Alexander Flanagan Wright, left, Phil Grainger and Megan Drury in The Gods The Gods The Gods
WHY call this Wright & Grainger show The Gods The Gods The Gods, rather than plain old The Gods?
“A lot of things come in threes and a lot of things in this show fall naturally into threes,” reasons Alexander Flangan Wright, the Wright to Phil Grainger’s Grainger in this enduring Easingwold partnership.
“It’s one of those powerful numbers: a triad, with the three of us telling the story.” Make that Grainger & Wright & Drury, the trio being completed by Megan Drury, Australian actor, blues singer, writer, creative artists and dramaturg – oh, and newly married to Alex too.
The Gods The Gods Gods is the third in the trilogy of myth, music and spoken word shows by Grainger & Wright, premiered in a Covid-curtailed Australian visit in 2020 and now following Orpheus and Eurydice into open-air performances under the sails at Stillington Mill, near York.
The Gods X 3 will be heading indoors at the Edinburgh Fringe, with lighting pyrotechnics re-booted in the Assembly Rooms’ Bijou tent from August 3 to 29, when this dancier variation on gig theatre will carry the warnings: “Audience participation, Involves walking, Strobe lighting, Strong language/swearing”.
Saturday night was rather more informal, Alex, Phil and Megan testing out their hi-tech electronic requirements, spread out in a triangle of stations of equipment, as the audience gathered on the banks of seating. “Still not the show,” Alex would say, as another adjustment was made.
Such is the nature of a Fringe warm-up and of a first performance in this al-fresco iteration minus the probing strobe lighting. It was all very much in keeping with the spirit of At The Mill, where theatrical magic is made on the hoof, aided by Abbigail Ollive’s pizzas adding culinary pizzazz to the occasion and cocktails playing on the tongue.
Still doing the Maths, The Gods The Gods The Gods is in fact four, not three, stories, spread over 11 original musical tracks arranged by Grainger and Tom Figgins. They are stories of faith and loss of faith; love and loss of love; faith in anything but religious faith; false gods and new gods; a search for holy ground or finding heaven on earth. All set against a final council of the old Gods, Zeus and co, gathering at the end of days.
As Wright elucidated at the close, they are stories grown freshly from the seeds of Kae Tempest, Walt Whitman and David Whyte (Finisterre), and the messages on 28 signs posted on London’s Millennium Bridge, read by Alex and Megan as they crossed over between St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern, the towers of God and gallery, religion and art, that now do battle in The Gods The Gods The Gods.
Phil plays guitar and sings mightily yet tenderly, a Yorkshireman as soulful as Joe Cocker and John Newman; Megan throws shapes and switches between heartfelt spoken word and blues singing that brings out the bruises; Alex plays bass and percussion and spins words of dazzling rhythm, breath-taking in their imagery and rapper’s speed. All three tap away at technology too, evoking Kraftwerk.
Grainger & Wright promised a big, loud, bopping night in the garden – and delivered exactly that. In every way it is the biggest show of the trilogy; the spoken word now complemented by a broader musical palette that combines classic songwriting tropes and lyricism with dancefloor pulses and electronic flash to induce a state of euphoria.
Alas, more Gods than advertised played their hand as the night darkened: the Weather Gods raining on the parade – and all that technology – with one story yet to be completed. Suddenly, the night “involved walking” as we were ushered to the café bar, where Wright gave a resumé of the closing chapters, finishing with that inspirational walk across the London bridge. Trouble at The Mill? Not when they can improvise like that.
An album is in the offing too, and that won’t be in the lap – or laptop- of the Gods, the Gods, the Gods.
Holly Beasley-Garrigan in Opal Fruits, tonight at 7pm
THE Stilly Fringe presents Opal Fruits, Holly Beasley-Garrigan’s solo show about class, nostalgia and five generations of women from a London council estate in South London, tonight at 7pm; Casey Jay Andrews’ The Wild Unfeeling World, a tender, furious and fragile re-imagining of Moby Dick, and A Place That belongs To Monsters, a re-imagining of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, tomorrow at 7pm and 8.45pm respectively.
