Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton, mezzanine level, left, Mark Simmonds’ Tim Allgood and Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune; Adrian Cook’s Frederick Fellowes, seated, Jessica Hardcastle’s Belinda Blair, Pearl Mollison’s Poppy Norton-Taylor and Helen Spencer’s Dotty Otley in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
COMPANY founder, director and designer Robert Readman will sign off his directorial duties for York company Pick Me Up Theatre with Merrily We Roll Along at Theatre@41, Monkgate, next April.
First, however, this week’s production of Michael Frayn’s 1982 farce Noises Off is his last at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, where his distinctive laugh can be heard booming out at each performance, as if encountering Frayn’s fractious dialogue and comedic mayhem for the first time.
Your reviewer finds himself laughing almost as much as Readman, having last experienced Frayn’s play in its first-ever staging in the round, after 43 years, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, as recently as August 2025.
Craig Kirby’s sozzled actor Selsdon Mowbray in the guise of The Burglar in Nothing On, the play-within-the-play in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
Readman gave the design brief to Rich Musk for the rotating stage that will go from staging the dress rehearsal in Weston-super-Mare to showing a mid-tour Ashton-under-Lyne matinee performance of Nothing On, Frayn’s deliberately clunky, maladroit play-within-a-play from backstage, before spinning 180 degrees again for the even more calamitous last night in Stockton-on-Tees.
Musk delivers the classic stage for a farce: no fewer than seven malfunctioning and misbehaving doors on two floors of a commodious des-res where everything that could go wrong does go wrong both on and off stage.
Instant calmer: Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton takes a breather in a yogic exercise in Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
Rory Mulvihill’s exasperated, vainglorious director, the ever-thespian Lloyd Dallas, is at the helm of Nothing On, expecting his harassed technical team of Mark Simmonds’s dogsbody Tim Allgood and Pearl Mollison’s overworked stage manger Poppy Norton-Taylor to do his running for him.
Already distracted by his upcoming Richard III in Aberystwyth, Dallas strives against the tide to steer his cast of has-beens (Craig Kirby’s drunkard veteran Selsdon Mowbray and Helen Spencer’s tour-backing grandee Dotty Otley; touring plodders (Adrian Cook’s over-thinking, physically fragile Frederick Fellowes and Jessica Hardcastle’s unflappable Belinda Blair), and aspiring talents (Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune and Alexandra Mather’s company ingenue Brooke Ashton).
Craving a quick exit? Rory Mulvihill’s acerbic director, Lloyd Dallas, looking as frustrated as ever in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
Frayn is in mischievous mood, with no room for pathos, as if throwing his own theatrical frustrations into the maelstrom of a warring company replete with the luvvies and the loveless, the boozer and the philanderer, the sex and drudgery and rollercoaster of fallouts in a claustrophobic world of fragile egos, frazzled minds, over-active bodies and a hopeless desire to somehow ensure the hapless show must go on.
Readman’s cast is crammed with supreme York talent, well drilled in ensemble commotion, topped off by Mulvihill’s veteran relish for a divisive director, Spencer’s persistent battles with plates of sardines, the outstanding Isherwood’s physical comedic prowess and boundlessly quizzical air and Mather’s ditziest of dizzy blondes.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm & 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
No British farce would be complete without dropped trousers. Adrian Cook’s forlorn Frederick Fellowes obliges as Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune looks on in Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine and Seb Carrington’s David Stillington in Present Laughter. Picture: Simon Annand
FROM classic Coward in Present Laughter to Frayn’s funniest farce, Noises Off, Alan Carr’s work in progress to Joe Jackson’s hope and fury, Charles Hutchinson piles up the good stuff for the week ahead.
Coward classic of the week: Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Augusta Productions present Present Laughter, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
TRACY-ANN Oberman stars as hugely successful actress Geri Essendine – who has been 39 for the best part of a decade – in Lindsay Posner’s new touring production of Noel Coward’s celebrated portrayal of the temptations and pitfalls of theatrical celebrity.
