Glenn Tilbrook: Teaming up with Beautiful Landing at Leeds Brudenell Social Club
GLENN Tilbrook & Beautiful Landing play Leeds Brudenell Social Club on June 11 as one of three warm-up shows for Glastonbury Festival.
Fifty years since he first answered an advert placed by Chris Difford, looking for like-minded sorts to form the Deptford band that became Squeeze, an ending is nowhere in sight.
Squeeze made their recording bow with the Packet Of Three EP in 1977, leading to such enduring pop classics as Take Me I’m Yours, Cool For Cats, Up The Junction, Another Nail In My Heart, Tempted, Labelled With Love, Black Coffee In Bed and Hourglass, alongside landmark albums Argybargy, East Side Story and Some Fantastic Place.
Squeeze’s demise in 1998 – not permanent – saw Tilbrook embark on a solo career that spawned the albums The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook in 2001 and Transatlantic Ping-Pong in 2004.
In 2009 came Pandemonium Ensues, made with his solo band The Fluffers, followed in 2011 by The Co-Operative, an album of spirited original songs and covers with his friends from Nine Below Zero.
2014 brought Happy Ending, Tilbrook’s most personal and political solo work in a series of evocative portraits of time, people, and places, featuring writing and vocal contributions from Chris McNally, Simon Hanson (Fluffers/Squeeze drummer), Dennis Greaves (Nine Below Zero) and his children Leon and Wesley.
Squeeze re-formed in 2007 and have kept Tilbrook, 65, busy touring around the world, but he still finds time to take his solo show out on the road from time to time.
Now he is joined by Beautiful Landing, a young five-piece indie band from South East London to leaf through the Squeeze and solo back catalogues, complemented by covers and surprises.
Having a Bad Day in York: The Bad Day Blues Band play York Blues Festival tonight
FROM a dose of the blues to tragic poetry and song, an heroic fireman to a flying car, clashing couples to country-singing twins, Charles Hutchinson is ready for a week of up-and-down moods.
Festival of the week: York Blues Festival, The Crescent, York, today, 12.30pm to 11pm
YORK’S DC Blues present the cream of the crop from the British blues scene in an all-dayer. Taking part will be Mojo Catfish: Electric Blues; The Bad Day Blues Band; Bad Bob Bates; DC Blues; Alex Fawcett Band; The Terraplanes Blues Band; Mark Pontin Group and The The Lonely Hands Band.
Hand-picked by Jorvik Radio’s Blues From The Ouse hosts Paul Winn & Ben Darwin, the fourth York Blues Festival features bands from all over Britain performing from 1pm. Now the bad news to give you the blues: the event has sold out.
Twin sisters Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas make their third visit to York Barbican on Tuesday
Country gig of the week: Ward Thomas, York Barbican, Tuesday, auditorium doors 7.30pm
HAMPSHIRE country twins Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas look for light in troubled times on newly released fifth album Music In The Madness: songs of harmony-soaked balm for shattered souls and an uplifting reminder of what really matters.
Love, family, unity and the healing power of music are recurrent themes on an album begun as war broke out in Ukraine and the world went into a post-Covid tailspin. Tuesday’s York return will be the sisters’ only Yorkshire concert on a 13-date tour. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Fireman Sam on circus-saving duty at York Theatre Royal on Tuesday
Children’s show of the week: Fireman Sam Saves The Circus, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 3.30pm
WHEN all his friends go away, Norman Price decides to become the star of a visiting circus in Pontypandy. However, with a tiger on the loose and faulty lights, his adventure soon turns to danger. Can Fireman Sam come to the rescue and save the circus? Spoiler alert, the show title suggests yes!
Join Sam, Penny, Elvis, Station Officer Steele and Norman in UK Family’s all-singing singing, all-dancing, action-packed show, where you can become a fire-fighter cadet. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Alan Park’s playwright Henry in rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. Picture: Ben Lindley
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, Wednesday and Thursday, 7.30pm, then April 11 to 15, 7.30pm, plus April 15, 2.30pm
HENRY is married to Charlotte. Max is married to Annie. Henry – possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation – has written a play about a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Charlotte and Max, his leading couple, are soon to find out that sometimes life imitates art.
Directed by Jacob Ward, Pocklington School alumnus Tom Stoppard’s deliberately confusing 1982 exploration of love and infidelity sets the question “What is the real thing?” … without answering it! Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Sam Green, left, Dan Crawfurd-Porter and Mikhail Lim in rehearsal for Black Sheep Theatre’s Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens
Time to discover: Black Sheep Theatre in Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens, Quad South, York St John University, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
BLACK Sheep Theatre bring Janet Hood and Bill Russell’s rarely performed 1989 musical to the York stage with a cast including Mikhail Lim (last seen as Seymour in York Stage’s Little Shop Of Horrors last July) and Helen Spencer (Dolly Levi in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Hello Dolly! in February).
