Tag: National Theatre

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Charlie Brooks plays mum as teenager Chris turns female in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

Alex Keenan’s Chris and Charlie Brooks’s Judy, her mum, in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

EASTENDERS soap star Charlie Brooks returns to the Grand Opera House, York, next week for the first time since appearing in Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy of matrimonial mishaps How The Other Half Loves in October 2017.

This time she will play mum Judy in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s bold new interpretation of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, on tour in York from October 27 to 31.

“It’s nice to be part of something that feels important, relevant and sees the world through a different perspective, which can be very powerful,” says Charlie. “We have a brilliant creative team and a fantastic cast, and there’s such hope in a play that’s heartbreaking at the same time. I think our production does capture that, finding humour in things that are hard.”

Directed by Ned Bennett, this fresh perspective will honour the heart of Mark Haddon’s original novel while inviting audiences to experience University of York alumnus Simon Stephens’s adaptation through a new lens.

For the first time, fearful yet fearless neurodivergent teenager Chris Boone is being played by a female actor – Alex Keenan and her matinee alternate Imi Price – in a murder mystery that combines the intrigue of a whodunit with a coming-of-age story, where 15-year-old schoolgirl Chris is unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life but has powers of logic beyond conventional reasoning or normal patterns of behaviour.

When a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, Chris comes under suspicion. Determined to prove her innocence, Chris becomes both detective and suspect, drawn into a mystery that grows darker and more complex with every clue uncovered, forcing her  to confront truths that will test her courage, family and understanding of trust, independence and the wider world.

Charlie, best known for her long-running soap opera role as wildcat Janine Butcher in EastEnders, is now cast as an absentee mum, Judy in ‘Curious Incident’. “As a mother, I face my own challenges with my gorgeous daughter [Kiki], who’s 22 next month,” she says, with humour in her voice.

“Judy is written with so much complexity. She’s flawed, as are many characters within the play, but she’s really doing her best. She’s found herself in a situation where she was unable to cope with the challenges in front of her and she didn’t feel like she had much choice. It’s a horrible question to contemplate: what if me leaving is the best thing for my child.

“Judy thinks ‘I’m explosive, I’m reactive, I can’t cope’. That must be a really difficult thing to go through, totally heartbreaking, especially since Judy obviously deeply loves her child.”

Stephens’ play does allow sympathy for Judy. “What’s really great is she’s not judged in the play. The audience is allowed to find some sort of identification with her. She speaks her truth. This is a play about communication and honesty – or the lack of it, in some cases. Her truth is that she felt invisible and unable to manage.

“There aren’t enough representations of mothers saying ‘It’s so hard, I want to run away’. The show has empathy for her. I sometimes had those feelings as a mum. I think lots of women do!”

Awareness of neurodivergence has grown and grown since Haddon’s mystery novel was published in 2003 and indeed since the National Theatre premiere of Stephens’ play in 2012. “There were far fewer people diagnosed when the novel was first out, or when the show was originally on, compared to now, when this is something that’s much more talked about. That’s a brilliant thing: there’s much deeper understanding and completely different language in the way we discuss neurodiversity today,” says Charlie.

“Joining the show was an absolute no-brainer,” says Charlie Brooks of taking the role of absentee mum Judy in The Curious Incident Of The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

“Conversation around the subject was blown wide open and people are much more aware. It was beautiful to come out of the theatre and hear a young girl say, ‘oh, I didn’t know anyone else felt like that, where young people can feel overwhelmed, especially with girls masking symptoms more than boys. I think it’s much more internalised in girls.”

Charlie read Haddon’s book a long time ago, then saw the National Theatre production. “I thought it was extraordinary,” she says. “I was so excited when I heard the play was coming back – I immediately wanted to know what the vision was, how they were planning to bring this story to life, and how it might be different in this production. Joining the show was an absolute no-brainer.”

Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s 2026 production will be a “whole sensory experience”, says Charlie, that will combine set and costume designer Eleanor Bull’s “incredible vibrant colour palette for a very textured set featuring lots of different materials on stage” with director Bennett’s innovative physical movements and props to represent when Chris is over-stimulated ort overwhelmed”.

“What’s really important is that the original stage experience wasn’t great for those who are neurodivergent as they found it very loud, so we’ve made it more accessible through textures, choice of colours, and sound that’s not so loud that it might frighten you,” says Charlie.

“To visualise the state of Chris’s mind, we have yellow balls on stage, as yellow is her least favourite colour, and the set design is all pink. There was a long, drawn-out month of discussion about the colour and then the shade of pink.”

Add video projections and physical performances to complement the design brief, and the result is heightened accessibility. “That’s definitely something we’re factoring in, while also making it a thrilling play that’s still entertaining and impactful,” says Charlie.

At the heart of Bennett’s production is Chris now being female. “It certainly changes things for us,” says Charlie. “The gender swap gives a completely fresh perspective on the story and the characters. Simon Stephens and Mark Haddon are very much on board with the change and all the new things it throws up.”

The mother-daughter relationship comes to the fore. “As a mother, I face my own challenges with my gorgeous daughter [Kiki], who’s 22 next month,” says Charlie, with humour in her voice.

Describing mother-daughter relationships as complicated: “I know I was an imperfect mother. I can relate to some of their challenges. It’s really helpful to show all the sides of these relationships, rather than some ideal. But whether you’re in this exact situation or not, I think everyone can relate to worrying that you’re not doing something well enough, not doing a good job, or not fitting in.”

Charlie is enjoying the experience of being on tour. “The people are a joy, which is number one when you go into this job, being surrounded by brilliant people. Doing this play, you feel you’re in something that can change people’s lives,” she says. “There are people coming to this play as maybe the first play they’ve been exposed to, and it will feel like the full theatrical experience to them, with puppetry in it too.

“School parties have been coming to the show, but you could come with your grandma – and that would ignite conversations.”

Recalling her first theatre experience, Charlie says: “Like so many, it was a pantomime. Then my mum took me to Copacabana in Shrewsbury or Manchester, then I went to Grease in London. I got the lead role in Willy Russell’s Our Day Out at the Dragon Theatre in Barmouth, where I grew up in North Wales, and I was off and running.”

Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep present The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Grand Opera House, York, October 27 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time tour breaks new ground with female lead as neurodivergent teen Chris

Alex Keenan as teenager Chris Boone with company members in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s new touring production of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

FEARFUL yet fearless teenager Chris Boone is being performed by a woman for the first time in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s bold new interpretation of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, booked into the Grand Opera House, York, from October 27 to 31.

Directed by Ned Bennett, this fresh perspective on one of contemporary theatre’s most iconic characters will honour the heart of the original story while inviting audiences to experience University of York alumnus Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel through a new lens.