Lucy Bird, originally from Ampleforth, heads back north with her Birmingham company Paperback Theatre for an “utterly Brummie” re-telling of The Wind In The Willows on July 30 at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
Yoshika Colwell returns to The Mill for the Stilly Fringe finale, Invisible Mending, her exploration of the power in small acts of creativity through original music, metaphysics and verbatim material, in collaboration with Second Body’s Max Barton, on July 31 at 7pm.
Mouth-watering prospect: Holly Beasley-Garrigan in Opal Fruits on July 28
THE Great Yorkshire Fringe exited stage left from York in 2019 after five years, 1,200 shows, 9,000 performers and 110,000 visitors.
Frustrated by red tape, impresario Martin Witts pulled the plug on his fiesta of comedy, theatre, spoken word and children’s shows, since when the black hole in York’s summer entertainment calendar has never been filled.
In no way on the same scale, but occupying the same pre-Edinburgh Fringe slot, here comes the Stilly Fringe, out on the fringes of York at Stillington Mill, the home of the At The Mill arts hub, Saturday café and guest-chef supper club nights.
Running from tonight(July 22) until July 31, this is the latest enterprise from newly married Alexander Flanagan Wright, North Yorkshire writer, theatre-maker and visionary facilitator, and Megan Drury, Australian actor, writer and creative artist.
Selkie myth making: Hannah Davies and Jack Woods in The Ballad Of Blea Wyke on Saturday and Sunday night
“It’s come about because a bunch of our dear pals said, ‘can we come and do this?’, like most of the things we do here come about,” says Alex. “There seemed to be a critical mass to make us think these weekends would be a good way to test things out.
“We thought, ‘let’s do it in a communal and convivial way’ with that bond between audiences and performers giving it a different vibe, seeing new work with a chance to chat with the artists. We love doing that here.”
Presented in the mill gardens, either on the open-air stage on the repurposed tennis court or under the cover of the café-bar, the Summer At The Mill programme takes in theatre and spoken-word premieres, comedy, children’s shows, concerts, Gary Stewart’s folk club bills, even silent disco dance nights.
The Stilly Fringe largely mirrors that format but with the added intrigue of giving an early opportunity to see shows bound for the Scottish capital in August. “Six out of nine are going to Edinburgh,” says Alex. “The Lovely Boys, The Gods The Gods The Gods, Invisible Mending, Opal Fruits and Casey Jay Andrews’ double bill, The Wild Unfeeling World and A Place That Belongs To Monsters, are all heading there.”
The Lovely Boys: Opening Stilly Fringe tonight
First up, tonight at 7pm, will be Joe Kent-Walters and Mikey Bligh-Smith’s absurd clown bonanza, The Lovely Boys, followed by Harrison Casswell & Friends, an 8.45pm set of electric spoken word and live music fronted by the Doncaster poet and writer, who Alex first saw on a Say Owt bill in York.
Next will be Say Owt leading light, York poet, actor, playwright and spoken-word slam champion Hannah Davies’s The Ballad Of Blea Wyke, a lyrical re-telling of the selkie myth, set against the Yorkshire coast, complemented by original live music by Jack Woods, in work-in-progress performances at 7pm on Saturday and Sunday.
On both those nights at 8.45pm, and on July 27 and 28 too, Alex and fellow Easingwold School old boy Phil Grainger will give their first Stillington performances of The Gods The Gods The Gods, the third in their trilogy of spoken-word and live music shows rooted in ancient myths after Orpheus and Eurydice.
“We first did the show in Australia in early 2020 before the pandemic forced us home, and we’re going to do a big, loud, bopping version in the garden, different from the indoor production that had a pretty massive lighting set-up,” says Alex.
Three is a magic number: Alexander Flanagan Wright, left, Phil Grainger and Megan Drury in The Gods The Gods The Gods on July 23, 24, 27 and 28. Picture: Tom Figgins
“We’re having to look at how to play it within this landscape and within the Mill’s vibe, rather than trying to pretend we’re in a black-box theatre design. We’re just really excited to be telling these stories that we’ve been living with for three years.
“We’ve been doing loads of work with Megan as our dramaturg, and Phil and Tom (Figgins) have been re-working the music, re-writing some parts and writing plenty of new pieces.
