Tag: Maggie Smales

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REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

George Young as the weakling king Henry VI in York Shakespeare Project’s Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone. Offering support are Jack Downey’s Suffolk, left, Frank Brogan’s Clifford and Nick Jones’s Somerset. Picture: John Saunders

IRWIN Appel, Professor of Theater at University of California Santa Barbara, first saw York Shakespeare Project in Maggie Smales’s all-female Henry V on his European research travels in 2015.

He vowed that one day he would direct YSP, and this spring that day has arrived with his condensed version of Henry VI, shrunk from a trilogy to a “thrillogy” of an action-packed 160 minutes (interval included) as part of the 2025 York International Shakespeare Festival.

Professional actor, director, composer and sound designer to boot, he has previous form for serving up Appel slices of Shakespeare’s History plays in the award-winning The Death Of Kings. To borrow a technique from the kitchen, he knows the power of reduction to strengthen the intensity, and in doing so he lets the full flavour flood out.

Henry VI director Irwin Appel, left, with York Shakespeare Project chair Tony Froud, who plays Humphrey of Gloucester

There is a swaggering confidence, brio rather than braggadocio, to his directorial decisions, matched  by placing his faith in the power of performance by his community cast of 21. They, in turn, have the most collective impact of any YSP company your reviewer has encountered since the project started in 2002.

This is aided by the physical theatre work of his fellow Americans, choreographer and movement director Christina McCarthy and fight choreographer Jeffrey Mills, to complement the mental muscularity of the dialogue, often wittier than you might have expected too, amid the carnage of the ever-rising body count.

Look out for the use of sticks, black face masks and black costumes in the burning of Pearl Mollison’s Joan La Pucells (Joan of Arc] and later Adam Price’s Richard York, with red gloves to denote his decapitation. Bob Fosse would have loved  that choreography, redolent of Chicago.

Eyes on the prize: Adam Price’s Richard York in York Shakespeare Project’s Henry VI. Picture: John Saunders

Appel’s Henry VI starts at the end, with Harry Summers’ glowering Richard Gloucester to the fore, foreshadowing his reign as Richard III (a link further emphasised by Appel concluding his production with Richard delivering his Winter of Discontent opening speech from Richard III, bringing the “Now is” forward to now. Seeing Summers’ incipient, spring version of Richard after the full lumpen winter coat of YSP’s April 2023 production of Richard III is canny casting too.

This is but one of several directorial flourishes by Appel, the best of them being Price’s outstanding Richard York giving a beginner’s guide to the chronology of the warring Houses of York and Lancaster and the followers of Nick Jones’s Somerset and scene-stealing Jodie Mulliah’s mutinous Jack Cade switching indecisively from one side to the other with every new promise that each makes. That scene is worthy of Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian.

The mutual flirting of Jack Downey’s Suffolk with Lily Geering’s hot-blooded Veronese queen Margaret is a delight too, although her later screaming histrionics need more variation in tone.

Pearl Mollison’s feisty Joan La Pucelle, aka Joan of Arc

Theatre@41, Monkgate, is a black box theatre, with the emphasis all the more on the black in Richard Hampton’s end-on set design, where everything is black, from the throne to assorted boxes. This enhances the contrast with every other colour, from the silver crown to the glinting daggers, the white and red roses for York and Lancaster to the myriad shades of bleu for the French (from berets to cloaks in Judith Ireland’s costumes).

Appel uses the “theatre of the absurd” skills of regular YSP music director and pianist Stuart Lindsay to disruptive effect, his score being as jagged as discordant jazz, and percussive too for the sound design as the brutal deaths pile up.

Appel applies sound and fury to signify everything rather than nothing in a world where George Young’s Henry VI is the weakling boy king on crutches that no-one ever hears. Young (they/them) is making their YSP and Shakespeare debut in the title role and is quietly impressive as the essence of being put in the corner.

The Yorks in York: Sonia Di Lorenzo’s George Clarence, left, Katie Flanagan’s Edward IV and Harry Summers’ Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Picture: John Saunders

Philip Massey’s stentorian-voiced Talbot, Maggie Smales’s turncoat Warwick and Yousef Ismail’s vainglorious Charles Dauphin bring eye-catching character  to supporting roles in a production in which bellicose ensemble heft  has equal weight with blunted  individual journeys, where Richard Gloucester is not alone in being “myself alone”.

Adding to the international flavour, American actress Katie Flanagan takes to an English stage for the first time in the role of Edward IV, a late arrival in proceedings but well worth the wait for a supremely assured performance.

Defining Henry VI as “a cautionary tale of power and greed that shows how a tyrant can rise in a torn and broken society”, Appel has made it feel anything but a History play, but a play for the madness, malevolence and mayhem of today.

Crowning moment for Katie Flanagan’s Edward IV in the courtly company of Maggie Smales’s Warwick, left, Harry Summers’ Richard Gloucester and Sonia Di Lorenzo’s George Clarence. Picture: John Saunders

In the raw, high-energy style of his Naked Shakes productions at UC Santa Barbara, he makes imaginative, impactful, intelligent, instinctive theatre out of “a bare space, a crown and a throne”. It is truly international, but resonant in York too, especially with its image of Richard York’s severed head being stuck on “the gates of York”.

York International Shakespeare Festival presents York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI: I Am Myself Alone, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

A Conversation with Irwin Appel, interviewed by Professor Anne-Marie Evans, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, Saturday, 5pm, admission free; tickets at yorkshakes.co.uk.

