Clare Halliday, left, Chris Pomfrett, Victoria Delaney and Mick Liversidge in rehearsal for York Actors Collective’s Beyond Caring
YORK Actors Collective is following up March 2023’s debut production of Joe Orton’s risqué Sixties’ farce Entertaining Mr Sloanewith Beyond Caring, a topical exposé of the social damage inflicted by zero hours contracts.
Running at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from February 6 to 9, this “modern-day tragedy” was devised by Alexander Zeldin and the original Yard Theatre cast in East London in 2014, later transferring to the National Theatre.
Its story of agency cleaners at a meat-packing factory is being directed in York by former teacher Angie Millard, working with a cast of Victoria Delaney, Clare Halliday, Mick Liversidge, Chris Pomfrett and Neil Vincent.
Over 90 unbroken minutes, Beyond Caring follows two women, Becky and Grace, and one man, Sam (replacing Sarah from past productions in a directorial decision), as they confront the reality of minimum wage, zero-hour contract employment, never sure of how many hours they have to work, when they will be paid and whether their ‘job’ will continue.
“This play is remarkable in its structure and power,” says Angie. “It totally represents 2024 where many workers are on the breadline, trapped in employment with no guarantee of further work and no way to improve their position.
“What drew me to the play, however, is the message it conveys about people surviving and keeping a sense of humour. I loved the intensity of the piece with its silences, its disappointments and its determination to determination to get pleasure out of the smallest things. It gave me hope.”
Beyond Caring was brought to Angie’s attention by fellow company co-founder Chris Pomfrett, who had played the self-aggrandising Ed in Entertaining Mr Sloane. “Following that debut show, our brief was to find something that would appeal to audiences as entertaining but also have an edge to it,” he says.
“I had a look at a lot of play synopses around particular subject matters, came across this one, bought a copy and was completely blown away by it. When it was first done in London, then at the National, it was described as ‘comically devastating’ and that’s absolutely right.”
Beyond Caring forms part of a series of Alexander Zeldin plays entitled The Inequality Triptych, addressing the theme of the impact of austerity. “This one deals with a group of people meeting for the first time to work the night shift cleaning a meat factory on zero-hours contracts, all employed through a temp agency with different arrangements for pay for each of them,” says Chris, who plays scarred, taciturn worker Phil.
“So they’re all strangers, and as happens when strangers meet, there are silences and awkward pauses, like in Harold Pinter’s plays, but they’re all full of meaning.
“Gradually, you see glimpses of their lives and their insecurities, and how that affects them and those around them, mostly adversely.”
Clare Halliday’s factory cleaner Becky and Neil Vincent’s manager Ian in a scene from the darkly humorous Beyond Caring
Chris continues: “I think it’s important for us to do plays that deal with these issues, as they’re still occurring. One of the things that has struck me, after Mr Bates vs. The Post Office is how a TV drama can have a massive impact on the Government’s actions, and that’s because people are confronted with real characters, and there’s an emotional response that you don’t get with news bulletins.
“The same goes for a play like this, and the great thing about all the characters is that in some ways you can see yourself in them.”
In Chris’s case, he can draw on his own experiences working in the community for the NHS (National Health Service) as part of the combined therapy multi-disciplinary team. “You can see the effects of the care system being shot to pieces,” he says.
Clare Halliday will be making her York Actors Collective debut after more than a decade of involvement in York community productions, such as the 2012 York Mystery Plays, when she first met Angie.
“I learned that Angie had created York Actors Collective and went to see Entertaining Mr Sloane, then heard they were doing Beyond Caring and auditioned for the role of Becky [one of the cleaners] after reading about the play and watching extracts from when it was at the National,” she says.
“Becky is a very resilient character, very tough on the exterior. I see her as a born survivor with ways and means of surviving, using her sexuality to get what she wants, in the only way she knows how. We assume she’s had very little education, and we know she’s a single mum, whose daughter is not living with her – she’s probably in care – but she’s trying to see her.
“I can relate to that, as I’ve had work insecurity and been on benefits, so at some points in my life I’ve walked similar steps.”
Clare now runs the Clare’s Kitchen mobile cookery school in York, being involved with schools since 2015. “Before that, I was living in France, training as a chef, and I wanted to work with children, having been involved in cooking in the kitchen with my mum since the age of two or three,” she says.
“I work with Year One to Six children at Knavesmire Primary, Ralph Butterfield Primary, Haxby, Rufforth, Dringhouses and Lord Deramore’s. I’ve just taken on another lady to help as I’m so busy.”
York Actors Collective in Beyond Caring, Theatre@41, Monkgte, York, February 6 to 9, 7.30pm; February 10, 2.30pm and 5.30pm.Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
“The long night of the soul”: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich, left, and Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman in negotiation in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins
“SOMETIMES we touch, connect, brough together by the tide. Sometimes we grind each other into sand like millstones. Sometimes we just break apart.”
York writer Tim Murgatroyd, eight novels to his name, and now penning his debut play, likes a metaphor. First-time stage director Martin Handsley loves the sound of the sea, and so the crashing of waves will greet this week’s audiences and accompany scenes staged at a lonely, low-key cottage by the coast, where Phil Goodman (Mick Liversidge) has retired after working as a doctor in conflict zones such as Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
In a play about relationships between fathers and daughters, we first encounter Jana Ilich (Ukrainian-born mezzo-soprano and actress Polina Bielova) and her “businessman” father Ratko (Ian Giles).
The year is 2000, ten years after the Yugoslavian Civil War; Jana is a lawyer, determined to prepare war trial prosecutions. Her father, who has more than something of the night about him, is always away on business overseas. He demands she should stop compiling her evidence; she will not be told.
Subsequently Jana will appear very briefly in Goodman’s cottage, without being seen by him and without naturalistic explanation, a moment of intrigue that establishes her presence but puzzles at the same time, until the narrative black hole is filled in later.
Liversidge’s Goodman is looking in his mirror; he appears to have a blood pressure kit around his arm, but again with no elaboration from Murgatroyd’s script. Maybe a daily routine, maybe later explained by the revelation that he is a former doctor, but such a prop is a mere distraction if not used.
Terms and conditions: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich talks numbers with Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie, Goodman’s Icarus-inclined daughter. Picture: Chris Mackins
Suddenly, Phil’s long-absent daughter, Sophie (Raqhael Harte), arrives. They have not seen each for more than four years; she was brought up by her mother and stepfather (who she calls ‘daddy’ on the phone) since her parents’ split, which may explain her Scottish accent, as opposed to Phil’s north-eastern brogue.
