Tag: Misha Duncan-Barry

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REVIEW: York Theatre Royal & Riding Lights Theatre Company, His Last Report, at York Theatre Royal, until August 3 ***1/2

Billy Heathwood’s Riley, left, and Antony Jardine’s Seebohm Rowntree in His Last Report at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

YORK Theatre Royal’s latest summer community play is in keeping with the progressive tenet of York social reformer Seebohm Rowntree’s trio of reports from 1899, 1936 and 1951. Community pulling together in enlightening enterprises. Welfare for the common man. Live well, play well, work well. He would probably have made the tickets free, but that isn’t practical.

“Made with passion, joy and enthusiasm”, in collaboration with York Christian theatre company Riding Lights, His Last Report involves 250 volunteers, from 100-strong cast and 55-larynxed York Theatre Royal Choir and new choir recruits, to wardrobe, props, stage management, hair & make up, technical, marketing, front of house and photography.

“The past is back. And it’s got something to say,” reads the tagline. It turns out it has a lot to say, arguably too much, over its two-and-three-quarter-hour span that crams in everything from politics to chocolate recipe improvements; cow parlour udder-pulling  to aerial acrobatics; King Lear to Lloyd George and Winston Churchill; Caribbean chocolate trade slavery to the  idyll of New Earswick; moo jokes to a salty dig at Saltaire visionary Sir Titus Salt.

Under the direction of Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and Riding Lights artistic director Paul Birch, everything is thrown in, including the kitchen-sink style of British  theatre and films of the gritty, grainy late-Fifties and Sixties, with echoes of Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera too.

Amelia Donkor, one of two professional actors leading Juliet Forster and Paul Birch’s cast, in the role of Gulie Harlock in His Last Report. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman’s script has the restless, questing energy of York-born professional actor Antony Jardine’s Seebohm Rowntree, his name taken from his mother’s surname of Swedish-German origin, we learn in one of many facts dropped in with humorous relish.

We start at the end, Seebohm despondent post-reports, before heading back to 1890s’ York with personal secretary Gulie Harlock (Amelia Donkor), where his Quaker family’s cocoa works is booming, new Rowntree factory et al, under the noble guidance of father Joseph (Mark Payton, in a performance as bubbly as Aero, with a lightness of humour to match).

But something is not hitting the sweet spot for chemist, industrialist and philanthropist Seebohm. Blue-collar life is bitter, when it needs to be better for the factory workers, housed in the city’s back streets and snickelways. In tandem with Donkor’s perspicacious Gulie, he advocates better working and living conditions, improved wages and the provision of education for all and facilities to bolster both mental and physical health.

He never invented a chocolate bar called Nirvana, but his vision of a promised land of healthier, happier, wealthier workers that in turn benefits the productivity of businesses provides the seed bed for the welfare state, attracting the support of Churchill (Colin Beveridge) and Lloyd George (Andrew Wrenn).

Maurice Crichton’s Frank Benson, centre, in King Lear guise in His Last Report, with principals and ensemble looking on in His Last Report. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Welcome to New Earswick, the model of a village to house the workforce, with a school and a library. Welcome to Rowntree’s world of Yearsley Swimming Pool, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, gymnastics, pageants and plays. All’s well but can it end well?  Ah, there’s the rub. Finance. All the good things cost money.

Jardine’s Seebohm is haunted by the spectral figure of an impoverished child, Riley (Edmund Djimramadji/Billy Heathwood) that only he can see, and all around him the figures don’t add up. The second half turns post-modern, with modern clothing interwoven with period couture, references to writers Misha and Bridget and an in-joke impersonation of the Theatre Royal’s costume department Scottish supremo Pauline.

Rather than ending well it ends Orwellian, Jardine’s despairing Seebohm observing the Britain of today, the Britain of cuts to the arts and libraries, swimming pool and factory closures, robots replacing workers, jargon replacing plain speaking, and being number 52 on  the waiting list when phoning the GP at 8am.

Maurice Crichton gives us his best King Lear in the guise of grandstanding actor Frank Benson railing against the way Shakespeare is taught at schools. You may find yourself thinking, “are we going too far off the beaten track here?”, but Crichton, not for the first time, makes every second in the spotlight count.

There is nevertheless a feeling that His Last Report is preaching to the converted, those of us who do go to the theatre, who know of its value beyond cost. Who needs to listen? Those who don’t go, those who slash and burn.

