Ice on fire: Polly Lister’s extraordinary one-woman tour de force peaks with her Snow Queen in Nick Lane’s The Snow Queen at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Pictures: Tony Bartholomew
REVIEW: The Snow Queen, The Round, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, receiving anything but frosty receptions until December 31. Box office: sjt.uk.com *****
HELL would have had to freeze over before the ever-resilient Stephen Joseph Theatre gave up on presenting a Christmas show in Covid-quashed 2020.
Nick Lane, audacious inventor of winter wonderlands at the SJT since 2016, had been writing a five-hander version in the manner of past hits Pinocchio, A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol and Alice In Wonderland.
“Nick, could you change it to a one-hander,” asked SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, his regular partner in “sublime not-pantomime” shows for the child in all of us.
“Polly, could you do it as a solo show,” Robinson asked Polly Lister, so memorably “hyper, needy, overbearing, but funny and vulnerable” as Mari Hoff in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and “sporty and no-nonsense” as lesbian Di in Di And Viv And Rose in the SJT’s 2017 summer season.
Yes, said Polly, who now would be playing multitudinous characters – a Goth raven poet and a grumpy Brummie deer among them – rather than merely the icy blast of the Snow Queen.
On board once more too are SJT artistic associate Simon Slater, Scarborough-born composer, lyricist and sound designer; video and lighting wizard Paul Steer; movement and puppetry director Gemma Fairlie and Helen Coyston, the designer for A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol, who decides everything should go with a swing in The Snow Queen.
Oh, and with a garden shed, bin, fencing, log, boxes, bench, and wonky wooden wheelbarrow; a video screen; a suspended branch and more besides in a circular design that retains the feel of the Round, albeit with the socially distanced, Covid-secure audience in three banks of seating, rather than the usual four.
For a familiar yet re-booted Hans Christian Andersen story that will “end in grief or glory”, our narrator – in striped leggings, gown and Steampunk glasses, coupled with a genial, garden-enthusiast, bonkers boffin manner – is the “silly Sorceress”, whose “problem sister” happens to be the titular ice block to Christmas joy.
Seamlessly, the ever-fantastical Lane introduces best friends Gerda and Kai, initially in puppet form on the swing, but of course polymath Polly adds them to her ever-expanding list of roles, adjusting body shape and expression, as well as voice, at every turn.
Lister act: Another role for Polly, this as the somewhat nutty narrator with the Flying Monkey Powder. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Best friends Gerda and Kai do what children do, sharing jokes, games and stories, especially tales of the mysterious Lady in the Sky with her faraway Palace Of Ice, but is she fantasy or reality? When Kai disappears from his Gran’s house in Scarborough, his eye and heart pierced by an icicle, Gerda knows the Snow Queen is no fake-news fable as she vows to rescue him.
A journey to a “world of weirdness and wonderment, known as the Other Scarborough” ensues as Lane lets his imagination off the leash again. We expect poo, wind and booby references from Nick, long attuned to what makes “children of Scarborough” laugh, and yes, he cannot resist once more, and nor should he.
This time, he conjures a raven who writes poo-ems in a typical cheeky Lane invention, and daftness takes the form of a huge travelling trunk that springs open to reveal a French DJ called Jean Claude, who happens to be a puppet hedgehog with prickly ego and attitude, downing tools until a certain popular foodstuff is delivered from the Golden Arches.
Then add the doleful reindeer, a bunch of talking flowers and unwise words from wisewomen, all topped off by Lister’s terrific haughty-and-ice Snow Queen and a glorious video send-up of influencer bloggers with hashtags by the dozen.
Storyteller, puppeteer, singer, woman of so many voices, humorous but scary, daft but caring, playful yet serious, what a performance director Robinson elicits from Lister, who makes a one-woman show the perfect way to experience The Snow Queen in these restricted times.
Slater’s witty, potent and dramatic songs, his way with both a tune and a lyric, are a delight too in a show sure to banish the Christmas 2020 blues with a sense of the ridiculous and the need to escape, to laugh, to be transported to another world: the other Scarborough for Scarborough and beyond to enjoy while we must endure the Covid Grinch.
