Catherine Bott: Soprano, broadcaster, presenter, festival artistic advisor and now recipient of the York Early Musical Festival Lifetime Achievement Award
SOPRANO singer, broadcaster and presenter Catherine Bott will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 York Early Music Festival.
The award will be presented by broadcaster, writer and artistic advisor Lindsay Kemp at the National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, on Sunday immediately before the 4.45pm live edition of BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show.
Catherine, 72, will then return as a guest to the Early Music Show alongside mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and instrumentalists Ensemble Hesperi. Free tickets to attend the show’s recording have sold out.
Throughout her career, Catherine has been involved with the annual festival, as a performer, jury member, presenter and artistic advisor. “I’m honoured to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the pioneering York Early Music Festival, following in the footsteps of so many distinguished friends and colleagues from whom I’ve learnt so much,” she says. “And I’m looking forward to returning to York for a lively weekend of music and conversation.”
She joins the esteemed list of past recipients of an award that honours major figures who have made a significant difference to the world of early music: Belgian flautist Barthold Kuijken; soprano Dame Emma Kirkby; countertenor James Bowman; Spanish conductor and composer Jordi Savall; conductor Andrew Parrott; lutenist Anthony Rooley; harpsichordist and conductor Trevor Pinnock; violinist Catherine Mackintosh and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins.
This year Catherine will be appearing at the festival with the French instrumental ensemble Le Consort, reading poems that accompany Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, on Sunday at 7.30pm.
In this celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first publication of Vivaldi’s concertos, directed by baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, the four vividly pictorial and virtuosic violin concertos will be interlaid with other works by Vivaldi, and preceded by Catherine’s readings of the sonnets (perhaps written by the composer himself) that set out the scenes he evoked in music with flair, brilliance and humour.
Catherine recalls first singing in North Yorkshire at Beningbrough Hall in 1981. “Don’t ask me exactly what I did, but I can remember signing some medieval songs,” she says. “I think it was outdoors and I don’t think it was raining!”
Through the years, she has performed with the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists under conductor Peter Seymour and the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall.
She is full of praise for York Early Music Festival, the National Centre of Early Music and, in particular, director Delma Tomlin. “Delma is a force of nature and a force for good. She and the festival have always championed early music and repertoire that’s lesser known than it should be,” says Catherine. “Thanks to Delma, the York Early Music Festival continues to go from strength to strength.”
From 2003, her role as presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show brought her to the festival each year for a live show. “So I’m really tickled to be a guest on the show I used to present straight after receiving the award on Sunday, when I’ll be meeting presenter Hannah French for the first time,” says Catherine.
Le Consort: French ensemble’s performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on Sunday will be accompanied by Catherine Bott’s readings
“It’s a lovely award to receive. I do remember in my broadcasting past presenting the award to Jamie Bowman, who said, ‘I’m not sure I want to receive this as it’s suggests it’s all over!’, but I’m happy that I’ve been able to sing with just about every musician I wanted to work with or talk to the musicians I wanted to interview.
“Now I’m joining some very esteemed company, all of whom I’ve performed with except Jordi Savall, who I interviewed!”
Catherine continues: “This award is a wonderful excuse to go back and spend time in this beautiful city crammed with characterful, beautiful concert venues. York is the natural home for this kind of festival because it’s such an historic place.
“I’ve always tried to maximise any visit to York, walking the City Walls, going to the National Railway Museum, making sure I go to Evensong at the Minster. Thi time I shall be arriving Saturday lunchtime and then going to see the evening concert by the Tallis at York Minster.”
Catherine studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, then spent two years from the age of 22 singing everything from Bach to Berio with Swingle II, successors to the baroque-jazz crossover group The Swingle Singers, before beginning a distinguished solo career specialising in baroque music.
Among her many recordings are Bach’s St John Passion and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and she has premiered and recorded works by contemporary composers Craig Armstrong, Jonathan Dove and Michael Nyman.
She is a Fellow of the Guildhall School and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. For ten years from 2003, she combined singing with regular presenting for BBC Radio, scripting and introducing more than 300 editions of The Early Music Show on BBC Radio 3, as well as hosting live evening concerts and the BBC Proms.
She has worked with BBC Radio 4 and has made documentaries on subjects ranging from Auto-Tune to Mantovani and has presented numerous editions of Pick Of The Week.
