Tag: Lost Atoms

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More Things To Do in York & beyond when the air turns blue and the skies glower. Hutch’s List No. 44, from The York Press

Roy Chubby Brown: No offence, but it’s simply comedy, reckons Britain’s stalwart potty-mouthed joker at York Barbican

FROM sacre bleu comedy to a French silent  film,  Graham Nash and Al Stewart  on vintage form to Grayson Perry on good and evil,  love’s vicissitudes to the Hunchback musical, October is brewing up a storm of culture, reports Charles Hutchinson. 

Blue humour of the week: Roy Chubby Brown, It’s Simply Comedy, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

GRANGETOWN gag veteran Roy Chubby Brown, now 80, forewarns: “Not meant to offend, it’s simply a comedy tour”. After more than 50 years of spicy one-liners and putdowns, he continues to tackle the subjects of sex, celebrities, politics and British culture with a high profanity count and contempt for political correctness. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale at York Theatre Royal Studio

Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre in The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale, York Theatre Royal Studio, today, 11am and 2pm

FRESH from an award-winning Edinburgh Fringe run, York company Hoglets Theatre invite primary-age children and families to an exciting adventure packed with beautiful handmade puppets, sea creatures, original songs and audience interaction aplenty.

Performed, crafted and directed by Gemma Curry, The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale celebrates friendship, difference and the beauty of being yourself in Andy Curry’s tale of Whale singing his heart out into the deep blue sea, but nobody singing back until…a mysterious voice echoes through the waves, whereupon Whale embarks on an unforgettable adventure. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Graham Nash: Sixty years of song at York Barbican. Picture: Ralf Louis

Vintage gigs of the week: Graham Nash, An Evening Of Songs And Stories, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm; Al Stewart, The Farewell Tour, York Barbican, October 7, 7.45pm

GRAHAM Nash, 83-year-old two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy award winner, performs songs spanning his 60-year career fromThe Hollies to Crosby, Stills andNash, CSNY (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) to his solo career, joined by Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), Adam Minkoff(bass, drums, guitars and vocals) and Zach Djanikian (guitars, mandolin, drums and vocals). Long-time friend Peter Asher supports.

The poster for Al Stewart’s farewell tour, visiting York Barbican on Tuesday

Glasgow-born folk-rock singer-songwriter Al Stewart marks his 80th birthday (born 5/9/1945) with his UK farewell tour. After relocating to Chandler Arizona from Los Angeles, his home for the past 45 years, he is winding down his touring schedule with his long-running time band The Empty Pockets. Time for the last Year Of The Cat. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jonny Best: Leading Frame Ensemble’s improvised score for The Divine Voyager at the NCEM. Picture: Chris Payne

Film event of the week: Northern Silents presents The Divine Voyager with Frame Ensemble, National Centre for Early Music, York, Monday, 7.30pm

FRAME Ensemble’s spontaneous musicians Jonny Best (piano), Susannah Simmons (violin), Liz Hanks (cello) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion) accompany Julien Duvivier’s lushly photographed, beautifully poetic 1929 French silent film The Divine Voyage with an improvised live score.

In a tale of faith and hope, rapacious businessman Claude Ferjac sends his ship, La Cordillere, on a long trading journey, knowing it is likely to sink after poor repairs. An entire village of sailors, desperate to support their families, has no choice but to set sail. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

James Lee, left, Helen Clarke, front, Wilf Tomlinson, back, and Katie Leckey rehearsing for Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold. Picture: John Stead

Time to discover: Griffonage Theatre in FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK devotees of the madcap, the macabre and making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, Griffonage Theatre transport audiences to the quirky rural town of Baile Aighneas – The Town of Dispute – for FourTold, a quartet of comedies by early 20th century Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory, never presented together in the UK until now under Northern Irish director Katie Leckey.

Encounter the bustling market and all its gossip in Spreading The News; the restaurant where newspaper editors wine, dine and mix up their Coats; the post office, where the splendid Hyacinth Halvey has sent word he is coming to town, and the bus stop where strangers such as The Bogie Men can quickly become friends! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess and Joe Layton’s Robbie in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms, on tour at York Theatre Royal next week. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Relationship drama of the week: Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, October 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

FRANTIC Assembly follow up York Theatre Royal visits of Othello and Metamorphosis with their 30th anniversary production, a two-hander memory play by Anna Jordan, directed by physical theatre specialist Scott Graham.

Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson play Robbie and Jess, whose chance meeting, disastrous dates and extraordinary transformative love is the stuff of fairy tales. Or is it? Lost Atoms is a wild ride through a life-changing relationship, or Robbie and Jess’s clashing recollections as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss, but  are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Grayson Perry: “Finding out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way” at the Grand Opera House

Question of the week: Grayson Perry: Are You Good?, Grand Opera House, October 7, 7.30pm

AFTER A Show For Normal People And A Show All About You, artist, iconoclast, television presenter and Knight Bachelor Grayson Perry asks Are You Good? A question that he thinks is “fundamental to our humanity”.

“In this show I will be helping you, the audience, find out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way,” says Sir Grayson. “I always start out with the assumption that people are born good and then life happens. So, let’s pull back the curtain and see where your morals truly lie.” Add audience participation and silly songs, and expect to come out with core values completely in tatters. “Is it more important to be good or to be right? It’s time to update what is a virtue and what is a sin. No biggie.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie: Pure entertainment at York Barbican on Thursday

Oh, lucky you gig of the week: Lightning Seeds, Tomorrow’s Here Today, 35 Years Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, October 9, 8pm

NOW in his 36th year of leading Liverpool’s Lightning Seeds, Ian Broudie heads to York on his extended Tomorrow’s Here Today tour. Cue Pure, The Life Of Riley, Change, Lucky You, Sense, All I Want, Sugar Coated Iceberg, You Showed Me, Emily Smiles, Three Lions et al. Casino support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jack Fry’s Quasimodo and Ayana Beatrice Poblete at Black Sheep Theatre Productions’s Selby Abbey photoshoot for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, opening next week at the JoRo

Musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 10, 11 and 14 to 18, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

BLACK Sheep Theatre Productions bring a cast of five leads, seven ensemble actors and a 23-strong choir to the York company’s larger-than-life staging of Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz’s musical rooted in Disney’s 1996 musical film and Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel.

