Tag: Noises Off

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REVIEW: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Sept 6 *****

Cast adrift: Nothing On director Lloyd Dallas (Adam Astill), front, makes a sharp point to Selsdon Mowbray (Christopher Godwin); Garry Lejeune (Alex Phelps); Brooke Ashton (Olivia Woolhouse); Freddie Flowers (Andy Cryer); Belinda Blair (Valeria Antwi); Dotty Otley (Susan Twist) and Tim Allgood (Charlie Ryan) in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

IT was supposed to be Mission Impossible. No-one had ever staged Michael Frayn’s play within a play in the round in 43 years.

“Good luck!” said Frayn when told of director Paul Robinson and designer Kevin Jenkins’ meticulous but surely mad plan.

Well, the joke is now on all the naysayers – and you, dear readers, will be the ones having the last laugh if you head to the SJT.

Commotion in motion: Andy Cryer’s Freddie Fellowes and Susan Twist’s Dotty Otley in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

This, after all, is the Mecca for theatrical comedies, the home of myriad Alan Ayckbourn premieres, and who should be looking on from his familiar box but Sir Alan on Tuesday night (12/8/2025).

Frayn’s farce is so good that frankly it is indestructible, but Robinson and Jenkins’ thoroughly rounded production makes it even more joyous. Chaos conducted with precision and audacity.

The nature of theatre in the round is its 360-degree inclusivity. You can see everything, yet without being able to see everything (given the inevitability of actors having their back to you), and part of the pleasure is seeing the enjoyment of all around you.

Eternally exasperated: Adam Astill’s Lloyd Dallas, director of Nothing On, the farce within the farce in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

On top of that is the proximity of the actors: they and you are in the lion’s den; the amphitheatre on a not-so-Colosseum-sized scale. In this instance, you can see, hear and feel the fear of the play within the play going wrong, the heartbeat of Frayn’s classic farce – and the precursor to all that Mischief-making by The Play That Goes Wrong gang.

In a nutshell, in the round, your awareness of the physicality of acting is heightened and, in turn, your appreciation of the comedic skills of the likes of Ayckbourn stalwart Christopher Godwin, Andy Cryer and SJT debutant Alex Phelps, who has charmed  York audiences in the recent past with both his dexterity and the way he makes words dance.

Farce is all about doors – or doors and plates of sardines in the case of Noises Off, as exasperated director Lloyd Dallas (SJT debutant Adam Astill) reminds his hapless company as they prepare for a tour of the fractious and ever increasingly fractured farce Nothing On that will close, it just so happens, in Scarborough.

Christopher Godwin’s old soak, Selsdon Mowbray, in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

The SJT stage has three doorways, all put to maximum use with doors placed in  them, and then Jenkins adds the all-important mezzanine level, with its three doors, plus a trapdoor entry and exit in Act Two.

We join the never-still Astill’s Lloyd initially in the rehearsal room for Nothing On, a clunky, maladroit farce with a bizarre obsession with sardines.

This utterly actorly thespian, soon to give his Richard III in Aberystwyth, must somehow pull together Lloyd’s bank of has-beens (Godwin’s drunkard veteran Selsdon Mowbray and Susan Twist’s tour-backing Dotty Otley); touring plodders (Cryer’s over-thinking, physically fragile Freddie Fellowes and Valerie Antwi’s admirably unflappable Belinda Blair), and wannabes (Alex Phelps’s young buck Garry Lejeune and Olivia Woolhouse’s company ingenue Belinda Blair).

Annie Kirkman’s Poppy Norton-Taylor trying to keep Nothing On on track in Noises Off at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Then add the ever-harassed technical team, Charlie Ryan’s dogsbody Tim Allgood and Annie Kirkman’s equally overworked Poppy Norton-Taylor.

All the stage world is here: the luvvies and the loveless, the boozer and the philanderer, the sex, the drudgery and the rock’n’rollicking fallouts of a theatre tour, experienced in rehearsal room, then backstage mid-production run and finally on the tour’s catastrophic, calamitous last night.

While your reviewer would never dissuade anyone from partaking of a tipple in either interval, it is rewarding to watch the set changes conducted with a choreographic flourish as doors are reversed and the set turns inside out in the transition from backstage to stage. Ryan’s Tim and Kirkman’s Poppy stay in character to oversee the changes.

Thwarted by a door: Alex Phelps’s restless Garry Lejeune and Olivia Woolhouse’s Brooke Ashton in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Robinson’s cast is wonderful, especially Twist’s dotty old-stager Dotty, Godwin’s scene-stealing Selsdon and, above all, Phelps’s Garry, with his stair tumbles and earnest air in never quite saying what he feels the need to express.

Simon Slater’s music is irresistibly perky, matching the desperate desire of Nothing On’s cast to prove the show must go on, no matter what befalls the warring players.

You will love the moment when Astill’s Lloyd, arriving for the final performance, is amazed to discover the staging is in the round: a soupcon of meta-theatre in a tour-de-farce masterpiece.

Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday  and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com

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What’s On on in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 35, from Gazette & Herald

Sonnets In Bloom script writer Natalie Roe, left, and director Josie Connor in the Holy Trinity churchyard in Goodramgate, York

SHAKESPEARE in poetic full bloom, arguably the best ever British farce and moorland classical music lead off Charles Hutchinson’s case for not going on holiday in August.

Poetic return of the week: York Shakespeare Project presents Sonnets In Bloom, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 15 to 23, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm, August 16 and 23

REVEREND Planter is very excited that his church is hosting the regional leg of Summer in Bloom. You are warmly invited to enjoy a complimentary drink and to see the goings-on. Participants will be arriving with their prized entries, some more competitive than others, but where is the special guest? And who will win the People’s Vote?