A modern-day board meeting full of blue sky/dark cloud thinking as His Last Report turns theatre of the absurd. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

You might wish the solution were as simple as waving a magic wand. Seebohm Rowntree tried to do more than that, but the truth is that in this rotten world, the good things increasingly cost too much, when even chocolate bars and tins are forever diminishing in size.

Forster and Birch’s cast and choir, as much as Duncan-Barry and Foreman, make an impassioned, worthy case for wishing that life could be as Seebohm envisaged. The theatrical scale is grand, the humour uneven, the ensemble spectacle impressive, orchestrated by David Gilbert’s movement direction. Edwin Gray’s compositions and sound design, in tandem with Madeleine Hudson’s vocal musical direction, are impactful throughout.

Returning after designing previous Theatre Royal community productions The Coppergate Woman and Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, Sara Perks’s set design is five-star quality, whether evoking the Rowntree building, factory floor, boardroom, train carriage or cow parlour, complemented by Craig Kilmartin’s lighting and Hazel Fall’s delightful costumes.

One last thought, where is the Seebohm Rowntree of today?

York Theatre Royal and Riding Lights Theatre Company present His Last Report at York Theatre Royal until August 3, 7.30pm except Sundays and Mondays, plus 2pm matinees, July 26 and August 2 & 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Gymnastic skill: Christie Barnes’s Brynhild Benson in His Last Report. Picture: Natasha Sinton

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Antony and Amelia team up to lead York Theatre Royal and Riding Lights cast in community play His Last Report

Amelia Donkor and Antony Jardine arrive at York Theatre Royal for their first day of rehearsals for His Last Report. Picture: Millie Stephens

PROFESSIONAL actors Antony Jardine and Amelia Donkor are leading the cast for York Theatre Royal’s 2025 summer community production His Last Report.

They take the roles of Seebohm Rowntree and Gulie Harlock respectively, performing alongside the 100-strong community ensemble in Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman’s play about pioneering sociologist and social reformer Seebohm Rowntree, whose groundbreaking investigation into poverty illuminated the struggles of the working class and laid the foundation for the welfare state.

His Last Report delves into the life and legacy of one of the city’s most influential figures, who not only conducted three social studies in York in 1899, 1936 and 1951, defining the poverty line, but was an industrialist and philanthropist too, making his mark on the Rowntree family’s chocolate company and the development of the model community at New Earswick.

Juliet Forster, creative director of York Theatre Royal and co-director of His Last Report, says: “We are thrilled to welcome Antony and Amelia to the cast. It is so brilliant to work on these kinds of community productions where we bring together the wonderful talents of both professional actors and an ensemble cast of local people.”

Antony grew up in York, first appearing at the Theatre Royal as a “precocious child actor” in John Doyle’s days as artistic director, playing one of the princes in the tower opposite panto villain David Leonard’s Richard III in the War Of The Roses season and in Willy Russell’s Our Day Out.

“I’ve been based in London for 20 years but I did come back to the Theatre Royal in The Secret Garden, which transferred from [co-producers] Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in 2018,” he says.

“My children were born in London, so there’s no Yorkshire in them, apart from encouraging them to eat Yorkshire Pudding and love Yorkshire Cricket Club.”

Amelia is performing at York Theatre Royal for the first time. “I’m finishing my Yorkshire Holy Grail, after playing the Stephen Joseph Theatre [Scarborough] in The 39 Steps, Hull Truck Theatre in James Graham’s The Culture and Leeds Playhouse in The Fruit Trilogy,” she says.

Antony and Amelia joined rehearsals with the ensemble company already deep into their preparations. “It was very different for us coming in that stage, when people say, ‘so this is what this scene looks like’, but everyone has been so welcoming,” says Amelia.

Antony Jardine: Suited for the role of Seebohm Rowntree in His Last Report. Picture: Millie Stephens

“It’s such a powerful piece about community being told by the York community and such a beloved story, and we’ve been really welcomed into it,” says Antony.

Introducing the character of Gulie Harlock, Amelia says: “Originally from Northampton, she worked in the East End of London, working in public health as a member of the welfare committee.

“She came to York with Seebohm originally as his personal secretary but then he realised she had a great understanding of this [social reform] work and so she ran the New Earswick project.