Elegies For Angels, Punks And Raging Queens is composed of free verse poems and songs, each poem representing a character who has died from AIDS, the songs reflecting the feelings of the living, those who have lost friends and loved ones. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/black-sheep-theatre-productions
Alex Papachristou: Returning to York to play Baron Bomburst in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Spectacular show of the week: York Stage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday to April 15, 7.30pm nightly except April 9; 2.30pm, April 7, 8, 12 and 15
YORK Stage present the magic, mayhem and madness of Richard and Robert Sherman’s most Fantasmagorical musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, under the direction of Nik Briggs with choreography by Damien Poole and musical direction by Adam Tomlinson.
Can whacky inventor Caractacus Potts (Ned Sproston), his two children and the gorgeous Truly Scrumptious (Carly Morton) outwit bombastic Baron Bomburst (welcome back Alex Papachristou), who has decreed that all children be banished from his kingdom? Watch out, here come the evil Childcatcher (Richard Barker) and, yes, that flying car too. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Liza Pulman & Joe Stilgoe: Songs and stories, favourite standards and classic duets, at Selby Town Hall
Musical match made in theatrical heaven: Liza Pulman & Joe Stilgoe: A Couple Of Swells, Selby Town Hall, April 15, 8pm. Also Otley Couthouse, April 14, 7.30pm; otleycourthouse.org. uk
LIZA Pulman and Joe Stilgoe, both headline names in their own right, have chosen Selby for one of their first ever duo shows in a night of songs and stories, favourite standards and classic duets, sprinkled with panache and dazzle.
The Great American Song Book meets 1950s’ French Riviera chic in the company of Pulman, one third of satirical cabaret group Fascinating Aïda, and jazz pianist and singer Stilgoe, a five-time UK Jazz Chart topper. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.
May days: The poster for Babybird’s five-date tour, visiting Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Back together: Babybird, The F-Word Tour, supported by Terrorvision’s Tony Wright, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, May 5, doors 7.30pm
PLAYING Leeds feels like a rite of passage to return there for Babybird’s Stephen Jones, as he recalls the memorable between-song banter enthusiasm of his band’s first tours of 1996 and 1997.
Formed in 1995 and best known for misconstrued 1996 anthem You’re Gorgeous, Babybird made 11 albums before splitting in 2013, since when Manchester-based Jones has written fiction, released solo works on Bandcamp and created the film score for Blessed. Reunited, Babybird’s monstrous lullabies for an unstable world are taking wing anew. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
In Focus: Ryedale Youth Theatre in The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 5 to 8
Meet the Addams Family in Ryedale Youth Theatre’s The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy. All pictures: Tim Youster
CHLOE Shipley directs a cast of 50, aged eight to 18, in The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy, featuring music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.
Although numerous film and television adaptations of Charles Addams’s single-panel gag cartoons exist, this musical is the first stage show to be based on the ghoulish American family with an affinity for all things macabre.
Billed as a comical feast that embraces the wackiness in every family, the show features an original story built around every father’s nightmare. Daughter Wednesday, the ultimate princess of darkness – with a name derived from the Fair Of Face poem’s line that “Wednesday’s child is full of woe“ – has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family – a man her parents have never met.
If that were not upsetting enough, Wednesday confides in her father, begging him not to tell her mother. Now Gomez Addams must do something he has never done before: keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia.
Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his parents.
As the lyrics for the Main Theme for The Addams Family, written by Vic Mizzy in 1964, assert: “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They’re all together ooky, The Addams family”.
Under Chloe’s direction and Rachel Clarke’s musical direction, the multi-talented Ryedale cast has thoroughly enjoyed proving that rhyme’s sentiment in rehearsals. Now comethe 7.15pm evening shows and 2pm Thursday and Saturday matinees, with tickets on sale at £12, concessions £10, at yourboxoffice.co.uk.
H Hawkline: “Idiosyncratic, tuneful and highly poetic songs”
WELSH songwriter H Hawkline is probably best known as a key part of Aldous Harding and Cate Le Bon’s touring bands.
As a solo artist (real name Huw Evans), his idiosyncratic, tuneful and highly poetic songs have not achieved the same level of recognition. Until now perhaps. His sixth album, Milk For Flowers, is by far his most realised, coherent statement yet.
On his last long player, six years ago, he sang about “getting all his kicks from sympathy”, and with this album he delivers. Milk For Flowers is already being talked about as a contender for those end-of-year best of lists.
Hawkline and his beautiful band were playing the new record from end to end. While critics love albums about breakups and grief, what about concert audiences?
The crowd were already in good spirits thanks to the tuneful efforts of dynamic openers Captain Starlet, then the intermittently brilliant and sonically startling Dilettante. The latter set the bar high with some audacious art rock songs.