On the cusp of departing for a tour of Africa, Geri finds herself besieged by a bevy of would-be lovers, her long-suffering secretary, estranged husband and an obsessed young playwright. Will she ever disentangle herself from their tightening clutches and incessant demands? Then again, deep down, does she really want to? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Pearl Mollison, left, Craig Kirby, Alexandra Mather, Andrew Isherwood, Helen Spencer, Adrian Cook and Mark Simmonds, under the withering eye of Rory Mulvihill, right, director of the play-within-the-play in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off
Slamming doors, falling trousers and flying sardines of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
MICHAEL Frayn’s backstage farce Noises Off takes a wicked look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss and passionate affairs turns every performance into a high-risk adventure.
This play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run. Robert Readman directs a stellar York cast of Helen Spencer, Andrew Isherwood, Alexandra Mather, Rory Mulvihill, Pearl Mollison, Mark Simmonds, Craig Kirby, Jessica Hardcastle and Adrian Cook. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Joe Jackson: Returning to York Barbican tonight
Yorkgig of the week: Joe Jackson + Band, Hope And Fury Tour 2026, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm
JOE Jackson played York for only the second time at York Barbican on July 29 2022 as part of his Sing, You Sinners! Tour, having first shared a bill with Todd Rundgren and improvisational string quartet Ethel at the Grand Opera House in June 2005.
Now, the Portsmouth-raised singer, musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, author and campaigner, 72, returns with his regular band to perform work from throughout his career and to showcase his 23rd studio album Hope And Fury, released in April. Conner Youngblood supports. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Screening accompanied by live orchestra
Visual journey of the week: Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert, 20th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.30pm
The 20th Anniversary Tour of Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert combines a live orchestral performance with a two-hour visual journey through fan-favourite moments from the animated series, shown on a full-size cinema screen.
This special edition features new surprises, inviting fans to experience the story in a new light. Original dialogue and sound effects remain intact, while Emmy Award-winning composer Jeremy Zuckerman’s score is performed live, synchronised with the visuals. From taiko and erhu to strings and clarinets, the orchestra brings every moment to life, immersing you in the elemental world of Aang, Katara, Toph, Zuko and the rest of Team Avatar. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
An artwork by Angela Hall from the York Created exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York
York exhibition of the week:York Created: Paint-Clay-Print-Collage From The Heart Of The City, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until November 14
YORK Created: Paint-Clay-Print-Collage From The Heart Of The City features a “collection of talented artists from across our fair city”. “Some have exhibited with us before, others are new to us,” says Pyramid Gallery manager Fiona Macfarlane. “All the works are for sale.”
Taking part are potters Danny Aitkin, Chiu-i Wu, Loretta Braganza, Ben Arnup, Emily Stubbs, Jessica Jenyns and Ruth King, painters Rory Barke, Carolyn Coles, Jill Tattersall, Ric Liptrot, Lesley Birch, Mick Leach, Lesley Shaw and Angela Hall and stained glass artist Helen Bower. Opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.
Tom Carradine & Lili Redman: Wartime music, merriment and memories at Kirk Theatre, Pickering
Festival of the week: Pickering 1940s Weekend, V For Victory, Johnny Victory, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm; Tom Carradine’s Wartime Songbook , Sunday, 7.30pm
JOHNNY Victory opens the Pickering 1940s weekend on Friday by heading back to the good old days to guide singalongs of vintage songs that helped to keep wartime morale high and brought us together. Johnny combines songs from music hall days, 1920s, 1930s and 1940s’ wartime hits and show tunes with a warm, cheeky humour.
On Sunday, moustachioed maestro Tom Carradine leads a joyous, toe-tapping celebration of the songs that kept Great Britain smiling through two World Wars in a nostalgic show packed with rousing classics, history, humour and stories behind the songs, such as the tragic tale of the Powell brothers who wrote Pack Up Your Troubles. Joining Tom will be cabaret songbird Lili Redman, his podcast co-host of The A To Z Of Wartime Song, to perform Gracie Fields, Vera Lynn and deliciously cheeky numbers. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
Victoria Firth in Batty!: Exploration of “the wildness – as opposed to madness – of women” at Helmsley Arts Centre
Alternative coming-of-age story of the week: Victoria Firth in Batty!, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
WRITTEN and performed by Victoria Firth and directed by Natasha Holmes, Batty! is the story of a woman who fears she might be a witch: an ordinary woman stuck with an extraordinary shape-shifting companion, a wild thing. This curious twosome shares a disintegrating cottage in a forest on the cusp of another world that lies beyond responsibilities and social norms and where myths and magic are real.