“It feels like a two-year hiatus that has allowed us to think about these different story-telling modes to tell it with greater clarity.”
Why call this Wright & Grainger show The Gods The Gods The Gods, rather than plain old The Gods, Alex? “A lot of things come in threes and a lot of things in this show fall naturally into threes,” he reasons. “It’s one of those powerful numbers: a triad, with the three of us [Alex, Phil and Megan] telling the story.
Small acts of creativity: Yoshika Colwell combines metaphysics, music and verbatim material in Invisible Mendingon July 31
“There are in fact four stories, three of them everyday stories and one story of the Gods. Most of those stories are told in three parts, and we repeat things three times in parts – and it’s just a good title!
“It’s also the third in the series of storytelling pieces we’ve done, taking a big jump on from the first two with a lot bigger soundtrack of Phil’s songs and Tom’s music production and a more complex narrative that we’ve weaved into it.”
The Stilly Fringe also will present Opal Fruits, Holly Beasley-Garrigan’s solo show about class, nostalgia and five generations of women from a South London council estate, on July 28 at 7pm; Casey Jay Andrews’ The Wild Unfeeling World, a tender, furious and fragile re-imagining of Moby Dick, and A Place That Belongs To Monsters, a re-imagining of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, on July 29 at 7pm and 8.45pm respectively.
Lucy Bird, originally from Ampleforth, will head back north with her Birmingham company Paperback Theatre for an “utterly Brummie” re-telling of The Wind In The Willows on July 30 at 2.30pm and 7pm.
Yoshika Colwell will return to the Mill for the Stilly Fringe finale, Invisible Mending, her exploration of power in small acts of creativity through original music, metaphysics and verbatim material, presented in collaboration with Second Body’s Max Barton, on July 31 at 7pm.
Paperback Theatre’s Mole (Charis McRoberts), left, Toad (Nathan Blyth), Rat (Carys Jones) and Badger (Lucy Bird) in their 2022 tour of The Wind In The Willows
PAPERBACK Theatre’s debut national tour of their “utterly Brummie” The Wind In The Willows will conclude with two Theatre At The Mill performances on July 30 at Stillington, near York.
On the road since June 4, the Birmingham company’s charming outdoor production will be heading to North Yorkshire for its only northern shows, directed by company co-founder Lucy Bird on her return to her roots.
Adapted for the stage from Kenneth Grahame’s book by fellow co-founder George Attwell Gerhards, Toad’s tale played to sell-out audiences at Paperback’s own arts festival, Little But LIVE! 2021, and in the Assembly Festival Gardens at Coventry City of Culture 2021 with Attwell Gerhards playing the irrepressible Toad.
Now Nathan Blyth is pooping Toad’s car horn on the tour, alongside Lucy Bird’s Badger, Charis McRoberts’ Mole and Carys Jones’s Rat.
Introducing the play, Lucy says: “Mole has been stuck inside for far too long. Finally escaping their underground home, they team up with good friends Ratty, Badger and the loveably roguish Toad on an adventure to blow away the quarantine cobwebs.
“Mole and the gang must go head-to-head with a motor car, Her Majesty’s Constabulary and, the greatest challenge of all, a legion of Weasels, Ferrets and Stoats, who have taken up residence in Toad Hall. Can our plucky band of heroes save the day?”
Lucy Bird: Director and Badger
Here, Lucy answers CharlesHutchPress’s questions on Toad and co, the company name and why Paperback Theatre are coming to Stillington.
Why call the company Paperback Theatre, Lucy?
“As a company, we’re most interested in adaptations. Taking old stories and retelling them for a new age, re-examining them, or just bringing them back to life for modern audiences (as we do with The Wind In The Willows).
“The name Paperback relates to the idea of a well-worn paperback book that has been read again and again, with a bent spine and crinkled pages, because there’s something that keeps drawing us back to those stories.”
What drew you to staging The Wind In The Willows?
“Pre-pandemic, Paperback made more indoor shows for older audiences, but during the pandemic we pivoted to working outdoors, for Covid safety reasons, and even started producing our own outdoor festival, Little But LIVE!.
“We found that outdoor work attracted more family audiences, and when we came to programming our second version of the festival The Wind In the Willows was touted as the perfect show for an outdoor family festival.