In 2013, Classic FM invited Catherine to make the move to a more informal style of music broadcasting. She stayed for a decade, with her series Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Classical Music running for seven years. She also co-hosted The Full Works Concert and presented a live Sunday lunchtime show.
New ways of sharing her love of music continue to evolve and since 2020 Catherine has introduced live-streamed recitals from London’s Wigmore Hall and digital concerts with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, viewed by many thousands worldwide.
York Early Music Festival runs from today (4/7/2025) to July 11. For full details and tickets, head to: ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/.
Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston: Going to Heaven or Hell at York Early Music Festival. Picture: Julien Gazeau
HEAVEN & Hell will be the theme of the 2025 York Early Music Festival, a summer fiesta of 19 concerts in eight days featuring international artists from tomorrow.
The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and Academy of Ancient Music will be taking part, as will French orchestral ensemble Le Consort, led by rising-star violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, in their York debut with an “exceptional rendition of exceptional of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – but not quite as you know it”.
The festival will intertwine three very different themes: firstly, the music of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, opening with viol consort Fretwork and mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston’s My Days: Songs and Fantasias programme tomorrow at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, at 7.30pm.
Secondly, the genius of the Baroque, focusing on Bach and Vivaldi, not least the aforementioned Le Consort performance of The Four Seasons on Sunday at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall at 7.30pm, when Lifetime Achievement Award 2025 recipient Catherine Bott will be the reader.
Thirdly, the strand that lends itself to the 2025 title: a reflection on Man’s fall from grace – from Heaven to Hell – in biblical times with YEMF artistic advisor and BBC New Generation artist Helen Charlston and her fellow Gramophone Award-winner, lutenist and theorbo player Toby Carr, who team up in the medieval Guildhall of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall on July 9 from 6.30pm to 9.45pm.
“I feel very lucky to have such a bond with the York Early Music Festival,” says Helen, who was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, studying music there from 2011 to 2014. “It’s a special festival and it feels like a special connection as I’ve been coming up for many years.
“My early memories of the festival are of doing a few years’ concerts with David Skinner’s vocal consort Alamire. I’ve also sung with the Yorkshire Bach Choir, after Peter Seymour was given my name and I helped him out for a concert at short notice, and as so often that led to a fruitful partnership.”
Fretwork: Performing My Days: Songs and Fantasiaswith Helen Charlston at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York tomorrow
Helen is in the third year of her role as festival artistic advisor. “I was very honoured to be asked and it’s a lovely way to connect with music-making around the country. I don’t run the festival but I do really love music and thinking about what audiences might like to hear that they haven’t,” she says.
“I can flex my festival muscle thinking about that and it gives me the chance to suggest who could be invited to take part in the festival. For example, this year Le Consort are coming over from France. I know their work from a group called Les Arts Florissants, a French baroque ensemble who I’ve done a young artists’ projects with in Paris. I’ve got to know a few of their players and a few of them will be appearing with Le Consort.”
Festivals are the “perfect launch-pad for collaborations”, says Helen, whose July 9 programme is a case in point. In an open call for the York Early Music Festival Special Commission, NCEM Young Composers Award alumni were invited to respond to the Heaven & Hell theme by writing a piece to be performed by Charlston and Carr as part of their In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose programme featuring Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier and Humfrey works.
Anna Disley-Simpson has been awarded the commission from a competitive field of 24 applications for her piece Heaven Or Hell, for which she collaborated with librettist Olivia Bell, drawing inspiration from Kurt Weill for a composition that Anna promises will be “deliberately subversive and unexpected in several ways”.
Supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and an anonymous donor, Dorset-born, London-based Anna has received a commission fee of £2,000, plus travel and accommodation expenses within the United Kingdom to attend a workshop with the musicians in London and the York premiere.
“Toby and I are doing a programme about heaven and hell after Delma [festival director Delma Tomlin] and I were having a conversation about the York Mystery Plays and it sparked my interest in the idea of York being a place for the retelling of very graphic stories,” says Helen.
“Delma is the governor of the Merchant Adventurers, who sponsor the Last Judgement in Mystery Play productions, and my initial idea began to spiral into thinking about how a lot of 17th century music is about heaven and hell. Toby and I decided we wanted to look at performing religious music by composers whose secular works we’ve shared with the festival audience.”
Composer Anna Disley-Simpson
Those works will be complemented by Disley-Simpson’s commission. “We had a whole heap of wonderful ideas put to us by applicants from the Young Composers scheme and had a lovely day chatting with eight composers before we selected Anna,” says Helen.