SJT rules on Covid guidance for attendance:
1.You can’t visit with anyone who you don’t live with, or who isn’t part of your support bubble. 2. SJT, Scarborough, is in a Tier 2 area, so if you live in a Tier 3 area, don’t come.
3. Face coverings are mandatory throughout the building (unless exempt – this includes under 11s), except when eating or drinking.
Remaining performances:
December 21 to 23, 1pm, 7pm; December 24, 1pm; December 24, 1pm; December 26, 6pm; December 27, 1pm; December 29, December 30, 1pm, 7pm; December 31, 1pm.
Age guidance: Five and upwards
Running time: One hour 45 minutes, including interval
Cast: Polly Lister or her alternate, Jacoba Williams, whose remaining performances will be on December 26, 6pm, and Decembger 27, 1pm.
TICKETS UPDATE 22/12/2020, 8am
All performances were sold out but now some returns have become available. Go to sjt.uk.com/booking?id=1015 for more details.
NEWSFLASH 24/12/2020
A BRAND new film of the SJT’s Christmas show, The Snow Queen, is available to rent from now until midnight on January 31. Tickets cost £12 and allow online access for a week at sjt.uk.com/SJTathome.
Rehearsals can go ahead in Lockdown 2 for The Snow Queen at the Stephen Joseph Theatre
SCARBOROUGH’S Stephen Joseph Theatre will close its doors to the public again from Thursday to December 2, re-opening on December 3, pending further Government Covid-19 pronouncements.
In the light of last night’s confirmation from Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden that rehearsals can continue behind closed doors, the SJT will be going ahead with its vibrant Christmas production of Nick Lane’s The Snow Queen throughout December.
The SJT had re-opened its McCarthy cinema in late-August and has been presenting live theatre from the start of October: one of the first theatres in the country to do so.
November’s live shows – My Favourite Summer and Orpheus & Eurydice, plus play readings of Canton, Worldly and With Bells On! – will move to next spring. New dates will be announced as soon as possible.
As much of the November cinema programme as possible will be switched to December. Again, new dates will be posted ASAP.
Haunting Julia, an audio version of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1994 play directed and performed by Sir Alan himself, is unaffected. Theatre-goers who prefer to stay at home can book to listen between December 1 and January 5 via the theatre’s website, sjt.uk.com. Raven’s sold-out Christmas concert on December 15 will go ahead as planned too.
The SJT’s box-office team is working hard to contact everyone with bookings affected by the changes. Ticket-bookers can choose whether they would like a refund, a credit to their account, or to donate the cost of their ticket to help secure the theatre’s future.
Those with bookings are asked not to contact the box office if possible. The team is making its way through November’s bookings in date order as fast as it can.
The SJT’s executive director, Caroline Routh, says: “Of course, it’s a huge disappointment to us all to have to close again. Our audiences have been so appreciative that we reopened our cinema in August and recommenced live theatre in October, and really generous in their support in so many ways.
“Most of our screenings and shows, includingJohn Godber’s Sunny Side Up! just last week, have sold out, although our capacities have been reduced because of social distancing.
“But the safety of our audience, our in-house team and our visiting companies is, of course, paramount. When we do re-open, we‘ll still be following the same stringent safety procedures that have made our audiences feel so safe recently.
“And we’re so thrilled that we’re still able to bring The Snow Queen to Scarborough for Christmas. It promises to be a really lively and memorable show, starring the fabulous Polly Lister and, on certain performances, her talented ‘alternate’ Jacoba Williams. We’re confident it’ll be a Christmas must-see for 2020!”
Please note, if you do need to contact the box office for any reason, you can do so on 01723 370541, between 10am and noon, Mondays to Fridays, until 2 December (phone queries only; the building will not be open for in-person visits.
Tickets for all December events can still be booked online through the lockdown period at sjt.uk.com.
Family drama: Playwright John Godber with wife Jane Thornton and daughters Martha and Elizabeth
LIVE indoor theatre will return on the East Coast this autumn at both Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre and Hull Truck Theatre.
Today, the SJT announces an “innovative autumn and winter season for 2020 that has been carefully crafted to combine live theatre for socially distanced audiences with digital work for those that prefer to stay at home”.