Welcome back Sonnets In Bloom as YSP’s 50-minute summer show returns to Holy Trinity’s churchyard with a new director, Josie Connor, new scenario script writer, Natalie Roe, and nine new sonneteers among the dozen presenting a new collection of characters, each finding a way to share one of Shakespeare’s celebrated sonnets. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age recommendation: 14 plus.

Lucy Hook Designs’ poster for York River Art Market’s tenth anniversary

Art event of the week: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, York, August 16 and 17, 10am to 5.30pm

YORK River Art Market returns for its tenth anniversary season by the Ouse riverside railings, where 30 artists and designers will be setting up stalls each day.

Organised by York artist and tutor Charlotte Dawson, the market offers the chance to buy directly from the makers of ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, soaps, cards and more besides. Admission is free.

Alex Phelps and Valerie Antwi in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Farce of the week: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm  Saturday matinees

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs the first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s legendary 1982 farce with its play-within-a-play structure. “Good luck!” said the playwright on hearing the Scarborough theatre was taking on what has always been considered an impossible task. 

Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On. Across three acts, Frayn charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee, seen entirely from backstage, and the catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival director and cellist. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Festival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, until August 23 

IN its 17th year, cellist Jamie Walton’s festival presents 14 concerts designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes. 

The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham. Ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside. For the full programme, go to northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990 or email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

Smashing Pumpkins: Heading for Scarborough on Aghori Tour

Coastal gig of the week: Smashing Pumpkins and White Lies, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, tonight, gates 6pm

AMERICAN alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins play Scarborough on their Aghori Tour. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin’s multi-platinum-selling band will be supported on the Yorkshire coast by London post-punk revival band White Lies.

Since emerging from Chicago, Illinois, in 1988 with their iconoclastic sound, Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.

Brightside: Scarborough band making their NCEM debut in York

From coast to York: Piano Goes Brightside, National Centre for Early Music, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm

SCARBOROUGH band Brightside are undergoing a name change to The Waisons but not before playing this Piano Goes Brightside gig in York. In the line-up are Josh Lappao, lead guitar and vocals, Vince Lappao, drums and keyboards,  Mason Marshall, guitar and vocals, and Olly Kershaw, bass guitar.

Formed to compete in a Battle of the Bands school competition, where they were placed runners-up, their two years of gigging has taken in school events, a Nativity entertainment, Christmas parties and a wedding. “We mostly do covers, but plan on making originals soon,” they say. As for the piano, progressive Scarborough pianist Jamie Kershaw will play 45 minutes of Schubert, Debussy, Ludovicio Einaudi, jazz and more. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Scarborough and District Railway Modellers’ poster for this weekend’s Pickering Model Railway Exhibition

Keeping on track: Pickering Model Railway Exhibition 2025, Memorial Hall, Potter Hill, Pickering, August 16, 10am to 5pm, and August 17, 10am to 3.30pm

ORGANISED by Scarborough and District Railway Modellers, Pickering Model Railway Exhibition features working layouts by Badger’s Bottom, Box File, Dalmunach, Farnby, Gallows Close,High Stamley,Low Key, Napier Road, Snicketway and Thomas For Kids.

Look out for model-making demonstrations by Simon Howard and Tim Penrose and trade support by DPP Model Railways, Model Market, GM Transport Books and Phoenix Games Studio. Free parking and free entry for accompanied children are further attractions; refreshments are available. Tickets: sdrmweb.co.uk.

Pickering Country Fair: Vintage tractors are among the attractions this weekend

Country pursuits of the week: Pickering Country Fair, Galtres Pickering Showground, August 16 and 17

COUNTRY sports, from mounted games and falconry, to gun dog scurries and heavy horses (Sunday only), will be complemented by ‘have-a-go’ opportunities in a chance to discover and learn about country pursuits under expert guidance. Among the highlights will be the Yorkshire Vet, Peter Wright; owl adventures; axe throwing; falconry; birds of prey; terrier racing; lurcher racing and coursing; archery; tractor pulling and a reptile display.  

A vintage vehicle area features cars, commercials, fire engines and military vehicles, including tanks, along with displays of traction engines, tractors and working displays. Visitors can browse a variety of trade stands, autojumble, a craft and fine food marquee, old-time fun fair, non-stop arena entertainment, catering and a licensed bar. Tickets: outdoorshows.co.uk/pickering-country-fair.  Pre-booked camping is available from midday on Friday to 10am on Monday.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond in a flurry of festivals and sonnet declarations. Hutch’s List No. 35, from The York Press

Sonnets in Bloom script writer Natalie Roe, left, and director Josie Connor on a churchyard bench at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, where York Shakespeare Project’s performances will be staged

SHAKESPEARE in poetic full bloom, arguably the best ever British farce and moorland classical music lead off Charles Hutchinson’s case for not going on holiday in August.

Poetic return of the week: York Shakespeare Project presents Sonnets In Bloom, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 15 to 23, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm, August 16 and 23

REVEREND Planter is very excited that his church is hosting the regional leg of Summer in Bloom. You are warmly invited to enjoy a complimentary drink and to see the goings-on. Participants will be arriving with their prized entries, some more competitive than others, but where is the special guest? And who will win the People’s Vote?

Welcome back Sonnets In Bloom as YSP’s 50-minute summer show returns to Holy Trinity’s churchyard with a new director, Josie Connor, new scenario script writer, Natalie Roe, and nine new sonneteers among the dozen presenting a new collection of characters, each finding a way to share one of Shakespeare’s celebrated sonnets. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age recommendation: 14 plus.