“Moreover, we were interested in the parallels in the tale to hibernation/isolation and our national journey out of lockdown. That said, The Wind In The Willows has always been thrown around our artistic discussions; it’s a book I loved as a child.”
Paperback Theatre take to the great outdoors in their debut national tour
What are your first memories of the story?
“My parents only had a VHS player and no TV licence, and one of the only video sets we had was the stop-motion series from back in the ’80s. Me and my brother watched it on repeat and routinely staged our own productions of it with other children in the village.
“I’ve run with that memory a fair amount in our staging and tried to create a low-tech, playful production that children could go away and stage themselves if they wanted to. We have sock puppets for ferrets, coconuts for horses’ hooves and a great medley of kazoos to manage our sound effects.”
Outdoor story equals perfect show for performances in the great outdoors. Discuss…
“I think there’s a lot of truth to that; it makes locating the story easier. When we arrive at each venue on tour, we have to agree where the Wild Wood is, where Toad Hall is, or the Riverbank, so we know where to point when we refer to them.
“Normally there’s a copse of trees – or indeed quite often a manor house looming in the distance that we can locate – which brings an extra exciting energy to the show.
“The Wind In The Willows is also a story about exploration and connecting with your local habitats after a long time away from them, so if you’re telling it outside, it feels like a great way to get audiences to start that journey of reconnection themselves.
“That said, I love the challenge of telling an indoor story outside: the harder you and the audience have to work to commit to imagining that you are in the middle of a palace, or a church, when you are in the pelting rain or blistering sun, the more fun you can have, I think.”
Paperback Theatre co-founder George Attwell Gerhards, who adapted Kenneth Grahame’s book for the stage, is pictured playing Toad in the 2021 production
What is distinctive about George’s adaptation?
“What’s different about this production to others I’ve seen is, firstly, its pace. George has compressed this well-loved tale into just an hour and, as a result, it has a really fast-paced, fluid energy to it, which also informs the great comedy and slapstick that we’ve discovered in the show.
“What’s particularly impressive and interesting is how much of the script has come straight from the book – which I think is really engaging for older audience members who may have a feeling of nostalgia for the original text – and yet how fresh and engaging it is for younger audiences.”
How do you involve the audience in the show?
“It’s an interactive show in the sense that we’re constantly talking directly to the audience, or pretending that they’re different characters in the show, but in a gentle way; we never get anyone up on stage or make them act out.
“We invite audiences to join in on our discoveries, to clap and cheer when the characters win something, or to groan in sympathy when we’re a bit sad. But if they aren’t feeling it that day, we just carry on…though we’ve yet to experience that!”
Paperback Theatre use recycled materials and bits of rubbish – sock puppets et al – in their design and props for The Wind In The Willows
What is the message of The Wind In The Willows in 2022?
“There’s a message about valuing nature and the countryside. Mainly though, given the last few years, for us it’s about friendship and camaraderie in difficult times, about reconnecting with people you haven’t seen in a while and helping them through the fun times and the tough times.”
What does an “utterly Brummie” interpretation bring to the show?
“Accents, mainly! Our Rat and Toad are both from Birmingham originally so they play the characters with their home accents, and then we bring in a plethora of other ones to help distinguish our multi-rolling, also to reflect the diversity of a city like Birmingham.
“There are a few unique references to the city, like bits of dialect or items of costume that are specific to our local area (Rat has a Moseley Folk Festival T-shirt on).
“Also, because the show was originally made for urban audiences, we’re looking at what urban wildlife is like. Our costumes and set are constructed out of recycled materials or bits of rubbish that we think the animals could have found hanging around to build their homes.
“I guess that also feeds into a message in our production of ecology and preserving the environment.”
Bird transforms into Badger: Lucy at play in the natural world
You are playing Badger, but is Badger your favourite character? If not, who is?!!
“Ooo, tricky! I do love Badger and their fieriness! But I think I’m coming round most to Rat. Bit of a curveball but they seem like an animal who’s just trying to be kind and do the right thing, even though they sometimes get it wrong, and I can empathise with that.”
Finally, Lucy, how did the performances at At The Mill come about?
