Ground control to Major Tim, take your debut tour to York Barbican next November

Peake performance: Astronaut Tim Peake will re-live his journey into space at York Barbican next November

BRITISH astronaut Tim Peake’s debut tour show, My Journey To Space, will touch down at York Barbican on November 2 2021. Ticket sales will be launched on Friday at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

In December 2015, the European Space Agency spaceman became the first Brit to visit the International Space Station to conduct a spacewalk – and run a marathon! – while orbiting Planet Earth almost 3,000 times.

Major Peake, 48, will be “your personal guide through life in space, with unprecedented access, breath-taking photographs, and never-before-seen incredible footage”, as the former barman re-lives his epic and thrilling journey to the International Space Station.

He will give an insight into an astronaut’s pathway to space and back: from training to launch, spacewalk to re-entry as he reveals the secrets, the science and the everyday wonders of how and why humans journey into space.

Sharing his passion for aviation, exploration and adventure, he will recall the sights, the smells, the fear, the exhilaration, of his six-month mission, together with the deep and abiding wonderment of the view from space of the place we call home. “It’s impossible to look down on Earth from space and not be mesmerised by the fragile beauty of our planet,” he says.

Major Peake had been booked to bring his show Limitless to York Theatre Royal on October 11 until the Coronavirus pandemic intervened. That night he would have reflected on the surprising journey that made him the first Briton in space for nearly 20 years and the first ever to complete a spacewalk, when he repaired the space station’s power supply with NASA astronaut Tim Kopra.

Make space in your diary for Major Tim Peake’s York Barbican show on his debut tour

Those tales would have covered his time training in the British Army and as an Apache helicopter pilot and flight instructor deployed to Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.  

Major Peake was to have discussed how it felt to be selected for the European Space Agency from more than 8,000 candidates and the six years of training that followed; learning Russian on the icy plains of Siberia, and coping with darkness and claustrophobia in the caves of Sardinia and under the oceans of the United States. 

The Limitless: In Conversation with Astronaut Tim Peake event took its title from his autobiography, Limitless, whose publication by Century still went ahead on October 15.

Every ticket for this Penguin Live show – one of only five on the autumn tour – was to have included a signed copy of his £20 memoir.

Major Peake attended the UK Schools Space Conference at the University of York’s department of physics in November 2016 and gave a public lecture there on the highs and lows of life aboard the International Space Station in September 2017.

The Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, the capsule that transported Major Peake safely back to Earth, went on display at the National Railway Museum, York, in January 2018, complemented by a space-age virtual reality experience narrated by the astronaut himself.

Cookery writer Yotam Ottolenghi to be flavour of the month at York Theatre Royal

Yotam Ottollenghi: letting the flavour flood out in his new book and York talk

CHEF, restaurateur and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi will reflect on A Life In Flavour and provide cooking inspiration at York Theatre Royal on September 17. 

Ottolenghi, who is of Italian-Jewish and German-Jewish descent, will discuss the tastes, ingredients and flavours that excite him and how he has created a career from cooking.

In the 7.30pm event, coinciding with the publication of his latest cookbook, Ottolenghi Flavour, he will “offer unique insights into how flavour is dialled up and why it works, from basic pairings fundamental to taste, to cooking methods that elevate ingredients to great heights”. 

Under discussion too will be his life and career, from how his upbringing – he was born to a chemistry professor and high-school principal in West Jerusalem – has influenced his food, to opening six delis and restaurants in London.

Yotam Ottolenghi: “flavour-forward, vegetable-based recipes” in his September 3 book

Ottolenghi, 51, is chef-patron of the Ottolenghi delis, NOPI and ROVI restaurants. He writes a weekly column in the Guardian’s Feast magazine and a monthly column in The New Yorker and has published the cookbooks Plenty and Plenty More, his collection of vegetarian recipes; Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Jerusalem, co-authored with Sami Tamimi; NOPI: The Cookbook with Ramael Scully; Sweet, his baking and desserts collection with Helen Goh, and Ottolenghi Simple, his 2018 award winner book with Tara Wigley and Esme Howarth. 

Ottolenghi’s appearance at York Theatre Royal will come a fortnight after Penguin Books publish his new cookbook of “flavour-forward, vegetable-based recipes”, Ottolenghi Flavour, wherein he and co-writer Ixta Belfrage break down the three factors that create flavour.

Please note, there is the chance to buy a copy with your ticket (£15 and upwards) for this Penguin Live evening. Ottolenghi will conduct a book-signing session after the talk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.