Playing as a trio rather than their normal four-piece, centre stage was Francesca Pidgeon, who, like Harkline, is best known for her part in another band, BC Camplight’s. Big Fish and Teeth marked them out as contenders in their own right.
“The master of combining sad or unusual lyrics to upbeat arrangements”: H Hawkline performing at the Brudenell Social Club on Tuesday night
Milk For Flowers may have been inspired by the loss of his mother, but Hawkline was good company and fully committed to putting his album across, showing none of his former detachment.
With a band, he was able to recreate the album (minus some pedal steel guitar and, oddly, one piano-based number). Give the album a few spins and its slow charms seem to multiply. It’s the sort of record that music lovers would have once pored over, trying to work out the lyrics – are the nuns picking noses, or is it roses? (From the title track, it’s the later).
The band were able to bring out these strengths straight from the off. Hawkline has long been the master of combining sad or unusual lyrics to upbeat arrangements, and Suppression Street or Plastic Man showed that side of him – both slinky and thought provoking.
So far, so good, but better was to come. The slower, more personal songs were perhaps the strongest. Sitting down, Hawkline showed his lyrical deftness and also the range of his voice, wrapping everything in those delicious Welsh vowels.
Empty Room has had the pundits swooning, and rightly so. It’s such a shame that George Jones or Gene Clark (who got a namecheck earlier in the set) are no longer with us to take this song to more ears, but this slow, stunning ballad of loss will have an afterlife. The crowd loved it.
Hawkline’s hourlong set was just right, not too short, and certainly not too long. Ending with three songs from 2017’s I Romanticize, Hawkline stepped from band leader to act out the front man. It also showed Hawkline’s tendency to run a good idea or melody into the ground.
Engineers was present and correct and Last Thing On My Mind was the ideal closer. “I’m loved,” he teased ,and so it would seem.
THE cook, the dinosaurs, the pots and the mums serve up a week of cultural contrasts, as recommended by Charles Hutchinson.
Exhibition of the week: Lincoln Lightfoot, Grand Opera House, York, until May 31
ALIENS, dinosaurs, UFOs, even King Kong, invade the Grand Opera House box office as York artist Lincoln Lightfoot explores surreal concepts reminiscent of the poster art for the Fifties and Sixties’ B-movie fixation with comical science-fiction disasters.
Depicting unusual happenings with large beasts, staged in familiar settings and on iconic architecture, from York Minster to the Angel of the North, Lightfoot’s artwork escapes from everyday problems to tap into the fears perpetuated by the news media and politicians alike in a post Covid-19 world.
Artist LIncoln Lightfoot surveys his dinosaurs towering over York Minster in an earlier exhibition at The Den at Micklegate Social, York
The gig of the week: Courtney Marie Andrew, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm
PHOENIX singer, songwriter, poet and artist Courtney Marie Andrews initially approached making her latest album, Loose Future, by composing a song every day. Feeling “the sounds of summer” flowing through her writing in a Cape Cod beach house, she collected material imbued with romance, possibility and freedom for recording at Sam Evian’s Flying Cloud Recordings studio in the Catskill Mountains, New York State.
Dipping in the creek every morning before proceeding, she wanted to embody the feeling of letting love in after the break-up reflections of 2020’s Old Flowers. Hear the results in Leeds. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
Courtney Marie Andrews: Plunging into new love in her Loose Future songs at Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Topical monologue of the week: Black Treacle Theatre in Iphigenia In Splott, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
GREEK myth meets modern reality in Gary Owen’s “horribly relevant” one-woman drama Iphigenia In Splott, set in contemporary Cardiff and rooted in the ancient tale of Iphigenia being sacrificed by her father to placate the gods.
Under the direction of Jim Paterson, York company Black Treacle Theatre presents Livy Potter in this 75-minute monologue about Effie, whose life spirals through a mess of drink, drugs and drama every night, and a hangover worse than death the next day, until one incident gives her the chance to be something more. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Livy Potter: “Spiralling through a mess of drink, drugs and drama every night” in the role of Effie in Gary Owen’s monologue Iphigenia In Splott
Food for thought: Prue Leith: Nothing In Moderation, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm
“I’M probably nuts to try it, but it’s huge fun,” says Dame Prue Leith as she mounts her debut tour at the age of 83. Nothing is off the menu as she shares anecdotes of the ups and downs of being a restaurateur, food writer, novelist, businesswoman and Great British Bake Off judge.