Featuring an original soundscape and live song, Batty! combines “the intimacy of private conversations, raucous stories, snorting humour, gay abandon and exquisite tenderness” in its exploration of “the wildness – as opposed to madness – of women and how our feral side can reconnect us to ourselves and our environment”. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Celya AB: Saturday Night Live UK writer on stage at Theatre@41
How to break free from shame, as advised by: Celya AB, We Must Stop Meeting Like This, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Friday, 8pm
HAVE you ever forensically over-thought your life choices? Are they all somehow connected to a passing comment your Spanish teacher made when you were 15? Has it made an impact on everything from your love life to your career? Stand-up comedian and Saturday Night Live UK writer Celya AB’s new show focuses on breaking free from shame and what ensues when you do. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/.
The Paul Simon Songbook, performed by Alastair James and his seven-piece band at Helmsley Arts Centre
Tribute gig of the week: The Paul Simon Songbook, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm
ALASTAIR James and his seven-piece band highlight the carefully crafted arrangements inspired by Paul Simon’s most iconic live and studio performances, featuring renditions of Mrs Robinson, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Scarborough Fair, Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover, Still Crazy After All These Years, Late In The Evening, You Can Call Me Al and Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Brodsky Quartet: Playing chamber concert at Helmsley Arts Centre on Sunday
Classical concert of the week: Brodsky Quartet, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 2.30pm
SINCE forming in 1972 as the Cleveland Quartet in Middlesbrough, the Brodsky Quartet has performed more than 3,000 chamber music concerts on the major stages of the world and released 70-plus recordings.
The quartet’s name is taken from the Russian violinist Adolf Brodsky, himself a passionate chamber musician, and the 2026 line-up comprises Krysia Osostowicz and Ian Belton, violins, Paul Cassidy, viola, and Jacqueline Thomas, cello. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Alan Carr: Testing out new material in two gigs in one day at Pocklington Arts Centre
Comedy gigs of the week: Alan Carr, Work In Progress, Pocklington Arts Centre, Sunday, 3pm and 7.30pm
THE Celebrity Traitors 2026 winner, comedian, television presenter and quiz host Alan Carr is heading to Pocklington Arts Centre for a brace of “very special work-in-progress shows” ahead of his Have I Said Too Much? tour, when he will play York Barbican on March 13 2027. Box office: Pocklington, pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; York, yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Rory Mulvihill’s Lloyd Dallas, right, casts his dyspeptic directorial eye over his cast for Nothing On, the play-within-the-play in Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off: Pearl Mollison’s Poppy Norton-Taylor, left, Craig Kirby’s Selsdon Mowbray, Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton, Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune, Helen Spencer’s Dotty Otley, Adrian Cook’s Frederick Fellowes and Mark Simmonds’ Tim Allgood
MICHAEL Frayn first had the notion to write his play-within-a-play Noises Off while observing his play The Two Of Us from the wings.
A one-act version, Exits, entered the stage in 1977, to be followed by the three-act full-fat farce in February 1982 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, that has never exited ever since.
Now, this week’s Pick Me Up Theatre production will be company founder Robert Readman’s last as director at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, where he has assembled the peachiest of York casts.
Step forward Helen Spencer, Andrew Isherwood, Alexandra Mather, Rory Mulvihill, Pearl Mollison, Mark Simmonds, Craig Kirby, Jessica Hardcastle and Adrian Cook from tonight (6/10/2026) to Saturday.
“Noises Off takes a wicked look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss and passionate affairs turn every performance into a high-risk adventure,” says Robert.
