, Re-Lording Richard 3.0 (April 24); Olga Annenko’s Codename Othello (April 25); York company Hoglets Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Mischief with Team Titania and Team Oberon (April 26); Stillington writer/actor/director Alexander Wright’s immersive, existential Hamlet Show (April 28 to 30); Ridiculusmus’s Alas! Poor Yorick (April 29) and the Shakespeare’s Speakeasy play in a day (May 2). For the full programme and tickets, head to: yorkshakes.co.uk.

York Shakespeare Project in rehearsal for Irwin Appel’s production of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3 for York International Shakespeare Festival. Picture: John Saunders
Condensed play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, “I Am Myself Alone”, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 22 to 26, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
UNIVERSITY of California Santa Barbara theatre professor Irwin Appel, artistic director of Naked Shakes, directs York Shakespeare Project in his condensed, physical theatre version of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy.
A bare space, a crown and a throne meet an ensemble cast in a powerful show of “actor-generated theatricality and transformation”, wherein they tell a cautionary tale of power and greed that charts how a tyrant can rise in a torn and broken society. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Matt Goss: Tipping his hat to The Hits & More at York Barbican next Friday. Picture: Paul Harris
Pop concert of the week: Matt Goss, The Hits & More, York Barbican, April 25, 8pm
MATT Goss, the Bros pop pin-up-turned- Las Vegas showman, says: “Trust me, what I’ve learnt over the years being on countless stages around the world, this will be your best night of the year.”
Now living in central London after many years of blue skies in America, Goss, 56, will be celebrating all he has achieved in his music career and beyond in a rock’n’roll show, but still with a horn section (featured previously in the Matt Goss Experience show with the MG Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic at York Barbican in April 2023). Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
In Focus: Badapple Theatre Company in The Thankful Village, York Theatre Royal Studio, April 24 to 26, 7pm and 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees

Pip Cook, left, Josie Morley and Keeley Lane in Badapple Theatre Company’s revival of Kate Bramley’s The Thankful Village, playing York Theatre Royal Studio next week
IN a new departure for Green Hammerton touring company Badapple Theatre, writer and artistic director Kate Bramley will be playing a live score for the first time to accompany her poignant First World War comedy-drama The Thankful Village.
Bramley is an international touring musician, who started her professional music career aged 17, with tours of the USA and UK, but this will be the first time that she has made a musical contribution to a show by her Green Hammerton company, specialists for 27 years in touring “theatre on your doorstep”.

Kate Bramley: Playing a live score in a Badapple Theatre Company production for the first time at York Theatre Royal Studio
“It has been our ambition since the play was created back in 2014 to have a live score accompanying the story,” says Kate. “Thanks to our collaboration with York Theatre Royal, I will appear with the stellar 2025 cast of Pip Cook, Keeley Lane and Josie Morley.
“I’m delighted to be performing at York Theatre Royal this spring. One performance is already sold out, so we’re looking forward to an exciting time at my favourite local theatre.”
Boasting original songs and music by Sony Radio Academy Award winner Jez Lowe, Bramley’s story of hope, humour and humanity is seen through the eyes of three Yorkshire women from the same rural household, below and above stairs.

Badapple Theatre Company in the rehearsal room for The Thankful Village
Left behind to cope after their men-folk march off to Flanders, Pip Cook’s Edie, Keeley Lane’s Victoria and Josie Morley’s Nellie each face up to the challenges in their own way as they wait anxiously for news of their loved ones far away. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Did you know?
“THE Thankful Villages” were those rare places that lost no men in the Great War because all those who left to serve came home again.

Badapple Theatre Company’s poster for The Thankful Village at York Theatre Royal Studio