Riding Lights executive director Ollie Brown, left, and artistic director Paul Birch
YORK theatre company Riding Lights has vowed that the show must go on after the theft of its van and set for 2026 Lent tour show Night Falls.
The van contained the entire set, costumes and technical equipment for artistic director Paul Birch’s fresh, vivid and dynamic retelling of the Easter story.
After weeks of preparation and the 31-date UK tour’s launch at The Lowry, Salford, the sudden, overnight disappearance of almost everything needed to stage Night Falls has left the company devastated at the loss yet determined that the tour will continue despite the setback.
Riding Lights Theatre Company actors Matthew Rutherford and Esther Atkins in Paul Birch’s Night Falls. Picture: Tom Jackson
Cast and crew returned to their Friargate Theatre base in York to begin work on rebuilding the production, sourcing replacement technical equipment, assembling an alternative set from the company’s warehouse and pulling together replacement costumes with support from suppliers and partners.
“The production may look different when it returns to the stage, but its story and message remain unchanged — a message of hope emerging from grief, and the belief that even in difficult moments, joy can follow,” says executive director Ollie Brown.
“We are truly devastated by this loss. Months of work disappeared overnight, but we are determined to pick ourselves up and carry on. The show will go on. We are already working hard to rebuild the production so we can get back on the road. We are moving mountains to make it happen.”
Matthew Rutherford and Esther Atkins in a scene from Riding Lights’s production of Paul Birch’s Night Falls. Picture: Tom Jackson
Riding Lights is asking for support from the public and the theatre community to help sustain the remaining tour dates and rebuild what has been lost. Donations can be made at www.ridinglights.org/donate.
Blending music and powerful drama, alongside space for reflection and worship, Birch’s new Passion Play covers the final four days before an execution that will change everything in a story of three enemies who want to put an end to the so-called Messiah, two strangers torn between faith and doubt, hope and grief, as they try to prevent Jesus of Nazareth from getting himself arrested, and one safe house in Bethany.
The hours are running out, but even as night falls, a strange hope is wrapped in a secret that both strangers share. For this is the house of Lazarus, and under his roof, the impossible has already occurred.
In the weeks ahead, Night Falls is booked to play Dorchester, Gloucester, Camberley, Ash, in Kent, Chelmsford, Lowestoft, Billericay, St Albans, Chiswick, Skegness, Stratford-upon-Avon, Croydon, St German’s Priory, in Cornwall, and Minehead on the tour’s closing day, April 6.
Friargate Theatre’s brochure cover for the Autumn 2024season
THE poster boxes have gone, the windows are clear, the entrance hallway has new seating, all signs of the revival of activities at the Friargate Theatre in York.
Most significantly of all, brochures for the autumn season of comedy, theatre, storytelling, music, film and family shows at the home of Riding Lights Theatre Company are being distributed around the city.
In the wake of the death of Riding Lights founder and director and Friargate Theatre artistic programmer Paul Burbridge last year, the Christian theatre company is in the process of recruiting a new executive director and artistic director.
As the search goes on, the task of overseeing the Lower Friargate theatre and the autumn season falls to associate director Ollie Brown. “This season is all about rebuilding our audience,” he says. “Maybe some people have forgotten us as York’s hidden theatre by the river; we want to be come better known again with a programme that really supports York’s arts scene with shows York wants to see.”
Comedy will be to the fore, led off by the return of Right Here, Right Now, York’s improv comedy night on September 20, October 18, November 15 and December 6, when the merry band of improvisers will turn audience suggestions into chaotic comedy, music, mayhem and joy-filled nonsense.
September 26 marks the launch of Get Up Stand Up, York’s new monthly comedy club, featuring stand-ups from the British comedy circuit, each bill comprising a compere introducing two acts.
Check online at friargatetheatre.co.uk for updates on the 8pm line-ups for the last Thursday of each month, including October 31 and November 28. Steffen Peddie will host the first two shows, Tony Vino, the next two, and Patrick Monahan and Lost Voice Guy (Lee Ridley) will be among the acts heading for Lower Friargate.