Sophie is brusque, nervous, needs a bath, has chips on both shoulders, doesn’t want to talk, but will have to. She may drive a swish Alfa Romeo – too flash for dad Phil – but she is in big trouble. The year is 2008, as denoted by the large numerals on the calendar on the wall, the year when the banks crashed, and, spoiler alert, Sophie has hit the rocks over her hedge fund-dealing.
Phil may be as good a man as his surname would indicate, but not so in the eyes of his daughter, who still resents him from his absence in childhood days.
Here we have two head-strong daughters whose relationships with their fathers come from the Lear and Cordelia playbook. Stones in the sea that grind each other into sand, but can they learn to touch, to connect, to re-connect?
Would it surprise you to learn that Ratko’s dodgy business dealings (prostitution etc) have brought him into connection with Sophie? Enter Ratko and his heavies, two staying in the car, one out back, as he demands money owed by Sophie.
Cue a long, restless night of confrontation and negotiation, suspense and surprise, truths and lies, revelation and even redemption amid further appearances by Bielova’s spectral Jana. This is a reckoning of good deeds versus bad deeds, of the seeds of greed and the lure of corruption versus the human capacity for helping others rather than helping yourself to others’ goods. Compassion versus contempt too.
Father and daughter discussions: Ian Giles’s Ratko and Polina Bielova’s Jane Ilich in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins
Catching Monday afternoon’s dress rehearsal revealed a cast adept at building tension and intense, difficult relationships, matched by Murgatroyd’s ear for dialogue and astute perception of human complexities and contradictions.
The staging, however, worked against these attributes. The regular sight of the stage team taking the cottage furniture on and off and pulling the black-box curtain across the stage for scenes in Yugoslavia or by the sea broke the rhythm, a clunky manoeuvre that would have been eased by keeping the furniture in place and placing a curtain in front.
Since the dress rehearsal, music has been introduced to accompany the scene changes, but any re-staging of Sea Stones would require a design re-think.
Music already plays its part at the opening to the second half, Bielova parading her mezzo-soprano chops with haunting beauty to herald further troubles afoot.
A play for today drawn from recent yesterdays, Sea Stones marks a promising start for the Murgatroyd and Handsley partnership for York company Lumar Productions. Murgatroyd is already writing a second play, and Handsley has been bitten by the theatre bug, with a feel for the geometry and chemistry of staging scenes. Be assured he will furnish his next production with more finesse and less fiddling with furniture.
Further performances: 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Father and daughter: Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie Goodman in the dark in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins
AFTER eight novels, with his ninth on the way, Tim Murgatroyd has written his debut play, Sea Stones, an emotional, suspenseful night of the soul when four people are brought together in a lonely house by the sea.
Two fathers. Two daughters. Each confronted with the consequences of the past as a high tide is turning and tests to their relationships are escalating. Tests that might cost them not only their dearest hopes and loves, but their very lives. “The truth can set you free. Or drown you,” says York writer Tim.
Sea Stones will be premiered from tonight (14/11/2023) at Theatre@41, Monkgate, by Lumar Productions, the York company run by film and stage director Martin Handsley, with a cast of Mick Liversidge as Phil Goodman, Raqhael Harte as Sophie Goodman, Ian Giles as Ratko Ilich and Ukrainian-born York Opera mezzo-soprano Polina Bielova as Jana Ilich.
Introducing the storyline, Tim says: “The play opens in 2000 in a small town in the former Yugoslavia celebrating a new millennium. It is ten years since bloody civil war tore the Communist federation apart, unleashing horrific ethnic conflict.
“But some legacies are not easily forgotten, especially when the victims find no justice and the so-called victors are unpunished, even rewarded.”
Roll forward to 2008: “All around the world, greed-fuelled banking systems are collapsing, creating new victims among the ‘little people’ who trusted in their institutions and leaders. New winners and losers, all over the world.
“But some people never accept losing. It’s not just the corrupt bankers who seek to claw back what they can. The stage is set in an isolated cottage by the sea for further crimes against the best sides of human nature: love, reconciliation and compassion. Or perhaps, this time, for redemption.”
Martin was captivated immediately by Tim’s compelling story on two grounds. “Sea Stones delves into the intricate tensions and dynamics between fathers and their daughters, a theme that resonated deeply with me as I’m the proud father of three girls,” he says.
Money talks in Sea Stones: Mick Liversidge’s Phil Goodman and Raqhael Harte’s Sophie Goodman in negotiation with Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich. Picture: Chris Mackins
“This is also a story how history never quite dies. My personal experience as an aid worker during the Yugoslav Civil War [travelling from Leeds in 1992 to bring refugees from Bosnia to the UK] provided me with a profound understanding of the challenging circumstances the characters in the play find themselves in.
“Even in 2023, the world continues to grapple with the same issues that the play addresses. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine serves as a stark reminder that war and its aftermath still haunt us. That’s why we’re so excited to bring Sea Stones to life on stage, setting free the power of theatre to illuminate and provoke thought about the enduring challenges our world faces.”
Tim felt “more poacher than gamekeeper” when writing Sea Stones. “My career as a published writer has been exclusively as a novelist,” he says. “Eight in print to date, two of them translated into Chinese.
“I have written stories about Ancient China, a dystopian Yorkshire, even silent cinema musicians in York, but I had never written a play. So it came as a surprise when I found myself scribbling down stage directions, then dialogue, that would emerge as Sea Stones.
“It began with a man in a lonely cottage by a pebbly beach startled by the arrival of a car where no-one comes. Dark memories of the Yugoslav Civil War and anger at injustices in the world crept into his home with the sound of waves grinding the shingle.
“Then came a long-lost daughter corrupted by money and greed, dragging far worse in her wake, and the stage was set for conflict: love, morality, and bare survival. As the character Phil Goodman says: ‘Sometimes we touch, connect, brought together by the tide. Sometimes we grind each other into sand like millstones. Sometimes we just break apart’.”
First play for Tim, first stage directing challenge for Martin: “I’ve directed film before, which is completely different,” he says. “I never thought I’d enjoy theatre because it’s so ephemeral, whereas you put everything into getting the image right, you film it and it’s there forever.
“However, what I’ve learned with this production is that theatre’s ephemeral nature is what it’s about, being in the now, what’s going on live in front of you. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ve become a volunteer at Theatre@41, doing tech work, working behind the bar. I just love it.