“This play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run.”
Robert continues: “Frayn gives us a window into the inner workings of theatre behind the scenes, progressing from flubbed lines and missed cues in the dress rehearsal to mounting friction between cast members in the final performance.
“Noises Off has a great attraction to the public, but it has even more so to actors, who crave playing Frayn’s roles,” says Rory Mulvihill
“Brimming with slapstick comedy, Noises Off is a delightful backstage farce, complete with slamming doors, falling trousers and –of course – sardines.”
Taking the role of Lloyd Dallas, the sarcastic, condescending, egotistical, exasperated, temperamental director of Nothing On, is veteran York actor and erstwhile Leeds solicitor Rory Mulvihill, who turned 70 in June.
“I actually saw Noises Off in the early 1980s, very soon after it first came out, and I was absolutely blown away by it,” he recalls.
“It spoke to me as someone who performs in shows how particular actors react to things going wrong on stage.
“I particularly remember the dizzy blonde character Brooke Ashton (to be played this week by Alexandra Mather), one of those actors who knows she has certain lines to say in a certain order, and whatever happens, she will get them out in that order.
“Noises Off has a great attraction to the public, but it has even more so to actors, who crave playing Frayn’s roles.”
Relishing his latest role, Rory says: “The great thing about my part is that I’m able to reproduce some of the characteristics of the directors I’ve worked with – and Frayn has done that too of course.
Rory Mulvihill’s director, Lloyd Dallas, seeking urgent lubrication as matters off stage start to overwhelm his already catastrophic production of Nothing On in Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry
“I don’t normally get involved in ‘back stories’, but Frayn has done a spoof biography of each character, and so you get enough clues from his writing in the play and the biog that Lloyd Dallas is a failed director who clearly thinks he’s better than he is. He has a very high opinion of himself.
“He’s a bully, bullying everyone, particularly the gofer, Tim Allgood, [the overworked, exhausted, and easily flustered stage manager, played by Mark Simmonds from tonight], but they all take it, all under that veneer of ‘camp theatre speak’!
“One hundred per cent you play Lloyd ‘up’. How else could you play it? I don’t think it’s possible to play him ‘down’. You couldn’t do it deadpan.”
Noises Off may be 44 years old, but its home truths of the acting world resonant as deeply as ever. “The only way you know it’s a period piece is some of its references, such as to the Queen Mother, and the lack of modern technology, but otherwise it’s timeless. However, I have grown a moustache and sideburns – my partner loathes them! – to be more in keeping with the period,” says Rory. “Fashion-wise it’s a period piece but the humour feels contemporary.”
Describing Frayn’s comedic style, Rory says: “It’s 100 per cent grounded in things he has observed – like [Alan] Ayckbourn too. Their genius is to take what they see and turn it into dialogue, like comedians do, reproducing it in a way that’s funny to the audience.
“What differs from Ayckbourn is how there’s no pathos in Noises Off. In Ayckbourn’s plays, it’s always there somewhere. It’s the same with Alan Bennett – I was lucky enough to do Chip In The Sugar, which was both hilarious and emotionally draining at the same time.”
Should you be wondering if one particular director has had an impact on Rory’s portrayal of Lloyd Dallas, he says: “I did over 40 shows with [the late] Bev Jones – and Lloyd is like him in saying ‘love’ and ‘honey’ – but unlike Lloyd, it was lovely to work with him!”
Pick Me Up Theatre in Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for this week’s production of Michael Frayn’s theatrical farce Noises Off
Angela Hall’s artwork from York Created at Pyramid Gallery
FROM classic Coward in Present Laughter to Frayn’s finest farce, Noises Off, York’s unlocked buildings to Joe Jackson’s hope and fury, Charles Hutchinson piles up the good stuff for the week ahead.
Exhibition opening of the week: York Created: Paint-Clay-Print-Collage From The Heart Of The City, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, until November 14
YORK Created: Paint-Clay-Print-Collage From The Heart Of The City features a “collection of talented artists from across our fair city”. “Some have exhibited with us before, others are new to us,” says Pyramid Gallery manager Fiona Macfarlane. “All the works are for sale.”