Lucy Hook Designs’ poster for York River Art Market’s tenth anniversary

Art event of the month: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, York, today and tomorrow, August 16 and 17, 10am to 5.30pm

YORK River Art Market returns for its tenth anniversary season by the Ouse riverside railings, where 30 artists and designers will be setting up stalls each day.

Organised by York artist and tutor Charlotte Dawson, the market offers the chance to buy directly from the makers of ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, soaps, cards and more besides. Admission is free.

Mad Alice: History talk and Georgian gin tasting at Impossible York at 4pm tomorrow

York festival of the week: York Georgian Festival 2025, until August 11

ORGANISED by York Mansion House, in tandem with York businesses, the York Georgian Festival is a whirl of  dashing dandy fashions, extravagant feasting and romantic country dancing in a celebration of a golden social scene hidden within the brickwork of York’s abundant 18th century architecture.

Among the highlights will be a Promenade through the city; Georgian ice-cream cooking demonstrations; Regency Rejigged dance performances; Georgian Execution Tour with Bloody Tours of York; Mad Alice and York Gin’s history talk and Georgian gin tasting at Impossible York bar; York Georgian Ball at Grand Assembly Rooms; Portraits in Jane Austen; A Byron Letter and A Georgian Kerfuffle at York Mansion House and An Intimate History: The Life and Loves of Anne Lister at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate. For the full programme and tickets, go to: mansionhouseyork.com/york-georgian-festival.

Seven Wonders: Paying tribute to Fleetwood Mac at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Tribute show of the week: Seven Wonders, The Spirit Of Fleetwood Mac, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm

SEVEN Wonders, a seven-piece, 100 per cent live band, cover all eras of Fleetwood Mac, from the Peter Green blues years, through Rumours, to Tango In The Night. Be prepared to dance the night away to Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop, The Chain, Rhiannon, Dreams, Little Lies, Oh Well, Edge Of Seventeen and many more. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Alex Phelps, left, Christopher Godwin, Olivia Woolhouse, Valerie Antwi, Susan Twist, Charlie Ryan and Andy Cryer in rehearsal for Michael Frayn’s Noises Off at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Play of the week: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, today until September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm  Saturday matinees

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs the first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s legendary 1982 farce with its play-within-a- play structure. “Good luck!” said the playwright on hearing the Scarborough theatre was taking on what has always been considered an impossible task. 

Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On. Across three acts, Frayn charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee, seen entirely from backstage and the brilliantly catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival director and cellist. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Moorland festival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 10 to 23

IN its 17th year, cellist Jamie Walton’s festival presents 14 concerts designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes. 

The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham. Ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside. For the full programme, go to northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990 or email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

Mark Radcliffe and Arlo: Dog tales at The Crescent

Shaggy dog stories of the week: Mark Radcliffe (& Arlo): In Conversation, The Crescent, August 11, 7.30pm

MARK Radcliffe, radio broadcaster, musician and writer, is one half of BBC Radio 1′s semi-legendary Mark and Lard and one half of BBC 6Music’s Radcliffe & Maconie. Now he introduces his new double-act partner, his beloved pampered Cavapoo, Arlo, as featured in the book Et Tu, Cavapoo?, published by Corsair on August 14.

In March 2024, Radcliffe and Arlo set off from Cheshire in their VW Beetle convertible for a three-month sojourn in Rome. Join them in conversation for an account of their time amid the sights (and sniffs) of the Italian capital in a show for lovers of travel and history, food and drink, art and architecture, and those seeking an insight into the eccentricities of the canine mind. This event combines a book signing, an interview with a special guest host and a chance to put questions to Mark (and Arlo). Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Smashing Pumpkins: Heading to Scarborough on Aghori Tour

Coastal gig of the week: Smashing Pumpkins and White Lies, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 13, gates 6pm

AMERICAN alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins play Scarborough on their Aghori Tour. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin’s multi-platinum-selling band will be supported on the Yorkshire coast by London post-punk revival band White Lies.

Since emerging from Chicago, Illinois, in 1988 with their iconoclastic sound, Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.

Scarborough band Brightside: Making NCEM debut on August 14

From coast to York: Piano Goes Brightside, National Centre for Early Music, York, August 14, 7.30pm

SCARBOROUGH band Brightside are undergoing a name change to The Waisons but not before playing this Piano Goes Brightside gig in York. In the line-up are Josh Lappao, lead guitar and vocals, Vince Lappao, drums and keyboards,  Mason Marshall, guitar and vocals, and Olly Kershaw, bass guitar.

Formed to compete in a Battle of the Bands school competition, where they were placed runners-up, their two years of gigging has taken in school events, a Nativity entertainment, Christmas parties and a wedding. “We mostly do covers, but plan on making originals soon,” they say. As for the piano, progressive Scarborough pianist Jamie Kershaw will play 45 minutes of Schubert, Debussy, Ludovicio Einaudi, jazz and more. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

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SJT takes on ‘impossible task’ of staging Noises Off in the round for first time in 43-year history of Michael Frayn’s farce

Alex Phelps, centre, in rehearsal for Noises Off with Valerie Antwi and Charlie Ryan. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

THE first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off opens at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre on Saturday, fully 43 years since its Lyric Theatre, London premiere.

“I’ve wanted to direct this play for years,” says SJT artistic director Paul Robinson. “The assumption was that doing it this way was impossible. When I told Michael about our plans, his response was an amused ‘good luck’.” The director has since printed off Frayn’s message to hang on a rehearsal room wall.  