The murder mystery combines the intrigue of a whodunit with a coming-of-age story, wherein 15-year-old schoolgirl Chris Boone is gifted with a brilliant mind for numbers but is unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life, distrusting strangers deeply, never venturing alone beyond the end of her road.

Novelist Haddon never called Chris autistic or attributed Asperger Syndrome to the character, but this neurodivergent teenage protagonist does not like to be touched, is incapable of lying, can count binary numbers to infinity and has powers of logic beyond conventional reasoning or normal patterns of behaviour.

When a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, Chris comes under suspicion. Determined to prove her innocence, Chris becomes both detective and suspect, drawn into a mystery that grows darker and more complex with every clue uncovered.

What begins as the search for a culprit soon reveals secrets closer to home, forcing Chris to confront truths that will test her courage, family and understanding of trust, independence and the wider world.

Alex Keenan and Imi Price will alternate the lead role on tour, joined by Charlie Brooks and Joe McFadden as Chris’s parents Judy, absent from Chris’s life, and Ed, who struggles with essentially being a single dad.

Alex Keenan’s Chris Boone exchanges a high five with Joe McFadden’s Ed, her father, in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

Brooks, best known for her long-running soap opera role as wildcat Janine Butcher in EastEnders, Brooks made her York debut in October 2017 in Alan Strachan’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1969 comedy of matrimonial mishaps How The Other Half Loves, playing Teresa Phillips on tour at the Grand Opera House.

McFadden played film director Jason in the Original Theatre Company’s production of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d at York Theatre Royal in October 2022 and was last seen on a Yorkshire stage as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption at Leeds Grand Theatre in May this year.

“I read the book back in 2003, and like most of the rest of the UK, I loved it,” says Joe. “I re-read it recently and was blown away again. It gives you such brilliant insight into Chris’s inner life, imagination, world. That’s why it was so groundbreaking: really putting you into the mind of a neurodivergent person. It illuminated that experience.

“I saw it in the West End and thought it so inventive. Simon Stephens did such a brilliant job of adapting it, keeping the best bits of the book but also making sure it came alive and really worked as a piece of theatre. When I heard they were doing it again, but with new direction, design, movement, music, that really excited me.”

Describing Ned Bennett’s direction, Joe says: “He’s producing these amazing devices to express the story, and [movement director] Jenni [Jackson] is creating this physical language I’ve never really seen before. I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about putting on a show and seeing what people think. Eleanor [Bull] has done an incredible job with the design as well. It’s a real treat for the senses.

“One significant change is that while previously it only became apparent at the end of the show that you’re watching a play based on Chris’s writing, in ours you know from the start that it’s a play within a play, so the audience is getting to see the workings of staging a show. That’s fun.

How does the representation of a neurodivergent character land differently from the National Theatre’s 2012 premiere and Haddon’s 2003 novel? “In some ways we’ve moved on a lot, and we do know more about neurodivergence, but there’s still a long way to go. This is a story that still needs to be told.

“It felt important that we tell the story from the female point of view,” says Joe McFadden of the decision to cast teenager Chris [Alex Keenan) as a female in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s new production of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

“Chris has this amazing brain. She’s so adept at these complex mathematical problems. Bringing that to life is exciting: expressing on stage how her mind works. It’s an effective way to tell stories, through theatre, because it’s all happening right in front of you.”

Making Chris a female character has an impact too. “There aren’t as many stories about neurodivergence told from the female perspective,” says Joe. “Lots of girls are being under-diagnosed, or diagnosed later in life, because they’re better at masking their symptoms. It felt important that we tell the story from the female point of view.

“In the way that lots of neurodiverse teenage boys came and saw the show last time, and felt their story was being told, hopefully teenage girls will feel that way now.”

It changes Ed’s relationship with his child. “It definitely has repercussions: Ed is now a single dad with a daughter instead. I was interested in what that would do to their relationship. I think that while he was already protective, now it’s a female character he’s even more protective of her,” says Joe.

“It doesn’t fundamentally change the story, but it raises the stakes, and it changes the family dynamic. Judy leaving her daughter feels like a bigger thing. It’s a subtle shift that audiences who saw the show before will recognise and feel like it’s a fresh experience.”

Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep present The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Grand Opera House, York, October 27 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Charlie Brooks as Judy in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

Question-and-answer session with Charlie Brooks, playing Chris Boone’s mum, Judy

When did you first encounter The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time?

“I read the book a long time ago and then I saw the National Theatre production when it was on in the West End. I thought it was extraordinary. I was so excited when I heard the play was coming back – I immediately wanted to know what the vision was, how they were planning to bring this story to life, and how it might be different in this production. Joining the show was an absolute no-brainer.”

How did you find your way into the character of Judy?

“She’s written with so much complexity. She’s flawed, as are many characters within the play, but she’s really doing her best. She’s found herself in a situation where she was unable to cope with the challenges in front of her and she didn’t feel like she had much choice. It’s a horrible question to contemplate: what if me leaving is the best thing for my child?

“Judy thinks ‘I’m explosive, I’m reactive, I can’t cope’. That must be a really difficult thing to go through, totally heartbreaking, especially since Judy obviously deeply loves her child.”

Does the play allow sympathy for Judy?

“Yes, what’s really great is she’s not judged in the play. The audience is allowed to find some sort of identification with her. She speaks her truth. This is a play about communication and honesty – or the lack of it, in some cases. Her truth is that she felt invisible and unable to manage.

“There aren’t enough representations of mothers saying ‘It’s so hard, I want to run away’. The show has empathy for her. I sometimes had those feelings as a mum. I think lots of women do!”

Alex Keenan’s Chris Boone and Charlie Brooks’s Judy in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

How does the representation of a neurodivergent character land differently now?

“There were far fewer people diagnosed when the novel was first out, or when the show was originally on, compared to now, when this is something that’s much more talked about. That’s a brilliant thing: there’s much deeper understanding and completely different language in the way we discuss neurodiversity today.

“The conversation has been blown wide open, and so it felt important to bring the play into 2026. But there’s still a way to go, and plays like this, which put the audience right in Chris’s experience and allow them to experience the world through Chris’s eyes, help so much.”

What can you say about Ned Bennett’s new staging?

“When they did the design meeting, I was like ‘Wow’ – I got goosebumps. [Set and costume designer] Eleanor Bull has dreamed up this incredible vibrant colour palette, and it’s a very textured set with lots of different materials on stage. It’s going to be a whole sensory experience.

“Then when Chris is over-stimulated and overwhelmed, Ned [Bennett] is bringing that to life in an amazing innovative way with a lot of physical movement and props.