Combining powerful themes of love, acceptance and the nature of good and evil with a sweeping score, Matthew Peter Clare’s show will be “like nothing you’ve seen before”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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Whose account of a relationship can you trust in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms?

Joe Layton’s Robbie and Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess opening up the cabinet of memories in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tristram Kenton

IT starts with a chance meeting, sharing a mobile hotspot, followed by some disastrous dates, but then an extraordinary transformative love ensues.  This is the stuff of fairy tales, surely? Or is it?

Welcome to Lost Atoms, Frantic Assembly’s 30th anniversary production, on tour at York Theatre Royal from October 7 to 11, under the direction of physical theatre specialist Scott Graham, who was at the helm of the London company’s earlier York visits with Othello and Metamorphosis.

Written by Anna Jordan, who has credits for Succession and Killing Eve episodes as well as Frantic Assembly’s Unreturning, Lost Atoms takes Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) and Robbie (Joe Layton) on a wild ride through a life-changing relationship.

Frantic Assembly director Scott Graham in the rehearsal room for Lost Atoms. Picture: Ben Hewis

Or, or more pointedly, through Jess and Robbie’s recollection of how they scaled the soaring highs and crushing lows as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss – but are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted?

By turns humorous and heartbreaking, Lost Atoms’ timeless story explores how love shapes our lives and how we remember it as two people plunge deep into their shared pasts and propel themselves into multiple futures, risking it all.

Welcome back to York, Hannah, who, like Coronation Street alumnus Joe, appeared in Metamorphosis and Othello, as Grete and Bianca in her case; the Chief Clerk and Iago in his.

“My first experience of Frantic Assembly was when I did a three-year performing arts course at Bath Spa [University], where we researched the company for a devising module,” recalls Hannah.  “My tutor was a big fan, and I first saw a Frantic Assembly in Othello at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, which was an incredible show.

“We’ve had a massive hand in character development and offering a character’s insight on a scene, which was such a privilege,” says Hannah Sinclair Robinson, pictured in rehearsal for Lost Atoms. Picture: Ben Hewis

“I have a dance background and I loved how their work married my two favourite things, acting and dancing, so it really inspired me. Then, when I did the tenth anniversary tour of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, I hadn’t realised that Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham had done the movement direction.

“So when I heard that Frantic Assembly would be doing Othello again, I contacted them to say I’d seen it in 2014 and loved it, and ‘please can I have an audition?’! And the rest is history, working with them ever since. It’s been like a dream come true.”

Now comes Lost Atoms, a performance that is all the more physical, the more intense, for being a two-hander. “It’s been very intensive, rehearsing for five weeks with Scott,” says Hannah. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because there’s no respite, no breaks, you’re both on there all the time.

“The physical element is one of the biggest things for Frantic Assembly, using movement to express things that are unsaid; things you can’t say but can express with movement.

“Working with Scott in rehearsals, we did a couple of weeks of ‘table work’, going through the script, settling on your character’s intentions, and then we used Frantic Assembly’s building blocks, creating movements based around the theme, putting them together with Joe [Layton] after starting with six small movements.”

“The gift we give is that there is hope,” says Hannah of Lost Atoms’ journey through love’s ups and downs. Picture: Scott Graham

Describing Lost Atoms’ structure, Hannah says: “It’s a play about love and memory, as a couple come together to relive their past history with different motives for meeting up and with their differing perspectives: how we remember things differently – and that depends on how we want to remember things and how we want to be remembered.”

Hannah and Joe have been involved in the gestation of Lost Atoms since taking part in three weeks of research-and-development sessions. “We started maybe late last year, and the first week was with Anna, the writer, as well as Scott,” she says. “We’ve had a massive hand in character development and offering a character’s insight on a scene, which was such a privilege.

“As an actor, you draw on your own experiences, accessing different emotions. For Lost Atoms, we could share experiences of love, both platonic and romantic and familial too. It was a really safe space to do that, so it feels like our fingerprints are all over the show.”

Hannah and Joe performing together previously has been an advantage when working on Lost Atoms. “Because it’s a two-hander and it’s so intense, it’s really important that you have that trust. Joe is a brilliant actor and friend and we trust each other totally,” she says, as the partnership blossoms in performance at Curve, Leicester, where the production opened on September 22.

“Because it’s a two-hander and it’s so intense, it’s really important that you have that trust. Joe is a brilliant actor and friend and we trust each other totally,” says Hannah. Picture: Scott Graham

“After five weeks in the rehearsal room, it comes to the point where you need to put it in front of an audience, because there’s both humour and heartbreak and you’ve got to find the points where the humour lands.

“Also, because it’s so physical and intense, you need to learn how to open it up to share with people, and you have to learn the rhythm of the performance too.”

Ultimately, for all its candour about love being strange, Lost Atoms has a hopeful tone. “It doesn’t necessarily come in the package you might expect, but we hope to leave people with that feeling of hope, even within the heartbreak of the relationship,” says Hannah. “The gift we give is that there is hope.”

Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, October 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.