“Anna’s piece is wonderful: a monologue with a second character welcoming you to purgatory, where you have to decide which route you will take, to heaven or hell. I think it’s got something about it that the audience will not quite expect!
“I hope other people will take her work up as a song as I always want to encourage others to perform works to see how they develop when I’ve commissioned a piece.”
In further highlights, The Tallis Scholars present Glorious Creatures at York Minster on Saturday, 7.30pm; The Sixteen perform Angel Of Peace at York Minster, July 7, 7.30pm, and the Spanish ensemble Cantoria present A La Fiesta!, a sizzling array of ensaladas and villancicos, at St Lawrence Church on July 8, 7pm (sold out).
Swiss-based medievalists Sollazzo return to York for the first time since winning a prestigious Diapason d’Or award to present The Angels Are Singing at the NCEM on July 10, 7pm.
Thefestival will finish with a flourish in the company of the Academy of Ancient Music and their leader, violinist Bojan Čičić in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall on July 11, 7pm.
The full programme and booking details can be found at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Bookings also can be made on 01904 658338, via boxoffice@ncem.co.uk and in person at the NCEM, Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.
Violinist Bojan Čičić: Leading the Academy of Ancient Music in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall on July 11
Olly Murs: Returning to familiar turf at York Racecourse’s first Summer Music Saturday meeting this afternoon
AS the outdoor concert season awakens, a festival goes to heaven and hell and a koala tries something new in Charles Hutchinson’s list for the upcoming week.
Back on track: Olly Murs, York Racecourse, Summer Music Saturday, today, first race at 1.55pm; last race, 5.25pm, followed by concert
ESSEX singer, songwriter, actor and television personality from Olly Murs completes his hat-trick of appearances at York Racecourse this weekend, having played the Knavesmire track in 2010 and 2017.
Performing after today’s race card, his set list will draw on his seven albums and 25 singles, including the number ones Please Don’t Let Me Go, Heart Skips A Beat, Dance With Me Tonight and Troublemaker. Race day tickets: yorkracecourse.co.uk.
Marcelo Nisinman: Argentinean bandoneon player, performing Martin Palmeri’s Misatango at York Guildhall today
Reverence and rhythm of the week: Prima Choral Artists presents Scared Rhythms: From Chant To Tango, York Guildhall, The Courtyard, Coney Street, York, tonight, 7.30pm
ARGENTINEAN bandoneon maestro and composer Marcelo Nisinman performs Martin Palmeri’s Misatango as the finale to director Eve Lorian’s Sacred Rhythms – From Chant To Tango concert.
He joins the 60-strong Prima Choral Artists choir, pianist Greg Birch, Yorkshire mezzo-soprano soloist Lucy Jubb and the New World String Quintet for tonight’s journey through sacred and spiritual choral music. Box office: primachoral.com.
Justin Moorhouse: Giving two of the greatest performances of his life at Pocklington Arts Centre this weekend
Comedy gigs of the week: Justin Moorhouse, The Greatest Performance Of My Life, Pocklington Arts Centre, today, 3pm and 8pm
ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE comedian, radio presenter and actor Justin Moorhouse covers subjects ranging from pantomimes to dreams, how to behave in hospitals, small talk, realising his mum is a northern version of Columbo, and how being a smart-mouthed child saved him from a life of continually being beaten up. Funny, interesting, perhaps it will warm the soul too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Bluebird Bakery: Makers’ Summer Fair on Sunday in Acomb
Arts and crafts of the week: Makers’ Summer Fair, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, Sunday, 10am to 3pm; The Fox Summer Craft Market, The Fox Inn, Holgate Road, York, Sunday, 1pm to 5pm
ARTISAN baker and cafe Bluebird Bakery plays host to York artists and makers’ craft, jewellery, print, ceramic, plant, candle and woodwork stalls under one roof. Meanwhile, The Fox Inn holds its second annual Summer Craft Market, featuring live music, handmade gifts, craft stalls and street food vendors.
Swift service: Xenna pays homage to Taylor in Miss Americana at York Barbican
Tribute gig of the week: Miss Americana: The Eras Experience, A Tribute To Taylor Swift, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
STEP into Step into world ofTaylor Swift and her Eras experience in Xenna’s homage to the Pennsylvania pop sensation’s music, style and stage presence, from her country roots to such hits as Love Story, Blank Space and Shake It Off. Cue replica costume changes, storytelling and dancers too. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Dawn Landes: Amplifying the voices of women who fought for equality at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
Country gig of the week: Dawn Landes, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, July 2, 8pm
AMERICAN country roots singer-songwriter Dawn Landes showcases The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, her March 2024 album that re-imagines music from the women’s liberation movement.