“I’ve never been in a rehearsal room that’s so creative and collaborative. The way Ned’s curated these games to help us devise ideas and build them into the production is so thorough and brilliant. I’m really grateful I did The Ocean At The End Of The Lane first [in her West End debut in the National Theatre’s 2022-2023 touring production] so I had a sense of what it’s like to play in this way and create worlds.

“We also want to make the production accessible for audiences coming to the show who are neurodivergent, so that’s definitely something we’re factoring in, while also making it a thrilling play that’s still entertaining and impactful.”

“Everyone can relate to worrying that you’re not doing something well enough, not doing a good job, or not fitting in,” says Charlie Brooks of Chris’s mum, Judy. Picture: Johan Persson

How does making Chris a female character change the production?

“The gender swap gives a completely fresh perspective on the story and the characters. My understanding is that girls who are neurodivergent often have a different journey: there’s a lot of masking of symptoms, so they may not get diagnosed, or not as soon as boys. Simon Stephens and Mark Haddon are very much on board with the change and all the new things it throws up.

“The girls who are playing Chris [Alex Keenan and Imi Price] are incredible – they’re just buzzing for it, they have this amazing energy. And I love Joe [McFadden], he’s the best. The whole cast are just wicked.”

Does it also change your character’s relationship with her child?

“ Yes, I think it does shift slightly. A mother leaving is such a huge thing – you don’t necessarily hear about that as often as you would when a man leaves his family. Also, mother-daughter relationships are complicated. I’ve got a daughter, so I know! I know I was an imperfect mother.

“I can relate to some of their challenges. It’s really helpful to show all the sides of these relationships, rather than some ideal. But whether you’re in this exact situation or not, I think everyone can relate to worrying that you’re not doing something well enough, not doing a good job, or not fitting in.”

Why are you excited to tour with the production?

“I really think this is a properly brilliant show and we need to get good theatre out into the regions. That’s hugely important. It’s personal for me: I’m from Barmouth, a little town in North Wales, and regional theatre was all I saw when I was younger. It made a big impact.

“This is the sort of play you might go to see as a young person, or as an adult actually, and your thoughts will be provoked. I think there’ll be great audiences for this. It’s a fantastic one for families too. It’ll spark people’s imagination and hopefully also conversation.”

Joe McFadden’s Ed in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Picture: Johan Persson

Three extra questions for Joe McFadden, playing Chris’s dad, Ed

How did you find your way into playing Ed?

“Brilliantly, Simon [Stephens] came in to talk to us in our first week of rehearsals. My big
question for him was: how do you play these characters sympathetically? They aren’t always fantastic parents; they make some big mistakes in the course of the story.

“He said, ‘What parent is perfect all the time?’, which I think we can all relate to.
Ed is up against it. He’s a single father; he’s trying. He works full time, trying to put food on
the table and look after the house, and [to] parent this quite challenging child.

“You can understand why he has difficulties, and hopefully we don’t judge him too harshly. I
remember thinking ‘What would I have done in that situation?’. There’s not an easy answer.”

What drives Ed?
“McFadden: “He strikes me as quite a private man, quite a serious man. It says in the play that he’s more patient than Judy – he gets on with things and doesn’t let anything affect him.

“That’s a strength but also a weakness. It means he can’t communicate, can’t reach out for
help. He bottles up all his worries. He’s a pressure cooker, and now and then he’ll blow.
That feels like an honest depiction of a parent who means well, but struggles with the
emotional side of things.

“Ed’s a grafter: he’s a hard-working plumber; he’s used to getting his head down. That’s at the heart of who he is. I remember being shocked when I first saw the moment where he lashes out. Now that I’m a bit older, I understand his frustrations, the pressure he’s under to survive and to protect this vulnerable child.”

Why are you excited to be on tour with the production?

“I love touring. I did a tour of The Shawshank Redemption this year and played some amazing venues, and now I get to go back to lots of them. I’m excited. The wonderful thing about touring is it informs and changes the play because the audiences have different personalities in different parts of the country.”

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The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time to play Grand Opera House in October with teenager Chris now female

The full cast for Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s tour of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, playing Grand Opera House, York, from October 27 to 31

ALEX Keenan and Imi Price will become the first women to portray fearful yet fearless teenager Chris Boone in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s bold new interpretation of The Curious Incident In The Night-Time, booked into the Grand Opera House, York, for October 27 to 31.

Directed by Ned Bennett, this fresh perspective on one of contemporary theatre’s most iconic characters will honour the heart of the original story while inviting audiences to experience Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel through a new lens.

The story combines the intrigue of a whodunit with a coming-of-age story, wherein 15-year-old schoolgirl Chris Boone is gifted with a brilliant mind for numbers but is unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life, distrusting strangers deeply, never venturing alone beyond the end of her road.

Novelist Haddon never called Chris autistic or attributed Asperger Syndrome to the character, but she does not like to be touched, is incapable of lying, can count binary numbers to infinity and has powers of logic beyond conventional reasoning or normal patterns of behaviour.

When a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, Chris comes under suspicion. Determined to prove her innocence, Chris becomes both detective and suspect, drawn into a mystery that grows darker and more complex with every clue uncovered.

Charlie Brooks as Teresa Phillips in her York debut at the Grand Opera House in 2017 in Alan Ayckbourn’s How The Other Half Loves

What begins as the search for a culprit soon reveals secrets closer to home, forcing Chris to confront truths that will test her courage, family and understanding of trust, independence and the wider world.

Keenan and Price will alternate the lead role on tour, joined by Charlie Brooks and Joe McFadden as Chris’s parents Judy and Ed.

Brooks is best known for her long-running soap opera role since 1999 as wildcat Janine Butcher, caught up in cocaine addiction, murder and prostitution in EastEnders. Rumours began yesterday that Janine is to return after four years [on release from prison] for “two explosive episodes in the autumn”.

Brooks made her York debut in October 2017 in Alan Strachan’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1969 comedy of matrimonial mishaps How The Other Half Loves, playing Teresa Phillips on tour at the Grand Opera House. “Teresa is fiery and strong, like Janine, but I think the similarities end there,” she said at the time.

McFadden has appeared in the BBC’s The Crow Road and Holby City and ITV’s Heartbeat and was the 2017 Strictly Come Dancing Glitterball winner to boot. He played film director Jason in the Original Theatre Company’s production of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d at York Theatre Royal in October 2022 and was last seen on a Yorkshire stage as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption at Leeds Grand Theatre in May this year.