Taking part are potters Danny Aitkin, Chiu-i Wu, Loretta Braganza, Ben Arnup, Emily Stubbs, Jessica Jenyns and Ruth King, painters Rory Barke, Carolyn Coles, Jill Tattersall, Ric Liptrot, Lesley Birch, Mick Leach, Lesley Shaw and Angela Hall and stained glass artist Helen Bower. Opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.
Dennis Rollins: Delivering Funky-Funk! to YorkJazzFest’s Bishopthorpe Road Car park Finale tomorrow
Festival of the week: YorkJazzFest, today and tomorrow
TODAY, Beppe Lombardo’s inaugural YorkJazzFest features: 6pm, Flowerden, The Winning Post; 6pm, Mutant DJ Jazz, Angel On The Green; 6.30pm, Emma Foulds Quintet, York Arts Barge; 7pm, SwanNek, Young Thugs Studios; 8.30pm, Al Morrison Quartet, The Winning Post; 8.30pm, Olivia Cuttill, York Arts Barge; 9pm, Borgia, Angel On The Green, and 9pm, Lovedancin’ DJ, Young Thugs Studios. For tickets, go to: yorkjazzfestival.com.
Tomorrow, the Bishopthorpe Road Car Park Finale runs from midday with free entry and no ticket required. On the bill are: 12 noon, YorkJazzFest Orchestra; 1pm, Vipertime; 2.15pm, Big Bamboo; 4.15pm, Fergus Quill Sextet, and 6pm, Dennis Rollins’ Funky-Funk! Ian Chalk concludes the event at The Phoenix Inn at 8pm; free entry.
Federico Pendenza: Two world premieres at this afternoon’s York Late Music concert
Season finale of the week: York Late Music presents Federico Pendenza, Folk Roots To Classical Form, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviouragte, York, today, 1pm
UNIVERSITY of York guitarist Federico Pendenza concludes York Late Music’s concert season with Folk Roots To Classical Form, featuring William Walton’s only piece written for guitar (following a persuasive word from Julian Bream!), two intimate pieces by the “Chopin of the guitar”, Agustín Barrios, and two world premieres, Macey Collins’s Impressions Of Tension and Noor Hingorani’s Pomegranates On My Altar, which draws on the Persian Sofreh wedding ceremony, where pomegranates represent joy, passion and strength. Box office: latemusic.org/federico-pendoza-guitar or on the door.
York Unlocked: Unlocking York’s significant, hidden and secret buildings
Free discoveries of the week: York Unlocked, today and tomorrow
YORK Unlocked opens York’s most interesting, significant, even hidden and secret buildings to the public completely for free, although some buildings require free pre-booked tickets. This weekend’s festival enables residents and visitors alike to see York in a new way and aims to educate and inspire a love of architecture this weekend. To download the full programme, go to: https://www.york-unlocked.org.uk/_files/ugd/972e50_ba8593730b26433e8b060829ff5bd5ac.pdf.
Michael Shafar: Headlining Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement
Comedy gigs of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, today, 4pm and 8pm
LAUGH Out Loud promoter Damion Larkin has added an extra show at 4pm in response to ticket demand for tonight’s 8pm bill of Michael Shafar, Ant Dewson, Mike Carter and Gary Jennison.
Former lawyer Shafar left Australia to ply his comedy trade over here. Dewson is a comedian, mediocre piano player and singer of silly songs, many of them rude. Carter covers everything from living with your nan in your 30s to the realities of engaging in “kinky stuff” when you have a coordination disorder. Jennison promises dance-offs, game shows, magic and unbridled chaos. Box office: lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Brian Bilston: Poetic words at Milton Rooms, Malton
Poet of the week: Brian Bilston, How To Lay An Egg With A Horse Inside, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 7.30pm
BRIAN Bilston, a poet with more than 500,000 followers on social media, returns to the stage this autumn with his latest book, How To Lay An Egg With A Horse Inside, as he takes a journey through the hows, whys and whats of reading, writing and enjoying poetry every day.