“Our designer, Kevin Jenkins, and I have spent months meticulously planning and he has come up with an ingenious set, which has really been worth the wait.”

A precursor to Mischief Theatre’s canon of theatrical catastrophes kick-started by The Play That Goes Wrong, Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On.

“One of the greatest British comedies ever written, Noises Off is a hilarious and heartfelt tribute to the world of theatre but also about how futile it is to try to impose our ideas on the world around us, as things will always go wrong,” says Paul. “It’s how you respond to them when they do!”

Alex Phelps in the role of the Ringmaster in Tilted Wig and York Theatre Royal’s production of Around The World In 80 Days in 2023

Among Robinson’s cast that includes Alan Ayckbourn stalwart Christopher Godwin, northern theatre luminary Andy Cryer and Brookside, Coronation Street and Doctor Who alumna Susan Twist will be Alex Phelps, a dapper chap whose adroit, graceful comedic theatre skills will be familiar to York audiences.

After the dandy buffoonery of his Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age take on Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre at the Eye of York in Summer 2019, he appeared in the dual roles of Ringmaster and unscrupulous globe-trotting Phileas Fog in Tilted Wig’s touring collaboration with York Theatre Royal in the circus-themed Around The World In 80 Days in February 2023.

Next came the “selfish, hypocritical, vain, manipulative, deceptively charming” Joseph Surface in Tilted Wig’s account of Sheridan’s Georgian comedy of manners The School For Scandal at the Theatre Royal in April 2024.

From Saturday, in Noises Off, he will be playing Garry Lejeune, whose character profile on Wikipedia describes him as: “The play’s leading man, a solid actor who is completely incapable of finishing a sentence unless it is dialogue. Constantly stutters and ends sentences with ‘you know’. Dating Dotty and prone to jealousy.”

“He’s the young one, as his name suggests, which is very telling,” says Alex. “Michael Frayn’s biography for him says Gary has ‘not done much theatre’. He’s one of those actors we might all recognise from theatre companies, who feels the need to speak up for the company without thinking about what he’s going to say .

Alex Phelps’s Joseph Surface in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal, on tour at York Theatre Royal in 2024

“He feels things very deeply but through his great inarticulacy he lacks the capacity to express that feeling. He doesn’t know how to make his point…but you will still be able to work it out!”

Alex is delighted to be part of a cast taking on the challenge of staging Noises Off in the round, where actors have to perform to an audience seated all around them. “We’re going for it! We really are. We’ve got a lot of pride in the SJT deciding to do it.

“Given the history of the SJT, and Alan Ayckbourn’s plays here, it’s all about connecting with the audience. For this production, Paul and Kevin have been thinking about it and working on it for ages, going back and forth with Michael Frayn. If we come a cropper in rehearsals, we’ll contact Michael for advice.”

Across three acts, Noises Off charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee, seen entirely from backstage, and the calamitous final performance.

“It’s a masterpiece,” says Alex. “The beauty of the writing: it’s so well observed; what actors are like; what it’s like in the rehearsal room and backstage at a performance and on a long tour.”

What’s in the box? Alex Phelps and Valerie Antwi in the Stephen Joseph Theatre rehearsal room, working on Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

And now, not only must Robinson’s actors present the play within the play, but the set design has to accommodate showing the stage from backstage before staging the disastrous final show.

“The stage has to be back to front but inside out too,” says Alex. “So if you have to think about it, it’s madness to get your head around!”

There will, of course, be a profusion of doors. “Doors and farce are synonymous with each other because the rhythm of the banging of doors is so important to farce,” says Alex. “The more we do it, the more I think it’s like a musical, with the rhythm building to what I hope is laughter, and then it all takes flight.

“Michael Blakemore [director of the 1982 premiere], in his introduction, has said how some of the best performances of Noises Off are the first ones, where the pressures are so high to get it right, but the actors don’t know what will happen, so there’ll be that sense of danger.”

Can’t wait!

Noises Off runs amok at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from August 9 to September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No.34, from Gazette & Herald

Lucy Hook Designs’ poster for York River Art Market’s tenth anniversary

AUGUST’S arrival heralds the return of riverside art, Georgian festival frolics and moorland classical music in Charles Hutchinson’s guide to a cornucopia of culture.

Art event of the month: York River Art Market, Dame Judi Dench Walk, by Lendal Bridge, York, August 9 and 10, August 16 and 17, 10am to 5.30pm

YORK River Art Market returns for its tenth anniversary season by the Ouse riverside railings, where 30 artists and designers will be setting up stalls each day.

Organised by York artist and tutor Charlotte Dawson, the market offers the chance to buy directly from the makers of ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, soaps, cards and more besides. Admission is free.

Scott Bennett: Presenting Blood Sugar Baby at Pocklington Arts Centre

Storyteller of the week: Scott Bennett, Blood Sugar Baby, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 8pm

ONE family, one condition, one hell of a hairy baby: Scott Bennett, from The News Quiz and the Parenting Hell podcast, relates how his daughter fell ill with a rare genetic condition, congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI).

Never heard of it?  Neither have new parents Scott and Jemma as they fight to achieve  the right diagnosis for their daughter and are plunged into months of bewildering treatment, sleepless nights, celebrity encounters and bizarre side effects, but a happy ending ensues. Box office: Pocklington, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Ryosuke Kiyasu: Drumming prowess on The Arts Barge

Beat that: No Instrument and Arts Barge present Ryosuke Kiyasu, The Arts Barge, Foss Basin Moorings, York, tonight, 7.30pm

PIONEERING snare-drum soloist Ryosuke Kiyasu has redefined percussion since 2003, releasing more than 200 albums, both solo and with his band, drawing 23 million views for his 2018 Berlin live set and featuring on BBC News.