Joe McFadden’s Jason, the film director, in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d at York Theatre Royal in October 2022, playing opposite Sophie Ward

Completing the ‘Curious Incident’ cast will be Bridgette Amofah as Siobhan; Alex Murdochas Mrs Alexander/Posh Woman/Voice One; Matthew Bulgo as Roger (Mr Shears)/Duty Sergeant/Voice Two/Mr Wise/Man Behind Counter/Drunk One and Jerone Marsh Reid as Mr Thompson/Man with Socks/London Policeman/Voice Three.

Carla Garratt will play Punk Girl/No. 40/Voice Five/Information; Tom Clegg, Reverend Peters/Uncle Terry/Voice Four/Station Policeman/Station Guard; Robert Penny, Voice Seven, and Sera Mustafa, Mrs Gascoyne/Woman on Train/Shopkeeper/Police Officer One/Voice 6. All will perform ensemble roles too.

Alongside Ned Bennett in the production team will be set & costume designer Eleanor Bull; lighting designer Laura Howard; composer & sound designer Giles Thomas; video designer Hayley Egan; movement director Jenni Jackson; costume supervisor  Izzy Pellow; props supervisor Eve Hall; casting director Abby Galvin and associate director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2012 and has been seen globally by more than five million people. The National Theatre’s inaugural tour visited the Grand Opera House, York, in January 2015. York company Pick Me Up Theatre staged the play in April 2025 at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Andrew Isherwood’s production of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, in April 2025

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REVIEW: York Actors Collective in Till The Stars Come Down, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, ends Saturday ****

Chris Pomfrett’s Tony, left, Victoria Delaney’s Maggie, Clare Halliday’s Hazel, Darren Barrott’s Marek, Joy Warner’s Sylvia, Laura Haynes-Bury’s Leanne, Daniel Wilmot’s Uncle Pete and Neil Vincent’s John in York Actors Collective’s Till The Stars Come. Picture: John Saunders

FOUNDER and director Angie Millard has an eye and an ear for picking a play for York Actors Collective.

Already in place for October 28 to 31 at York Theatre Royal Studio is Stephanie Jacob’s three-hander The Strongbox, winner of the 2018 VAULT Origins Award for outstanding new work  for its story of domestic servitude and abuse of power, wherein authoritarian Kat, her ageing mother, Ma, and their teenaged slave, Maudie, jostle for power and affection in their dilapidated London home.

This week, Millard is staging the York premiere of another contemporary British domestic drama, Beth Steel’s Olivier Award-nominated Till The Stars Come Down, premiered at the National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre as recently as January 2024.

She did not see that production, choosing it because she “liked the sound of the play”, and subsequently being impressed by its frank, earthy comedy, its pathos and home-and-away truths – and by its central structure of three sisters, matching her own upbringing in South Yorkshire.

Steel had set her play in a former mining village in Nottinghamshire, where the scars of the “scabs” who broke the picket lines when Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers are still tender to the touch.

Those scars are no less raw in Yorkshire’s former mining communities, and so Millard, whose education began in a Catholic school in a pit village, has re-located Steel’s family conflagration further north. Ostensibly South Yorkshire, although some accents in her cast head farther north still to the Tyne & Wear.

Till The Stars Come Down is set on a single day, charting the pre-match, the match and the post-match discussions of Sylvia’s nuptials with Polish immigrant Marek, who now runs his own business.

Weddings make for heightened drama, for love’s blossom and blisters, for too much drinking, too much talking, leading to confessions, fall-outs, “inappropriate” behaviour, the exposure of prejudices and the re-opening of old wounds.

It could be the posh world of London society and country houses in Four Weddings And A Funeral or, in Steel’s case, the turbulence of a working-class family where “long-held secrets, passions, tensions and social changes transform the celebration into a chaotic blend of humour and tragedy”.

It opens with the three sisters, Clare Halliday’s bigoted Hazel, Victoria Delaney’s oft-married loose cannon Maggie (in riotous red) and Joy Warner’s phlegmatic Sylvia preparing for the big day – the routine of make-up, hairspray, dresses and endless cups of tea – alongside Lucinda Rennison’s ever-indiscreet, aspirational Aunty Carol and Laura Haynes-Bury’s Leanne, Hazel’s 16-year-old daughter, whose gaze is solely for scrolling her mobile phone.

The men will make their entries: the sisters’ father Tony (Chris Pomfrett), still grieving for his late wife; his brother Uncle Pete (Daniel Wilmot), Carol’s partner, who has never forgiven him for crossing the picket line, and Neil Vincent’s John, who has lost interest in wife Carol on account of his obsession with the woman in scarlet, Delaney’s Maggie.

The only man who is happy rather than dischuffed with his lot in life is Darren Barrott’s (CORRECT) Marek, but a can of worms marked “zenophobia” will be opened as the wedding day progresses.

Steel writes with observational wit, social commentary and, above all, a telepathic understanding of the relationship of sisters. Warner’s Sylvia is the solid, reliable one who has looked after mother and father alike; Delaney’s Maggie and Halliday’s Hazel are the ones at war, and together they deliver a brilliantly kinetic finale, reaffirming their status as two of the supreme actresses on the York circuit.

Delaney’s performance is all the more remarkable for her taking on the role at less than three weeks’ notice. Haynes-Bury impresses with her deadpan demeanour and Rennison rises to the challenge of drunken acting with aplomb.

Barrott, in his YSP debut after catching the eye with York Settlement Community Players, is outstanding as “outsider” Marek; Pomfrett’s Tony wears that hangdog expression he has made his trademark; Vincent’s John plays the villain’s hand well and Wilmot’s Uncle Pete is all bonhomie on the surface until the gripes of the past boil over anew.

Millard directs with admirably flowing movement and quick scene changes, while ensuring her cast lets the full flavour of Steel’s clashing, dysfunctional family flood out, bringing out the rising stress to the max and emphasising the power of the sisterhood too.

York Actors Collective presents Till The Stars Come Down, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2pm and 6pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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REVIEW: National Theatre in Dear England, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday *****

David Sturzaker’s Gareth Southgate giving a team talk in James Graham’s Dear England. Picture: Mark Brenner

YOU know the score. England lost in two finals. Oh dear, England, again. But that isn’t the point. The point is the one that brought Gareth Southgate his knighthood. For services to rather more than kicking a ball. Services to redefining what it means to be English.

A definition that appears to be being mired again, not by Southgate’s Teutonic replacement, Thomas Tuchel, who makes a late appearance in James Graham’s defiantly uplifting play, but by the flag. That flag. The one that has David Sturzaker’s Gareth Southgate, with customary attention to tidiness, neatly folding out the St George’s red cross to ask his players what it symbolises. The flag that, rumour has it, is soon to be removed from the programme cover for the remainder of the tour’s run.