“I am myself alone”: The loneliness of George Young’s Henry VI in Irwin Appel’s condensed version of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3. Picture: John Saunders

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American professor Irwin Appel shakes up Henry VI for York Shakespeare Project

York Shakespeare Project in rehearsal for Irwin Appel’s production of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone. Picture: John Saunders

HOW come an American theatre professor is directing York Shakespeare Project’s production of Henry VI for York International Shakespeare Festival next week?

Irwin Appel, Professor of Theater at University of California Santa Barbara and founder and artistic director of Naked Shakes, first encountered YSP in 2015 when he came to York on a tour of Europe researching Shakespeare’s History plays. He saw Maggie Smales’s all-female Henry V, a few days after visiting Agincourt, and loved it so much,  he vowed to come back to direct for YSP.

Ten years on, that vow comes into play from April 22 to 26 when Irwin stages Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone, in a version of the trilogy condensed into one play running for two and a half hours for a York community cast of 21.

“In 2014 I had the ridiculous idea to distil the eight Shakespeare History plays into two plays, and I wanted them not to be ‘marathons’ but each to be the length of a typical Shakespeare play: no more than three hours,” recalls Irwin, who has been producing the Bard’s work in the United States and internationally since 2006.

“I entitled it The Death Of Kings, a line from Shakespeare’s Richard II, divided into I Came But For Mine Own, comprising Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, and The White Rose And The Red, comprising Richard III and the Henry VI trilogy.”

He then went on a year’s sabbatical that brought him to Europe in 2015. “I’m also a professional actor, director, composer and sound designer, who’d never imagined he would be a college professor,” says Irwin, who trained at Princeton University and the Juilliard School in New York City.

“I was pursuing ‘being a star’ as an actor, but then came to the point where I wanted an artistic home, and I’ve been at University of California Santa Barbara for 26 years now, but also continuing to direct and design throughout the United States, Europe and in China.”

He used his research sabbatical to seek out plays, theatres and sites in Britain and France. “I wasn’t looking for historical accuracy per se in plays, because I wanted to feel the ground beneath my feet, to observe how the light came into a room or a castle, for example, and went to some extremely interesting places, like being on the battlefield of Agincourt on October 25 2015, the 600th anniversary of Henry V’s victory there. That was a quite a feeling,” he says.

He decided he would travel from London to York and it was then that he saw a small advert for YSP’s Henry V. “I fell in love with the production, set in a munitions factory in the First World War. I fell in love with York. I love cities that are very contemporary but at the same time present their history, and I reckon York does that with great balance.

Welcome to York: York Shakespeare Project chair and producer Tony Froud, right, greets American university professor Irwin Appel, director of next week’s production of Henry VI

Once Irwin’s Henry VI application was successful,  he headed back to York for auditions last November at Southlands Methodist Church. “I was in Europe, playing Shylock at the Estates Theatre in Prague, where Mozart had debuted his opera Don Giovanni in 1787,” he recalls. “After that I came to York and was very excited to cast Maggie [Smales] as Warwick after seeing her Henry V.”

Creating his Henry VI has been a labour of love. “Through The Death Of Kings, I have an affinity for the History plays, which I feel have some of Shakespeare’s greatest material,” says Irwin .

“I’ve condensed the plays to tell the story and the character arcs at a manageable length. I’ve chosen I Am Myself Alone [as the subtitle] as it’s a line that Richard, Duke of Gloucester – later to be Richard III – says about himself at the end but it also applies to Henry VI and many other characters in the play and encapsulates what the play is about.”

Building his production around a bare space, a crown and a throne, he will utilise his ensemble cast to “engender actor-generated theatricality and transformation in a physical theatre piece that tells a cautionary tale of power and greed that shows how a tyrant can rise in a torn and broken society”.

The theatrical style will be in keeping with Naked Shakes, the company he founded at UC Santa Barbara and is now into its 20th season.

“Our desire is to create raw, energetic and thrilling Shakespeare productions through using the power of the actors and the imagination of the audience,” says Irwin, who has been joined in the rehearsal room by movement coach Christina McCarthy, from UC Santa Barbara, and fight director Jeff Mills, from DePaul University, Chicago.

“When I set out to do The Death Of Kings, I was not looking to do ‘museum Shakespeare’ but Shakespeare as an allegory for our times. When I did it in the States, it was at the time of the primaries when Donald Trump first ran to be the Republican presidential candidate – trying to be king.”

Looking forward to next week’s run, Irwin says: “I feel that this is a truly special company. I’m honoured that they invited me and I would like to make the people of York proud that they allowed an American to direct a play about the House of York in York.”

York International Shakespeare Festival presents York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI: I Am Myself Alone, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 22 to 26, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

In Focus: A Conversation with Irwin Appel, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, April 26, 5pm

Irwin Appel

IN this special session, Professor Anne-Marie Evans interviews Irwin Appel to discuss his varied and distinguished career, Henry VI, the importance of the York International Shakespeare Festival and York Shakespeare Project, and all things Shakespeare.

Evans is Professor of American Literature and Pedagogy and Head of School for Humanities at York St John University; Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a long-time Shakespeare fan.

As a professional director, actor, and composer/sound designer, Irwin Appel has worked with the New York, Oregon, Orlando, Utah, New Jersey and other prominent Shakespeare and regional theare companies throughout the United States.

In Europe, he has played the title role in King Lear for Lit Moon World, as well as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 for the Prague Shakespeare Company.

In November 2024, he played Shylock at the Estates Theatre in Prague, where Mozart premiered the opera Don Giovanni in 1787. He is the founder and artistic director of Naked Shakes, producing Shakespeare’s plays in the USA and internationally since 2006.

In 2023, Naked Shakes was selected to bring his original adaptation of eight Shakespeare’s history plays entitled The Death Of Kings as the closing performance in the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival in Italy.