Bilston has published such collections as You Took The Last Bus Home, Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love? and Days Like These, along with debut novel Diary Of A Somebody, poetry for younger readers and his 2025 album of poetry set to music, Sounds Made By Humans, recorded with The Catenary Wires. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine and Seb Carrington’s David Stillington in Present Laughter. Picture: Simon Annand
Coward classic of the week: Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Augusta Productions present Present Laughter, Grand Opera House, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
TRACY-ANN Oberman stars as hugely successful actress Geri Essendine – who has been 39 for the best part of a decade – in Lindsay Posner’s new touring production of Noel Coward’s celebrated portrayal of the temptations and pitfalls of theatrical celebrity.
On the cusp of departing for a tour of Africa, Geri finds herself besieged by a bevy of would-be lovers, her long-suffering secretary, estranged husband and an obsessed young playwright. Will she ever disentangle herself from their tightening clutches and incessant demands? Then again, deep down, does she really want to? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Pick Me Up Theatre cast members Pearl Mollison, left, Craig Kirby, Alexandra Mather, Andrew Isherwood, Helen Spencer, Adrian Cook and Mark Simmonds, under the withering eye of Rory Mulvihill, right, director of the play-within-the-play in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off
Slamming doors, falling trousers and flying sardines of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
MICHAEL Frayn’s backstage farce Noises Off takes a wicked look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss and passionate affairs turns every performance into a high-risk adventure.
This play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run. Robert Readman directs a stellar York cast of Helen Spencer, Andrew Isherwood, Alexandra Mather, Rory Mulvihill, Pearl Mollison, Mark Simmonds, Craig Kirby, Jessica Hardcastle and Adrian Cook. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Joe Jackson: Returning to York Barbican
Gig of the week: Joe Jackson + Band, Hope And Fury Tour 2026, York Barbican, October 7, doors 7pm
JOE Jackson played York for only the second time at York Barbican on July 29 2022 as part of his Sing, You Sinners! Tour, having first shared a bill with Todd Rundgren and improvisational string quartet Ethel at the Grand Opera House in June 2005.
Now, the Portsmouth-raised singer, musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, author and campaigner, 72, returns with his regular band to perform work from throughout his career and to showcase his 23rd studio album Hope And Fury, released in April. Conner Youngblood supports. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Acosta Danza in Andonis Foniadakis’s new work Pearls. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
In Focus: Carlos Acosta’s Acosta Danza in Cuban Baroque, York Theatre Royal, October 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
IN this new double bill from Acosta Danza, the lush artistry of the Baroque period intersects with the energy, creativity and vibrancy of Cuban dance. Emerging from the 17th and 18th centuries, the creative movement was characterised by deep colour, elaborate detail and intricate decoration.
Produced by Valid Productions in collaboration with York Theatre Royal, Cuban Baroque opens with the world premiere of Andonis Foniadakis’s new work Pearls, a journey to the rhythmic heart of Baroque, followed by choreographer and set designer Goyo Montero’s 2011 work Chacona.
Artistic director Carlos Acosta says: “I am very excited about this programme which will encapsulate the essence of Acosta Danza, fusing as it will, classical, Cuban and contemporary vocabularies and styles.
“I am, of course, a big fan of both choreographers and am delighted that Andonis will create a brand-new piece on my dancers. I look forward to seeing how that develops over the coming months.
“The flavour of the evening is summarised neatly by the title Cuban Baroque, but essentially this is a programme that anyone interested in any kind of dance can enjoy. I look forward, as always, to seeing how audiences react to the atmosphere this programme will create at its premiere in our first-ever visit to the wonderful York Theatre Royal.”
Acosta Danza in Goyo Montero’s 2011 workChacona at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Theatre Royal chief executive Paul Crewes says: “It is truly wonderful that York audiences will be the first to experience this phenomenally exciting dance programme on our stage and we are really looking forward to working in collaboration with Carlos Acosta and his company on the show.”