In the SJT’s headline news, the waiting for Godber’s new play is over. The world premiere of the ground-breaking former Hull Truck artistic director’s Sunny Side Up! will be a family affair, starring John Godber, his wife Jane Thornton and their daughter Martha Godber from October 28 to 31 in The Round.
Written and directed by Godber, the humorous and moving Sunny Side Up! depicts a struggling Yorkshire coast B&B and the people who run it. “Join proprietors Barney, Cath and Tina as they share their stories of awkward clients, snooty relatives and eggs over easy in this seaside rollercoaster that digs into what our ‘staycations’ are all about,” invites John.
Further news bongs go to a new audio recording by former SJT artistic director Sir Alan Ayckbourn and a one-woman Christmas show, likely to be one of the few in the region, specially rewritten to adapt to prevailing Covid-19 pandemic circumstances.
After the lockdown success of his debut audio play, Anno Domino, premiered by writer-director Ayckbourn and his wife, actor Heather Stoney, Ayckbourn goes solo for Haunting Julia, his ghostly 1994 play, wherein he will play all three parts. As before, his master’s voice can be heard only via the SJT website, sjt.uk.com, with the play being available online “throughout December”, although the exact dates are yet to be rubber-stamped.
Going solo: Sir Alan Ayckbourn will re-visit his 1994 ghostly play Haunting Julia in a solo audio recording in December
The SJT Christmas show, from December 4 to 30, reassembles the crack team behind the hit productions of the past four winters: director Paul Robinson, writer Nick Lane and musical director Simon Slater, the latter two both serving up shows earlier in the season too.
Adapted by Lane from the Hans Christian Andersen story, the solo version of The Snow Queen will be performed by Polly Lister, who played Mari in Jim Cartwright’s The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and Di in Amelia Bullmore’s Di And Viv And Rose when part of the SJT’s 2017 summer repertory company.
Scarborough-born Slater, an SJT associate artist, will appear in Douglas Post’s one-man thriller Bloodshot from October 21 to 24 in The Round, where all productions will be mounted, save for the online performances.
Slater will play Derek Eveleigh, a photographer with a serious drinking problem, who pursues a mysterious female subject across 1957 London from racially troubled Notting Hill to the raucous entertainments of Soho.
Often comedic Nick Lane’s sardonic, surreal and “intensely autobiographical” first straight play, My Favourite Summer, was premiered at Hull Truck in January and February 2007. This autumn, the original cast and the belting Nineties’ soundtrack will return in the torrid tale of Dave, who spends a month working alongside a nutcase called Melvin in the summer job from hell in 1995.
Winter chill: Polly Lister in the SJT’s one-woman Christmas show, The Snow Queen, written by Nick Lane
Saving money to take the girl he loves away on holiday, before she disappears out of his life forever, has never been so hard. Still, at least the weather’s nice in a comedy for “everyone who’s ever been in love and lived to tell the tale”.
Lane, whose adaptation of The Sign Of Four was well received by SJT audiences last year, will direct the semi-staged 2020 performance of My Favourite Summer in a run from November 12 to 14.
The autumn/winter season will begin on October 1 with a live performance on Zoom of Love Letters At Home. “In response to our desire for connection in times of physical distance, Uninvited Guests have created an innovative, digital, wholly personal and wonderfully live experience,” the SJT announces.
By collecting song requests and dedications from audience members, Uninvited Guests create a show guaranteed to be unique to each audience. Join them on Zoom to raise a glass to long lost and current loves, to mums and dads, and to absent friends.
Light entertainment: A switched-on Katie Arnstein in her one-woman show Sexy Lamp
“Have you ever been treated like an inanimate object?” asks Katie Arnstein in her solo show Sexy Lamp on October 15. Katie has suffered that slight, she says, although in reality she is a “friendly, lovable and hilarious real-life person”.
Join her as she re-lives, through story and songs, all the times she was not seen as one, however. Billed as “somewhere between the comedy of Victoria Wood, the comfort of going for a drink with your best mate and the high drama of Hamlet”, Arnstein’s show won both Show of the Week and Pleasance Pick at last year’s VAULT Festival in London. “It’s nothing like Hamlet,” she corrects herself.
In Alison Carr’s dark comedy, Dogwalker, on November 6 and 7, Helen finds a dead body in the local dog park, whereupon suddenly everyone is paying attention to her. At least for a little while.