He drums for noise-grind duo Sete Star Sept, the Kiyasu Orchestra and Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha and co-founded Canada’s cult hardcore unit The Endless Blockade. Box office: artsbarge.com/events.

Iago Banet: Finger-style Spanish guitar playing at The Basement

Guitarist of the week: Iago Banet, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm

VIRTUOSO finger-style Spanish guitarist Iago Banet, who moved to London from Galicia in 2014, combines gypsy jazz, blues, country, Dixieland, swing, pop, folk and Americana in his acoustic repertoire, as heard on his third album, 2023’s Tres.

He has performed on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Cerys Matthews’ The Blues Show on BBC Radio 2, appeared at Brecon Jazz, Hellys International Guitar Festival and Aberjazz and played with Josh Smith, Mark Flanagan, Jack Broadbent and Clive Carroll. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.

Four actors, two plays, forty minutes each: 440 Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth at Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Shaking up Shakespeare: 440 Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm

FOUR actors perform 40-minute versions of Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, transforming the Scottish play  from tragedy into comedy in this raucous, breakneck double bill. “Experience the hilarity of not only one of the Bard’s best comedies but also a side-splitting (literally!) Macbeth,” say director Dom Gee-Burch and producer-composer Laura Sillett. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Terry Deary presents Revolting at York Mansion House tomorrow at 5.30pm at York Georgian Festival

York festival of the week: York Georgian Festival 2025, August 7 to 11

ORGANISED by York Mansion House, in tandem with York businesses, the York Georgian Festival will be a whirl of  dashing dandy fashions, extravagant feasting and romantic country dancing in a celebration of a golden social scene hidden within the brickwork of York’s abundant 18th century architecture.

Among the highlights will be Terry Deary Presents Revolting; the Life and Loves of Anne Lister; a Georgian dance lesson at the Guildhall; Men’s Hats; Mad Alice’s history talk and gin tasting; the York Georgian Ball; Sounds of Regency by Candlelight; The World of Georgian Fashion; Portraits in Jane Austen and a revival of York actor-playwright Joseph Peterson’s comic romp The Raree Show or The Fox Trap’t. For the full programme and tickets, go to: mansionhouseyork.com/york-georgian-festival.

Alex Phelps, left, Christopher Godwin, Olivia Woolhouse, Valerie Antwi, Susan Twist, Charlie Ryan and Andy Cryer in rehearsal for Michael Frayn’s Noises Off at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Play of the week: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, August 9 to September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm  Saturday matinees

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs the first ever in-the-round production of Michael Frayn’s legendary 1982 farce with its play-within-a- play structure. “Good luck!” said the playwright on hearing the Scarborough theatre was taking on what has always been considered an impossible task. 

Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On. Across three acts, Frayn charts the shambolic final rehearsals, a disastrous matinee seen entirely from backstage and the brilliantly catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Jamie Walton: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival director and cellist. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Ryedale festival of the week: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 10 to 23

IN its 17th year, cellist Jamie Walton’s festival presents 14 concerts designed to mirror the 14-line structure of a sonnet, guiding audiences through a pagan year with its unfolding seasons, solstices and equinoxes. 

The four elements – Fire, Air, Water and Earth – will be explored through the lens of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and staged in four historic moorland churches: St Hilda’s, Danby; St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge; St Michael’s, Coxwold, and St Mary’s, Lastingham. Ten concerts will be held in an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, near Kirkbymoorside. For the full programme, go to northyorkmoorsfestival.com. Box office: 07722 038990 or email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

The Smashing Pumpkins: Heading to Scarborough on Aghori Tour next Wednesday

Coastal gig of the week: Smashing Pumpkins and White Lies, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 13, gates 6pm

AMERICAN alternative rockers The Smashing Pumpkins play Scarborough on their Aghori Tour. Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin’s multi-platinum-selling band will be supported on the Yorkshire coast by London post-punk revival band White Lies.

Since emerging from Chicago, Illinois, in 1988 with their iconoclastic sound, Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and collected two Grammy Awards, seven MTV VMAs and an American Music Award. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Theatre Royal Bath/Birmingham Rep in Noises Off, York Theatre Royal ****

Double trouble: Daniel Rainford’s Tim Allgood and Matthew Kelly’s Selsdon Mowbray in Noises Off, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith

THIS revival of Michael Frayn’s beloved fractious farce arrives in York in the wake of Mischief’s Magic Goes Wrong, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery and, twice, The Play That Goes Wrong.

If you loved the madcap malarky of those Mischief-making feats of furiously fast physical theatre, take a step back in time to savour the abiding joys of Frayn’s 1982 comedy, now an avuncular forerunner that still brings the house -and stage – down in 2023, 23 years after being elected one of 100 best plays of the 20th century in the National Theatre’s Millennial retrospective.

Frayn, Guardian feature writer-turned playwright, has tweaked his script for the 40th anniversary tour, now on its second leg with only Matthew Kelly reprising his role from last year’s travels.

He may be spotted off-stage with a walking stick, nursing an injured knee from his exertions on two new hips, but once the performance starts, he “feels like a gazelle” at 73, his burglar character leaping through a broken window again and again.

Frayn revels in taking the Michael out of the fallibility, frailties, foibles and luvvie excesses of the acting profession – sometimes accused of taking itself too seriously – but been-there, done that actors love it. Felicity Kendal was in last year’s company; now Kelly’s old thespian lush, Selsdon Mowbray, is joined by such touring campaign veterans as Liza Goddard, Simon Coates, Lucy Robinson and Dan Fredenburgh (although Mark Middleton is ably deputising for him all week as the increasingly vexed Garry Lejeune).