Set to Esteban Sallas’s Salve Regina, the work explores the classic chaconne-looping structure that circles through phases of acceleration, fracture and rebound. As the score shifts from Baroque lyricism toward Cuban drive, Foniadakis showcases the fusion between memory and contemporary.
Andonis Foniadakis says: “The piece is being built as a chaconne in the broadest sense: a looping architecture that keeps circling back to the same theme like a mantra, each return opening a new variation in colour, density and impulse.
Cuban rhythmic principles will seep into the texture (clave, layered pulses, dance-derived momentum) and begin to tilt the baroque theme from within — bringing Sallas’s music fully into the present.
“In this dialogue, contrast becomes fusion: baroque memory meets Cuban propulsion; choral breath meets percussive drive; live sound meets a discreet electronic halo — shaping a single energetic trajectory that stays clear, intense, and emotionally resonant.”
Acosta Danza in Goyo Montero’s Chacona. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Closing the 1hr 20 min programme is Goyo Montero’s powerful Chacona, a piece that originally was created for the Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballett during Montero’s 17-year tenure as director. Chacona is the final movement of Bach’s masterwork Partita No.2 in D Minor for violin, accompanied in this performance by guitar and piano. Physically and musically demanding, classical in sound and contemporary in heart, it requires total cohesion from the ensemble of 16 dancers.
Goyo Montero says: “This is going to be my fourth collaboration with Acosta Danza since 2015. To bring this work to them and adapt it to their fearless and exceptional dancers is something I am looking forward to very much. To restage this early work and revisit it for them will develop the work further and keep it alive, relevant and ever changing, a choreographer’s dream!”
In addition, Acosta Danza will hold an Open Class today (3/10/2026) at 10am on the Theatre Royal stage in an exclusive opportunity to watch how the dancers warm up and prepare ahead of a performance. This non-participatory event is open to all ages.
The York Theatre Royal premiere of Cuban Baroque will be followed by performances at Sadler’s Wells in London and Norwich Theatre Royal with further 2027 dates to be added. Box office for shows and Open Class: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Did you know?
ACOSTA Danza performed Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana at the Grand Opera House, York, in January 2026.
Acosta Danza in Pearls at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick
Susan Twist’s Dotty Otley in the Stephen Joseph Theatre production of Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
FROM Frayn’s finest farce to Leeds Festival, War Horse to Bombay Bicycle Club, August puts the highs into Charles Hutchinson’s summer.
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 “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.
Tom Sturgess (Albert Narracott), left, Diany Samba-Bandza, Jordan Paris and Eloise Beaumont-Wood (Baby Joey) in War Horse. Picture: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
Yorkshire theatre event of the week: National Theatre in War Horse, Leeds Grand Theatre, until September 6
WAR Horse, adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s novel by Nick Stafford and originally directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, has become the National Theatre’s most successful play, collecting more than 25 awards and playing to 8.3 million people worldwide.
Now comes a new tour, co-produced with Michael Harrison, Fiery Angel and Playing Field, that takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from rural Devon to the trenches of First World War France. Life-sized horses by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company bring breathing, galloping, charging equines to thrilling life on stage. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
Chappell Roan: Making her biggest British appearance to date at Leeds Festival. Picture: Leeds Festival
Festival of the week: Leeds Festival, Bramham Park, near Wetherby, tomorrow to Sunday
ALWAYS the festival to mark the end of the summer season of outdoor joys, Leeds Festival welcomes Travis Scott as the Friday headliner in his only European festival appearance. Sammy Virji, D-Block Europe, Trippie Redd and Amyl And The Sniffers are in action on that day too.
Saturday’s bill features Hozier, Chappell Roan, in the Midwest Princess’s biggest UK show yet, AJ Tracey, The Kooks, Bloc Party and Rudim3ntal, while the Sunday finale presents Bring Me The Horizon, Limp Bizkit, Becky Hill, Enter Shakiri and Wunderhorse. For the full line-up and ticket details, head to: leedsfestival.com.
Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes: Making Rise debut in York. Picture: Richard Reid
Australian double bill of the week: Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes and Melody Pool, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb York, tomorrow, doors open at 7.30pm
LACHLAN Bryan & The Wildes are appearing in “full band mode” in the UK for the first time, stopping off at Rise. Until now, at Maverick Festival in 2019, 2023 and 2024 and shows around these isles as headliners or supporting good friends Hannah Aldridge and Alan Fletcher, the band has travelled the Northern Hemisphere mostly as a three-piece.
That all changes as the usual suspects, Melbourne storyteller Lachlan, guitarist Riley Catherall and bass player Shaun Ryan, are joined by Ben Middleton on drums and Yorkshire’s own Emily Lawler on fiddle and viola. Australian songwriter Melody Pool supports. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.
Bombay Bicycle Club: Riding into York Barbican on Friday. Picture: Bombay Bicycle Club website
York gig of the week: Bombay Bicycle Club, supported by Divorce, York Barbican, Friday, doors 7pm
LED as ever by vocalist, pianist and guitarist Jack Steadman, Bombay Bicycle Club’s set list will draw on songs from the Crouch End band’s six albums that span folk, electronica and world music, as well as indie guitar rock. The latest addition, 2023’s My Big Day, parades a revelatory set of vibrant, joyous compositions that bask in the sunshine. Feel the heat on Friday. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Luke Haines, right, & Peter Buck: Showcasing new album at Pocklington Arts Centre
Gig of the week outside York: Luke Haines & Peter Buck, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, 8pm
LUKE Haines, Walton-on-Thames musician, songwriter and author of Freaks Out! and Bad Vibes: Britpop And My Part In Its Downfall, is best known for his bands The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder. Now his collaborator is Peter Buck, co-founder and lead guitarist of R.E.M for 31 years.
On July 28, Haines & Buck released the third in their “psychiatric trilogy” of albums, Going Down To The River…To Blow My Mind,following Beat Poetry For Survivalists in 2020 and All The Kids Are Super Bummed Out in 2022. Their tour takes in further Yorkshire gigs at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on August 27 and Leeds Brudenell Social Club on August 28. The Minus 5 support. Box office: Pocklington, for returns only, 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk; Hebden Bridge, thetradesclub.com/events/hainesbuck; Leeds, brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
The poster for Tommy Cannon’s show at Kirk Theatre, Pickering
Comedy night of the week: An Audience With Tommy Cannon, Keeping The Magic Alive, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Saturday, 7.30pm
BEST known as one half of comedy duo Cannon & Ball, national treasure Tommy Cannon presents a night of entertainment, laughter and nostalgia with the billing of “Legend, Laughter & Legacy – Live On Stage” as he shares stories from his 50-plus career in showbusiness, many in tandem with Bobby Ball.
Expect behind-the-scenes secrets, career highlights and heartfelt reflections on his life on and off screen, delivered with charm, warmth and wit. Recollections from the golden days of British television to his stage work and appearances on hit shows will be topped off with special surprises (maybe a song), archive clips and a Q&A, when you can ask Tommy anything. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk.
One of Simon Baxter’s photographs from All The Wood’s A Stage, his joint exhibition with Joe Cornish at National Trust Nunnington Hall. Picture: Simon Baxter
Exhibition announcement of the week: All The Wood’s A Stage, National Trust Nunnington Hall, near York, from September 20 to March 29 2026
ALL The Wood’s A Stage will continue the 2022 showcase Woodland Sanctuary, exhibited originally at the Moors Centre in Danby. This latest chapter features predominantly new photographs that celebrate the beauty and vital significance of trees, woodlands and forests across the UK.
Photographers Joe Cornish and Simon Baxter depict trees as silent performers on nature’s stage, encouraging us to observe, listen and reflect. Trees provide joy, peace and inspiration, being lungs of the Earth, guardians of biodiversity and a crucial part of our mental and physical well-being. Through changing seasons, they symbolise life, death and renewal. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/nunnington-hall.
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 Brooke Ashton).
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
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 [email protected].
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.
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
Moorlandfestival 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 [email protected].
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.
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.
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 [email protected].
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.