Now she has had a taste of the limelight, Helen will not fade into the shadows without a fight in a play that first dropped through the SJT Open Script Submissions window and is being developed for a potential run at the Edinburgh Fringe under the direction of Chelsey Gillard, the SJT’s Carne Trust associate director.
Carr, by the way, had the disappointment of her sold-out performances of The Last Quiz Night In Earth in March being scrapped under the Coronavirus theatre shutdown.
On the beach: Serena Manteghi, in her guise as teenage single mum Yasmin in Build A Rocket. In November, she returns to the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
After writer Alexander Flanagan-Wright and musician Phil Grainger’s performances of linking shows Orpheus and Eurydice in the At The Mill season at Stillington Mill and York Theatre Royal’s Pop-Up On The Patio festival, Serena Manteghi will be in the cast for SJT performances from November 19 to 21.
Serena premiered Eurydice to award-winning success in Australia, when joined in the two-hander by actor and designer Casey Jay Andrews. She will be familiar to SJT audiences from playing LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and Yasmin in the premiere of Christopher York’s Build A Rocket.
From The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre stable, Orpheus and Eurydice are modern re-tellings of ancient Greek mythology, interweaving a world of dive bars, side streets and ancient gods. (Newsflash: 21/10/2020: Flanagan-Wright, Grainger, Manteghi and Andrews will be performing the plays together in a new version at the SJT).
A series of rehearsed play readings will take place in the theatre on October 7, 13 and 20, then each Tuesday from November 3 to 24, including Sarah Gordon’s The Underdog, Katie Redford’s Tapped and Rebecca Jade Hammond’s Canton.
Further shows will be announced soon, among them an evening of conversation with Hull-born Maureen Lipman and an innovative online show from outspoken Denby Dale comedian Daniel Kitson.
“We see it as part of our ongoing civic role to open as soon as is reasonably practicable and to present irresistible work,” says SJT artistic director Paul Robinson
The re-opened SJT has been showing films in the McCarthy at the former Odeon cinema building since last month and will continue to do so. Now, artistic director and joint chief executive Paul Robinson is looking forward to the return of live theatre.
“We’ve worked hard to create an ambitious season of relatively small-scale work, but one that promises great entertainment and really does have something for everyone, including shows for those who are happy to return to the building, and also for those who aren’t.
“We see it as part of our ongoing civic role to open as soon as is reasonably practicable and to present irresistible work alongside meticulously thought-through health and safety measures.
“Our family show at Christmas, for instance, was originally written for five actors, but that would have made rehearsing impossible under current guidelines. Writer Nick Lane has adapted it into a remarkable one-woman show that we’re confident will be every bit as much fun as the original and will really showcase the multi-talented Polly Lister.”
The SJT has introduced comprehensive measures for the safety and comfort of its audiences – full details at https://www.sjt.uk.com/were_back – and has been awarded VisitEngland’s We’re Good to Go industry standard mark, signifying adherence to government and public health guidance.
On a knife edge: Simon Slater in Bloodshot, playing the SJT from October 21 to 24
“Everything will pay proper heed to social distancing, for both the audience and for our staff and performers,” says Robinson. “The seating capacity in The Round will vary from show to show but the socially distanced maximum will be 185.”
All the autumn and winter events will be added to the SJT website shortly; booking will open for Circle members from September 8 and for general sales from September 11.
To book, visit sjt.uk.com/whatson or call the box office on 01723 370541. The box office is open Thursdays to Saturdays, 11am to 4pm, for both phone calls and in-person bookings.
HULL Truck Theatre will reopen with the Hull Jazz Festival from November 12 and a seating capacity reduced to 20 to 30 per cent, but The Railway Children will not go ahead.
A statement from the Ferensway theatre announces: “The Hull Jazz Festival is a key part of our autumn season and we are really pleased that after eight months of closure, we are able to work with long-term partners J-Night to open the building with their exciting programme. Audience capacity will be smaller as we adhere to social distancing, but the programme and experience will still be the same great quality.”