He has led workshops and presentations about Naked Shakes throughout the US and in China, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

He is Professor of Theater at University of California Santa Barbara and is a graduate of Princeton University and the Juilliard School.

Admission is free; tickets at yorkshakes.co.uk. 

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REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, ends tomorrow ****

Nick Patrick Jones’s Hortensio, left, Stuart Green’s Grumio, Mark Simmonds’s Vincentio, Sam Jackson’s Lucentio, hidden, Mark Payton’s Gremio, back, Rosy Rowley’s Baptista Minola, front, Kirsty Farrow’s Bianca, Joy Warner’s Merchant/Widow and Flo Poskitt’s Katherine in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew. Picture: David Kessel

TWENTY one years have passed since York Shakespeare Project first staged The Taming Of The Shrew as its second ever production.

Staging Shakespeare’s “most controversial” comedy has become even more awkward in that time. The term “Gaslighting” is in common parlance; the #MeToo movement has found its voice; misogyny and sexism are a minefield of social media debate, Andrew Tate et al.

In 2003, Paul Toy, YSP’s director for Shrew, talked of the “welcome gains of feminism leaving it as less of a comedy, more of a problem play”. In 2009, Mooted Theatre’s Mark France saw the 1592 play’s sexual politics as “a gradual meeting of minds” in a war of words between Kate and Petruchio where both subvert the roles that society has determined for them. He coined the term “casual cruelty” to encapsulate the ploys of deception conducted by Tranio, Lucentio and Hortensio.

In 2003, Toy reversed the usual gender casting of the lovers and their servants, with Alice Borthwick, a tall Scot with a pageboy haircut, playing Petruchio in strapping manner opposite John Sharpe’s Katherina with his/her pale commedia dell’arte face and rouge lips. “There is now no pretence that what you see is `real’,” he said. “Hopefully, the play can be seen as less of a treatise and more of a game”.

Now, Maggie Smales, whose all-female version of Henry V in 2015 lingers in the memory, returns to the YSP director’s chair for ‘Shrew’, assisted by Claire Morley [her Henry , from that production].

Smales had played a serving wench in a South Yorkshire For Youth production of ‘Shrew’ in the mid-Sixties in Rotherham and Bianca in 1972 on her Bretton Hall drama course, now recalling them as “exemplifying the hypocrisy of a time that seemed to be offering the opportunity of gender equality without any real shift in attitudes”.

“We thought we were shaping a new world order with altered values,” she laments. “But there’s still quite a lot to be done about gender equality”.

Florence Poskitt’s Katherine in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew

No better time to start than now with this bracing production of ‘Shrew’, astutely edited by Smales and Morley. In their hands, ‘Shrew’ remains a combustible, hot and bothered drama that does not shy away from the “inherent misogyny” and gaslighting abuse in Petruchio’s regime of sleep deprivation and starvation rations for Katherine.

Crucially, however, Florence Poskitt’s feminist Katherine has the last say, not so much a shrewish shrew as shrewd in determining her path, rather than “melting” to Petruchio’s taming techniques after their calamitous nuptials.

Smales has set Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes/war of words in 1970, when the sun was setting on the Summer of Love and Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch, a landmark statement in the feminist movement.

More precisely, Smales’s ‘Shrew’ opens in 1960 with a reimagined induction/prologue (replacing the Christopher Sly one), the cast exchanging presents beside the Christmas tree. The players then find themselves transported into a 1970 world wherein they experience and perform the play.

Judith Ireland’s costumes, from her own collection apparently, evoke that psychedelic age of flares, scarves, long hair, dark glasses and headbands, matched with the hits of Hendrix, The Who and Credence Clearwater Revival.

Ah, the whiff of nostalgia, the look, the sounds, setting up the boisterous fun and games that play out in the hands of Lara Stafford’s Tranio and Sam Jackson’s Lucentio, swapping clothes, genders and roles, and the deluded sparring of Nick Patrick Jones’s Hortensio and Mark Payton’s Gremio (in professional actor turned Shakespeare teacher Payton’s ‘first proper acting experience for almost 20 years’ – and what a joyful return he makes).

Stuart Green’s Grumio, with his guitar and shades, adds to the rock concert vibe, along with Joy Warner in her roadie cameo, while Rosy Rowley and Poskitt both perform a song, Rowley in the rowdy spirit of a Janis Joplin; Poskitt, in white, in a quiet solo spotlight in Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’.

Jim Paterson’s Petruchio. Picture: David Kessel

Rowley is playing Baptista Minola, traditionally Katherine and Bianca’s father, but here turned into their mother: a significant change that alters the male-dominated dynamic. A decision typical of Smales’s good judgement that always marks out her direction.

The “Taming” remains a battle waged between the needs of individual freedom and the demands of social conformity that decree that Katherine should be wed and that Petruchio seeks to apply in his unconventional way.

Poskitt, who took on her role with only a week to learn her lines and another to join the last week of rehearsals, is known for her wide-eyed comedy chops and singing, but there is much more lurking inside that comes out here (as it did in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None). Wild, scolding-tongued, as those around her decry, her subversive Katherine is ultimately more than a match to Petruchio’s prodding. Not so much a woman ‘tamed’ at the end as one establishing her own rights.

Paterson’s Petruchio pulls off the balancing act of being a rock music-loving, preening popinjay but humorous too for all his outrageous behaviour. Rik Mayall, Rupert Everett, that brand of English humour.

Maggie Smales has conquered Shakespeare’s problem play, no problem. This ‘Shrew’ is funny, furious, feminist, with an eye to the future too, as peace, love and equality are secured at last. 