The other father and daughter: Ian Giles’s Ratko Ilich and Polina Bielova’s Jane Ilich in Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins
“The fact that Sea Stones is a great play and we’ve got great actors helps as well! I’ve been with this play for over a year, and still the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I hear certain lines being said.”
Whether as a novelist, or now as a playwright, Tim says: “At the heart of all this writing is storytelling. If you think about how humans understand the world, it’s through stories, with bigger narratives in plays and novels.
“With novels, you can use descriptions, whereas plays rely on what’s being stated or implied by the characters in speech, so the real challenge was to make sure the play’s dialogue was naturalistic, but not too naturalistic because I wanted to have deeper philosophical and emotional layers to the characters’ experiences.”
Sea Stones has taken three years to evolve. “That’s when Tim first contacted me and sent me a copy of the original script,” recalls Martin. “I read it but just didn’t think I’d be the one to stage it. But then Covid came along, and afterwards I just wanted to do something different after the film.
“Tim contacted me again, we got some actors together, did some readthroughs and made sure that the heart of the story would remain, but we would need to lose some of the dialogue to make it more pacy.”
Further challenges were to secure a theatre for the production and to find the right cast. Tick and tick, albeit with changes in one role. “We’ve ended up with the highly experienced Ian Giles as our fourth iteration of Ratko Ilich,” says Martin. “He’s bringing a level of confidence to the role that we were struggling with before, and lots of humour too, and we have an ensemble that gets on really well.”
Ian has made such an impact that Tim is writing a role expressly for him in his next play. Meanwhile, Tim and Martin have found a way to integrate Polina Bielova’s operatic singing in Sea Stones. “I can guarantee people will have tears in their eyes,” says Tim.
Actress and yoga teacher Raqhael Harte brings 15 years of acting and performance studies, coupled with a few years of York productions, to her role as troubled daughter Sophie. “She’s a Scottish actress and when she auditioned, I just loved her accent and knew it work really well in the play,” says Martin. “Her character is jarring, and her voice can be quite jarring too, so she’s the whole package.”
“These characters can be contradictory in their beliefs and behaviour because people are contradictory,” says Sea Stones playwright Tim Murgatroyd
Summing up his play, Tim says: “Essentially it’s about two parallel father-daughter relationships, with each one casting light on the other, and from that they learn lessons, some hard, some redemptive, but all of them life-changing.
“In many ways, the play is designed to work on two levels: the parent/child relationships and the wider content of the world, referring to the Yugolsav war and to the 2008 banking crisis, with questions about corruption and human behaviour in a difficult, flawed world.
“That makes it incredibly relevant to today, where there’s corruption that’s pretty much not even hidden now, and all the violence and war that we see on our TV screens every night. We ask, ‘are we powerless? What can a good parent do?’.”
Important to Tim too was the need to make the characters believable. “Looking at human nature, these characters can be contradictory in their beliefs and behaviour because people are contradictory, and you have to get that complexity across – which can be challenging for everyone involved, not only the writer.
“What I’m hoping the audience will take from the play is not only an emotional journey but also a lot of tension because the potential for violence is always lurking in what I’ve written, so in that sense it’s not just about their relationships but also about survival.”
As indicated by the title, the sea is a significant character in the play too. “A lot of the meaning of the play comes from the dialogue, but plenty will come from metaphors too, where you’re trying to connect the audience with places and feelings they have experienced. The sea is perhaps the best example of that,” says Tim. “It represents movement and change, and characters being swept along by the tide of history.”
From the moment of arrival in the John Cooper Studio, audiences will be surrounded by the rhythmic roll of crashing waves with the high tide on its way. “I love the sound of the sea, and we use it as background in pretty much all the scenes set at the cottage,” says Martin.
The poster for Lumar Productions’ Sea Stones at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Tim adds: “It’s almost like a musical soundtrack in this play. There’s a theory that we evolved from aquatic apes and that’s why we have this immediate bond with the sea.”
Sea Stones is “as uncomfortable as possible” for the audience, or “intimate”, as Tim prefers to describe the viewing experience. “By creating four contrasting characters, I can show the different facets of humanity, so we see good in the play, sometimes incredibly heroic good deeds, but also the bad in people, the potential for corruption, which creates dramatic tension,” Tim concludes.
Lumar Productions present Sea Stones,Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (14/11/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Running time: 100 minutes plus interval.
Back story: Lumar Productions
SMALL independent film, video and theatre production company dedicated to creating innovative content and storytelling, delivered with energy and passion. Its latest film feature, Wiccan, is scheduled for release in 2024.
The company is run by Martin Handsley, an IT professional, who reinvented himself after a life-altering event as an actor, writer, producer and director.
Writer’s profile: Tim Murgatroyd
READ English at Hertford College, Oxford University, and now lives with his family in York. Internationally acclaimed author of several novels of historical fiction, a dystopian series, whose latest novel, October 2022’s The Electric, is set in the glamorous world of silent cinema in York in 1919.
Former weekly columnist for The Press, York.
Sea Stones is his first play. His next novel, Dust Of The Earth, will be published next year.
For a preview of Sea Stones, visit: https://youtu.be/pviM6iKB0dw
High-flying success: Ned Sproston’s Caractacus Potts at the wheel of Chitty, with Carly Morton’s Truly Scrumptious in the passenger seat and Logan Willstrop’s Jeremy Potts and Hope Day’s Jemima Potts in York Stage’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. All pictures: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, York Stage, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm nightly to Saturday; 2.30pm matinees, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
THIS is James Bond author Ian Flemings’s eyebrow-raising 1964 children’s story, via Ken Hughes’s 1968 family musical fantasy film, adapted for the stage by Jeremy Sams.
It would be easy to put the emphasis on the spectacle, the car that floats and flies, with as many special features as a Q-customised Aston Martin for Bond. Certainly director-producer Nik Briggs pulls out all the stops on that score, but his Chitty show has more wings to it than merely its fine four-fendered friend’s airborne adventures.
The “fantasmagorical” spectacle here extends beyond the repurposed scrap-heap Grand Prix car to Damien Poole’s fabulous, fun and funny choreography; the hair and make-up by Phoebe Kilvington’s team; Charades Theatrical Costume’s flamboyant costume designs and the uncredited hi-tech set design, windmill sails et al.