York playwright Mike Kenny’s The Railway Children will be back on track in December 2021 after being de-railed from its 2020 Hull Truck Theatre Christmas run by the Covid curse
However, the theatre bosses have had to make the “difficult decision” to postpone the 2020 Christmas production of E Nesbit’s The Railway Children, scripted by York playwright Mike Kenny in a re-visit of his award-winning adaptation for York Theatre Royal at the National Railway Museum (2008/2009) and Waterloo Station, London (2010).
“The creation of one of our Christmas shows usually begins in August but without an announced date from the Government on when theatre performances can resume without social distancing, a show of this scale would not be economically viable,” the Hull Truck statement reads.
“The Railway Children will be postponed until Christmas 2021 and all tickets will be automatically transferred into the equivalent date, time and original seat selection. We will be contacting all customers with details of their ticket transfer and, with our reduced team, we ask that customers do not contact the box office at this time.”
The statement continues: “While we may not be able to do something in our auditorium on the scale of The Railway Children, we remain committed to creating magical Christmas experiences for our audiences and are delighted to announce we will be producing an alternative show for 2020.”
The new show will be a promenade production of Prince Charming’s Christmas Cracker that will enable audiences to enjoy a festive adventure within small groups and under social-distancing measures as they move through the theatre.
“We are very excited to have a reopening date,” says Hull Truck Theatre artistic director Mark Babych
What lies in store? Every year on Christmas Eve, Prince Charming – soon to be King and deluded Crooner – celebrates the festive season with an annual knees-up: the Christmas Cracker. This year, a big announcement is imminent and you are all invited.
Further details and on-sale dates for Hull Jazz Festival and Prince Charming’s Christmas Cracker will be announced in September, alongside up-to-date information on how Hull Truck is being made a safe place to visit within Government guidelines.
Announcements on the updated January to March 2021 season will be made later in the autumn, once Hull Truck has more information regarding social-distancing guidelines.
“We are dependent on Government advice on social distancing regarding the ability to stage productions and therefore whether they are financially viable,” the statement emphasises.
Artistic director Mark Babych and his joint chief executive officer, Janthi Mills-Ward, say: “We are very excited to have a reopening date to bring alive our wonderful theatre again. We will obviously be operating at a much-reduced capacity – 20 to 30 per cent – while social distancing is in place, which makes re-opening a difficult financial jigsaw of what and how we present work.
Truck on: Hull Truck Theatre’s main auditorium, reopening from November 12
“But with meticulous planning to ensure the theatre is a safe place and innovative ideas for a programme that is possible with social distancing, we look forward to sharing the joy of live theatre again.”
They continue: “Part of this will be doing Christmas differently this year, which presents lots of creative challenges for the Hull Truck team to work on together, as well as opportunities for freelance artists.
“Our vision is to create a joyful, fun and uplifting production that takes audiences on an exciting journey through the theatre and we are sure this show is going to be just what we all need to get us in the Christmas spirit after a difficult year!”
Please note, Hull Truck “asks for your patience and kindness at this time as the box-office team work to contact all customers who have booked for The Railway Children”.
Playwright Nick Lane: Leading the Beginner’s Playwriting online course. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
SCARBOROUGH’S Stephen Joseph Theatre is moving its OutReach classes online from next week.
The first to do so will be the Beginner’s Playwriting course, running for five weeks from Tuesday, June 9, led at 11.30am each week by South Yorkshire playwright Nick Lane, who has written the SJT’s Christmas show for the past four years.
“Has lockdown got you feeling locked up? Have you had enough of seeing/posting pictures of homemade frittatas on Instagram? Are you looking for something creative to do before you watch the whole of Netflix again?” asks Nick, whose adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Sign Of Four played the SJT last spring.
“If you fancy trying your hand at playwriting, the SJT has got you covered with a course for first-time writers covering everything from character to dialogue to plot, through structure, editing and rewriting…which you can now do from your own home.
“You could even do it while watching Netflix and making a frittata.* The course is simple, it’s fun and it might just help you uncover a talent you didn’t know you had.”
Why did you put the asterisk after that “making a frittata” line, Nick? What’s the caveat? “It’s not recommended. Seriously, you might burn yourself.” Good point!
Rounders, the SJT youth theatre, will go online from Tuesday for five weeks, led by the SJT’s associate director for children and young people, Cheryl Govan, and associate director Chelsey Gillard.