“I’m actually from North Yorkshire originally, just across the way from Stillington in Ampleforth. When we first started booking The Wind In The Willows on tour I was absolutely determined to book a show near to the home I grew up in.
“My journey into theatre very much started with going to see outdoor performances that were touring to the local area, and I was really keen to try and offer that to the children and families who are living there now.
“I’d heard of Stillington Mill through family friends who said they had seen a few things there that were great and they felt it was a fab new venue, so I dropped the organisers, Alex [Flanagan Wright] and Megan [Drury], a line and they booked us in.”
Theatre At The Mill’s Silly Fringe presents Paperback Theatre in The Wind In The Willows at Stillington Mill, Stillington, near York, on July 30, 2.30pm and 7pm. Box office: atthemill.org/summer-at-the-mill/
Paperback Theatre’s tour poster for The Wind In The Willows
Paperback Theatre’s back story
* Formed at University of Warwick by Lucy Bird and George Attwell Gerhards, on the cusp of graduation in 2016. Now based in Balsall Heath, Birmingham.
* Past work includes thought-provoking original plays We Need to Talk About Bobby (Off EastEnders) and Me And My Doll, plus innovative adaptations of classics.
* In 2020, in response to Covid-19, they set up open-air arts festival called Little But LIVE! in Moseley Park, Birmingham, to give performing platform to Midlands artists who had lost work and to bring community together in period of isolation. Event now produced annually, entering third year in 2022.
* Debut tour of The Wind In The Willows is taking in Birmingham, Northampton, Lichfield, Stafford and Suffolk before Stillington finale.
Did you know?
LUCY Bird hails from the prodigiously artistic Bird family from Ampleforth. Brother Henry is an actor and musician; brother Conrad fronts the Newcastle band Holy Moly & The Crackers.
Daniel Kitson: Testing out new material in six Outside performances at Stillington Mill
SUMMER At The Mill is returning for a second season of creative, culinary and community events in the gardens of Stillington Mill, Stillington, near York.
“After the spectacular, gorgeous, fun, exciting, beautiful and heart-warming time we had throughout our inaugural summer last year – what a ride! – we’re over the moon to present the mixed bag of goodies that is Summer At The Mill 2.0,” says programmer, theatre director, writer and performer Alexander Flanagan-Wright.
“Until September 4, we’ll be hosting a load of wonderful events all about community, art, food and flipping good times. We’ll have a pop-up café and bar, community gatherings, theatre, music, comedy, supper clubs and special events.”
The “Wright stuff” is the work of outdoor theatre co-builder Alex, sister Abbigail Ollive (Saturday café cuisine queen and supper club supremo) and their retired headteacher parents Maggi and Paul Wright, together with partners Megan Drury and Paul Smith. That “stuff” also takes in weddings, events and shepherd’s hut accommodation: truly a village cottage industry, you could say, albeit somewhat larger than a cottage.
A Supper Club gathering at At The Mill
“We just had a blast summer,” says Alex. “It was kind of by accident. It felt very serendipitous or of its moment, saying, ‘here is a way we can gather safely, our local community and the arts community, post-lockdown’.
“So this summer is a chance to see if people still care, and so far the evidence is that they do, with the return of the busy Saturday café, the Crafty Tales show [The Case Of The Missing Bunny] that sold out, our Pizza & Cocktail Night and the Dance Dance Dance Big Bank Holiday Silent Disco.
“Last year felt like a huge rush of adrenaline, and then you think, ‘OK, where do we go forward this year for beautiful experiences together?’. Already this year, we’re meeting new people coming to the events and the café.”
Summing up the essence of At The Mill, Alex says: “We believe a feeling of community is so important when people want to have an evening out. Whereas commercial theatre can feel merely transactional, with us, the means is the art, but the end result is a sense of community, and that feels the right way round.
Alexander Flanagan-Wright: At the heart of At The Mill
“On top of that, eating outside together, drinking outside together, is a lovely thing to do, and we have the space and setting to do that.”
Where once Stillington Mill’s 18th century mill would produce flour, now the At The Mill combines food with food for thought, new recipes at the Supper Club, new works on stage. “We’re very clear with the artists about that. Everyone we’ve asked, we’ve said, ‘we think you’re cool, we like your work, do you want to come and play with us?’,” says Alex.