For the first time, Dame Prue tells tales of how she has fed the rich and famous, cooked for royalty and even poisoned her clients, while singing the praises of food, love and life. Audience questions will be answered post-interval. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Cook’s confessions: Prue Leith opens up in Nothing In Moderation on her debut theatre tour
The show that comes with strings attached: Chloe Bezer in The Slow Songs Make Me Sad, York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 7.45pm
CELLIST, writer and theatre maker Chloe Bezer’s “rollicking night of cabaret storytelling about post-natal depression” is her chance to make her mark, deal with the big stuff, and leave an inheritance before she is an ex-cellist and theatre maker.
Refusing to stay silent over the stuff usually kept quiet, and resolutely life affirming, Bezer addresses unrecognised hardships faced by new mothers, complicated relationships with making music and the question of what we leave behind. Cue clowning, heartfelt stories and raucous cello songs. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Writer, performer, musician and mother: Theatre and home maker Chloe Bezer in a whirl in The Slow Songs Make Me Sad
Mum’s the word: Mumsy, Hull Truck Theatre, Thursday to March 25
AS part of Hull Truck’s 50th anniversary programme, Hull playwright Lydia Marchant delivers the world premiere of Mumsy, wherein Sophie (Jessica Jolleys), her mum Rachel (Nicola Stephenson) and nan Linda (Sue Kelvin) battle through the friendship, drama and love of mother-daughter relationships.
“What a privilege to be directing this funny, warm, authentic new play,” says director Zoe Waterman. “Crammed into a one-bed flat in Hull with rising bills and decreasing wages, three generations of women push at their circumstances – and sometimes each other – to let their dreams soar.” Box office: 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk.
Not keeping mum: Sue Kelvin, as nan Linda, in rehearsal for Hull Truck Theatre’s world premiere of Lydia Marchant’s Mumsy
Top of the pots: York Ceramics Fair, York Racecourse, March 4 and 5,10am to 5pm
THE Craft Potters Association has curated artworks from 60 prominent British ceramicists and potters, hailing from Cornwall to Scotland, for the return of York Ceramics Fair after a Covid-enforced short break.
Among the Yorkshire makers there will be Ruth King, Loretta Braganza and Emily Stubbs, from York, Katie Braida, from Scarborough, Penny Withers, from Sheffield, and fair chair Anna Lambert, from Keighley. Both Emily and Katie will be giving a demonstration. For tickets and a full list of exhibitors, go to: yorkceramicsfair.com.
Emily Stubbs: Taking part in the York Ceramics Fair at York Racecourse
High old time of the week: Attic Theatre Company presents James Rowland in Learning To Fly, Helmsley Arts Centre, March 4, 7.30pm
COMBINING theatre, comedy and music in his new show, James Rowland tells the story of a remarkable friendship he made when he was a lonely, unhappy teenager with the scary old lady who lived in the spooky house on his street.
“It’s about connection, no matter what the obstacles; about love’s eternal struggle with time; about music and its ability to heal,” says Rowland. “It’s also about her last wish: to get high once before she dies.” Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyartscentre.co.uk.
James Rowland: Winging it in Learning To Fly at Helmsley Arts Centre
Comedy coupling incoming: An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan, Grand Opera House, York, April 16, 7.30pm
COMEDIANS Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan join forces to “split the bill and your sides” with a night of stand-up and impressions.
Their pairing for a one-off festival appearance turned out to be a match made in comedy heaven, prompting the decision to tour together. They first played the Grand Opera House in November 2018, when McGowan’s opening set prompted Carrott to say, “I said ‘warm them up’, not boil them!”. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The artwork for The Sadies’ 2022 album, Colder Streams
THERE have been so many concerts delayed by Covid. So what? Well, for Canadian roots band The Sadies, the last year has made all the difference in the world.
When chief songwriter and singer Dallas Good died suddenly of natural causes aged 48 last February, the music world stopped and took notice.
While the band aren’t commercially well known, they epitomise the phrase “musician’s musicians”. After 25 years (averaging 100 concerts a year), everything has now changed. So, where once there would have been four on stage, instead there was a power trio.
Travis Good, Dallas’s brother and lead guitarist, had an awfully large weight to carry. On him fell all singing, rhythm and lead guitar work. Notwithstanding facing up to the empty space alongside him.
Hitting the stage with their characteristic attack and few words, The Sadies’ set drew from many corners of their long career (minus their even more numerous collaborations). Not until the seventh song, Questions I’ve Never Asked, did they take a breath and change the tempo. Prior to that it was a hit-and-run mix of punk rock, spaghetti western, bluegrass and Byrds-like jangle. All rolled into a road-worn groove the Toronto group have long been perfecting.
Good gave it everything – his tall lean frame hunched over his Gretsch guitar, his wild, unkempt hair hanging down, and drips of sweat falling off him as he lost himself in the music (his style in that respect was unchanged from his York concerts in 2006 and 2008 at the Junction and Duchess respectively).