Amid the surge in divisive nationalism, how that scene’s significance has grown since Graham made it as much a centrepiece of his – and Southgate’s – discourse as the Dear England letter written to England fans in the barren, bereft days of Covid that prompted Graham’s state-of-the-nation drama.

Sir Gareth was at York Barbican the night before Dear England kicked off its Leeds run, administering his Lessons In Leadership – more motivational team talk than lecture, apparently – that he further substantiates in his new book, Dear England.  Calmer and karma in unison, putting the rainbow in the Wembley arch.

Your reviewer took his seat in the dug-out (Box C, Dress Circle) with a non-football fan – “Who’s Harry Kane?”, she enquired – but such is the spirit, the decency, the principles, the vision that turned out to be braver than Southgate’s risk-averse in-play tactics, that you end up cheering all over again.

You know the story, but not this story, not told this way, with Graham’s trademark humour, pathos, and cultural and political savviness that gives cameos not only to ex-England bosses Sam Allardyce (as brief as his reign), Graham Taylor, Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello, but also to the hapless Tory Prime Ministerial trio of May (no neck), Johnson (brassneck) and Truss (what the heck).

We learn of Gareth’s radical methods, applied in tandem with Australian team psychologist Pippa Grange (Samantha Womack, with ace Aussie accent to boot), England’s first Head of People and Team Development. The suits upstairs might have scratched their woollen heads, but Gareth was onto something.

Like how to deal with fear. FOMP. Fear of Missing Penalties. The brain has 15 per cent less clarity when we are fearful. So, take longer to prepare to take a penalty, like the Germans. Or how about sitting all together at meals rather than at club-divided tables, unlike in the Ferdinand and Gerrard days? Yes, that would help too.  

We learn of the character beyond and beneath the football sticker front, whether Oscar Gough’s noble steed Harry Kane (only too aware of the public mocking his voice); Liam Prince-Donnelly’s Dele Alli, burdened by a surname he wishes to jettison, the prankster smile gone by the time he is dropped; Ashley Byam’s ever-questioning Raheem Sterling; or Jayden Hanley’s Marcus Rashford, with his caring causes and pride in Manchester, his sorrow at his father’s absence too.

Then there’s Connor Hawker’s oh-so-South Yorkshire Harry Maguire, Jack Maddison’s mad-as-that-surname goalie, mad-as-a-penalty-box-of-frogs Jordan Pickford and Tom Lane’s erudite Eric Dier.

And then come those one, two, three missed penalties against Italy, Rashford, Jadon Sancho (Luke Azille) and Bukayo Saka (Jass Beki), the Arsenal boy wonder, in the UEFA Euro 2020 final.

Immediately followed by the antisocial-media racist abuse they received, one, two, three seconds afterwards, and on and on. And then Bukayo Saka’s eloquent response, expressing a message of love, a message I had never heard before, so thank you, Dear England, for making it resonate so powerfully in 2025.

James Graham has that balance of the serious and the humorous in buckets; you really shouldn’t take the game of football so seriously, but you should be serious about changing it for the better. Not so much the beautiful game as the bountiful.

For all its ills, you still want to love the game, as Gareth says in another of his team-talk takes on Shakespearean soliloquies. That’s the Henry V in him, but he’s the manager next door too, as expressed in Sturzaker’s admirable performance, especially when addressing the grey-shirted elephant in the room: Southgate’s grave semi-final penalty miss against Germany in 1996.

The best all-round performance award goes to utility player Ian Kirkby, equally humorously adroit as Eriksson, head honcho Greg Clarke, gainsaying Matt Le Tissier, new boss Tuchel and, above all, crisp-munching presenter Gary Lineker, cheeky one liners and all.

Rupert Goold’s direction flows rather more cohesively than any number of meat-and-potatoes England performances, while Es Devlin’s set, with its white centre circle, outer circle and circle above goes against the shape of football pitches, dressing rooms and theatre stages alike but brings a sense of togetherness, like a team huddle before kick-off  – and togetherness is Southgate’s key mantra.

You will love and despair anew at the old footage that plays out high above the upper circle, as we re-live those years of hurt and hope again.

One minor quibble, but only because we are in Leeds: local lad Kalvin Phillips, so instrumental to Euro 2020’s new England, is not among the myriad players. Alas, he knows only too well how missing out feels under Pep Guardiola’s cold shoulder at Manchester City.   

National Theatre in Dear England, Leeds Grand Theatre, tonight, kick-off 7.30pm; tomorrow, kick-off 2pm and 7.30pm. P.S. No excuses for not attending: Leeds United don’t play Nottingham Forest away until Sunday afternoon.  

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 48, from Gazette & Herald

Mark Kermode Taking part in Aesthetica Short Film Festival’s Beyond the Frame strand at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Julie Edwards Visuals

THE 15th Aesthetica Short Film Festival tops the bill in a week when hauntings and musical buns rise to the occasion, as Charles Hutchinson highlights.

Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, all over York, today to Sunday

NOT so much a film festival as a “screen and media event”, in its 15th year, York’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival is bigger and broader than ever. Not only more than 300 shorts, features, documentaries, animations and experimental films, but also the VR & Games Lab; masterclasses and panels; workshops and roundtables; networking and pitching; Listening Pitch premieres; the inaugural New Music Stage and Aesthetica Fringe shows; Beyond the Frame events at York Theatre Royal; the UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO and the Podcasting strand. For the full programme and tickets, go to: asff.co.uk.

Mary Gauthier: Playing Pocklington Arts Centre tonight

Troubadour of the week: Mary Gauthier, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 7pm

MARY Gauthier hung up her chef’s coat to move to Nashville at 40 to start a troubadour career, going from open-mic gigs to playing Newport Folk Festival a year later. Twenty-five years ago, this courageous lesbian songwriter’s groundbreaking debut album Drag Queens In Limousines announced: “Drag queens in limousines, nuns in blue jeans, dreamers with big dreams, they all took me in.”

The song has become an anthem for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider: as it turns out, all of us. It is typical of her deeply personal, yet paradoxically universal work, written in reaction to what matters most to her, as Gauthier expresses boldly what is often too hard for us to say. Box office:  01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Bugsy at the double: Zachary Stoney, from Team Malone, left, and Dan Tomlin, from Team Bugsy, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

Young performers of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

LESLEY Hill directs and choreographs York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast of more than 40 young performers in Alan Parker and Paul Williams’s musical, replete with the film songs You Give A Little Love,  My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be A Boxer?, Fat Sam’s Grand Slam and Bugsy Malone.