“What we have in abundance is space and time, imagination and a community. What we don’t have in abundance is cash, but we find most performers end up walking away with cash in their pocket.
“We don’t say to them, bring a particular show. What you get instead is artists testing out new material, so it becomes a genuine relationship with the audience built around nurturing new work. We’re seeking an equal balance between the two communities, where they care about each other, and if we do our part well in bringing them together, then they will meet in a beautiful way, and hopefully that process is more valuable, than, say, a Q&A session in a theatre.”
The Saturday cafe at At The Mill, baked by Abbigail Ollive
Alex continues: “Hopefully too, we’re going to be able to sustain that culture of being able to welcome artists for whatever they want to try out, and of audiences being continually excited about seeing new work at such an early stage, performed by people they wouldn’t expect to be passing through their village.”
A case in point is Edinburgh Fringe favourite Daniel Kitson, the Denby Dale stand-up comedian, who asked to take part in the Theatre At The Mill programme after he was tipped off by storytelling performer Sam Freeman.
“Daniel got in touch to say hello, could he come and do a show? I don’t know what the show is about; I don’t know if Daniel does yet, but that feels a pretty exciting thing to be going on, and testament to our aim for brilliant performers to test out their work to our community,” says Alex.
“I’m also aware that there will be those who don’t know who Daniel Kitson is and would just see him as someone standing up in a garden! But it feels beautiful to know that his shows in May will be his first in two years and it’s great to be part of that work-in-progress experience.”
Chris Stokes: Storytelling comedy in Lockdown Detective at At The Mill on May 26
Clearly, plenty of people know exactly who Daniel Kitson is: his 8pm performances of Outside on May 23 to 25 have sold out already and his June 8 to 10 run looks close to following suit.
What’s in store from Kitson? Here’s the show blurb: “Daniel hasn’t been on stage for over two years. And, to be entirely honest, he’s not really missed it. It is, however, his actual job and everyone’s gone back to work now. So, he’s picked out a comfy pen, bought a new notebook and booked himself a summer’s worth of outdoor shows to find out whether he can still do his job and what, if anything, he has to say to large groups of people he doesn’t know.”
Given his performing hiatus and lack of practice, Kitson predicts the shows are “likely to be relatively rickety affairs”. “But Daniel’s already written the question ‘Do worms feel fear?’ in his new notebook, so we should be okay,” the blurb adds. “Also, if it gets boring – you can just use the time to look at the sky and feel small.”
At The Mill’s role in nurturing new work ties in with Alex’s own creativity as a writer and director, whether directing The Flanagan Collective, heading off to Australia with songwriter/musician/performer/magician Phil Grainger or spending last September to December in New York, making the immersive piece Tammany Hall for the Soho Playhouse.
Gary Stewart: Hosting regular Folk Club nights at At The Mill
“We meet loads of brilliant people when touring our work, and it’s great that they want to come here to test new pieces,” he says. “We’re delighted that people will hone shows here just before the Edinburgh Fringe kicks off, or will do shows here that aren’t going to Edinburgh but fit that vibe.”
Picking out upcoming highlights, singer-songwriterTom Figgins follows up last summer’s gig – his first in four years – with a return tomorrow; Chris Stokes’s storytelling comedy show, Lockdown Detective, is booked in for May 26, and Scottish musician Gary Stewart, now resident in nearby Easingwold, will host his regular Folk Club night on May 27, June 24 and July 8.
“For his first night, it’ll be just Gary and his guitar, performing Paul Simon songs solo rather than with his Graceland band. It’s lovely for us that a local musician, who’s internationally renowned, came here and said, ‘I want to play here every month and bring acts here regularly’,” says Alex.
At The Mill’s ERII Platinum Jubilee celebrations will take in Jubilee Jubilee, A Very Jubilant Cabaret, on June 3 and A Right Royal Knees Up, with live music and pizza, on June 5.
Maddie Morris: 2019 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winner, playing a Music At The Mill gig for the first time
Leeds folk duo Maddie Morris & Lilian Grace will make their At The Mill debut on June 12, performing together as Death And The Daughter and playing solo works too. Their 2022 project, The Sticky Monsters, is influenced by the artwork of Swedish artist John Kenn and their compositions deal with childhood, poverty and more general reflections on culture and the idea of fear.