His long-term companions, Sean Dean and Mike Belitsky, quietly filled in some of the missing pieces. While the trio gave muscular, pared-back readings of the songs, you couldn’t help but miss that second guitar, the sibling harmonies and the greater freedom to roam.
“Suddenly it all feels different and very strange,” Good said. The song titles reflected that, including A New Beginning and Starting All Over Again (both from 2013’s Internal Sounds).
Good is an amazing guitar player – and he knows what grabs an audience. From the sped-up Cheat to perhaps his signature tune, Northumberland West, this was a masterclass. A shame there was no acoustic material, although his fiddle made a fleeting appearance for a manic hoedown in Uncle Larry’s Breakdown.
While the fuzzed-up overdrive Leave Me Alone or Another Season Again impressed with their energy, more interesting were the melodies and emotions that shone through when The Sadies slowed down.
This was a short set, by their standards, at 26 songs and 70 minutes, but it felt enough. It’s unclear what the future holds for the Sadies. Their 2022 album, Colder Streams, is probably their best – defying the traditional arc and fall of a music career.
This short tour is to promote that record, but what lies beyond is unclear. Touring and performing with up-and-coming duo Kacy & Clayton recently in the States, a dream scenario would be to simply absorb them, Seventies’ Fleetwood Mac style, into the Sadies.
No One’s Listening, a standout outsider’s cry from the new record and a highlight on Sunday night, is wrong, This is a band that has earned a right to play another year, again.
A scene from Frantic Assembly’s 21st century retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, full of paranoia, sex and murder, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tristram Kenton
REJOICE as doors to York’s grand designs ancient and modern are unlocked this weekend. Charles Hutchinson also checks out what’s on inside elsewhere.
Play of the week: Frantic Assembly in Othello, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday
FRANTIC Assembly’s award-winning, electrifying reimagining of Othello locates Shakespeare’s tragedy of paranoia, sex and murder in a volatile 21st century as Othello’s passionate affair with Desdemona becomes the catalyst for jealousy, betrayal, revenge and the darkest intents.
Shakespeare’s muscular yet beautiful text combines with the touring company’s own bruising physicality in a world of broken glass and broken promises, malicious manipulation and explosive violence, previously staged in 2008 and 2014 and now updated for 2022. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
“Rollercoaster romcom”: Olga Koch at Theatre@41
Comedy gig of the week: Olga Koch, Just Friends, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm
OLGA Koch, Russian-born, English-dwelling, story-telling stand-up and BBC Radio 4 show host, makes a return visit to Monkgate this weekend, following up last October’s Homecoming show.
Directed by Charlie Dinkin, this time she promises a “rollercoaster romcom you aren’t tall enough to ride”. “Strap in,” she advises. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Garforth House: One of 60 buildings opening up for York Unlocked this weekend
Tours of the week: York Unlocked, 60 locations, today and tomorrow
YORK joins the European Open Door cities and 60 Open House cities this weekend to showcase its urban landscape and buildings old and new. Among them will be Cumberland House (Kings Staith), Garforth House, York Guildhall, Bar Convent, Hiscox, Castlegate House, Duncombe Place Masonic Lodge, Hudson Quarter, Brew York (Walmgate), City Screen Picturehouse, Walmgate Bar, the Phoenix Inn and a plethora of churches.
“We aim to foster public appreciation of the architecture of York by organising the opening of 60 buildings and open spaces of merit for the public to explore for free,” say the organisers. “Our goal is to educate, engage and inspire.” For full details, head to: york-unlocked.org.uk/buildings-2022.
Will Clark: Violin soloist for York Guildhall Orchestra’s concert
Classical concert of the week: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm
THE first concert of York Guildhall Orchestra’s 42nd season also marks Simon Wright’s 30th anniversary as conductor. In a programme of popular music, local lad Will Clark is the violin soloist for Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, having earlier played with the orchestra as a youngster.
Old friends Leeds Festival Chorus join for Fauré’s Pavane and Lambert’s Rio Grande (piano soloist: Rebecca Taylor). Shostakovich’s Festive Overture will be the rousing opener; Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, the finale. In between come works by Porter, Wagner, Berlioz, Offenbach’s Can-Can; Handel, Tavener and Coleridge Taylor. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Beth Orton: Leeds Brudenell Social Club beckonsthis weekend
Gig of the week outside York: Beth Orton, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, tomorrow, doors, 7.30pm
BRIT Award winner Beth Orton concludes her autumn tour in Leeds, promoting her seventh studio album, released last month on her new label, Partisan Records.
Written on a battered old piano that singer-songwriter Orton saved from Camden Market, Weather Alive collates memories and experiences spanning a lifetime, her story-telling, sonically experimental songs addressing struggles and healing. Box office: for returns only, brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
John Hewer as Harold, left, and Jeremy Smith as Albert in The Steptoe And Son Radio Show
Nostalgia of the week: The Steptoe And Son Radio Show, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
ADAPTED for the stage by John Hewer, The Steptoe And Son Radio Show doffs its cap to the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of the classic BBC television comedy.