Performances at 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow, as part of York International Shakespeare Festival. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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Let the battle of the sexes resume as York Shakespeare Project gives rehearsed reading of Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed

York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Sunday’s rehearsed reading of John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed

YORK Shakespeare Project is complementing this week’s run of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew with a one-off performance of John Fletcher’s sequel, The Tamer Tamed, at the Creative Arts Centre Auditorium, York St John University, on Sunday at 5pm.

Fletcher’s rarely staged Jacobean riposte to William Shakespeare’s most controversial “problem play” will be presented in a rehearsed reading on the closing day of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival.

YSP chair Tony Froud explains: “We are very happy to borrow an idea from Gregory Doran, who staged both plays in tandem, using the same cast, in his productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2003. Fletcher’s play is a deliberate and very entertaining response to Shakespeare’s original.”

Director Claire Morley in rehearsals. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Written in 1611, 20 years after Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, The Tamer Tamed (or The Woman’s Prize) gives an insight into changing attitudes to women and marriage in the Jacobean period.

YSP’s rehearsed reading is being directed by Claire Morley, assistant director to Maggie Smales on The Taming Of The Shrew, whose run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, ends tomorrow night. Many of the same cast will undertake Sunday’s reading, joined by familiar YSP faces Andrew Isherwood, Effie Warboys and Sally Mitcham.

“We’re enormously grateful to members of our very talented cast for committing to perform a second play, but the actors couldn’t resist the challenge of exploring Fletcher’s fascinating take on Shakespeare,” says Claire. “Luckily they don’t have to learn any more lines, as this will be a script-in-hand reading.”

Claire Morley, front row, second from right , in the role of Henry V in York Shakespeare Project’s Heny V in 2015

Claire is no stranger to York Shakespeare Project, having appeared in several of its productions, most notably playing the title role in Maggie Smales’s all-female Henry V in 2015. “It’s a joy to be working with Maggie again and we’re very lucky to have such a fabulous cast,” she adds.

In Fletcher’s sequel, the widowed Petruchio has a new wife and a new challenge as he discovers that he is not the only one who can do the taming. Fletcher borrows characters from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and a key plot device from Ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes’s Lysistrata. “The result is a richly entertaining exploration of marriage and relationships in another battle of the sexes,” says Tony.

The cast comprises: Rosy Rowley as Maria; Effie Warboys, Livia; Kirsty Farrow, Bianca; Andrew Isherwood, Petruchio; Mark Simmonds, Petronius; Mark Payton, Gremio and Peter; Sam Jackson, Rowland; Nick Patrick Jones, Hortensio; Sally Mitcham, Tranio, and Stuart Green, Grumio.

Tickets are on sale at parrabbola.co.uk or yorkshakes.co.uk.

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Maggie Smales to direct The Taming Of The Shrew for York Shakespeare Project at York International Shakespeare Festival

Maggie Smales: Directing York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew. All pictures: SR Taylor

YORK Shakespeare Project welcomes back Maggie Smales to direct The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from April 23 to 27.

“We are absolutely delighted to have Maggie as our director,” says YSP chair Tony Froud. “We know that she will find an exciting way to let the play speak to us in 2024.”

This is the first time that Maggie has directed for York Shakespeare Project since her all-female version of Henry V, chosen as “York Play of the Year” in the 2015 Hutch Awards.

Chesca Downes: Playing Kate in The Taming Of The Shrew

YSP’s multi-coloured psychedelic poster announces the production’s setting in 1970. The Sixties have shaken off the post-Second World War blues. The baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing. The world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Surely, The Times They Are a’Changin’ and the old order is dead? Or is it, asks Smales’s production.

“This will actually be my third encounter with this play,” she says. “I played in it as a youngster in Rotherham in South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth in the 1960s, then as a Bretton Hall drama student in 1970, and it was experiences of those days that gave me the inspiration for my ideas for this production.”

At the centre of the play are Kate and Petruchio, played in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film version by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. YSP’s Kate is University of York student Chesca Downes, in her first YSP role after playing a number of major roles at the university, such as the duchess in The Duchess Of Malfi.

Jim Paterson: Playing Petruchio for a second time

Opposite her will be Jim Paterson, a face more familiar to YSP audiences, who will recall his lead roles in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Cymbeline and Antony And Cleopatra. He is no stranger to the part of Petruchio, having played him in Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate in 2019.

Further roles go to Rosy Rowley as Baptista Minola; Kirsty Farrow, Bianca; Mark Payton, Gremio; Nick Patrick Jones, Hortensio; Sam Jackson, Lucentio; Mark Simmonds, Vincentio; Lara Stafford, Tranio; Cari Hughes, Biondello; Stuart Green, Grumio, and Joy Warner, Merchant and Widow.

As YSP’s second cycle of staging all of Shakespeare’s plays over 25 years rolls on, The Taming Of The Shrew will be performed as part of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.

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Claire Morley to perform reading of Rachel E Thorn’s Me For You at SJT and take part in Yorkshire Trios at York Theatre Royal

Claire Morley: Performing new works in Scarborough and York

YORK actresses Claire Morley and Elizabeth Hope will perform a script-in-hand reading of Rachel E Thorn’s new play, Me For You, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on January 30.

This is the latest in the SJT’s regular series of readings of works by up-and-coming writers, chosen from submissions to the literary department, in this case one longlisted for the Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing.

In Me For You, Holly (played by Elizabeth Hope) knows that human beings have screwed the planet, but she is still desperate to have a baby of her own. She has tried doing the right thing, but can using a bamboo toothbrush really reverse global warming?

In a bid to save the planet, Holly has joined Extinction Rebellion and just wishes her girlfriend, Alex (Claire Morley), would sign up too.