Pulling a Chu-Chi Face: Alex Papachristou’s Baron Bomburst and Jackie Cox’s Baroness
Out of sight, aside from diligent yet playful musical director Adam Tomlinson, is his lush 12-piece orchestra, properly filling the pit with gorgeous musicality for the Sherman brothers’ score.
Above all, Briggs has improved further on the balance between grand theatricality and human personality in West Yorkshire Playhouse’s 2015 Christmas production. Perhaps it would be truer to say “caricature personality”, but the result is a greater connection with the audience.
In particular, this applies to the baddie double act of Alex Papachristou’s arch, spoilt, teddy bear-carrying Baron Bomburst and his brassy Baroness (Jackie Cox), a hammier, kinkier couple than past interpretations, and far funnier than their outrageous banishment of children from their Vulgarian principality should be.
Bomburst’s spies, Boris and Goran, are always comedy gold, in pursuit of purloining the car for the baron, but they are better still in the hands of Jack Hooper and James Robert Ball, Vulgarian vultures trying to pass themselves off as Englishmen (and even women too).
Send for the clowning spies: Jack Hooper’s Boris gives a lift to James Robert Ball’s Goran
Papachristou, Cox, Hooper and Ball stretch their Vulgarian accents across Germanic vowels with delight and differing, equally amusing results in a send-up where ’Allo ’Allo! meets Mel Brooks’s The Producers.
Such is their broad playing, their comic interplay, their relish for downright silliness, that all four carry appeal for adults and children alike, evil but never vile. Unlike Richard Barker’s Childcatcher, that towering, spindly, grotesque rotter, whose villainy is more threat than presence, given how few scenes he has.
Meanwhile, several saucy jokes fly above innocent young heads, relished especially by Ball and Papachristou, who also rescues a prop malfunction (a telephone wire becoming detached) with an off-the-cuff one liner.
Ploughing a straighter furrow are Ned Sproston’s thoroughly decent inventor and single dad Caractacus Potts, plucky children Jeremy (Logan Willstrop, sharing the role with Esther de la Pena) and Jemima Potts (Hope Day/Eady Mensah), and Carly Morton’s utterly pucker Truly Scrumptious (whose beautiful singing with the purity of a Julie Andrews peaks with her Doll On A Music Box routine, clockwork dancing so exquisitely).
Briggs uses adult and children’s ensembles to the full, testament to the show’s mantra that teamwork makes the dream work, never more so than when Poole’s choreography is in full flow in Toots Sweets and especially The Bombi Samba.
Boris and Goran’s Act English and Potts and the Morris Men’s Me Ol’ Bamboo, Grandpa and The Inventors’ The Roses Of Success and the Baron and Baroness’s Chu-Chi Face are all bursting with character as much as musical flair.
For all the considerable technical demands of a show with a flying car, Briggs and his company take everything in their stride with panache in a dazzling, dapper and delightful family treat for the Easter break. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, bang on.
Adjusting to new circumstances: Victoria Delaney’s Kath in York Actors Collective’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
York Actors Collective in Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk
YORK Actors Collective is a new group of like-minded actors whose aim is to produce entertaining and thought-provoking theatre.
Launched by director Angie Millard, with actors Chris Pomfrett and Victoria Delaney in tandem, YAC is looking to fill a gap by staging plays that might otherwise sit gathering dust.
One such is Joe Orton’s 1964 farce Entertaining Mr Sloane, controversial in its West End day and still as discomfiting as a punch in the gut.
Coming to an arrangement:Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane and Chris Pomfrett’s Ed in York Actors Collective’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
It is not a farce to call it a farce – trousers are removed, and yes, there’s sex, please, despite being British – but this is not farce of the cosy, comfy Brian Rix variety. Orton is an iconoclast, a rule breaker, an agent provocateur, an even angrier young man than those Angry Young Men that seethed before him: Osborne, Amis, Braine, Sillitoe, Wain, Braine and co. This is farce as jet-black comedy and psychological drama, all normality refracted through a writer’s absurdist lens.
Orton’s play has a psychopath, physical abuse and sibling squabbling; homosexuality, still illegal in 1964, hovers beneath the surface as the love that dare not speak its name (not least to beat the censor’s scowl). Its humour is savage, cruel, awkward, the kind that in 2023 has you thinking, “is that funny?”. Just as Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, likewise premiered in 1964, had the same effect when revived on tour at York Theatre Royal last May.
Orton’s play is not quite as shocking in impact as Ben Weir’s hair – dyed three times on Millard’s instruction to make it look so obviously bleached (and disturbingly reminiscent of angels in a Renaissance religious painting) – but it does shock, especially in its brutality to Mick Liversidge’s Dada Kemp, the old man who knows too much, and its treatment of the vulnerable, needy, highly sexualised Kath (Delaney).
Weir is an exciting young talent from York St John University and here he makes his mark in very good, experienced York company: Liversidge, Delaney and Pomfrett. A tall, lean north easterner, he has an unnerving presence beneath his burning bright hair, his cocksure, amoral lodger Sloane being the house guest yet the cuckoo’s egg in the nest. The Sloane danger.
Chris Pomfrett’s Ed, left, Victoria Delaney’s Kath, Mick Liversidge’s Dada Kemp and Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane at the finale to Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
Liversidge’s Dada shuffles around pitiably, caught in the crossfire as Weir’s Sloane plays Delaney’s desperate-to-please seductress, Kath, off against her brother, Pomfrett’s Ed, his self-aggrandising new employer, as they pursue his affections.
The humour tends to stick in the throat rather than be “laugh out loud” funny, but Millard’s cast is all the better for playing it straight, even confrontational, to emphasise how selfish and shameless everyone is.
As Millard says, Orton winds his characters up like toys and then watches what happens. Pomfrett, Liversidge, Weir and Delaney are happy to do exactly the same, their characters beyond control like dodgem cars.
“Our challenge is to attract an audience but shake up their expectations a little,” says Millard in her programme notes. Job done in this disturbing debut.
Victoria Delaney’s Kath in York Actors Collective’s production of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
YORK actress Victoria Delaney will be appearing in two plays in quick succession, all on top of her daytime job and being a mum.
From tonight until Saturday, she plays Kath in York Actors Collective’s debut production of Joe Orton’s savage 1964 farce Entertaining Mr Sloane at Theatre@41, Monkgate.
From April 5 to 15, this will be followed by her turn as in York Settlement Community Players’ staging of Tom Stoppard’s 1982 exploration of love and infidelity, The Real Thing, at York Theatre Royal Studio.