In a show based on the original TV scripts of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Jeremy Smith and Hewer play out the woes of warring Shepherd’s Bush rag-and-bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold in three episodes: Is That Your Horse Outside?, A Death In The Family and Upstairs, Downstairs, Upstairs, Downstairs. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
The tour poster for The Proclaimers’ autumn travels
Tuneful twins of the week: The Proclaimers, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm
SCATHING Scottish siblings Craig and Charlie Reid return to York on their 35-date autumn tour in support of their end-of-empire 12th studio album, Dentures Out, ahead of their 40th anniversary in 2023 (stage time, 830pm).
Fellow Scot David Tennant names The Proclaimers as “probably my favourite band of all time”. “They write the most spectacular songs, big-hearted, uncynical passionate songs,” says the ubiquitous actor. John Bramwell opens the gig; good news for I Am Kloot devotees after a family bereavement led to the cancellation of his September 24 concert at Ellerton Priory. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Marc Almond: Heading back to York Barbican
Leeds legend of the week in York: Marc Almond In Concert, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
SOFT Cell frontman Marc Almond plays York Barbican for the third time in five years after his Hits And Pieces tour date in April 2017 and guest spot at Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra’s November 2018 concert.
On his first solo tour in more than three years, Almond plays two sets, performing favourites from his extensive catalogue, his biggest hits and songs from his last album, January 2020’s Chaos And A Dancing Star, since when Soft Cell have released Happiness Not Included last year. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Suede: Returning to York Barbican at last. Picture: Dean Chalkley
SUEDE are to play York Barbican for the first time in 25 years on the closing night of their 2023 tour on March 15.
Tickets go on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk and ticketmaster.co.uk at 9am on Friday, the day of release of the London band’s ninth studio album, Autofiction, their first since The Blue Hour in September 2018.
The following night (17/9/2022), Suede will be in Leeds for a sold-out gig at the Brudenell Social Club, presented by Leeds record store Crash Records in a ticket and new album bundle for £18.99.
Next March’s shows will combine Suede classics, hits and selections from Autofiction, climaxing with their first York Barbican appearance since April 23 1997.
The artwork for Suede’s ninth studio album, Autofiction, out on Friday
The tour announcement follows a pair of secret shows performed under the guise of Crushed Kid, a conceit that saw singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Richard Oakes, bass player Mat Osman (brother of TV host Richard), drummer Simon Gilbert and keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Neil Codling taking the “back to basics” nature of Autofiction to the extreme by playing live under a fake name.
Crushed Kid made their debut at London’s 300-capacity Moth Club, followed by a set at Manchester’s Deaf Institute. On both nights, fans were treated to a high-energy surprise preview of the new album in its entirety, with no greatest hits and no encore.
Recorded at Konk Studios in North London with producer Ed Buller for release on BMG, Autofiction is described by Anderson as “our punk record. No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and ****-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess.”
The track listing is: She Still Leads Me On; Personality Disorder; 15 Again; The Only Way I Can Love You; That Boy On The Stage; Drive Myself Home; Black Ice; Shadow Self; It’s Always The Quiet Ones; What Am I Without You? and Turn Off Your Brain And Yell.
BETH Orton will conclude her eight-date autumn tour at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on October 16, promoting her seventh studio album, Weather Alive.
Released on September 23, this eight-track set will be the Norfolk-born singer-songwriter’s debut for her new record label, Partisan Records, home to Fontaines D.C., Laura Marling, Idles and Fela Kuti.
The expansive, fractured title track is already out as a single, accompanied by a video directed by photographer/director Eliot Lee Hazel at Big Sur on the Californian coast.
Clocking in at just over seven minutes, Weather Alive is a dark, atmospheric reintroduction to BRIT Award winner Orton as she approaches the fourth decade of a career noted for genre-defying collaborations with Chemical Brothers, Andy Weatherall, Red Snapper, William Orbit, Bert Jansch, Terry Callier and Jim O’Rourke.
The artwork for Beth Orton’s Weather Alive
The new album, her first since 2016’s Kidsticks, finds Orton in front of the recording studio glass and behind it for the first time as both artiste and producer in her London home studio.
Weather Alive is not a wholly solo album, however. Orton left the studio door wedged open to welcome The Smile and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, Mancunian jazz saxophonist, poet and activist Alabaster dePlume, multi-instrumentalist/composer Shahzad Ismaily and The Invisible’s bassist, Tom Herbert.
Written on a battered old piano Orton saved from Camden Market, Weather Alive collates memories and experiences spanning a lifetime, her storytelling, sonically experimental songs addressing struggles and healing.