Inspired by a 1971 songbook of the same name, Landes breathes new life into powerful songs spanning 1830 to 1970, amplifying the voices of women who fought for equality throughout history. Box office: seetickets.com/event/dawn-landes/rise-bluebird/.
James Sheldon’s Mr Darcy and Rosa Hesmondhalgh’s Lizzy Bennet in Pride And Prejudice at the SJT, Scarborough
Introducing America’s most performed living playwright to North Yorkshire: Pride And Prejudice, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, July 3 to 26, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
LOTTE Wakeham directs American writer Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s story of love, misunderstandings and second chances, staged with music, dancing, humour aplenty and a cast led by Rosa Hesmondhalgh’s Lizzy Bennet (CORRECT) and James Sheldon’s Mr Darcy in a whirl of Regency parties and courtship as hearts race, tongues wag and passions swirl around the English countryside. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
The Koala Who Could: Up a tree at York Theatre Royal for three days next week. Picture: Pamela Raith
Children’s show of the week: The Koala Who Could, York Theatre Royal, July 3, 1.30pm; July 4, 10.30am and 4.30pm; July 5, 11am and 2pm
JOIN Kevin the koala, Kangaroo and Wombat as they learn that “life can be great when you try something new” in this adaptation of Rachel Bright and Jim Field’s picture book, directed by Emma Earle, with music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer.
Danny Hendrix (Wombat/Storyteller 1), Sarah Palmer (Cossowary/Storyteller 2) and Christopher Finn (Kevin/Storyteller 3) perform this empowering story of embracing change – whether we like it or not. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Richard Hawley: Playing Coles Corner with strings attached at Live At York Museum Gardens on July 5. Picture: Dean Chalkley
Open-air concerts of the week: Futuresounds presents Live At York Museum Gardens, Elbow, July 3; Nile Rodgers & CHIC, July4; Richard Hawley, July 5; gates open at 5pm
LEEDS promoters Futuresound Group’s second summer of outdoor concerts in York begins with Bury band Elbow’s sold-out show next Thursday, when Ripon singer-songwriter Billie Marten and Robin Hood’s Bay folk luminary Eliza Carthy & The Restitution support.
New York guitarist, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers and CHIC revel in Good Times, Le Freak, Everybody Dance and I Want Your Love next Friday, supported by Maryland soul singer Jalen Ngonda. Sheffield guitarist and crooner Richard Hawley revisits his 1995 album Coles Corner with a string section on its 20th anniversary next Saturday, preceded by Leeds band English Teacher and Manchester-based American songwriter BC Camplight. Box office: seetickets.com.
Le Consort: French orchestral ensemble, making York debut with Vivaldi concert at National Centre for Early Music on July 6
Festival of the week: York Early Music Festival, Heaven & Hell, July 4 to 11
EIGHT days of classical music adds up to 19 concerts featuring international artists such as The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Academy of Ancient Music, viol consort Fretwork & Helen Charlston and the York debut of Le Consort, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons “but not quite as you know it”.
Directed by Delma Tomlin, the festival weaves together three main strands: the 400th anniversary of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, the Baroque music of Vivaldi and Bach and reflections on Man’s fall from grace, from Heaven to Hell. Full programme and tickets at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Box office: 01904 658338.
In Focus: Harry Baker, Wonderful 2.0, The Crescent, York, Sunday (29/6/2025)
Poet, mathematician and world slam champ Harry Baker
YOUNGEST ever World Poetry Slam champion Harry Baker’s two Wonderful 2.0 shows at The Crescent , York, tomorrow have sold out. Wonderful news for Harry; not so wonderful if you were yet to book for either bite of the poetic cherry, the 3.30pm all-ages matinee or 7pm evening event.
Enough negativity. Let this preview be suffused with positivity. “One thing that I know that I will always find amazing is what a thing it is to live a life,” posits Maths graduate Harry, who always looks for plus signs. “P.S. Let’s also do this loads before we die.” Good, because that means Baker will be back and next time you can be quicker off the mark.