Entertaining Mr Sloane launches director and tutor Angie Millard’s new company. “After Angie directed Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind for Settlement Players last February, we were mulling over a few ideas about starting up a company, and what to do, and we settled on Entertaining Mr Sloane,” says Victoria, who had played the lead, housewife Susan, in Ayckbourn’s dark comedy.
“It’s a highly pressurised play for the cast, especially for the young actor playing Sloane. Angie has chosen Ben Weir, from York St John University, who appeared in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love last April.”
In Orton’s fractious farce, Delaney’s Kath, who lives with her father Dada Kemp, brings home a lodger, the amoral and psychopathic Mr Sloane, a face familiar to the father from his past.
When her brother Ed arrives, complications crank up when the siblings become embroiled in a tense sexual struggle for Sloane as he plays one off against the other while Dada Kemp is caught in the crossfire.
“I think it’s still a radical play as it’s such a dark comedy, but people need to remember that they’re permitted to laugh because it is really funny. People are drawn to looking at the scene of a car crash and that’s a bit like what watching really dark comedy is like,” says Victoria.
She is delighted to be appearing in a cast featuring Chris Pomfrett as Ed and Mick Liversidge as Dada Kemp alongside Weir’s Sloane. “I’m really lucky to be working with Chris, who played the doctor in Woman In Mind, and Mick, who was Vanya in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike, the last play Settlement did last year. It’s great to be back with them as there’s a lot of trust there.”
Victoria Delaney in rehearsal for her role as actress Charlotte in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing
That trust is essential when performing a play of extreme behaviour. “It’s misogynistic, there are racist comments in there, and Kath’s character is vulnerable and highly sexualised. Feminists will be up in arms,” says Victoria.
“But isn’t theatre supposed to be thought-provoking and aren’t we supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past, like how we now look at Dada Kemp’s racist comments?
“Also, some of the terminology shows how different society was at that time, like Kath’s illegitimate baby, when she was young, was ‘born on the wrong side of the blanket’. It’s good to dip your toe into different times to show how it was.”
Victoria has a preference for Entertaining Mr Sloane over Orton’s most performed work, What The Butler Saw. “Maybe it’s more gritty, and I like that,” she says. “If I had to choose a modern-day drama to perform, I would pick something gritty and British that has wit as well, and Entertaining Mr Sloane does.
“If you have a powerful plot, then you really have the chance to up your acting game and show your skills. At times, it’s also important to remember it’s a comedy, but there are some scenes that however you approach them, they’re not going to be funny, but what you do next has to be funny to lift the mood.”
Coming next will be her first experience of performing a play by Pocklington School alumnus Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing. “It’s my first Stoppard and my first time of working with director Jacob ward, who I met when we did The Coppergate Woman last year at York Theatre Royal, where he played one of the gods,” says Victoria. “He came to see me in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike, liked what I did, and that helped with the audition.”
In Stoppard’s typically witty and adroit play within a play, Henry is married to Charlotte, Victoria’s character. 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, as Stoppard has everyone questioning, “What is the real thing?”
“Charlotte’s husband has written a play for her to star in, but she hates him and the play as he’s written a really weak woman character, which is something that Stoppard was accused of doing in the past. So this is Stoppard taking the mick out of himself,” says Victoria.
York Actors Collective in Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (15/3/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
York Settlement Community Players in The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, April 5 and 6, 7.30pm; April 11 to 15, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. No performances from April 7 to 10. Question-and-answer session after the April 12 peformance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jacob Ward: Directing York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing this spring
Jacob Ward to direct York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s deceptive comedy The Real Thing
YORK thespian Jacob Ward is directing York Settlement Community Players for the first time in Tom Stoppard’s play within a play, The Real Thing, at York Theatre Royal Studio from April 5 to 15.
First performed in 1982, this award-winning beguiling play of surprise and wit follows Henry, possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation, who is married to Charlotte, an actress. Max is married to Annie.
Henry has written a play about a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Charlotte and Max, his leading couple, are soon to learn that sometimes life imitates art in Stoppard’s study of love and infidelity that ponders: “What is the real thing…?”
Settlement Players’ last production was New Jersey playwright Christopher Durang’s relationship comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike at Theatre@41 in November 2022.
The Real Thing marks their return to the Theatre Royal Studio after presenting Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind last February.
Alan Park’s Henry and Alice Melton’s Annie rehearsing a scene from The Real Thing
Director Jacob Ward says: “I’m very excited for an audience to interact with our modern-day version of Stoppard’s play. Its subject seems simple but, as we see through the eyes of various characters, we realise its complexity, and enjoy having our views on love and relationships broadened.
“The writing is nothing short of genius – it really is. Even after 20-plus times of reading, I’m still finding impossible connections and meaning. It’s a joy to direct and will be a thrill to watch: hilarious, heart-warming and thought-provoking all in one.
“We have a brilliant cast to take you on the journey and a truly dedicated production team to bring the play to life. I can’t wait to add the audience.”
Alan Park, chair of Theatre@41, takes on the role of Henry. Alice Melton, last seen in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s 2022 production of A Nativity Of York last December, plays Annie. They are joined by Settlement regulars and newcomers: Victoria Delaney as Charlotte; Mike Hickman as Max; Rebecca Harrison as Billy; Hannah Waring as Debbie and Alexandra Logan as Brodie.
York Actors Collective director Angie Millard, left, and stage manager Em Peattie
YORK Actors Collective, the like-minded group set up by theatre director, critic and theatre and film studies tutor Angie Millard, will make their debut with Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane next month.
Premiered in the West End in 1964, Orton’s controversial farce still has the power to shock almost 50 years later with its story of Kath bringing home a lodger: the amoral and psychopathic Mr Sloane.
Her father recognises him from his past life and challenges Mr Sloane’s honesty, but when her brother Ed arrives, everything turns more complicated. A tense sexual struggle for Mr Sloane ensues as he plays one sibling off against the other while their father is caught in the crossfire.
The roles at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from March 15 to 18 go to Victoria Delaney as Kath, York St John University student Ben Weir as Mr Sloane, Chris Pomfrett as Ed and Mick Liversidge as the father, Dada Kemp.
“Victoria and Chris have been involved with the new group since last summer,” says Angie. “We talked about so many plays, plays that would have audience appeal but also be challenging for the performers.