This summer, Orton, 51, has been supporting Alanis Morissette on her British and European tour, playing the Leeds AO Arena on June 24, ahead of a series of festival appearances at Latitude, Southwold, on July 23, Beautiful Days, Devon, on August 19 and Open House, Bangor, on August 21.
Tickets for Leeds Brudenell Social Club are on sale at bethortonofficial.com.
Amy Hall, left, Victoria Delaney and Neil Vincent in masked rehearsals at Southlands Methodist Church for York Settlement Community Players’ production of Woman In Mind. Picture: John Saunders
CLASSIC Ayckbourn, club classics, a homecoming songwriter, a Dracula discovery and choirs galore make Charles Hutchinson’s list of recommendations, any way the wind blows.
Play of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight (19/2/2022) until February 26, 7.45pm and 2.45pm last-day matinee
HOUSEWIFE Susan’s growing disillusionment with everyday life in her humdrum marriage is brought to a head when she steps on a garden rake and is knocked unconscious.
Such is the impact of her minor concussion, suddenly she finds herself surrounded by the ideal fantasy family, handsomely dressed in tennis whites as they sip champagne.
When her real and imaginary worlds collide, however, those fantasies take on a nightmarish life of their own as Alan Ayckbourn applies both humour and pathos to his 1985 portrait of a woman on the verge. Victoria Delaney, on stage throughout as Susan, leads Angie Millard’s cast. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
James Gaddas: Digging deeper into Bram Stoker’s Dracula in his one-man show at the Grand Opera House, York
So much at stake: James Gaddas in Dracula – One Man’s Search For The Truth, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm
WHEN actor James Gaddas comes across Bram Stoker’s original handwritten copy of Dracula while working on a satellite channel television show, he finds it contains pages never published, leading him to a terrifying discovery.
What if everything we thought we knew was only the beginning? What if it is not so much a story as a warning? What if the legend is real?
Gaddas brings the original version to life before sharing his discovery on a night of one actor, 15 characters and one monumental decision: are some things better left buried? Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Babybird’s Stephen Jones: Revisiting his landmark Ugly Beautiful album in full at Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Yorkshire gig of the week: Babybird, Ugly Beautiful 25th Anniversary, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, February 23, doors, 7.30pm
MARKING the silver anniversary of his smart, piercing pop album Ugly Beautiful and its misunderstood ubiquitous single You’re Beautiful – pay attention to its dark criticism of men’s behaviour beyond the shiny chorus – Babybird is taking to the road for four shows built around that pioneering record. The one he said had “songs to annoy, enjoy and employ God with”.
Up front as ever will be Stephen Jones, 59, the songwriter, singer, musician and novelist who first emerged as a purveyor of low-fi recordings made in his Sheffield bedroom over six years for release in 1995-96. Box office: seetickets.com/event/babybird/Brudenell
Benjamin Francis Leftwich: Heading home to York to perform at The Citadel for the first time. Picture: Harvey Pearson
Homecoming of the week: Benjamin Francis Leftwich, The Citadel, Gillygate, York, February 25, 7.30pm
NOW living in Tottenham, North London, singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich heads back home to play The Citadel, his second church gig in York after his sold-out Minster concert in 2019.
Last June he released his fourth album, To Carry A Whale, and he has been song-writing as prolifically as ever since then, so maybe a new number will be aired. Support comes from Elanor Moss and Wounded Bear. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Soul II Soul: Rolling out the Club Classics at York Barbican
Club night of the week: Soul II Soul, Club Classics, York Barbican, February 25, 7.30pm
SOUL II Soul’s postponed York gig comes back to life on Friday, with tickets still valid from the original October 2020 date.
Jazzie B’s London soul, R&B and rap collective will be reviving the vibe of their 1989 number one Back To Life, top five hit Keep On Movin and their debut album Club Classics Vol. One. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
That singing feeling at York Community Choir Festival
On song at large: York Community Choir Festival 2022, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 27 to March 5
EIGHT shows, with a different line-up every time, go into York’s celebration of community choral music.
Taking part will be three primary school choirs (Osbaldwick, Robert Wilkinson and Headlands), Huntington Secondary School gents and ladies’ choirs and 30 adult choirs.
Despite there being close to 200 song choices, in only one concert will the same song be sung by two choirs, in very different styles. Each concert ends with everyone singing I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Madness: Playing York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend for a second time in July
Under starter’s orders: York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, Madness, July 22, evening; Sugababes, July 23, late-afternoon
CAMDEN’S Nutty Boys, Madness, are on course for the Music Showcase Weekend for the second time this summer, having first played the Knavesmire track in July 2010.
Once more, Suggs and co will roll out such ska-flavoured music-hall hits as Our House, One Step Beyond, Baggy Trousers, It Must Be Love, House Of Fun and Michael Caine.