Frayn puts the worst traditions of touring theatre to the sword, from flings and fallouts to coarse acting and stage calamities, over three acts of a farcically bad play within his very good one. The “bad” is Nothing On, a very British trouser-dropping farce with jokes cornier than a cob and doors galore – seven in all – but no escape from the hapless, hopeless show or tour contract as it hobbles from fraught, fractured rehearsals to a last night from hell after 12 weeks for its cast of has-beens, never-beens and desperate newcomers.

As a pleasingly full house looks on, we join the cast of Nothing On at a technical rehearsal so behind schedule there will be no dress rehearsal, everyone playing catch-up from the off. Oxbridge-educated director Lloyd Dallas (Simon Shepherd, all in black with a splenetic mood to match) is already dreaming of his next engagement (Shakespeare’s Richard III in Wales).

In the meantime, he has trapped himself between the affections of fallow assistant stage manager Poppy Norton-Taylor (Nikhita Lesler) and his new catch, the eager but dim Brooke Ashton (Lisa Ambalavanar). Watch out for her exaggerated arm movements, a show in themselves,

What could possibly go wrong? Anticlockwise, from top, Matthew Kelly, Lucy Robinson, Dan Fredenburgh, Liza Goddard, Daniel Rainford and Lisa Ambalavanar in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. Picture: Pamela Raith

The tour-funding veteran trouper, scatty Dotty Otley (Liza Goddard, such lovely comic timing throughout), has already seduced self-appointed leading man Garry Lejeune (Mark Middleton).

Lucy Robinson’s eternally bubbly and unflappable Belinda Blair supplies the backstage gossip and tea and sympathy. Simon Coates’s forgetful, flaky luvvie Frederick Fellowes, Kelly’s old soak Selsdon Mowbray and Daniel Rainford ‘s quietly scene-stealing, overstretched stage manager Tim Allgood are in need of the director’s reassurance, another drink and sleep respectively.

Act One, on Simon Higlett’s typical touring stage, is all sweetness and light and mutual support, save for the barbed tongue of the exasperated director. By Act Two, one month into the tour, relationships are strained, gloves off, and now witnessed backstage, the side you never normally see. 

Picking up the pace, Posner’s cast applies manic energy, humorous physicality and expressive comedy skills to the clashing company’s skirmishes as vendettas and alcohol abuse infect the performance. Silence – necessary backstage – is golden in Frayn’s hands as Nothing On staggers on and Ruth Cooper-Brown’s movement and fight direction comes to the sublime fore.

Then, suddenly, a technical hitch for real, as chance would have it in a play full of them, that required the dinner-jacketed stage manager to make an announcement.

Thankfully, the tabs’ malfunction was not the final curtain, and Act Three could proceed.  War is waged on all fronts on the company’s last night in Stockton-on-Tees, the end of the line in every way as Nothing On – seen from the stage again after a round of applause for the rotating stage manoeuvres – becomes a mere side-show to the vituperative settling of scores.

If you have never seen the comic potential in sardines, plates and plates of them, they are yet another reason to savour Noises Off, amid the glorious shenanigans of actors acting up.

Performances: 7.30pm nightly, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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What a farce as Matthew Kelly plays drunken old actor in Michael Frayn’s classic comedy Noises Off at York Theatre Royal

Matthew Kelly: Defying an injured knee on tour in Noises Off. All pictures: Pamela Raith

MATTHEW Kelly is performing “like a gazelle” in the 40th anniversary tour of Michael Frayn’s riotous farce Noises Off, despite a knee injury.

“I’m already doing it on two new hips, and off stage I have to walk with a stick,” says the erstwhile Stars In Their Eyes presenter, now 73, who takes to the York Theatre Royal stage from tonight.

“I twisted my knee on the set about a year ago on the first tour run. I thought, ‘I’m not going to have any more surgery; I’ll treat it with physiotherapy’, and that’s what I’ve done. It gets me a seat on the Tube every time!

“The knee’s getting better and I’ve kind of got used it, having had to use sticks when I was getting the hips done.”

Matthew takes the role of Selsdon Mowbray, an old actor with a drink problem, “for which I’ve done a lot of research”, he jokes.

“The play’s been going for 42 years, and I was up for the first takeover 40 years ago, when I was invited to follow Nicky Henson in the lead role in the original production.”

Watching Henson’s supreme performance, however, Matthew decided against taking up the invitation. When the chance came to play Selsdon Mowbray, four decades later, this time he jumped at it, new hips and all.

“What makes it work, and the only way it can work, is for the company to be really close, really bonded, and absolutely in tune with each other, which we are,” says Matthew Kelly

On the first itinerary, he played opposite Felicity Kendal; now he is joined by fellow 73-year-old Liza Goddard in Theatre Royal Bath’s touring revival, directed by Lindsay Posner, who staged Richard III and Romeo And Juliet in York’s first season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in 2018.

Structured as a play within a play over three acts, Frayn’s chaotic comedy follows the on and off-stage antics of a hapless touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce, Nothing On, from shambolic final rehearsal to a disastrous matinee, seen silently from backstage, before their catastrophic last performance in Stockton-on-Tees.

If you have enjoyed Mischief’s visits to York with The Play That Goes Wrong and Magic Goes Wrong in recent years, they echo Frayn’s forerunner, a comedy rooted in calamities, pratfalls and slapstick as a cast at war with each other strives desperately to keep a performance on track amid the mayhem.