“She was also involved in the framing of the last report and really spearheaded the involvement of women when it was a man’s world, when Seebohm realised how important it was to represent women’s voices.”

Amelia continues “We still don’t know that much about Gulie, but we have a wonderful historical expert, Catherine Hindson,  who’s been working with us, having written a piece about her for the Rowntree Foundation.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about her, but our writers, Misha and Bridget, have really enjoyed learning about her.”

Exploring Seebohm’s story, Antony says: “He was a chemist, which is where his initial forays lay, with that influencing the chocolate recipes, but then he undertook his reports to implement social change, but to make those changes is not as easy as coming up with a mathematical solution for solving poverty.”

Amelia rejoins: “Seebohm made three reports in total, and in the second act, we deconstruct the legacy of those reports because they had such a huge impact beyond York, as Lloyd George and Churchill both wanted to use his reports as part of restructuring programmes.

“The reports changed the way politicians saw poverty. Seebohm created the concept of the poverty line and the language we use now [in relation to social reform] came through him.”

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about Gulie Harlock, but our writers, Misha and Bridget, have really enjoyed learning about her,” says actress Amelia Donkor. Picture: Millie Stephens

Antony adds: “Seebohm felt that if certain things were lacking in social structures, such as if people didn’t have access to education, leading to skilled employment, they would struggle to lift themselves above the poverty line and so they would continue to struggle.

“This gave rise to the Rowntree family creating New Earswick to address the problem of living conditions not being adequate.”

Amelia picks up that point. “Seebohm created the idea of living well and working well, so that people didn’t just live but could thrive. He understood that if people were thriving, the business would be thriving too.”

Seebohm’s projects led to the establishment of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, the New Earswick library and the primary school, later attended by Antony, by the way.

Misha and Bridget’s play then turns its focus to applying Seebohm’s principles to the modern world, with its cuts to access to the arts and threat of library closures. “What would Seebohm think about those cuts, when all the progression that he brought about has stalled?” says Antony. “The play contemplates how maybe we can affect changes ourselves.

“York does brilliantly with such a thriving cultural scene, and this play could not be a better example of what Seebohm was seeking to achieve.”

Amelia concludes: “We hope people come out feeling entertained, moved and inspired, and feel they could be part of a call to action as Misha and Bridget ask: what might you do?

“You think, ‘maybe I could do this at school, or the local community centre’, so maybe it could cascade. When people know they’re empowered, they can go and do that in the rest of their lives.”

York Theatre Royal and Riding Lights Theatre Company present His Last Report, York Theatre Royal, until August 3, 7.30pm, except Sundays and Mondays, plus 2pm, July 26, August 2 and 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

“When I met Juliet Forster and Paul Birch for my audition and told them about the Rowntree connections, they couldn’t believe it either,” says York-born-and-educated actor Antony Jardine, who plays Seebohm Rowntree in His Last Report. Picture: David Kessel

Extra, extra. York Theatre Royal’s syndicated interview with Antony Jardine

What is the story behind the community production His Last Report and your character Seebohm Rowntree?

“The show is based on Seebohm Rowntree’s life and his works. He published three reports looking at poverty in York and those reports went on to become the basis of the welfare state.

“They did remarkable things for the quality of life for people and particularly for people that worked at the Rowntree’s chocolate factory at the time and lived in the village of New Earswick. The play tells that story.

“In the second half, the timeline moves around a little bit, and you begin to see what Seebohm Rowntree would make of the modern world and how after the years that have passed his research has come into fruition. The play uses a lens to look at what’s going on in society today.”

You have some interesting personal connections to this summer’s community production. What are your family’s links to the Rowntrees?

“It was quite an interesting phone call with my agent when she said she had an audition for me in York. I thought, brilliant I’d love to be back in York and work in my home city. She sent over the script, and I saw it was about the Rowntrees. I thought, that’s great, I know the Rowntrees well, and then when I read the play, I couldn’t believe all the other connections as that never really happens.

York Theatre Royal’s poster for His Last Report

“I was born and raised a Quaker. I went to New Earswick primary school, which is the
school that the Rowntrees built for the village of New Earswick. I learnt to swim in the
swimming pool which gets name checked in the play.

“I went to the library, which is also mentioned in the play. I went to Bootham School, which is the same school that Seebohm went to, and my dad worked for the Joseph Rowntree Housing trust for 44 years. When I met Juliet [Forster] and Paul [Birch] for my audition and told them about the connections, they couldn’t believe it either.”