A troublesome triangle: Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane, left, with Victoria Delaney’s Kath and Chris Pomfrett’s Ed in Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
“Entertaining Mr Sloane was one. Joe Orton died too young [aged 34 on August 9 1967], so there aren’t that many plays and they’re not performed that often. I think people are a bit frightened of him, but the thing I love about him is the way he takes a theatrical form and updates it totally to his time, the Sixties. The language is brilliant; the writing is so funny.”
Angie continues: “The other big thing about Orton is that he was writing at a time of censorship, and the innuendo in the play is there to help him get away with things – and he did! He got away with murder! Especially when the censors were looking for homosexuality without recognising it.”
Controversy still surrounds Orton. “I find his treatment of women difficult in his plays, like his treatment of Kath. He makes her grotesque, and finally when she gets her revenge, in a way he had to do that for the shape of the play,” says Angie.
“Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t have done it, but he was such a master of theatrical form, though not of detail. It means I have to work very hard to work out how to get props on and off because he’s forgotten about them.”
Orton’s savagely sharp, confrontational dramas present challenges to director and cast alike. “I like to look at a play and see what you can do with it, and then you make your decisions about it. Orton’s estate are keen that you don’t change words, but rather than Kath having to be naked [as denoted in the play], Victoria is making her look seductive, clothed,” says Angie.
Ed-lock: Chris Pomfrett’s Ed and Mick Liversidge’s Dada Kemp in York Actors Collective’s debut production of Entertaining Mr Sloane. Picture: John Saunders
“We’re playing it in the period setting – the 1960s – and there are things like racist references in there, but because Kath takes a non-racist attitude, it works.
“There are lots of times where her brother Ed treats her shabbily too – they have a very unhappy, complex relationship – and you realise he could easily be transported to 2023 and still behave like that in the home.”
Looking back to the Sixties and the prevailing attitudes towards women at the time, Angie says: “I was a young student in London, at college doing drama and then going to university after that, and men treated you in a certain way; they all did, but that was the culture of the time. When I hear women complain now, I understand, but I also think, ‘you should have been there in the Sixties; that behaviour was the norm’.”
From Sheffield originally, Angie and her husband Clive moved to York ten years ago, since when she has played her part in the arts world, whether directing Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind for York Settlement Community Players or writing reviews for York Calling.
Now, she has formed her own troupe. “I don’t know if any other group would have put on this play, saying ‘it’s too shocking. No-one will come’. But York deserves to be shocked! If you fall shy of that, then you don’t see the theatre you deserve,” she says.
“I find his treatment of women difficult in his plays,” says director Angie Millard of Joe Orton. Here Ben Weir’s Mr Sloane attacks Victoria Delaney’s Kath. Picture: John Saunders
“I’m putting my own money into this project. People have hobbies that they put their money into, and I’m equating what I’m doing with that. I’d like to break even, and if people come along, we shall continue and do another play.”
Should you be wondering why the York Actors Collective is so called, Angie says: “I wanted to call it a ‘cooperative’ but everyone else wanted ‘collective’, and I thought ‘fair enough’! But whatever the name, it’s a passion project that I really wanted to do, where like-minded actors aim to produce entertaining and thought-provoking theatre.
“I don’t think Entertaining Mr Sloane is Orton’s best play. That would be What The Butler Saw, but by not doing this play you would be losing out on what is superb about it: it’s an actor’s play, a character play, where you really get into those characters’ situations.”
And so, the York Actors Collective is born.
York Actors Collective in Entertaining Mr Sloane, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 15 to 18, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Did you know?
ENTERTAINING Mr Sloane lead actress Victoria Delaney also will be appearing in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at York Theatre Royal Studio from April 5 to 15. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Wren Crawford as Jesus in a tableaux of the Guild Of Butchers’ The Crucifixion Of Christ in Shambles Market on Wednesday night. Picture: Lewis Outing
TODAY concludes the week of York Mystery Plays 2022 with a second Sunday of street plays on a roll around York’s city-centre from 11am onwards.
Presented by the Guilds of York and the York Festival Trust, eight plays have been selected by director Tom Straszewski from the 48 that comprise the mediaeval York Cycle of Mystery Plays.
In keeping with tradition, the plays will be wheeled around the bustling streets on waggons, processing from station to station at College Green (free) to St Sampson’s Square (free), St Helen’s Square (free) and King’s Manor (ticketed).
Those plays will be: York Guild of Building’s Creation To The Fifth Day, directed by Janice Newton, of Thinkon Theatre; the Gild of Freemen’s The Fall Of Adam And Eve, featuring the Vale of York Academy, directed by Bex Nicholson; the Company of Cordwainers and York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s The Building Of The Ark and The Flood, directed by Paul Toy; St Luke’s Church, Burton Stone Lane, in Herod And The Three Kings, directed by Lynn Comer and Mike Tyler.
The work of the devil: Mick Liversidge’s Lucifer as the unholy host at Wednesday’s performance of The Mysteries In The Market. Picture: Lewis Outing
The Company of Merchant Taylors and Lords Of Misrule’s The Last Supper, directed by Emily Hanson; the Guild of Butchers and Riding Lights Acting Up’s The Crucifixion and Death Of Christ, directed by Kelvin Goodspeed and Jared More; the Guild of Media Arts and Guild of Scriveners’ The Appearance Of Jesus To Mary Magdalene, directed by Jessica Murray, and the Company of Merchant Adventurers’ The Last Judgement, brought forth by Ravens Morris and Paint The Mouse Productions, directed by Alan Heaven, no less.
On Wednesday and Thursday, to mark Midsummer, five plays a night were performed under the umbrella of The Mysteries In The Market, as flat-capped Mick Liversidge sprouted horns to play master of ceremonies Lucifer in a series of interludes edited and directed by Straszewski.
On the first night, Fall Of Adam and Eve, The Flood, The Last Supper, The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement were staged; on the second, Creation To The Fifth Day, The Flood,The Last Supper, The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement.
Tickets for today’s performances at King’s Manor are on sale at yorkmysteryplays.co.uk.
When it rains, it pours: Maurice Crichton’s Noah looks to the sky in rehearsal for York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s production of The Building Of The Ark and The Flood. Picture: John Saunders
EIGHT plays from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays will be wheeled around York city centre on waggons by the Guilds of York and York Festival Trust on Saturday and June 26.
Under the direction of Tom Straszewski, from 11am each weekend, the Plays will process from College Green (free admission) to St Sampson’s Square (free), St Helen’s Square (free) and King’s Manor (ticketed).