Baker, the 34-year-old poet, mathematician, writer and comedy turn from Ealing, London, first spread his Wonderful wings from April to August 2024, visiting The Crescent on May 20 with poems about wellies, postcodes and his favourite German wheat beer Schöfferhofer on his sold-out 40-date itinerary.
At the time, the “Maths-loving, TED-talking, German-speaking, battle-rapping, happy-crying, self-bio-writing unashamed human” said: “After the mental health struggles I shared in my last show, this time around the plan was to have a fun time touring a fun show full of fun poems to celebrate coming out of the other side. But it hasn’t quite worked out like that.
“For the first time ever I have been to more funerals than weddings in the last year. I have hit the age where everyone around me is either having babies or talking about having babies or definitely not having babies, and found out first-hand how complicated and painful that can be. And yet I am more fascinated and amazed by the world around me than ever before.”
Harry added: “From the transformational power of documenting moments of everyday joy to the undeniable raw energy of performing a garage song about Greta Thunberg, I am learning more than ever that life can indeed be incredibly hard sometimes, but that doesn’t make it any less incredible.
“If anything, it is the darkness that helps us to appreciate the light, just as it is the puddles that help us to appreciate the wellies. And what could be more wonderful than sharing all of this with the glorious folk who come along after reading about it here.”
Now he returns with a new message to accompany his poems about “all the important stuff, like hope, dinosaurs and German falafel-spoons”. “May one thing match the gravity of all you’ve ever done. This wonderful reality: The best is yet to come,” Harry pronounces.
“More full of wonder than ever”, he will celebrate wellies and postcodes once more, funerals and fertility journeys too, in his trademark amalgam of the playful, the vulnerable and the hopeful.
How would he sum up Wonderful 2.0? “I like ‘Wonderfuller’. It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but I like the connotation,” he says.
“Wonderful 2.0 hopes to make you cry with laughter, laugh through tears, or, dream scenario: both. The show will contain old faves as well as brand new work, celebrating what a thing it is to live a life.”
“What I ended up doing was I started writing a poem a day for the first 100 days of my son’s life, though ‘poems’ would be a generous description of the first ones,” says Harry
For all his popularity on TikTok and Instagram, Baker’s favourite place to be is still on stage in front of an audience, sharing his words in person. “By its very nature, I don’t think it makes sense for poetry to go viral,” he says.
“It is all about taking the time out of your day-to-day to stop and pay attention to the world and the wonder it contains, which it feels like so many of us are too busy to be able to carve out time to do. And yet I think it is precisely this reason why people have been able to connect with my work so much.
“From the vulnerability of sharing my own personal struggles with trying to conceive a baby, to the power of making list of requests in advance of what I would like to happen when I die (an obnoxious amount of sunflowers and negronis all round, please), or even just a stupid (yet subversive?) poem about how great my knees are, there is a playfulness and poignancy that has changed the way others look at the world too.”
Harry continues: “I have been performing for 15 years now and last year’s tour was my favourite by far, because of the openness audiences were willing to bring and share in, so that we could all have a cry and a laugh and go away feeling slightly more connected to one another and the world, and I am so excited for a chance to do this all over again.”
Assessing where he fits in as a performer, Harry decides: “I think I fall somewhere in between a band (where you hope they will do your favourite songs) and a stand-up (where you expect new material!). So, as well as keeping in the classics, I have updated the show with new poems about everything that has happened in the meantime, including (finally and joyfully) having a baby.”
Wonderful 2.0 picks up where Wonderful left off, knowing his “whole life was about to change but not knowing how he would feel”. It turns out that becoming a father, and experiencing a deep love for his child, has heightened his connection with the world around him, rather than numbed it.
“What I ended up doing was I started writing a poem a day for the first 100 days of my son’s life, though ‘poems’ would be a generous description of the first ones!
“People say ‘it’s the best thing in the world’ or that ‘you’re going to lose everything you’ve enjoyed’, so I thought to be able to have all these snapshots in the poems means you can have days where you were in the moment, thinking how fragile and precious life is, but also have days where it doesn’t feel like that, especially in those early days, when if feels like ‘this is it, it will never change’.
“But having written these things, less than a year later, I look back and feel like ‘I think you’re being a bit dramatic’…but that’s fine because some of it felt amazing, sometimes it felt raw and spiky.
“Hopefully these poems will feel precious to me and my wife, and by sharing them, anyone who has recently has a baby will connect with them, or, like my parents, they can relate with them, and those who haven’t had a kid can connect with these basic emotions.”