Me For You writer Rachel E Thorn

“Me For You is a play all about love in the face of overwhelming evidence that we’re a despicable race of selfish parasites,” says Rachel E Thorn, a writer and actress from Sheffield, who pens comedy for BBC Radio 4 and has collaborated with impressionists Alistair McGowan, Charlie Hopkinson and Darren Altman.

Rachel also tours the country with her improvised shows that have taken home the Best Improv Show awards from the Leicester Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

Claire’s preparations are under way for this month’s one-off reading. “I was sent a draft of the script in November, so that I can get an idea of the themes of the play and the characters, but really most of the work is done on the day as there might be new edits,” she says. 

“On the morning of the performance, I’ll meet with Fleur Hebditch, a producer at the SJT, writer Rachel and Elizabeth for the first time. We’ll spend the day discussing the script and have a rehearsal before a sharing in the evening, script in hand.

Elizabeth Hope: Performing Me For You with Claire Morley at the SJT

“There’ll also be a Q&A with the writer afterwards. Rachel has written a cracking piece so I’m excited to get stuck in.”

Claire first took part in a Stephen Joseph Theatre reading in August 2021. “We did Emma Geraghty’s play Lagan,” she recalls. “It then became These Majestic Creatures, which was produced by the SJT as a fully realised production last autumn [in the McCarthy].

“The emphasis is really on the development of the work for the writer. That’s why it’s so great to work with them during the day as you can find out their vision and do your best in fleshing out this character for them, often for the first time.”

Claire continues: “Rehearsed readings are a great opportunity to work on complex characters and interesting writing without the pressure of line-learning! I enjoyed being part of one with Live Theatre, Newcastle, last April as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, along with their special guest, Roger Allam, who played my father in Shelagh Stephenson’s An Experiment With An Air Pump.”

Claire Morley’s Henry V, centre, at Agincourt in York Shakespeare Project’s Henry V in 2015

Born and bred in York, Claire is a graduate of ALRA (Academy of Live & Recorded Arts) North Drama School, in Wigan, Greater Manchester, and a former teacher.

She caught the eye on the York stage in the title role in Maggie Smales’s all-female version of Henry V for York Shakespeare Project (YSP) in 2015 and as Kastril in Bronzehead Theatre’s masked production of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist at the 2019 York International Shakespeare Festival.

In 2022, she completed a hattrick of all-female Shakespeare performances, after YSP’s Henry V and Coriolanus in 2019, starring as Macbeth in Chris Connaughton’s three-hander version of Macbeth for Northumberland Theatre Company in a tour that visited Stillington Village Hall, near York, and Pocklington Arts Centre.

Claire Morley’s Kastril, right, in Bronzehead Theatre’s The Alchemist in 2019. Picture: Jtu Photography

Coming next after Me For You will be Claire’s participation in York community arts collective Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios at York Theatre Royal Studio on March 26 and 27.

Through a series of commissions, York actors, writers and directors are being supported by NDB1 to produce original, short pieces of theatre – five to 15-minute solo performances – that respond to the overall theme of Top of the Hill.

Directed Jacob Ward, Claire will perform Yixia Jiang’s Love Letters Before Dawn. ”Jacob and I should be receiving Yixia’s script later this week, so I actually know very little at this stage,” she says.

Claire Morley’s Macbeth in Northumberland Theatre Company’s 2022 tour of Macbeth

“I do know it’s about a soldier defending a battlefield despite all seeming lost, and how to persevere and find hope. I’m excited to read it. We’ll be having a handful of rehearsals between now and joining up with the other trios for the performances in March.” 

Me For You, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, January 30, 7.15pm. Tickets: £5, on 01723 370541 or at www.sjt.uk.com. Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios, York Theatre Royal Studio, March 26 and 27, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Did you know?

CLAIRE Morley first made the pages of The Press, York, on August 18 2007 after she achieved A grades in five A-levels at All Saints’ RC School, York.

Claire, from Osbaldwick, achieved top marks in English literature, German, history, philosophy & ethics and general studies at 17, going on to study a four-year modern languages course at Somerville College, Oxford University, specialising in German.

York Shakespeare Project’s psychedelic promotional image for Maggie Smales’s production of The Taming Of The Shrew, set in 1970

Did you know too?

CLAIRE Morley will reunite with Henry V director Maggie Smales to be her assistant director for York Shakespeare Project’s spring production of The Taming Of The Shrew.

“Make Love Not War,” reads the invitation to Maggie’s 1970 setting of Shakespeare’s problematic comedy. “As they emerge from the post-Second World War greyness, the baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing.

“A psychedelic world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Kate was born, born to be wild. She wants a voice of her own. The Times They Are A’Changin’ and the old order is dead. Or is it? Find out in The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes.”

York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew runs at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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No rehearsal, no director, no sight of the script in advance. Six actors, one per show, take on White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in York

Maurice Crichton: In the dark tonight, just as much as the audience for the hush-hush White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

AN actor’s nightmare will be an audience’s dream, promises producer Jim Paterson, when White Rabbit, Red Rabbit makes its York debut from tonight (7/11/2023) to Saturday at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

This groundbreaking play requires the actor to perform the script having never seen it before setting foot on stage.

Originally written in 2011 by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, who at the time was forbidden to leave his native Iran, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is a play designed to travel the world in his place. Whereupon the audience will join each different performer on a journey into the unknown.

Soleimanpour’s 70-minuite play has been performed all over the world by actors such as John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Sinead Cusack and Dominic West, all taking to the stage with no prior sighting of the script.

Now White Rabbit, Red Rabbit receives its York premiere at the hands of six actors, each performing the script for one performance only. “They will never have seen the script until I hand them an envelope to open as they enter the stage,” says Jim. “They are told almost nothing in preparation. There is no rehearsal or director.” 