In addition, five of the plays will be staged in ticketed Midsummer midweek performances in Shambles Market on Wednesday and Thursday at 7.30pm.
Taking part in all of the performances will be a familiar bearded face on the York stage, Maurice Crichton, playing Noah in Paul Toy’s staging of The Building Of The Ark and The Flood for the Company of Cordwainers and York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust.
Maurice is steeped in Mystery history. “I did the Settlement Players’ waggon play in 2010, as Pontius Pilate; Riding Lights and York Theatre Royal’s Two Planks And A Passion in 2011; Pilate in the 2012 Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens; Herod in York Minster in 2016, and Soldier 1 in The Crucifixion for the Company of Butchers and St Chad’s Church in 2018,” he says.
“But I’ve never done a Supporters Trust play, so that’s a first, and I’ve never done Noah before. It’s a delightful part, and we’ve tried to go for the humour, although there’s not so much humour in ‘The Ark’, but as soon as Paul [Toy] mashed the two plays together, that helped with the tone.”
Director Paul Toy, centre, bearded, in the thick of a rehearsal for The Building Of The Ark and The Flood
What draws Maurice back to the York Mystery Plays time after time? “First of all, it connects me to the city where I live,” he says. “It’s the one piece of world theatre that the city is really connected to, so I enjoy that aspect, and the more I’ve done the plays, the more I’ve looked into the history.
“It’s similar to Shakespeare, where you have the script but you have no idea how it was done when it was first performed. You’re like a detective, and the more you look into the plays, the more the options open up as you de-code the text, and that’s exciting.
“That’s what differentiates the Mystery Plays from plays of our time, where the writer is still around to help you to prepare. For a role like Noah, you have to think, how do I ‘see’ this line; what actions will go with that? It’s a case of, the more you take these words into your head, the more you think about what cadence is needed, what freedom have I got; what’s the rhythm; what’s the meaning?”
Maurice makes a further comparison with Shakespeare’s texts. “Sometimes you feel the audience isn’t going to follow this because the language is dated,” he says. “I’ve had discussions with Paul where I’ve said, I think the original version works better for its musicality, rather than the new adaptation, but elsewhere I’ve said, can I modernise a line, so it cuts both ways.”
Performing on bustling city-centre streets makes particular demands on actors. “The first thing to say is the plays are not being done where they should be, in the tight streets, rather than the open squares, but that’s for practical reasons,” points out Maurice.
“Now, there’s no reverb off the walls to help you, much as College Green is a beautiful setting, but the plays used to be done in streets like Stonegate, as old pictures show.
“I remember in 2010 I was hoarse by the end of the day after the four performances,” says Maurice Crichton. “I needed someone to say ‘that’s loud enough’!”
“You also have to imagine how the streets of York used to be; they’ve all become wider, apart from Shambles, to deal with traffic.
“The danger is that if you’re worried about your audibility, you’re going to punish your vocal cords because you’re trying to be too loud. I remember in 2010 I was hoarse by the end of the day after the four performances. I needed someone to say ‘that’s loud enough’.”
Maurice continues: “Having not been to drama school, I didn’t know what to do in that situation, but what I’ve learned is you really need to keep your face pointed forwards towards the audience at all times when you have something to say, using your arms for gestures.
“It doesn’t help to look at your partner on stage. But when they’re talking, you do look at them; you’re fully responsive in your expressions, turning to face them to show very positively you’re engaging with them through your eyes.
“It’s a different discipline to acting on a stage indoors, because you wouldn’t perform that way in natural speech. Indoors, these days you’re mainly trying to achieve naturalism, but performing on the streets requires the opposite of the norm. Outdoors, it looks like you’re in a Victorian melodrama.”
Given the “noises off” that confront street theatre, with shoppers, stags and hens and open-air cafe tables to negotiate, Maurice says: “The reality is, you’ll be able to count on one hand the number of actors you can hear clearly 90 per cent of the time.
“In St Helen’s Square, for example, there’s a massive amount of distractions, as people move from one shopping street to another, and the challenge is to be so focused and confident in your lines that you can keep going, stopping to do a funny aside, if necessary, but always keeping your face head on to the crowd, of course!”
If the cap fits: Mick Liversidge will play Satan in the Mysteries In The Market on Wednesday and Thursday
Meanwhile, Easingwold actor Mick Liversidge will play Satan in the midsummer Mysteries In The Market performances in Shambles Market on Wednesday and Thursday evening, following in the crepuscular footsteps of James Swanton’s Lucifer in The Mysteries After Dark in September 2018.
“As a huge fan of outdoor theatre, I was absolutely delighted to be offered this role,” says Mick, who will act as narrator, steering the 100-strong audience and linking each of the five plays to be presented.
“I’ve performed in many local plays both in York and around Yorkshire, so it’s a pleasure to be involved in such a great community event. I’m looking forward to guiding the audience and seeing their reactions as the plays unfold.”
Mick has appeared in everything from York productions of Wind In The Willows, Calendar Girls The Musical and A Christmas Carol to Shakespeare, short films, Coronation Street, Channels 4’s It’s A Sin, The Queen And I on Netflix, the 2019 film version of Downton Abbey and this year’s Bengali-language adventure thriller Swastik Sanket.
Full details of the 2022 York Mystery Plays can be found at yorkmysteryplays.co.uk, including bookings for the ticketed performances at King’s Manor and Shambles Market.
Copyright of The Press, York
The Crucifixion scene in The Mysteries After Dark at Shambles Market in September 2018
What will the eight plays be?
* Creation To The Fifth Day, York Guild of Building, directed by Janice Newton
* The Fall Of Man, Gild of Freemen and Vale of York Academy, directed by Bex Nicholson
* The Building Of The Ark and The Flood, Company of Cordwainers and York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust, directed by Paul Toy
* The Three Kings and Herod, St Luke’s Church, directed by Mike Tyler
* The Last Supper, Company of Merchant Taylors and Lords of Misrule, directed by Dr Emily Hansen
* The Crucifixion and Death Of Christ, Company of Butchers and Riding Lights Acting Up!, directed by Kelvin Goodspeed and Jared More
* The Appearance Of Jesus To Mary Magdalene, Guild of Media Arts and Guild of Scriveners, directed by Jess Murray
* The Last Judgement, Company of Merchant Adventurers, directed by Alan and Diane Heaven
2022 York Mystery Plays director Tom Straszewski, pictured with Jess Murray, director of The Appearance Of Jesus To Mary Magdalene for the Guild of Media Arts and Guild of Scriveners
2022 York Mystery Plays director Tom Straszewski has confirmed the plays for Mysteries In The Market:
June 22, 7.30pm: Fall Of Adam and Eve; The Flood; The Last Supper; The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement.