Harry’s aim was to “capture the newness, the helplessness and the tenderness, not to create a parenting manual”. To detach from the practice of finding punchlines to jokes felt important in his writing. “I wanted to lean into the emotional side of it and that’s something that changes from day to day,” he says.
“This is the point in between where you can say ‘life can be difficult but also amazing, and if anything, one heightens the other’,” says Harry
Harry had written candidly about how long it took the couple to become pregnant. “To be so honest about that painful experience gave permission to connect with that, and now these new poems feel like an evolution,” he says.
“People have thanked me for ‘saying things they couldn’t’. I’ve been trying to open up in a way that is safe for me and safe for others, and having honed those skills, or muscles, I was ready to apply it to the new poems.
“It’s also trying to acknowledge that just because I have this child and this joyful outcome, it doesn’t negate the experience I’ve been through.”
The sequel to his Wonderful poetry collection will be published by Canongate next March. “This is the point in between where you can say ‘life can be difficult but also amazing, and if anything, one heightens the other’. If you can share the hard times with people, just as you share the joyous times, they’re more bearable for that.”
Poems have an intensity that suits the combative nature of slams. “When I started out, I was entering these poetry slams where you have to say everything in three minutes, win over the audience, be funny, get them on board, deliver a message, wrap it up and send it off into the sunset,” says Harry.
“That was such a good training ground because you have to convey things in such a short space of time. That’s why these Wonderful shows are such a joy to do, particularly when the poems can feel vulnerable and heartfelt, and it’s up to you where you take it next.”
Next year’s poetry collection, Tender, will reflect that. “Why ‘Tender’? I think it was that thing of wanting to lean into the feeling of vulnerability, but as well as the connotation of being tender where you feel bruised, there’s the ripeness and readiness too.”
Did you know?
HARRY Baker’s honest, heartfelt and hopeful poems have reached more than ten million people on TikTok and Instagram.
Raised in a Christian community, Baker is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause For Thought.
He tours the UK in comedy-rap-jazz duo Harry and Chris Baker, also appearing on The Russell Howard Hour.
Baker released his third poetry collection, Wonderful, in May 2024, featuring fan favourites Wellies, Sunflowers and Sticky Toffee Pudding. Published by Burning Eye, copies are available at gigs, all good bookshops and www.harrybaker.co.
REVIEW: Through It All Together, Leeds Playhouse, until July 19 *****
Reece Dinsdale’s Howard and Shobna Gulati’s Sue in Through It All Together. Picture: Charlie Swinbourne
THROUGH It All Together is the third play about Leeds United after Anders Lustgarten’s ubiquitous, damnable The Damned United and Anthony Clavane and Nick Stimson’s lesser-spotted Promised Land, A Northern Love Story, staged in a community production with Red Ladder at Leeds Carriageworks Theatre in Summer 2012.
“About Leeds United” tells only half the story. The Damned United, adapted from David Peace’s literary psycho-drama, was rather more about Brian Clough, the Richard III of Leeds managers, and his 44-day impact on Revie’s champions versus their corrosive, longer-rooted impact on “Old Big ‘ead”.
A Promised Land, adapted from Clavane’s non-fiction book, interwove the repeat pattern of the rise and fall of Leeds United and the industries of Leeds with the story of the city’s Jewish community, who provided the club’s most successful chairmen, Manny Cussins and Leslie Silver.
Now Leeds United is only half the story once more in Chris O’Connor’s Through It All Together, a title taken from the club anthem Marching On Together (originally entitled Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! as the B-side to the official 1972 FA Cup Final song, Top Ten hit Leeds United, as the Courtyard theatre audience would all know!).
Forever Leeds fan O’Connor – known as “Leeds” at his London school – “could write one strand in his sleep”, and so the Leeds United story, a love letter to sainted Argentine maverick Marcelo Bielsa and his 2020 Championship champions, is indeed penned with all the self-deprecating humour, in-jokes, reverence and irreverence of a battle-hardened yet defiantly optimistic Peacocks supporter.
The other strand, drawn from the impact of dementia on the grandmother who helped to raise him, again is written from the inside track. “One aspect we really wanted to get right was making sure the show is dementia friendly and accurate to what people go through,” he told Graham Smyth [the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Leeds United reporter since 2019] in his interview for the Playhouse premiere’s excellent programme.
Your reviewer writes with investment too: both as a long-suffering Leeds United addict since 1969 and having experienced his father’s seven-year decline with dementia – it is never a battle – that ended in relief and release in January 2016.