“What makes it work, and the only way it can work, is for the company to be really close, really bonded, and absolutely in tune with each other, which we are,” says Matthew. “If you get one thing wrong, it can throw the whole play out of kilter.

“I always have good times with companies, but this company is an absolute delight to work with. Having to do three matinees a week, it’s absolutely killing us. There’s no-one having an affair as we’re too knackered!”

Michael Frayn has supported the 40th anniversary tour at every opportunity, as well as tweaking the script. “He’s now 90, and he’s been with us since the start, coming to the opening night when I first did the show with Felicity last year, opening at Bath, and then when we went into the West End,” says Matthew.

“He’s told us it’s the best ever production of the play, though he probably always says that. He’s kind and encouraging, and you just know he’s like that with every company.”

Matthew Kelly in his role as drunken old actor Selsdon Mowbray. “I’ve done a lot of research,” he says

The revival of Noises Off is perfectly timed after the pandemic sent theatres into cold storage. “It’s a love letter to theatre that really lifts the spirit. You hear people rolling around with laughter throughout the show,” says Matthew.

This is the reward for the cast’s meticulously timed comedic performances. “We only had three weeks’ rehearsal for the second tour, and I was the only original member of the cast still in the show. So when we opened in Birmingham, we were still rehearsing during the day as well as performing at night.”

In keeping with the play, things can go wrong. “At one show, one of the girls accidentally left a bunch of flowers on stage, on the upper level, and the next thing that happened was the play began to fall to bits – and the whole place went nuts!” recalls Matthew.

“It wasn’t funny, it was terrifying, but somehow, we got back on track. After the show, I saw a friend, and when I told them it had all gone wrong, they said they’d never noticed! But when things go wrong, they’re only funny to the people who are there watching the show.”

Mind you, actors can play jokes on each other too, like when Matthew was performing Arnold Ridley’s The Ghost Train with Julie Walters and Bill Nighy in Aberystwyth. “When we’re locked in the waiting room, everyone changes place in the dark. Each show we’d have scuffles, where everyone would try to shove each other off stage!” he reveals.

“One Wednesday matinee, when the lights came back on, there was only me on stage, and the rest of the cast were sitting in the front row, arms folded, all looking at me.”

Don’t take it too seriously, Matthew advises himself and those around him in the acting world. “Honestly, no-one cares! We’re only playing in the dressing -up box,” he says.

“It’s a love letter to theatre that really lifts the spirit,” says Matthew Kelly of Michael Frayn’s frenetic farce Noise Off, on tour at York Theatre Royal from tonight

That said, he would love to play King Lear, the third age role that veteran Yorkshire Shakespearean actor Barrie Rutter has said “you should do twice: once when you can do it, and once when you have to do it”.

Kelly’s Lear will surely happen one day. In the meantime, next up, once the Noises Off tour ends in January, will be the world premiere of Jim Cartwright’s The Gap, a two-hander with Denise Welch, running at Hope Mil Theatre, Manchester, from February 9 to March 9.

“It’s about two teenagers running away to London in the Sixties and reuniting much later,” says Matthew. “I first did it as a one-act play about seven years ago, then made a film of it with Sue Johnston during the pandemic, and now Jim has expanded it into a full play.”

The Gap follows the audacious adventures of Walter and Corral. “He’s back up north, she’s still down south,” the theatre website says. “They haven’t seen each other for 50 years, not since their Soho days, back in the swinging ’60s.  A chance phone call reunites them for one magical night and in next-to-no time, they’re back to their old tricks.”

What is “the gap”, Matthew? “Cultural? Geographical? I tell you what it is,” he says. “It is the gap of flesh between stocking top and knicker ridge that drives men wild!”

Noises Off, York Theatre Royal, tonight (31/10/2023) until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Did you know?

MATTHEW Kelly appeared previously at York Theatre Royal in two Alan Bennett plays: Kafka’s Dick, with his son Matthew Rixon, in 2001 and The Habit Of Art, a fictional meeting between York-born poet W H Auden and composer Benjamin Britten, exploring friendship, rivalry, heartache and the joy, pain and emotional cost of creativity, in 2018.

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More Things To Do in and around York? Here come Halloween screams and Noises Off. Hutch’s List No. 44, from The Press

Noises Off: Michael Frayn’s on-stage and off-stage comedy on York Theatre Royal’s main stage from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith

HALLOWEEN films and double bills, classic comedy and a time-travelling York legend, a Disney deep freeze and a punk/jazz collision help Charles Hutchinson leave behind October for November frights and delights.  

Play of the week: Noises Off, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

MATTHEW Kelly, Liza Goddard and Simon Shepherd lead the cast in Theatre Royal Bath’s touring revival of Michael Frayn’s riotous Noises Off, directed by Lindsay Posner, who staged Richard III and Romeo And Juliet for York’s first season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in 2018.

Structured as a play within a play, this cherished 1982 farce follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On, from shambolic final rehearsals to a disastrous matinee, seen silently from backstage, before the catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Punch Porteous – Lost In Time at All Saints North Street

York legend of the week: Punch Porteous – Lost In Time, All Saints North Street, York, tonight, 7pm.

HAVE you heard or indeed seen the eccentric, evasive York legend Punch Porteous: soldier, philosopher, worker (when absolutely unavoidable), husbandman, connoisseur of ale and now the subject of poet Robert Powell, creative practitioner Ben Pugh and producer John Beecroft’s “multi-media drama experience”?