Frankenstein (On A Budget), on October 5, combines one man, one monster, one glorious dream to singlehandedly tell the most famous cult horror story of all time on no budget whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong in this comedy musical Hammer Horror homage, replete with new music, cardboard creations and characters inspired by Mary Shelley and Boris Karloff.
Súper Chefs: Interactive musical exploring family, food and gender roles at Friargate Theatre on November 17
Still on the comedy front, ever witty York sketch writer and playwright Paul Birch will be holding workshops at his Improv Gym, some at Friargate Theatre, others at York Theatre Royal.
The autumn season will open on September 7 with the first family show, Welcome To The World, Little Wild Theatre’s interactive entertainment for nought to five-year-olds that takes a journey with Mother Earth’s children, Tide, Ariel and Blaze as they take their first steps in the world.
On September 28, Rhubarb Theatre’s Finding Chester follows the story of Edith Tiddles’ missing moggie when she needs the help of her delivery team to orchestrate the search.
Murray Lachlan Young’s epic fairytale for six-year-olds and upwards, The Chronicles Of Atom And Luna, will be performed by Funnelwick Limb on October 29 and October 30, with its story of special twins, one who can talk to the birds, the other who can control the moon.
Further family entertainment follows with Jam Jar Theatre’s puppetry musical How A Jellyfish Saved The World on November 3; Maya Productions’ Súper Chefs, a bi-lingual, interactive Latin American family musical by Betsy Picart, on November 17, and York company Next Door But One’s The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, a magical voyage across lakes and over mountains based on Philip Pullman’s novel, on November 30.
A season of thought-provoking and dynamic plays will start in a hurry on October 12 when Crew Of Patches present The Shakespeare Jukebox. The rules are simple: “give us the name of a Shakespeare play and we’ll do it…well, a bit of it at least”. History, comedy and tragedy combine chaotically, faced with 37 plays to slay.
Climate change will be the topic on October 12 in Decommissioned, a heart-warming, comical play inspired by the true story of Fairbourne in Wales, with its story of caring for children, falling in love and staying sane while tackling the climate catastrophe.
Frankenstein (On A Budget): Comedy musical Hammer Horror homage with gore & flashing lights on October 5
On October 25, Adverse Camber presents storyteller Phil Okwedy in The Gods Are All Here, a personal story sparked by the discovery of letters from his father in Nigeria to his mother in Wales. Myths, folk tales and legends of the African diaspora feature.
On November 29, Andrew Harrison performs The Beloved Son, a new play written and directed by Riding Lights luminary Murray Watts for Wayfarer Productions that explores hope and longing, family dynamics, sexual and emotional crises and the profound insights of priest and psychologist Henri Nouwen.
Mat Jones brings Charles Dickens’s Victorian story of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge to life in his solo performance of A Christmas Carol on December 13.
The autumn’s season’s storytelling sessions promise a busy day for Gav Cross on November 2, presenting Ghastly Stories For Gruesome Gremlins at 2pm and After Supper Ghost Stories, a portmanteau of ghostly tales told by an unreliable narrator, at 7.30pm.
On the music front, on October 19, Saturday Night With The Shakers showcases the hits, misses, B-sides and lost classics from the golden age of Merseybeat. On November 1, Joseph O’Brien pays homage to Frank Sinatra in A Man And His Music.
The Aesthetica Short Film Festival will be in residence from November 6 to 10 and a Christmas film double bill of The Muppet Christmas Carol (2.30pm) and Die Hard (8pm) is booked in for December 7.
Riding Lights return home for A Christmas Cracker, Paul Birch’s festive family show bursting with seasonal stories, told by world famous but lost storyteller Ebenezer Sneezer, from December 21 to 24. Comedy, puppetry and storytelling, strange ideas and a dog called Cracker combine in this magical glimpse of Christmas.
To book tickets, head to friargatetheatre.co.uk or ring 01904 613000.