O’Connor said he could be “incredibly confident and happy” with the Leeds United angle. He has taken every care – like the remarkable staff at dementia care homes – to bring similar authenticity to the dementia thread, backed by the work of Playhouse theatre and dementia research consultant Dr Nicky Taylor and the Courtyard corridor exhibition that rewards early arrival for perusal.
Director Gitika Buttoo says O’Connor’s play is “for the people of Leeds, showing how football ripples through all the corners of life…but that story, while rooted in Leeds, is universal”. She’s right. You could transplant the structure to any football club’s origin story, such is the ubiquity of a supporter’s jam-side-down relationship with fate, while dementia is becoming pervasive.
In this story, Reece Dinsdale’s life-long Leeds United fan Howard Wright is in the early throes of dementia, his life-changing diagnosis coinciding with director of football Victor Orta’s left-field pursuit and recruit of Marcelo Bielsa to end LUFC’s wilderness years amid the Championship tundra.
The volcanic Orta is represented physically by one of two Paul Madeleys in Buttoo’s cast, the multi-role-playing Dean Smith (regular “Championship will Championship” contributor to The Square Ball podcast, by the way).
He teams up with Everal A Walsh in three partnerships, representing the club management (Orta and a calmer presence alongside); the fans, a diehard Elland Road attendee and a disaffected deserter newly magnetised by Bielsa’s beautiful game; and the media, podcasting and match dissecting much in the healthily cynical/sceptical/supportive style of The Square Ball, quirky adverts et al.
Unlike the omnipresent Clough in The Damned United, Bielsa is not portrayed physically (save for a delightful fantasy sequence where he dances the Argentine Tango with Shobna Gulati’s Sue in Newell’s Old Boys kit in his 1970s’ defender days). Nor is he symbolised by Bielsa’s Bucket (on which he would surely perch if the club were ever to bestow him a statue).
Instead, as mystical as Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name turning up out of nowhere, and more in keeping with Irek “Tankpetrol” Jasutowicz’s Bielsa mural at Hyde Park Corner, St Marcelo appears in a stained glass window, beatific, aura aglow, high above his Peacock flock, within set designer Amanda Stoodley’s open-plan framework of a church. How fitting!
Church structure meets the kitchen-sink drama of the Wright household’s kitchen and sitting room, home to Dinsdale’s Howard and fellow Leeds devotee Sue (Gulati), joined regularly by daughter and putative chef Hazel (Natalie Davies).
They will, in the words of the club anthem, go through it all together, both Howard’s descent into dementia and Leeds United’s typically flattering-to-deceive yet, hardly a spoiler alert, ultimately sublime rise to the Premiership’s golden gates that coincided with Covid’s lockdowns.
Two forms of distancing then play out: the fans consigned to listening to Adam Pope on BBC Radio Leeds, and Howard’s losing his sentient powers to dementia’s corrosion and erosion.
O’Connor writes brilliantly and so movingly of this struggle: the “forgetfulness”, the sudden moments of lucid clarity (such as naming Don Revie’s champion team); Howard’s wish to not be a burden to his family by listing preparations to move to a care home while he still has the mental minerals to make that decision.
More and more sticker messages are placed around the house to help Howard navigate his way through each day’s routines; daughter Hazel starts to question whether the measures they take are worth it; Sue is consigned to hospital with Covid, at which point Dinsdale’s performance hits new heights.
All the while, he and Sue will sing Marching On Together as the couple’s love song, “We love you, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds” replaced by “I love you Sue, Sue, Sue”.
We know how it ended for LUFC, with promotion, only to be followed inevitably by Leeds falling apart again (as Walsh’s fan laments to the biggest knowing laughs).
We know how it will end for Howard, so we don’t need to see it. They will go through it all together, like Leeds United’s motto, side before self.
Dinsdale, a Playhouse luminary since 1990’s debut production of Wild Oats after the Quarry Hill relocation, is terrific in his King Lear for the football masses, all the more so for putting his Huddersfield Town allegiances to one side to embrace Leeds United.
The ever supportive Gulati, always a hit with Leeds audiences, the doughty Davies and the Smith-Walsh double act at the treble are tremendous too under Buttoo’s direction that makes the play work for fan and theatre lover alike.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will cheer and groan, you will sing the songs, just like at Elland Road; you will miss Marcelo and you will know someone like Howard. At some we shall all have to go through it together, as we have our ups and downs.