Sanna Jeppsson: Saturday night performance

Given that the play relies on no-one knowing the plot, details cannot be shared in advance, and so audience and actor alike will be in the same position of not knowing what will happen, duly creating an “exciting and truly unpredictable show”.

“One of the best things about going to the theatre is that it’s a live experience where each performance is different and unpredictable,” says Jim. “Times that by 100 and you’ve got this play. Both the actor and the audience don’t know what’s going to happen from moment to moment, which I think will create a really exhilarating atmosphere.

“Each of our six actors is only performing the play once with no preparation – so each performance will be entirely unique for that audience. That’s why we’ve put on a ticket offer, so that you can come back to watch another actor perform it for half-price, and see what will be an entirely different take on the play.”

Jim adds: “A lot of us have had that dream where we’re suddenly in a theatre and are expected to go on stage in a play when we don’t know the lines or what we’re supposed to be doing. So, I’m massively grateful to these performers for agreeing to take the leap and make that scary dream a reality!”

First to step into the unknown tonight will be Maurice Crichton, stalwart of York Settlement Community Players and much else besides on the York theatre scene. “I think it’s going to be about the audience experiencing an actor being surprised by what they’re in, and – to an extent – vicariously experiencing those feelings themselves,” he says. “It excites me to see if I can relax enough to do the play justice!”

Alan Park: Friday man

Fresh from Settlement Players’ Government Inspector, Sonia Di Lorenzo will perform the Saturday matinee. “I’m looking forward to finding out what it’s about,” she says. “It sounds really intriguing from what I know of it – which is just the title! I’m excited to see how it unfolds and what it entails and where it’s all going to lead.”

Sanna Jeppsson will take on the Saturday night challenge. “It’s exciting and scary because I don’t know how I’m going to react in the moment: what my body’s going to feel like, what my pulse is going to be doing, what my breath is going to be doing – I just don’t know! But I’m very interested to find out,” she says.

Presented by York company Black Treacle Theatre, in association with Aurora Nova, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit will be performed by Maurice Crichton tonight; Lara Stafford tomorrow; Maggie Smales, Thursday; Theatgre@41 chair Alan Park, Friday; Sonia Di Lorenzo, Saturday matinee, and Sanna Jeppsson, Saturday night.

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Tickets are £10 full price and any ticket buyers for one performance can see another one for £5 (plus booking fee).

Did you know?

BLACK Treacle Theatre produced Nick Payne’s Constellations in March 2022 and Gary Owen’s Iphigenia In Splott in March 2023, both at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

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REVIEW: Shared Space Theatre in Every Brilliant Thing, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday ****

Alan Park in one of those “things in stripes” that makes the seven-year-old boy’s list of brilliant things in Every Brilliant Thing
  1. Make a list of reasons why you should see Every Brilliant Thing.
  2. Thank Duncan Macmillan for writing Sleeve Notes, his book of lists.
  3. Thank actor Jonny Donahue for helping Macmillan to turn it into a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe and in London and New York.
  4. Put yourself in the shoes of the seven-year-old schoolboy who writes a list of every brilliant thing, every small miracle, to make his suicidal mum realise life is worth living.
  5. Ice cream.
  6. Water fights.
  7. Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV.
  8. The colour yellow.
  9. Things with stripes.
  10. Rollercoasters.
  11. People falling over.
  12. Often ordinary things, but brilliant in their own way.
  13. Mum keeps trying to take her life, and so he keeps adding to the list.
  14. You should do the same. Make a list, I mean.
  15. Especially if you are feeling listless.
  16. Start now.
  17. Well, not until you have read this review.
  18. Thank Theatre@41 supporter Cate Birch for recommending Every Brilliant Thing to chair Alan Park.
  19. Thank Alan for reading it.
  20. Thank Alan, professional actor to boot, for deciding he should perform it himself.
  21. Thank Duncan Macmillan for saying yes to York’s new company Shared Space Theatre making it their debut production.
  22. Thank Alan for asking Maggie Smales – responsible for York Shakespeare Project’s best ever production, the all-female Henry V – to direct him.
  23. Thank brainbox Alan for having the mental powers to remember the script for his lead role in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and Every Brilliant Thing in quick succession.
  24. Thank his Maths teacher of bygone years for Alan being good with numbers. So many numbers, one for every brilliant thing on a list now running to 1,000,000.
  25. Alan doesn’t have to remember all that list but he does have to remember what goes with each number that features in the show.
  26. And remember a running order that is not as easy as 123 to remember.
  27. Because it is not in numerical order.
  28. And sometimes a number is repeated.
  29. And repeated.
  30. Again.
  31. Much later.
  32. It all adds up to a breathtaking and sometimes breathless display of skills in breaking down theatre’s fourth wall.
  33. Result: The audience immediately feels part of the hour-long show.
  34. Whether reading out a brilliant thing from the list on a number cue.
  35. Or having fun when gently enticed by Alan into playing a role.
  36. Such as?
  37. A teacher with a sock puppet of a dog, requiring Alan’s recruit to remove a shoe and sock to play the part.
  38. Or the boy’s father, but then switching with Alan for him to play the father and you, the son, en route to hospital, asking “Why” in response to everything he says.
  39. Why?
  40. Because that’s what children do.
  41. Why?
  42. Don’t ask.
  43. Later play the father again, this time in a wedding breakfast speech…revealing a Texan accent.
  44. Prompting Alan’s character – he has no name – to comment on suddenly discovering unexpected American roots.
  45. Describe a woman with an orange top and blonde hair from Macmillan’s story…and promptly ask a woman in the front row in orange, with blonde hair, to play that character.  
  46. Make eye contact with another female member of the audience.
  47. She happens to be an actress, serendipitously. A rather good one.
  48. Flo Poskitt.
  49. One half of Fladam.
  50. York’s musical comedy double act with Adam Sowter.
  51. Catch them in Green Fingers at next week’s TakeOver Festival at York Theatre Royal.
  52. May 27, 3pm.
  53. Box office: 01904 623568.
  54. Or yortheatreroyal.co.uk.
  55. She willingly plays a woman called Sam with whom Alan’s character bonds over a love of books.
  56. They fall in love.
  57. They marry…after Flo’s Sam goes down on one unsteady knee to propose to him in an equally unsteady voice.
  58. Prompting a comment from Alan.
  59. He’s good at that.
  60. The impromptu stuff.
  61. Off the cuff.
  62. On the mark.
  63. It all helps that we are seated in two rows in the round, with no-one allowed upstairs under Macmillan’s strict rules of democracy to create a shared experience.
  64. There are a few empty chairs.
  65. But that’s good.
  66. Because Alan is only too happy to occupy any empty chair, next to whoever, and spring from chair to chair.
  67. Because, as George Osborne once said: “We are all in this together.”
  68. Although not in Chancellor George’s case, we weren’t.
  69. But definitely in Every Brilliant Thing.
  70. The list keeps growing.
  71. Music.
  72. Lots of music.
  73. The way Ray Charles sings “You” in Drown In My Own Tears.
  74. But not jazz.
  75. Instrumental jazz, to be precise.
  76. Music that “sounds like it’s falling down the stairs”.
  77. Music to signify you should stay out of dad’s way at that moment.
  78. The marriage ends. Wham bam, exit Sam.
  79. The list stops.
  80. Suddenly.
  81. Well past 800,000.
  82. Only to start again years later.
  83. Like suddenly revisiting an old diary and feeling inspired to begin Dear Diarying all over again.
  84. Alan’s character has a serious point to make.
  85. Suicide. Don’t do it. There has to be something to live for, he says. Hence the list. Hence this show.
  86. And if the play has troubled you, Alan will be on hand afterwards to talk about its themes.
  87. This week’s production happens to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.
  88. More details at mentalhealth.org.uk.
  89. Every Brilliant Thing does address depression, suicide, death (beginning with the family pet), but it is uplifting, joyous, funny too.
  90. A difficult balancing act.
  91. But negotiated skilfully by Macmillan and Donahue, and now Park and Smales. Never glib. Often profound. Comforting. Thought provoking.
  92. Life changing?
  93. You decide.
  94. There are still three opportunities to see Every Brilliant Thing.
  95. Tonight at 7.30pm.
  96.  Tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
  97. At the venue that won Best Entertainment Venue at Thursday night’s YorkMix Choice Awards 2023.
  98. Congratulations, Alan and all the team at Theatre@41.
  99. Another reason to…
  100. Add Every Brilliant Thing to your list of what to do this weekend. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
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“It really is one of the most uplifting plays I’ve ever read,” says Alan Park as he stars in Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing

Alan Park: So happy to be performing Duncan Macmillan’s solo show Every Brilliant Thing. Picture: Ben Lindley

YOU are seven years old. Your mum is in hospital. Your dad says she has “done something stupid”. She finds it hard to be happy.

You make a list of everything that is brilliant about the world. Every small miracle to make mum realise life is worth living. 1. Ice cream. 2. Water fights. 3. Staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV. 4. The colour yellow. 5. Things with stripes 6. Rollercoasters. 7. People falling over.

Prompted by a mother’s attempted suicide, what starts as a small gesture turns into thousands of entries that follow the boy throughout a life spent trying to define and capture happiness.

That list’s mission to prove life is beautiful is the basis of Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man play based on Paines Plough playwright Duncan Macmillan’s short story Sleeve Notes, adapted for the stage with input from actor Jonny Donahoe.

Settled after two years of improvisation and Donahoe performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, in London and at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre, Macmillan’s text now forms the debut production by new York company Shared Space Theatre, directed by Maggie Smales.

Theatre@41 chair Alan Park will be on home turf, performing the solo show only weeks after stepping in to play the lead in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at York Theatre Royal Studio.

Alan Park and Victoria Delaney in a scene from York Settlement Community Players’ April production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing

“Everyone I have spoken to about doing it has said ‘oh, we need that show now more than ever’,” says Alan. “A friend [Theatre@41 supporter Cate Birch] suggested we try and book the show to tour into York but when I read it, and found there were no other productions around, I decided to apply to do it myself.”

Much to Alan’s delight, Macmillan gave his approval to Shared Space staging a production in York. “It really is one of the most uplifting plays I’ve ever read. It’s a brilliant thing,” says Alan. “The world does feel a bit of a challenge right now, not just because of the Covid years but for longer than that.

“What I like about it is how it responds to our tendency not to focus on brilliant things but on things that go wrong, so we then miss out on appreciating the obvious things, like ice cream, which is the first thing on the boy’s list that becomes a list of 1,000,000.

“On the list at number 123,321 is palindromes, which a nice joke on the meaning of ‘palindrome’, while number 2,001 is movies that are better than the book such as 2001: A Space Odyssey], but basically it’s saying the best things in life are just ordinary.”

Every Brilliant Thing will be staged in the round, lending an intimate atmosphere to Theatre@41, where the audience will play a crucial role in compiling the list of brilliant things.

“The result is an unforgettable communal experience that reminds us of the power found in connecting with the people around us,” says Alan, whose production run coincides with Mental Health Awareness Week (May 15 to 21).

“I’m loath to call it a play about mental depression as it’s about brilliant things,” says Alan Park

“I’m loath to call it a play about mental depression as it’s about brilliant things. The great premise within it is that the audience can play their part, though you can be as involved or uninvolved as you want to be.”