They will deliver three free virtual sessions per week: on Tuesdays, for ages eight to 11; Wednesdays, for 15-plus; Thursdays, for 12 to 14 years, each from 4pm to 5pm.
Cheryl says: “For all our current members, we’ve not forgotten about you! Rounders will be moving online. It won’t be the same, but we can assure you it will be fun and a great chance to catch up with all your friends for some virtual Rounders nonsense. Make sure your parents check their emails: we’ll be in touch!”
For five weeks from June 10, from 11.30am to 1.30pm each Wednesday, fun and friendly Script Reading classes will explore the work of Restoration playwrights.
Participants will read aloud texts from the 17th century and work with SJT associate director Chelsey Gillard to look at the themes, stories, writing styles and historical context.
Digital copies of plays, including George Etheredge’s The Man Of Mode and Aphra Behn’s The Rover, will be provided and participants will be given a link to join each weekly session.
“I’m very excited that we will be exploring this unique era of playwriting that delighted audiences when theatres reopened after an 18-year ban [in 1660 at the start of Charles II’s reign],” says Chelsey.
“Theatre became a way to celebrate and reflect on society, so it’s the perfect inspiration as we wait to also re-open our doors.”
Script Surgeries in one-to-one sessions on Zoom will be available with professional literary consultant Suzy Graham-Adriani, who is best known for creating the National Theatre’s Connections programme.
She will read scripts in development to give individual, detailed feedback, exploring ways to take the script to the next draft and, if appropriate, ways to move it forward.
Suzy was responsible for commissioning and developing the first 100 plays and musicals from writers such as Alan Ayckbourn, Bryony Lavery, Mark Ravenhill, Dennis Kelly and Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.
Cheryl concludes: “We are, of course, really looking forward to re-opening the theatre and welcoming our community back to our popular classes. But until that’s possible, we hope that as many people as possible will join us online. We’ll be adding more soon.”
For more information on the online classes, go to: sjt.uk.com/getinvolved#classes. The Beginner’s Playwriting course costs £35 for all five sessions; Script Reading classes, £5 per week or £20 if you book all five; Script Surgeries, £100.
Alan Ayckbourn: 84th full-length play Truth Will Out will be premiered this summer at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
THE truth is out. Alan Ayckbourn’s 84th full-length play will
be premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, this summer.
Truth Will Out, Ayckbourn’s up-to-the-minute
satire on family, relationships, politics and the state of the nation, will run
on various dates in the SJT programme between August 20 and October 3.
Written and directed
by the former SJT artistic director, it follows hot on the heels of Ayckbourn’s
80th birthday play, Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present, in 2019.
“Everyone has secrets,” entices the new play’s
synopsis. “Certainly, former shop steward George, his right-wing MP daughter
Janet, investigative journalist Peggy, and senior civil servant Sefton, do.
“And all it’s going to take is one tech-savvy
teenager with a mind of his own and time on his hands to bring their worlds
tumbling down – and maybe everyone else’s along with them. A storm is brewing…”
Jemma Churchill and Naomi Petersen in Alan Ayckbourn’s 80th birthday play, Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present, at the SJT in September 2019. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
As is customary in the SJT summer season, Ayckbourn also will direct an Ayckbourn
revival, this time his 20th play, the very dark Just Between
Ourselves, premiered at the Library Theatre,
Scarborough, on January 28 1976, followed by its London premiere at the Queen’s
Theatre on April 20 1977.
Ayckbourn calls it one of his “winter” plays,
written in the winter months, like Ten Times Table and Joking Apart, wherein he
attributed their darkness to being penned at this time of year.
Booked into the SJT diary for performances on
various dates from June 18 to October 3, Just Between Ourselves dissects man’s
inadvertent inhumanity to woman.
Dennis thinks he is a master at DIY and a perfect husband. In reality,
he is neither of those things. When he decides to sell his car, Neil turns up
as a potential buyer, wanting it for his wife Pam’s birthday.
The two couples become unlikely friends, aided and abetted by Dennis’s meddling live-in mother, Marjorie. A collision course is inevitable in “the one with the car”, set in a garage and a garden over four successive birthdays.