Does your approach to character differ when playing a real person?

“It raises questions about what source material you have and how you use it. It’s very
hard to do an accurate imitation and it’s fair to say that a lot of our audience might
not have met Seebohm, so that gives us a bit more freedom to take what we do
know and develop that further.

“We don’t want to turn him into James Bond or anything like that, but we want our audience to invest in every character on the stage and more importantly, the work they are doing. He’s a very beloved son of York and I really want to get it right!

“We are condensing his life down into two hours, so the journey is much more compact, so much more like a rollercoaster ride. Ultimately the source material is so solid and so factual and that underpins as a foundation for the whole piece.”

“He’s a very beloved son of York and I really want to get it right,” says Antony Jardine of his role as Seebohm Rowntree

You last performed at York Theatre Royal in The Secret Garden in 2018. What keeps you coming back to York?

“Well, it’s a pretty nice city to live and work in! The theatre itself has a beautiful auditorium; as a performer it’s a joy to be on that stage. The vibrancy in the building is incredible; there are so many people working and being creative, which I think Seebohm would have approved of enormously.

“There’s just such a lot going on, but everyone is so friendly and welcoming. It’s an absolute treat and a joy to be able to come back here.”


Why book a ticket to His Last Report?

“Trust us, you’ll be in for a great night of theatre. When I first read the script, I was absolutely bowled over by how much is incorporated into it. It’s Shakespearian in its scope; it ticks every box.

“There’s so much joy. There’s going to be a trapeze, Morris dancing, music, it’s such a great story and so specific to York, but on a national and international scale as well.

“The story is about bringing people together and realising that an issue needs to be addressed, but also the production itself is bringing together a large community of people that can express themselves artistically in the theatre. I think all of that coming together is a rare and special thing.

“I would say if you are going to go and see a play, make it this one because you will
learn so much, you will think about yourself in a good, positive way and you’ll laugh
and have fun and maybe even an ice cream at the interval.”



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More Things To Do in York and beyond in 2025, whether new or Oldman. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 1, from The Press, York

Laura Fraser’s DI Bea Metcalf on the York waterfront in Channel 4’s crime drama Patience. Picture: Channel 4

FROM a neurodiverse TV crime drama to an Oscar winner’s stage return, Charles Hutchinson picks highlights of the year ahead.

Seeing York through a different lens: Patience, Channel 4 from January 8, 9pm

CHANNEL 4’s six-part police procedural drama Patience, set in York, opens with the two-part Paper Mountain Girl, on January 8 and 9, wherein autistic Police Records Office civilian worker Patience Evans (Ella Maisy Purvis) brings her unique investigative insight to helping DI Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser) and her team.

Written for Eagle Eye Drama by Matt Baker, from Pocklington, Patience is as much a celebration of neurodiversity as a crime puzzle-solver. “The centre of York itself is a little bit like a puzzle,” he says.   

Lara McClure: Atmospheric storytelling at A Feast Of Fools II at the Black Swan Inn

Out with the old, in with the new: Navigators Art presents A Feast Of Fools II, Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green, York, Sunday, 7pm to 10.30pm; doors, 6pm

YORK collective Navigators Art presents a last gasp of mischief in an alternative end-of-season celebration of Twelfth Night and Old Christmas, packed with live folk music, spoken word and a nod to the pagan and the impish.

Dr Lara McClure sets the scene with atmospheric storytelling, joined by York musicians Oli Collier, singer, guitarist and rising star Henry Parker, York alt-folk legends White Sail and poet and experimental musician Thomas Pearson. Book tickets at  bit.ly/nav-feast2.

Seeing eye to eye: Rob Auton in his new touring comedy vehicle The Eyes Open And Shut Show

The eyes have it:  Rob Auton: The Eyes Open And Shut Show, Burning Duck Comedy Club at The Crescent, York, March 5, 7.30pm; Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, May 3, 7.30pm

“THE Eyes Open And Shut Show is a show about eyes when they are open and eyes when they are shut,” says surrealist York/Barmby Moor comedian, writer, artist, podcaster and actor Rob Auton. “With this show I wanted to explore what I could do to myself and others with language when eyes are open and shut…thinking about what makes me open my eyes and what makes me shut them.”