In Prohibition-era New York, rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. As custard pies fly and Dan’s splurge guns wreak havoc, penniless ex-boxer and all-round nice guy Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown. Can Bugsy resist seductive songstress Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, and stay out of trouble while helping Fat Sam to defend his business? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

David Sturzaker’s Gareth Southgate giving a team talk in James Graham’s Dear England, on tour at Leeds Grand Theatre

Sporting drama of the week: National Theatre in Dear England, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday, kick-off at 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees

JAMES Graham’s Olivier Award-winning play (and forthcoming television drama) takes its name from revolutionary England football  manager Gareth Southgate’s open letter during the Covid-19 pandemic.

David Sturzaker plays Southgate, Samantha Womack, team psychologist Pippa Grange, in this “inspiring, at times heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting story” of England, penalties, lost finals and a new-found national identity. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Ben Rosenfield and Laura McKeller in Neon Crypt and The Deathly Dark Tours’ The Wetwang Hauntings – Live!

Halloween horrors and jump scares of the week: Neon Crypt and The Deathly Dark Tours in The Wetwang Hauntings – Live!, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BETWEEN 1986 and 1993, a series of often violent hauntings rocked the small Yorkshire town of Wetwang. The cases went cold and all the records were lost…until now! Join York ghost walk guide Dr Dorian Deathly and his team as they dig into the history and horrors of these cases. “This show is not for the faint of heart,” he forewarns. Suitable for age 13 upwards. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Jessica Shaw’s Forms Of Water, on show at Pocklington Arts Centre

Ryedale exhibition of the week: Jessica Shaw, Forms Of Water, Helmsley Arts Centre, until February 27 2026

BASED on the edge of the North York Moors, printmaker Jessica Shaw explores the impact of water and ice on landscape, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s assertion that “in time and with water, everything changes”. 

Combining screenprint, woodcut, monoprint and etching with diverse media such as gouache and acrylic ink, her work draws from organic patterns and shapes made by water and ice, detailing their effect on the North York Moors National Park’s topography by highlighting the shapes of its high ground and the curls of its rivers, to the ephemeral ice patterns found in puddles and windows in winter.  

Katie Leckey: Directing Griffonage Theatre in Kafka By Candlelight

Deliciously disturbing stories of the week: Griffonage Theatre, Kafka By Candlelight, The House Of Trembling Madness, Lendal, York, tonight to Friday, 6.30pm and 8.30pm  

“NO rest for the week,” say Griffonage Theatre, York’s purveyors of the madcap and the macabre, who are performing Kafka By Candlelight in the cavernous belly of the House Of Trembling Madness cellar as part of Aesthetica Short Film Festival’s debut  Aesthetica Fringe, featuring 25 shows across the city.

This one showcases five of Franz Kafka’s strangest short stories, told disturbingly in the darkness with the audience in masks (optional). “Dare to join us?” they tease. Box office: eventbrite.com/e/kafka-by-candlelight-tickets-1815618316259.

Entwined: Nik Briggs’s cooking copper, Ben, and Harriet Yorke’s carer, Gemma, in York Stage’s York premiere of The Great British Bake Off Musical

York musical premiere of the week: York Stage in The Great British Bake Off Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BAKING battles, singing sponges and a sprinkling of hilarity is the recipe for York Stage’s York premiere of The Great British Bake Off Musical, rising to the occasion under the direction of Nik Briggs, who also makes a rare stage appearance as one of the Bake Off contestants.

Expect a sweet and savoury symphony of British wit and oven mitts, propelled by a menu of  jazz hands and jubilant original songs that capture the essence of the Bake Off tent, from nerve-wracking technical challenges to triumphant showstoppers. Be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster ride, where cakes crumble, friendships form and dreams become fruitful reality. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Understaffed and overworked: The hotel workforce on clean-up duty in John Godber Company’s Black Tie Ball. Picture: John Godber Company

One helluva party of the week: John Godber’s Black Tie Ball, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

ON the glitziest East Yorkshire fundraising night of the year, everyone wants to be there. The Bentleys are parked, the jazz band has arrived, the magician will be magic, but behind the bow ties, fake tans and equally fake booming laughter lie jealousies and avarice, divorces and affairs, as overdressed upstairs meets understaffed downstairs through a drunken gaze. 

The raffle is ridiculously competitive, the coffee, cold, the service, awful, the guest speaker, drunk, and the hard -pressed caterers just want to go home. Welcome to the Brechtian hotel hell of John Godber’s satirical, visceral comedy drama, as told by the exasperated hotel staff, recounting the night’s mishaps at breakneck speed in the manner of Godber’s fellow wearers of tuxedos, Bouncers. Box office:  01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Offcut Theatre’s poster for Libby Pearson’s Four By Three

Uplifting mini-dramas of the week: Offcut Theatre in Libby Pearson’s Four by Three, Milton Rooms, Malton, Thursday, 7.30pm

PAULINE, Bill and Martin invite you into parts of their lives through three separate monologues before coming together in a short play in Libby Pearson’s hopeful, uplifting, light-hearted look at the need for human contact.

In The Woman Next Door, is Pauline a lonely, nosey neighbour or a woman full of unfulfilled longing? In Silk FM, Bill runs a very local radio station; catch it on Thursdays, 1pm to 3pm, term-time only. In The Picker, Martin is desperate to be acknowledged for his innovative litter-picking ideas. In Shelved, Pauline, Bill and Martin run a volunteer-led library, where the council may have plans for it, but so do they. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond as XXX exits and a cosmic piano arrives. Hutch’s List No. 38, from The York Press

Oh No! Have we missed Harland Miller’s XXX exhibition of Letter Paintings at York Art Gallery? No, this weekend is the last chance

HARLAND Miller’s XXX finale and Fangfest’s 25th anniversary, a comic convention and a cosmic piano are among Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations as August makes way for September. 

Do not miss: Harland Miller, XXX, York Art Gallery, ends on Sunday, open daily 10am to 5pm

THIS weekend is the last chance to see York-raised Pop artist and writer Harland Miller’s return to York Art Gallery with XXX, showcasing paintings and works on paper from his Letter Paintings series, including several new paintings, not least ‘York’, a floral nod to Yorkshire’s white rose and York’s daffodils. 

Inspired 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. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk.

 Fladam’s Flo Poskitt and Adam Sowter: Premiering their shiny new musical comedy, Astro-Norma!, at York Explore today

Intergalactic musical family adventure of the week: Fladam Theatre in Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano, York Explore Library and Archive, Library Square, York, today, 11am and 2pm

FROM the creators of Green Fingers and the spooky HallowBean comes Astro-Norma And The Cosmic Piano, wherein Norma dreams of going into space, like her heroes Mae Jemison and Neil Armstrong, although children can’t go into space, can they? Especially children with a very  important piano recital coming up.