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs Powell, Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Powell’s story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary predicament, lost in time in York. While the city shape-shifts around him, he is catapulted unpredictably into different eras of its history from c.70 to c.2023. Box office: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/punch-porteous-lost-in-time/.

The poster for Navigators Art & Performance’s Punk/Jazz explorations at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York

Music, poetry and comedy bill of the week: Navigation Art & Performance present Punk Jazz: A Halloween Special, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm

COMPLEMENTING the ongoing Punk/Jazz: Contrasts and Connections exhibition at Micklegate & Fossgate Socials, Navigators Art & Performance bring together energetic York punk band The Bricks;  intense improvisers Teleost; the Neo Borgia Trio, formed for the occasion from a University of York big band; grunge-influenced Mike Ambler and the experimental Things Found And Made.

Taking part too will be firebrand polemical poet Rose Drew and comedians Isobel Wilson and Saeth Wheeler. Box office: https://bit.ly/nav-punkjazz.

The Gildas Quartet: Presenting the String! concerts at the NCEM

Children’s concerts of the week: MishMash presents String!, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow, 11.30am and 2pm

THE Gildas Quartet lead tomorrow’s double celebration of the string quartet in informal 40-minute performances featuring a diverse programme from Haydn to Jessie Montgomery, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges to Dvorak, and everything in between.

Staged creatively to bring the audience into the music, these fun concerts are suitable for ages seven to 11 and their families. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Community film event of the week: The Witches (PG), Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 2.30pm

MAKE It York and The Groves Community Centre team up for a Halloween screening of Robert Zemeckis’s visually innovative 2020 film The Witches. Based on Roald Dahl’s novel, it tells the darkly humorous, heartwarming tale of an orphaned boy who goes to live with his loving Grandma in late-1967 in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis, where they have an run-in with the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Emily Portman & Rob Harbron: Delving into folk traditions to emerge with a fresh sound

Folk concert of the week: Emily Portman & Rob Harbron, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

EMILY Portman, from The Furrow Collective, and Rob Harbron, who performs with Leveret, Fay Hield and Jon Boden, have formed an inspired collaboration to delve into English folk traditions with an intricately woven contemporary sound.

Portman (voice, banjo and piano) and fellow composer Harbron (concertina, guitar and voice) released their debut album, Time Was Away, last November, comprising eight English folk songs and two 20th century poems set to music. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Chris Green accompanying FW Murnau’s Nosferatu

Halloween screaming/screening of the week: Nosferatu: Live Silent Cinema, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

CHRIS Green’s score was commissioned by English Heritage for an outdoor screening of FW Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionist vampire film at Dracula’s spiritual home of Whitby Abbey. Now the composer plays his haunting blend of electronic and acoustic instruments for the first time in York to accompany the first cinematic interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, one that gave birth to the horror movie. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Please Please You’s poster for Steve Gunn’s Rise solo concert

Double bill of the week: Please Please You presents Steve Gunn & Brigid Mae Power, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm

EXPERIMENTAL Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn’s “forward-thinking” songwriting draws on the blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz and psychedelia, suffused with a raga influence. His website says he is “currently somewhere working on new music”, although York will be the first of 12 solo gigs in Britian, Spain and Poland in November.

Wednesday’s gig will be opened by Irish singer-songwriter Brigid Mae Power, whose latest folk-tinged dreampop album, Dream From The Deep Well, arrived in March. Box office: seetickets.com/event/steve-gunn/rise-bluebird/.

Meet York Stage’s young princesses in Disney’s Frozen Jr

Musical of the week: York Stage in Disney’s Frozen Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

IN a story of true love and acceptance between sisters, Disney’s Frozen Jr follows the journey of Princesses Anna and Elsa, based on the 2018 Broadway and West End musical set in the magical land of Arendelle, with all the Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez songs from the animated film.

Producer Nik Briggs directs a cast led by Megan Pickard, Bea Charlton, Matilda Park and Esther de la Pena as the princesses. Malachi Collins plays the Duke of Weselton, Lottie Marshall, Bulda, and Oliver Lawery, King Agnarr. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

In Focus: Say Owt Slam, with special guest Polarbear, The Crescent, tonight, 7.45pm

Spoken word artist and writer Polarbear: Making an apperance at tonight’s Say Owt Slam at The Crescent, York

SAY Owt, York’s loveably gobby gang of performance  poets, take over The Crescent community venue twice a year for a raucous night of spoken word and poetry in the form of a stellar slam.

Fast, frantic and fun, a slam gives each poet three minutes to wow the audience. Regular host Henry Raby enthuses: “We love doing Say Owt on a Saturday night, because it’s a party! A poetry party!

“Although one poet will be crowned a Say Owt Slam Champion, this isn’t a bitter battle. It’s a celebration as poets bring a variety of styles and forms. In the past, we’ve had tender personal reflections, hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy poems and fiery political tirades.”

Special guest at tonight’s Say Owt Slam in York will be Polarbear. “The last time he graced our city, Polarbear (a.k.a Steven Camden) was supporting Scroobius Pip and Kae Tempest,” says Henry. “He’s an internationally acclaimed spoken word artist and award-winning writer from Birmingham, whose poetry drips with gorgeous storytelling.

“He talks about people and places with a unique ear for language: celebrating the tiny human characteristics.”

Since first stepping on stage in 2004, Polarbear has performed his work and led creative projects from Manchester to Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur to California, as well as featuring on BBC Radio1, 3 and 6Music, attracting 155,000 views on YouTube and releasing a live album on Scroobius Pip’s Speech Development record label.

A few surprises might be in store tonight too. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/say-owt-slam-featuring-polarbear/ or on the door.