On the back of last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe trial run, Auton goes on the road from January 27 to May 4 with his eyes very much open. Box office: York, thecrescentyork.com; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

York-raised artist Harland Miller with his title work for the XXX exhibition at York Art Gallery. Picture: courtesy of White Cube (Ollie Hammick), 2019

No stopping him this time, please: Harland Miller: XXX, York Art Gallery, March 14 to August 31, Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

AFTER the first Covid lockdown curtailed his York, So Good They Named It Once show only a month into its 2020 run, international artist and writer Harland Miller returns to the city where he was raised to present XXX, a new exhibition that showcases paintings and works on paper from his Letter Paintings series.

Stirred by his upbringing in 1970s’ Yorkshire and an itinerant lifestyle in New York, New Orleans, Berlin and Paris during the 1980s and 1990s, Miller creates colourful and graphically vernacular works that convey his love of popular language and attest to his enduring engagement with its narrative, aural and typographical possibilities.

Harland Miller, XXX, oil on canvas, 2019. Copyright: Harland Miller. Photo copyright: White Cube, Theo Christelis

Coinciding with the release of a book of the same title by Phaidon, XXX features several new Miller works, including one that celebrates his home city, in a hard-edged series that melds the sacred seamlessly with the everyday, drawing inspiration from medieval manuscripts, where monks often laboured to produce intricate illuminated letters to mark the beginning of chapters.

In these works, the Yorkshire Pop artist – who is represented by White Cube – uses bold colours and typefaces to accentuate the expressive versatility of monosyllabic words and acronyms such as ESP, IF and Star.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a Q&A with the artist plus community activities to “inspire, inform and involve all”. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk/tickets.

Gary Oldman in the dressing room when visiting York Theatre Royal last March to plan this spring’s production of Krapp’s Last Tape

Theatre event of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to May 17

ONCE the pantomime Cat that fainted thrice in Dick Whittington in his 1979 cub days on the professional circuit, Oscar winner Gary Oldman returns to the Theatre Royal to perform Samuel Beckett’s melancholic, tragicomic slice of theatre of the absurd Krapp’s Last Tape in his first stage appearance since the late-1980s.

“York, for me, is the completion of a cycle,” says the Slow Horses leading man. “It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home. The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Suzy Cooper and Mark Holgate: Teaming up as Titania and Oberon – and Hippolyta and Theseus too – in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Look who’s back too: Suzy Cooper in York Stage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11

GARY Oldman will not be the only former Berwick Kaler co-star returning to a York stage in 2025. Suzy Cooper, for more than 20 years the ditzy, posh-voiced, jolly super principal gal in the grand dame’s pantomimes, will lead Nik Briggs’s cast alongside York actor Mark Holgate as the quarrelling Queen and King of the Fairies, Titania and Oberon.

Briggs relocates his debut Shakespeare production from the court of Athens to Athens Court, a northern council estate, where magic is fuelled with mayhem and true love’s path still does not run smooth. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Beach hut five, Shed Seven: York band to make Scarborough Open Air Theatre debut in June

“Biggest ever headline show in their home county”: Shed Seven, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, June 14

IN the aftermath of their 30th anniversary celebrations and two number one albums in 2024, refulgent York band Shed Seven will focus on the great outdoors in the summer ahead, fulfilling a dream by making a long-overdue Scarborough OAT debut, when Jake Bugg and Cast will be their special guests. “It’s a stunning and historic venue…Yorkshire’s very own Hollywood Bowl!” enthuses lead singer Rick Witter.

The Sheds also return to Leeds Millennium Square on July 11, supported by Lightning Seeds and The Sherlocks. Box office: Scarborough, scarboroughopenairtheatre.co.uk or ticketmaster.co.uk; Leeds,  gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk.

Bridget Foreman: Co-writer of York Theatre Royal and Riding Lights’ community play His Last Report

Community play of the year: York Theatre Royal and Riding Lights Theatre Company in His Last Report, York Theatre Royal, July 22 to August 3

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster and York company Riding Lights artistic director Paul Birch will co-direct a large-scale community project that focuses on pioneering York social reformer Seebohm Rowntree and his groundbreaking 1900s’ investigation into the harsh realities of poverty.

Told through the voices of York’s residents, both past and present, Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman’s play will ask “What is Seebohm’s real legacy as the Ministry begins to dismantle the very structures he championed?” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.