But what bizarre-looking contraption has just crash-landed in the garden? Is it a bird? Or a plane? No… it’s a piano?! No ordinary piano. This is a cosmic piano! Maybe Norma’s dreams can come true? Join Fladam duo Flo Poskitt and Adam Sowter for a 45-minute show full of awesome aliens, rib-tickling robots and interplanetary puns. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives.

You, Me And Who We’ll Be: Josie Brookes and Tom Madge’s exhibition at Nunnington Hall

Children’s exhibition of the week: Josie Brookes and Tom Madge, You, Me And Who We’ll Be, Nunnington Hall, near York, until September 7

ENTER the colourful worlds of children’s illustrators Josie Brookes and Tom Madge. Through bold, eye-catching artwork, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne duo creates stories that explore the many ways we can help and understand each other, make friends and build relationships.  

Discover your own helpful superpower in the Big Small Nature Club or join best friends Nader and Solomiya on a journey to find home. A dress-up station lets you share in the adventures of Molly the Flower. Before you go, help the story grow by adding your own artwork to the interactive gallery. Tickets: Normal admission charges at nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/nunnington-hall/exhibitions.

York Unleashed Comic-Con: Special guests, stage talks, cosplay masquerade, attractions and merchandise market at York Racecourse

Convention of the week: York Unleashed Comic-Con, York Racecourse, Knavesmire, York, Sunday, 11am to 5pm

UNLEASHED Events welcomes Tom Rosenthal, Tim Blaney, Peter Davison, Phil Fletcher and special guest Atticus Finch Wobbly Cat to a comic convention featuring stage talks, cosplay masquerade and plenty more.

Comic artists and authors Jim Alexander, Elinor Taylor, Blake Books, Jessica Meats, Paolo Debernardi and Ben Sawyer are appearing too. Attractions include Doctor Bell, Bumblebee Camaro, Johnny 5, Milestone 3D, Imagination Gaming, Battle Ready Academy, Mos Eisley Misfits, Tom Daws Dimple Magician, Rexys Reviews and Iconic Movie Scenes, plus a market selling merchandise and collectables from favourite franchises. Tickets: unleashedtickets.co.uk.

SmART art: One of 100 artworks for sale at the pop-up SmART Gallery at York Racecourse

Art event of the week: SmART Gallery, Racecourse Road, York, YO23 1EU, Sunday, 11am to 2.30pm

SUNDAY’S outdoor, inclusive community art gallery, SmART Gallery, will raise money for the Christmas appeal run by Crisis, the homeless charity, and voluntary work in Sierra Leone next Easter.

The event features more than 100 pieces of art work produced by the York community. Blank canvases are sold for £10, then returned once the art work has been created in any medium. Browsers can submit a secret bid on the day for anything they would like to buy. Any unsold artwork will remain on the fence opposite York Racecourse’s main entrance for five months for all to enjoy.

Austentatious: Improvising new Jane Austen novel from audience suggestions at Grand Opera House, York

Improv show of the week: Show And Tell present Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel, Grand Opera House, York, September 5 and 6, 7.30pm

AS seen every week in the West End since 2022 and in York in a sold-out show in January, the all-star Austentatious cast will improvise a new Jane Austen novel, inspired entirely by a title from the audience. Performed in period costume with live musical accompaniment, this riotous, quick-moving comedy comes with guaranteed swooning.

The revolving Austentatious cast includes numerous award-winning television and radio performers, such as Cariad Lloyd (QI, Inside No.9, Griefcast, The Witchfinder),Joseph Morpurgo (Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee), Rachel Parris (The Mash Report), Graham Dickson (After Life, The Witchfinder) and more. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Pottery workshop at 25th anniversary Fangest Festival of Practical Arts in Fangfoss

Silver anniversary of the week: Fangfest Festival of Practical Arts, Fangfoss, East Riding, September 6 and 7, 10am to 4pm each day

FANGFOSS is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Fangfest with the All Things Silver flower festival; veteran cars; archery; the Stamford Bridge Heritage Society; music on the village green; children’s games; the Teddy Bear Trail and artists aplenty exhibiting and demonstrating their work. 

Opportunities will be provided to try out the potter’s wheel, spoon carving and chocolate making. Some drop-in activities are free; more intensive workshops require booking in advance. Look out too for the circus skills of children’s entertainer John Cossham, alias Professor Fiddlesticks, and the Pocklington and District Heritage Trust mobile museum. Admission is free.

Suede: Returning to York Barbican next February on Antidepressants tour. Picture: Dean Chalkley

Show announcement of the week: Suede, Antidepressants UK Tour 2026, York Barbican, February 7 2026

AFTER playing York Barbican for the first time in more than 25 years in March 2023, Suede will make a rather hastier return on their 17-date January and February tour. Brett Anderson’s London band will be promoting  tenth studio album Antidepressants, out on September 5 on BMG.

“If [2022’s] Autofiction was our punk record, Antidepressants is our post-punk record,” says Anderson. “It’s about the tensions of modern life, the paranoia, the anxiety, the neurosis. We are all striving for connection in a disconnected world. This was the feel I wanted the songs to have. This is broken music for broken people.” Box office: York, yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/suede26.

REVIEW: National Theatre in War Horse, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Sept 6 *****

Tom Sturgess (Albert Narracott), left, with Diany Samba-Bandza, Jordan Paris and Eloise Beaumont-Wood (Baby Joey) in War Horse, on tour at Leeds Grand Theatre. Picture: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

ELEVEN years since first encountering the National Theatre’s remarkable War Horse at the Alhambra, Bradford, a return visit brought out all the awe, wonderment and anger anew at Leeds Grand Theatre amid the turbulence of 21st century conflicts, conflagrations and ever more warmongering.

Michael Morpurgo’s source novel was ostensibly a tale for children, as was Michelle Magorian’s Second World War story Goodnight Mister Tom, but Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris’s theatrical tour de force is a show for everyone.

The most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, collecting more than 25 awards and playing to 8.3 million people worldwide, War Horse is a complete piece of theatre, replete with technical aplomb, extraordinary puppetry, grand design and foundation-shaking sound to complement Nick Stafford’s beautiful, powerful storytelling.

For all those theatrical tools, the story is king, told with imagination and wonder beyond even the cinematic scope of Steven Spielberg’s 2011 film version.

More remarkable still, Morpurgo’s central character is a horse, whose journey is charted from Devon farm to the fields of the Somme, in the service of first the British and then the Germans in the First World War.