Director Maggie Smales has emphasised the need for Alan to be fleet of foot in each performance. “I have to react to whatever happens. Equally, the audience has the chance to play characters within the story, such as a teacher and the boy’s father, and you have to be prepared for the possibility of everybody’s reaction being different.

“That’s why it’s difficult to rehearse as you will have to come out with all these possible responses.”

Macmillan has decreed that the audience should be seated as democratically as possible. “No-one will be sitting upstairs as that wouldn’t be democratic,” says Alan. “There’ll be two rows of seating in the round, with a very blurred line between the performer and audience and no theatrical lighting, no props and no set.

“It’s very much a storytelling show and that’s partly what drew me to it, that emphasis. I don’t mind shows with sets, but they can be distancing, whereas what you want to do with a show like this is engage people directly in a story for an hour with naturalistic storytelling.”

Shared Space Theatre in Every Brilliant Thing, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

List entries as a teenager in Every Brilliant Thing include:

Number 324: Nina Simone’s voice.

761. Deciding you are not too old to climb trees.

995. Bubble wrap.

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After Henry V and Coriolanus, Claire Morley completes her hattrick of all-female Shakespeare shows with NTC’s Macbeth

Seat of power: Claire Morley, as Macbeth, in Northumberland Theatre Company’s modern-day Macbeth. Picture: Jim Donnelly

YORK actor Claire Morley is starring in Chris Connaughton’s all-female, three-hander version of Macbeth for Northumberland Theatre Company.

Directed by associate director Alice Byrne, she is joined in Shakespeare’s “very gruesome” tragedy by Gillian Hambleton and Melanie Dagg on an autumn tour to theatres, community venues, village halls and schools that visits Stillington Village Hall, near York, tonight (8/9/2022) and Pocklington Arts Centre on September 29.

This streamlined, fast-paced, extremely physical re-boot of Macbeth with original music will be told largely from the witches’ perspective, exploring ideas of manipulation through the media and other external forces. Expect grim, gory grisliness to the Mac max in two action-packed 40-minute halves.

Claire Morley and Gillian Hambleton in a scene from Northumberland Theatre Company’s Macbeth. Picture: Jim Donnelly

Here CharlesHutchPress puts Claire Morley on the damned spot, demanding quick answers, like Macbeth confronting the “secret, black, and midnight hags”.

How did you become involved with Northumberland Theatre Company, Claire?

“I saw they were holding auditions earlier this year and went along as I liked the sound of the company and its mission to take shows to rural places who might not have regular access to the theatre. Then, about a month ago, I moved up to Northumberland for rehearsals.

What does an all-female cast bring to what is often seen as a toxic, machismo play, where even Lady Macbeth says “unsex me here”?

“To be honest, it’s not something that has massively concerned us in rehearsals as we’ve been exploring the characters and their relationships first and foremost. There are some lines about what it is to be a man, which I imagine might ping out more to the audience and make them see the text in new ways.”

Cut out to be king: Claire Morley, Melanie Dagg and Gillian Hambleton in Macbeth. Picture: Jim Donnelly

How are the roles divided between the three witches?

“Chris Connaughton has adapted the script so that the witches bookend the play; this gives us room to play with the witches in the sense that they are manipulating and telling the story.

“So, in the first scene you will see us choose who gets to be Duncan and Macbeth, for example. As there are only three actors, we do all play multiple roles, which has been really fun.”

What are the benefits of staging Macbeth as a three-hander?

“Well, practically, it’s much easier to tour with only three actors in the van! But I’ve also found that it means we have had to really streamline the script and think about what serves the story and what is superfluous.

“I think this makes the production pacy and easy to follow and will be great when we take it to schools for those students studying it for GCSE.” 

“As there are only three actors, we do all play multiple roles, which has been really fun,” says Claire Morley, left. Picture: Jim Donnelly

What is the set design and costume design for NTC’s Macbeth?

“As NTC is a rural touring company, we take everything with us in the van, so, when we get to a venue, we build our stage and lighting rig and set up costumes and props.

“Where we can, such as in Stillington, we’re performing in traverse, which means that the audience sit either side of the stage. I think this gives the show an immediacy as the audience will really feel part of the action, and privy to our thoughts.

“When we’re at Pocklington, for example, we’ll be performing on their stage, so we have to adapt to the venues we’re in! 

“The sound and lighting design really add to the atmosphere and help us change scenes and moods without elaborate set changes.” 

Claire Morley, centre, as Henry V at Agincourt in York Shakespeare Project’s all-female Henry V in 2015. Picture: Michael J Oakes

Does NTC’s Macbeth have a particular period setting?

“We’ve given the play a modern feel. You’ll see how the witches receive some of their prophecies on mobile phones!”

How does this production compare with your previous all-female Shakespeare experiences in York in Maggie Smales’s Henry V, in 2015, and Madeleine O’Reilly’s Coriolanus in 2018.

“I had an absolutely amazing time working with York Shakespeare Project on Henry V and Coriolanus and I hope that all theatre companies continue to implement diverse casting.

“What differs this time is more the circumstances. I’ve never been on tour before and that is the biggest difference! It’s hard work travelling and doing the get-ins and get-outs but I’m in fantastic company and I’m having a great time.” 

Something wicked this way comes: Northumberland Theatre Company in Macbeth, Stillington Village Hall, near York, tonight (8/9/2022); Pocklington Arts Centre, September 29, both 7.30pm. Box office: Stillington, 01347 811 544 or on the door; Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The tour poster for Northumberland Theatre Company’s Macbeth, playing Stillington and Pocklington
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