Northern Broadsides head from Halifax to Scarborough with Quality Street in May
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson will direct The Ladykillers, Graham
Linehan’s spin on the 1955 Ealing comedy motion picture screenplay by William
Rose, by special arrangement with StudioCanal and Fiery Angel, London.
This in-house production, playing on various dates between July 9 and
August 15, will re-tell the story of the sweetest of sweet little old ladies, alone at home but for a parrot with
a mystery illness. Both of them are at the mercy of a ruthless gang of criminal
misfits, who will stop at nothing to achieve what they want. Surely there can
only be one possible outcome?
Linehan’s writing credits include Father Ted, Black
Books, The IT Crowd, Count Arthur Strong and Motherland. Now comes The
Ladykillers, to be directed by Robinson with the stylish madcap humour that he
brought to The 39 Steps in 2018.
Meanwhile, the SJT has confirmed South Yorkshireman
Nick Lane will write the winter show for The Round for the fifth year in a row
after his off-the-wall Christmas adaptations of Pinocchio, A Christmas Carol, Alice
In Wonderland and Treasure Island.
Lane’s idiosyncratic take on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Snow
Queen will be directed by Robinson, with music and lyrics once more by Simon
Slater, for a run from December 3 to 30.
Katie Arnstein in Sexy Lamp: playing the SJT on May 26
The SJT’s own productions will be complemented by a busy season of visiting
shows, such as The Canary And The Crow on May 7 and 8, Middle Child’s
grime and hip hop-inspired gig theatre show about the journey of a working-class
black child accepted into a prestigious grammar school.
In Where There’s Muck There’s Bras, on May 7, North
Yorkshire stand-up poet Kate Fox offers a comical and thought-provoking insight
into “the real Northern Powerhouse: Northern Women – the sung and the unsung”.
On May 9, Roald Dahl And The Imagination Seekers presents
a thrilling story told through performance, games and
creative play that explores such extraordinary Dahl tales as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, The BFG and The
Twits.
Quality Street, new artistic director Laurie Sansom’s directorial debut for Halifax company Northern Broadsides, will be on tour at the SJT from May 12 to 16. This Broadsides production is a rare revival of Peter Pan author JM Barrie’s delicious farce, a play so well known in its day that it gave its name to the ever-popular British chocolates, made in Halifax since 1936.
Key date for Alistair McGowan: piano and comedy on May 21 at SJT
Alistair McGowan: The Piano Show on May 21 combines the satirical Evesham
comedian’s impressionist skills with his new-found prowess on the piano.
In It’s Miss Hope Springs, on May 23, self-confessed “blonde bombsite” Ty Jeffries plays the piano and sings mind-bogglingly catchy numbers from her all-original self-penned repertoire.
Scarborough’s Elvis tribute act, Tony Skingle, presents Elvis – The ’68 Comeback on May 24. Two nights later, Sexy Lamp asks: “Have you ever been treated like an inanimate object?” in Katie Arnstein’s show that combines comedy, original songs and storytelling to “shed a bright light on how ridiculous the industry can be and why Katie is refusing to stay in the dark”.
Sexy Lamp is pitched “somewhere between the comedy of Victoria Wood, the
comfort of going for a drink with your best mate, and the high drama of Hamlet
(although it is nothing like Hamlet”.
Hope springs eternal : It’s Miss Hope Springs plays SJT on May 23
Anglo-Japanese theatre company A Thousand Cranes visit Scarborough with The Great Race! on May 29 and 30. This thrilling story of how the Eastern Zodiac calendar was created is billed as “the perfect show for children in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics”.
Forged Line Dance Company’s Treasure, on June 3, will be a fearless and
physical dance performance that explores “our innate human fascination with our
seas and coastlines”.
In Chores on June 20, two brothers must hurry to clean their
room before their mum comes back. What could possibly go wrong in a circus-comedy
for the whole family, all the way from Australia?
Great Yorkshire Fringe favourites Morgan & West serve up Unbelievable
Science on September 19, when they combine captivating chemistry,
phenomenal physics and bonkers biology in a fun-for-all-the-family science
extravaganza.
Mischievous magical science double act Morgan & West in Unbelievable Science on September 19
Tickets for all shows are priced from £10 and will go on general sale from Friday, March 13, preceded by priority booking for the theatre’s membership scheme, The Circle, from March 6, on 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