Directors Elliott and Morris and designer Rae Smith had the original vision, put into flesh by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company’s Adrian Kohler. Not so much flesh as leather tack and a wooden see-through framework that exposed the three puppeteers, gloved and dressed to add to the sense of equine power in life-sized Joey, whose transformation from colt to magnificent beast is a coup de theatre that takes the breath away.

From the highly physical ensemble acting of revival director Katie Henry’s cast to the deafening sounds of war (by sound designer Christopher Shutt) and the omnipresent animation and projection designs of Nicol Scott and Ben Pearcy that depict war so devastatingly, every last detail counts. Anne Marie Piazza’s singing of John Tams’s affecting folk songs is even more haunting for its female interpretation.

At the core is the bond of a boy and his horse, Tom Sturgess’s stoical farm boy Albert Narracott and noble Joey, as boy becomes man all too young in the most brutal passage of rights in the trenches. War divides but it also unites, bringing out the best and worst on all sides (as Morpurgo’s equal focus on the Germans emphasises).

Co-produced with Michael Harrison, Fiery Angel and Playing Field, this “all-new tour” for 2024-2025 is a triumph once more. The National Theatre and British theatre at their best.

National Theatre in War Horse, Leeds Grand Theatre, until September 6, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

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National tour of James Graham’s Dear England to play Leeds Grand Theatre, Sheffield Lyceum and Bradford Alhambra

The cast on the first day of rehearsals for the 2025-2026 tour of James Graham’s Dear England, visiting Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. Picture: Justine Matthew

THE National Theatre’s 2025-2026 tour of James Graham’s Dear England – “the Gareth Southgate play” – will visit Leeds Grand Theatre from November 4 to 8.

Further Yorkshire runs are booked into Sheffield Lyceum Theatre from October 21 to 25 and Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, for February 17 to 21 2026.

Heading the cast will be David Sturzaker as England manager – and knighted Harrogate resident – Gareth Southgate, alongside EastEnders and Mount Pleasant actress Samantha Womack in the role of team psychologist Pippa Grange.

Directed by Almeida Theatre artistic director Rupert Goold, the cast also features returnees Jass Beki as Bukayo Saka; Courtney George as Alex Scott; Tom Lane as Eric Dier and Miles Henderson in Ensemble roles.

David Sturzaker: Playing Gareth Southgate in Dear England, on tour in 2025-2026. Picture: Michael Shelford

Joining them will be company newcomers Jake Ashton-Nelson as Jordan Henderson; Luke Azille as Jadon Sancho; Ian Bartholomew as Greg Dyke; Ashley Byam as Raheem Sterling; Steven Dykes as Sam Allardyce; Oscar Gough as Harry Kane; Jayden Hanley as Marcus Rashford; Connor Hawker as Harry Maguire; Ian Kirkby as Gary Lineker; Jack Maddison as Jordan Pickford; Liam Prince-Donnelly as Dele Alli and George Rainsford as Mike Webster. In the squad too are Stuart Ash, Natalie Boakye, Sam Craig and Jonathan Markwood.

Premiered in June 2023, Graham’s inspiring, at times heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting story of Gareth Southgate’s revolutionary tenure as England football manager won the 2024 Olivier Award for Best New Play, en route to breaking box-office records in its West End run.

Dear England charts Southgate’s impact when taking over from Sam Allardyce in 2016. As the play’s synopsis puts it: “It’s time to change the game. The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. The England men’s team has the worst track record for penalties in the world, and manager Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt to take team and country back to the promised land”.

The tour will visit 16 venues from September 15 2025 to March 14 2026 in a co-production with Josh Andrews and Stuart Galbraith for JAS Theatricals. Goold is joined in the production team by set designer Es Devlin, whose credits include Beyonce’s Renaissance world tour and The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre, along with costume designer Evie Gurney; lighting designer Jon Clark; co-movement directors Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf; video designer  Ash J Woodward, and co-sound designers Dan Balfour and Tom Gibbons.

Samantha Womack: Playing team psychologist Pippa Grange in Dear England. Picture: Michelle George

They are joined by tour revival director Connie Treves; revival movement director Tom Herron; casting director Bryony Jarvis-Taylor; associate set designer Alice Hallifax; associate lighting designer Ben Jacobs; associate video designer Libby Ward; associate sound designer Johnny Edwards; casting associate Lilly Mackie and resident director Dan Hutton.

The National Theatre will run a year-long schools engagement programme inspired by Gareth Southgate’s “Dear England” open letter that he wrote to England fans in 2021.

This programme, designed to prompt young people to reflect on their own place in history, just as the footballers in Southgate’s squad were encouraged to do, comes in response to 2025 being the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

It will be delivered to 10,000 pupils in schools across England at assemblies and workshops, using spoken word and sound design to support students to share the hopes and aspirations they have for themselves, and other young people, 80 years from now.

The cast of Dear England at the National Theatre this spring. Picture: Marc Brenner

The resulting sound archive will form a 2025–2026 time capsule. In addition, students will be invited to attend performances of Dear England during the tour.

Dear England was commissioned by the National Theatre and developed with the theatre’s New Work department for its world premiere on June 20 2023 in the Olivier theatre.  A sold-out run was followed by a transfer to the Prince Edward Theatre, London, from October 9 2023 to January 13 2024, where box-office records were broken.

Dear England was released to cinemas through National Theatre Live on January 24 2024 and has been screened almost 2,500 times across the UK.

In February 2024, the BBC announced its commission of a four-part drama of Dear England, based on the stage production, for BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Tane Siah’s Bukayo Saka and Gwilym Lee’s Gareth Southgate in Dear England at the National Theatre this spring. Picture: Marc Brennen

Graham’s play returned to the National Theatre in Spring 2025, updated to reflect the UEFA Euro 2024 tournament, Southgate’s final chapter as England manager that ended, spoiler alert, with defeat to Spain in the final. The regional premiere was staged in a four-week run at The Lowry, Salford, that opened on May 29.

The 2025/2026 national tour is supported by Incentivising Touring: Repayable Grants for Theatre and Dance, a pilot scheme developed by Arts Council England to support larger-scale productions to tour to regional venues.

Dear England was among the first to receive a share of more than £2million as part of the first round of the scheme, designed to create the opportunity for more people to see high-quality shows close to where they live.

Tickets for Leeds are on sale on 0113 243 0808 or at leedsheritagetheatres.com; Sheffield, sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/lyceum; Bradford, bradford-theatres.co.uk/alhambra-theatre.  

Did you know?

JAMES Graham’s last play to visit Leeds Grand Theatre was his stage adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Black Stuff from May 13 to 17 2025.

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