June 23, 7.30pm: Creation To The Fifth Day; The Flood; The Last Supper; The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement.
Rosy Rowley’s Cora, centre, preparing to face her camera moment with Jo Theaker’s Annie and Julieann Smith’s Chris in York Stage’s Calendar Girls The Musical. All picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Calendar Girls, The Musical, York Stage, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Performances: 7.30pm, tonight to Thursday and Saturday; 4pm and 8pm, Friday; 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York
HAVE you been struggling to buy sunflowers in York since Friday?
The reason is simple: these sunworshippers have taken up residence at the Grand Opera House, spreading all over a teenage party dress and a gloriously OTT sofa in director-producer Nik Briggs’ scenic and costume design too.
Even in the dark of the orchestra pit, a sunflower can be spotted radiating nocturnal sunshine from musical director Jessica Douglas’s stand.
Touching moment: Jo Theaker’s Annie and Mick Liversidge’s John with their sunflower seeds
Calendar Girls The Musical began life as The Girls when premiered by sons of the Wirral Gary Barlow and Tim Firth at Leeds Grand Theatre in December 2015. Now the Yorkshire sunflower power has been restored for the York premiere by Briggs’s company.
If you missed the Leeds debut, jump at the chance to remedy that error! If you loved the film or the stage play, Barlow and Firth’s musical is even better, the format suiting what is already an opera-scaled human drama of ordinary women at the centre of an extraordinary story.
What’s more, as Briggs says: “Having Yorkshire actors playing these roles in a theatre in York creates a real gravitas to the story. It could work anywhere, but it’s just a bit more special done here as it’s a proper Yorkshire tale.”
You surely know that story, the tragicomic one where gentle gent, National Park wall builder and sunflower grower John Clarke (Mick Liversidge) – spoiler alert – dies from leukaemia .
Julieann Smith’s Chris singing Sunflower in Calendar Girls The Musical
Whereupon his wife, Annie (Jo Theaker), teams up with Knapely Women’s Institute rebel Chris (Julieann Smith) to defy the new but old-school WI chair Marie (Maggie Smales) by posing with fellow members for a fund-raising nude calendar in John’s memory – and in his spirit of being inventive and not following the well-beaten track.
Firth and Barlow open with two big hitters, firstly the scene-setting ensemble anthem Yorkshire, then the character-establishing introduction to The Girls, the diverse members of the WI, in Mrs Conventional.
So, we meet not only Theaker’s grieving but resilient Annie and Smith’s agitated/aggrieved Celia, but also Rosy Rowley’s Cora, the vicar’s no-nonsense daughter; Tracey Rea’s reupholstered, flashy Celia, the former airhostess; Sandy Nicholson’s perma-knitting Jessie, the wise-owl ex-teacher, and Juliet Waters’ reserved dark horse Ruth.
One of the joys of ballad-king Barlow and witty-worded lyricist Firth’s musical structure is how every one of the Girls has a knock-out, character-revealing, storytelling solo number, each drawing cheers and bursts of clapping, especially Rowley’s rousing, big-band blast of Who Wants A Silent Night?, Smith’s assertive Flowers, Rea’s exuberantly humorous So I’ve Had A Little Work Done and Waters’ vodka-guzzling My Russian Friend And I.
Uplifting: Tracey Rea’s Celia revels in So I’ve Had A Little Work Done
Theaker, so consistently excellent in York Stage lead roles, plucks the heartstrings in the stand-out ballad Scarborough and later hits the emotional heights again in Kilimanjaro. Her chemistry with Liversidge is utterly lovely, touching too, making Clarkey’s loss all the harder to take. Likewise, Theaker and the feisty Smith capture the strains and stresses of friendship under the utmost duress.
Calendar Girls is not just about the Girls, but the men too, from Chris’s level-headed husband Rod (Andy Stone) to humorous cameos for the ever-reliable Craig Kirby (Denis) and Graham Smith (Colin), and Finn East’s how-about-we-do-it-this-way photographer, Lawrence, sensitively venturing into new territory as much as his subjects.
Not only does Firth’s script strike the right balance of northern humour, pathos, sadness and bloody-minded defiance, but also he places the stripping-off photoshoot as the climax (mirroring The Full Monty) and brings three teenage children to the fore, both as outlets for awkward, growing-pains humour and to expose their parents in a different light.
Danny Western is lovably cheeky as deluded, cocky workshy Tommo; Izzie Norwood affirms why Mountview Academy of Theatre awaits her in September with an assured, eye-catching York Stage debut as Jenny, the WI chair’s daughter, expelled from her posh school, with her wild, rebellious outsider streak still untamed.
Izzie Norwood’s Jenny leads Sam Roberts’s Danny astray
No wonder Sam Roberts’s clean-cut, gilded path to being head boy takes a wayward turn as too-cool-for-school Jenny initiates his discovery of alcohol. Roberts’s understated performance contrasts joyfully with Western’s ebullience as the young lads eggs each other on.
Briggs’s lucid, fast-moving direction places equal stress on the potency of the dialogue and the emotional heft of the songs, while his stage design combines dry-stone walls and Dales greenery with open-plan interiors for WI meetings, homes and the hospital, thereby evoking the vast expanse of Yorkshire yet suited to intimate conversation too.
Jessica Douglas’s keyboard-led musical forces do Barlow’s compositions proud, with Robert Fisher’s guitar, Georgia Johnson’s double bass, Graeme Osborn’s trumpet and Anna Marshall’s trombone all given room to flourish.
A quick mention for Louie Theaker, who stepped in for the temporarily indisposed Danny Western for Friday’s first performance, rehearsing his part from 5pm to 6pm as he called on his experience of learning TV script re-writes pronto for his regular role as Jake in CBBC’s children’s drama series James Johnson.
Audiences have not been as big as expected, but what folly it would be to miss York Stage in sunflower full bloom in a Yorkshire story of tears and cheers, grief and loss, spirit and renewal, humour and humanity, ace songs and cracking performances.
Sunflower show: The finale to York Stage’s Calendar Girls The Musical