The original Sugababes line-up of Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena and Siobhán Donaghy will perform chart toppers as Freak Like Me, Round Round, Hole In The Head and Push The Button and plenty more. The London girl group last played York in a Barbican Centre show in 2003. For race-day tickets, go to: yorkracecourse.co.uk
Guvnor’s rules: Al Murray puts the world to rights through the bottom of an English glass or two in the Pub Landlord’s new tirade, Gig For Victory
Bar-room bawl: Al Murray, The Pub Landlord, Gig For Victory, Grand Opera House, York, September 1, 7.30pm
THE Guvnor, Al Murray, sets off on his 86-date tour on February 24 and will still be having a word on November 13. York will play host to the first show after a summer re-charge for the Pub Landlord, whose Gig for Victory agenda promises answers to questions that the “men and women of this great country never knew existed”.
“Who better to show the way than the people’s man of the people, steeped in the deep and ancient bar-room wisdom of countless slock-ins,” says Murray, ever ready to offer a full pint of the good stuff to a nation thirsty for common sense. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
Yard Act: Chasing the top spot with their debut album The Overload. Picture: Phoebe Fox
LEEDS! Are you with us, ask Yard Act on Twitter as the spiky Leeds post-punk band chase the top spot with their debut album, The Overload.
“If half of all of you (pop.521,148) download The Overload for just £4.99 by midnight tonight we’ll be number one EASY!”, the Tweet urges, then adding yardact.lnk.to/TheOverloadTW/…All Leeds Aren’t We to their #YardActForNumber1 campaign.
Should Yard Act pull off the feat, they will be the first album chart toppers from Leeds since Kaiser Chiefs’ second number one, Education, Education, Education & War, in 2014.
“Who knows if we’ll make it but we’ve had a laugh trying to get to number one,” say Yard Act. “If we do become the first Leeds band in a generation to get a number one album, it’ll be down to the support of the city, its venues, its culture that’s made us the band and people we are.”
Recorded in the pandemic, The Overload knits together observations from all walks of modern British life in deadpan storytelling songs, delivered with coruscating, dark humour and knowing cynicism by frontman James Smith on such singles as The Trapper’s Pelts, Fixer Upper, Peanuts and Dark Days with echoes of both The Fall and Arctic Monkeys.
Their January 16 gig at The Crescent, York, had to be postponed, but Yard Act are set to play home-city shows at Belgrave Music Hall on February 1, Leeds Brudenell Social Club on February 26 and Leeds Irish Centre on May 20.
The Overload was released on January 21 on Zen F.C./Island Records. “Lyrically, I think it’s a record about the things that we all do,” says Smith. “We’re all so wired into the system of day to day that we don’t really stop and think about the constructs that define us.
The cover artwork for Yard Act’s January 21 album, The Overload
“But beyond that, it’s kind of exciting, because there’s still so much we don’t understand; how a hive mindset is forged, how information spreads, how we agree and presume things without thinking. Some people think more than others, but a lot of this sloganeering – ‘I’m on the left, I’m not wrong’ – doesn’t achieve anything. Gammons, Karens, Snowflakes, whatever – I find it all so boring. I’m just not into that.”
Latest single The Overload serves as an overture to the album. “It’s written from the perspective of someone sitting in a pub overhearing snippets of all these different conversations from different characters and acting as a vessel, a medium even, for their own thoughts and opinions,” says Smith.
“That cut-and-paste approach means it’s hard to decipher where one person’s musings end and another’s statement begins, and that feels like a fairer representation of why human existence is at the point it is right now. Society doesn’t prevail because of the absolute, it struggles on in spite of it. It’s our ability to compromise which helps us to co-exist.”
The title track also sees the return of fictional narrator Graham, the cocksure home renovator from Fixer Upper. “The second verse is dominated entirely by this character called Graham, a man more sure of himself than most,” says Smith. “Maybe it’s both a blessing and a burden that the rest of us can learn to compromise with the Grahams of the world which allows society to stumble on.
“I’ve defended Graham as a harmless relic of the past, struggling to stay relevant in the modern world, but this Graham is a little more vicious than the Graham from Fixer Upper. Maybe it’s the heightened paranoia that’s come with two years living through the pandemic that’s given him a little more edge. He’s still like the rest of us though, no matter how tough he acts.”
Smith adds: “We all succumb to fear most of the time, and it explains a lot about why we make the decisions we do. I imagine the chorus delivered by a Greek chorus; omnipresent, and encompassing the themes of not only this song, but the whole album. That’s what The Overload is essentially. It’s everything happening at once, and it’s our tiny, feeble minds trying to process and cope with it. Good luck.”
If you have read this story all the way to the end, why? Yard Act want you to have bought The Overload by now.