Chris O’Connor has told a story of the everyman (Howard) and the extraordinary (Bielsa) with dignity, distinction and devotion.
Through It All Together, Leeds Playhouse, at least until the world stops going round, or more precisely July 19. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
Festival commission: BBC New Generation artist and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston will perform a new Anna Disley-Simpson work with theorbo player Toby Carr in In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose on July 9 at Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, at 6.30pm. Picture: Julien Gazeau
HEAVEN & Hell will be the theme of the 2025 York Early Music Festival, a summer fiesta of 19 concerts in eight days featuring international artists from July 4 to 11.
The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and Academy of Ancient Music will be taking part, as will French orchestral ensemble Le Consort, led by rising-star violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, in their York debut with an “exceptional rendition of exceptional of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – but not quite as you know it”.
The festival will intertwine three very different themes: firstly, the music of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, opening with viol consort Fretwork (Friday, July 4); secondly, the genius of the Baroque, focusing on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Sunday, July 6).
Thirdly, the strand that lends itself to the 2025 title: a reflection on Man’s fall from grace – from Heaven to Hell – in biblical times with YEMF artistic advisor and BBC New Generation artist Helen Charlston and her fellow Gramophone Award-winner, lutenist and theorbo player Toby Carr (Wednesday, July 9) in the medieval Guildhall of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.
Fretwork: Viol consort will open York Early Music Festival with Renaissance music of Orlando Gibbons in My Days: Songs and Fantasias with mezzo soprano Helen Charlston on July 4 at 7.30pm at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York
The Tallis Scholars (Saturday, July 5) and The Sixteen (Monday, July 7) will share their programmes in the glorious surroundings of York Minster; the Spanish ensemble Cantoria (Tuesday, July 8) will present a sizzling array of ensaladas and villancicos in their A La Fiesta programme and Swiss- based medievalists Sollazzo (Thursday, July 10) will return to York for the first time since winning a prestigious Diapason d’Or award.
Thefestival will finish with a flourish in the company of the Academy of Ancient Music and their leader, violinist Bojan Čičić (Friday, July 11) in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos.
York Early Music Festival continues to support emerging musicians with invitations to two 2024 York Early Music Festival Young Artists Competition winners, Ayres Extemporae and Ensemble Bastion.
Once again, the festival will showcase a variety of York’s beautiful historic buildings, such as the Minster, the medieval Merchant Adventurers’ Hall and the intriguing hidden architectural gem Bedern Hall.
The Sixteen: Returning to York Minster to present Angel Of Peace on July 7at 7.30pm
In an open call for the York Early Music Festival Special Commission, NCEM Young Composers Award alumni were invited to respond to the Heaven & Hell theme by writing a piece to be performed by Charlston and Carr as part of their In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose programme featuring Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier and Humfrey works on July 9.
Anna Disley-Simpson has been awarded the commission from a competitive field of 24 applications for her piece Heaven Or Hell, for which she will collaborate with librettist Olivia Bell, drawing inspiration from Kurt Weill. Expect her composition to be “deliberately subversive and unexpected in several ways,” Anna promises.
Supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and an anonymous donor, Anna will receive a commission fee of £2,000, plus travel and accommodation expenses within the United Kingdom to attend a workshop with the musicians in London and the York premiere.
Looking forward to the July event, festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We are thrilled to welcome friends old and new to what promises to be a fantastic celebration of music from an outstanding array of artists.
Le Consort: French orchestral ensemble will make York Early Music Festival debut on July 6, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, at 7.30pm
“Celebrating over 500 years of music from across Europe, we are particularly delighted to be able to welcome ensembles from France, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands to our wonderful city. We look forward to welcoming visitors and residents alike to eight wonderful days of music-making.”
The full programme and booking details can be found at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Bookings also can be made on 01904 658338, via boxoffice@ncem.co.uk and in person at the NCEM, Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.
York Early Music Festival: the back story
ESTABLISHED in 1977, the festival is designed to celebrate York’s myriad of medieval churches, guildhalls and historic houses through historically informed music-making of the highest international standard.
The annual event is the “jewel in the crown” of the National Centre for Early Music’s annual programme, enjoyed by York residents and visitors from all over the UK and across the world.
The Tallis Scholars: Performing Glorious Creatures programme at York Minster on July 5 at 7.30pm. Picture: Hugo Glendinning