“I saw Maddie, the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winner, at The Courthouse, Rural Arts’ home in Thirsk, and she’s an absolute folk musician, studying folk music at Leeds University and looking at contemporary politics through the lens of the folk tradition,” says Alex.
Gemma Curry’s York company Hoglets Theatre will perform the children’s show The Sleep Pirates on June 19 (10am to 1pm); York spoken-word collective Say Owt will host a poetry-writing workshop on June 25 (5pm), followed by an evening showcase (7.30pm); Heady Conduct Theatre will combine physical storytelling with live music to tell the Greek myth of Tiresias on July 10, and Paperback Theatre will stage their charming account of roguish Toad’s misadventures, The Wind In The Willows, on July 30 at 2.30pm and 7pm.
Alex himself has a couple of contributions to the season: Monster, a work-in-progress new story, on June 16 and 17, and The Gods The Gods The Gods, the Wright and Grainger show whose Australian premiere tour was curtailed by the pandemic, now making its British debut on July 23, 24, 27 and 28 at 8.45pm.
Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s The Sleep Pirates
“In its full iteration, it’s a big, heavy show, but this will be a lighter version before we take it to the Edinburgh Fringe,” says Alex of the final work in Wright & Grainger’s trilogy of myths, after Orpheus and Eurydice, both sell-outs at last summer’s At The Mill season.
The Gods The Gods The Gods, with its four stories and 14 compositions, corals big beats, soaring melodies and heart-stopping spoken words as it “calls us to the crossroads where mythology meets real life”.
“The Gods are gathering and you’re invited,” says Alex. “We’re excited about testing it out here, to wrangle up the story, to see that all the text and music works, and then add lights for Edinburgh, where we’ll be doing it in the Assembly’s 200-seat spiegeltent.”
The Mill’s summer programme will continue to add new events, with full details, including tickets, at athemill.org. Shows start at 7.30pm unless stated otherwise.
The Flanagan Collective’s Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Gobbledigook Theatre’s Phil Grainger staging Orpheus and Eurydice at At The Mill’s socially-distanced summer season in 2021. Picture: Charlotte Graham
Heady Conduct view the world differently to rejuvenate Greek myths of blind prophet Tiresias in At The Mill show at Stillington
Simon Rodda in Heady Conduct Theatre’s Tiresias
HEADY Conduct Theatre conclude the short tour of Tiresias, their storytelling show of rejuvenated Greek myths and legends, in July 10’s At The Mill performance at Stillington, near York.
“Tiresias is the 600-year-old blind prophet who pops up in a lot of Greek myths but hasn’t a story of their own,” says co-artistic director Beck Rogers. “We were fascinated by them; a blind prophet, who walks with royalty and rejects, contends with some of the heavyweights of the ancient Greek world and lives as both a man and woman.
“At the heart of our play we ask the audience, ‘if you could choose to know your future, would you want to?’.”
Last performed pre-pandemic on the other side of the world in New Zealand, the show is told by one actor, co-artistic director Simon Rodda, and one musician, Rachel Barnes, who have played Brighton, Penzance, Suffolk and St Albans before their tour finale in North Yorkshire.
Rodda plays Tiresias, the blind prophet given the gift to predict Zeus’s future. In 600 years of life, Tiresias has incredible encounters with royalty, rejects, heroes, murderers and a snake-wrangling baby, as well as becoming the first person to be transformed from a man into a woman.
Barnes accompanies his performance with singing and a live score played on guitar and cello in Heady Conduct’s intoxicating theatre piece about the extraordinary ability of humans to face adversity, often with mischief, humour and acts of rebellion.
Rodda says: “I can’t wait to perform these ancient stories in this beautiful, hand-crafted hidden gem of a theatre venue. The stories surrounding Tiresias’s life offer a unique and unrivalled perspective.
“Beck and I are neurodiverse and are advocates for those who view the world differently. To enhance the storytelling experience for the audience, we use language, live music, physical movement and sensory atmospheres to tell Tiresias’s tale.”
