Tag: Pick Me Up Theatre

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 52, from Gazette & Herald

Wanderful: Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York

CHRISTMAS music and pantomimes aplenty dominate Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for December fun-filled fulfilment. 

Having a ball: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, until January 4 2026

CORONATION Street star Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother leads the cast of Tobias Turley’s Prince Charming, Bradley Judge’s Dandini and West End actress Rachel Grundy’s Cinderella in UK Productions’ Cinderella, scripted by Jon Monie. 

Directed by Ellis Kerkhoven, West End drag stars Luke Attwood and Brandon Nicholson bring the mayhem in Ugly Sisters mode as Harmony and Melody Hard-Up, joined in the comedy corner by Jimmy Bryant’s Buttons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Radiant: Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

No sleep till January 4: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty.

Written once more by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced with award-winning Evolution Productions, the same team behind All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and last winter’s Aladdin. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 

Hooked: Jamie McKeller savours the role of Captain Hook in Rowntree Players’ The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan at the JoRo. Picture: Matt Hillier

Putting ‘Pan’ into pantomime: Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Friday; Saturday, 2pm and 7.30pm

HEAD to the fantastical world of Neverland in Howard Ella and Gemma McDonald’s pantomime for Rowntree Players. Cling on to your seats as Hannah King’s Peter Pan and the Lost Boys do battle with Jamie McKeller’s rather nasty Captain Hook and his even nastier bunch of pirates.

Fear not as Michael Cornell’s Nanny McFlea and McDonald’s ever-eager apprentice Barkly are on hand to assist in the most ridiculous of ways. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Paul Toy: Directing York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York

Nativity play of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York, All Saints Church, North Street, York, tonight, 7.30pm

USING medieval scripts from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays and music both medieval and folk in style, Paul Toy’s community cast tells a familiar story of a marvellous birth, threaded with humour, reverence and, sadly, hatred, where candlelight emphasises the constant struggle of the light  against the darkness.

The performance lasts one hour with no interval. Refreshments will be available. Box office: 033 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/york-nativity or on the door.

Kate Rusby: Winter wonderland of South Yorkshire folk carols at York Barbican

Alternative carol concert of the week: Kate Rusby, Christmas Is Merry, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7pm

BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby plays her regular festive fixture at York Barbican, returning with her folk band and the Brass Boys for two sets of jolly carols from South Yorkshire’s pubs, Christmas chart chestnuts and original winter songs.

Christmas Is Merry marks her 20th anniversary of these winter warmers, drawing on her six studio Christmas albums: 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over, 2017’s Angels And Men, 2019’s Holly Head and 2023’s Light Years. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Musical director Dylan Allcock in rehearsal with cast members Emilio Encinoso-Gil and Hannah Christina for Elizabeth Godber’s Jingle All The Way at Pocklington Arts Centre

Deer duo of the week: Jingle All The Way, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow to December 23; relaxed performance on December 14, 1.30pm

FROM the team behind The Elves And The Shoemaker Save Christmas and Jack Frost’s Christmas Wish comes Elizabeth Godber’s latest Christmas family adventure, co-directed by Jane Thornton with musical direction by Dylan Allcock.

Reindeer siblings Rex (Emilio Encinoso-Gil) and Rosie(Hannah Christina) are reluctant to start at a new school just before Christmas, especially when that school is the East Riding Reindeer Academy, home of supreme athletes. Although Rosie fits in quickly, Rex struggles to find where he belongs, but a school-wide competition might change all that. Santa has a position free on his sleigh squad; could this be Rex’s big chance? Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Setting sail in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes: Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather, second from left) and her Angels, Sophie Curry, left, Chloe Branton and Sophie Kemp. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Getting a kick out of you musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Friday to December 30

DITCH York’s December chills and climb aboard the S.S. American as it sets sail in Andrew Isherwood’s all-singing, all-dancing staging of Anything Goes!, Cole Porter’s swish musical, charting the madcap antics of a motley crew leaving New York for London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

Meet nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown). Alas, Hope is engaged to fellow passenger Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Neil Foster). Enter second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell) to join Reno in trying to help Billy win the love of his life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Swinton & District Excelsior Band: Festive cheer at Milton Rooms, Malton

Afternoon of festive music and joy: Swinton & District Excelsior Band’s Christmas Spectacular, Milton Rooms, Malton, December 14, 2pm

THIS musical matinee with the Swinton & District Excelsior Band features the senior band, training band and beginners’ group, who perform a joyful mix of carols and seasonal favourites with festive cheer for all the family. A raffle and retiring collection will boost band funds. Entry is free but donations are welcome at the close. To book, go to: ticketsource.co.uk/swinton-district-excelsior-band/t-nolgkxa.

Bill Scott & Friends: In concert at Kirk Theatre, Pickering

Yuletide Tales of the week: Bill Scott & Friends, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, December 17, 7.30pm

THIS Christmas celebration “in harmony with a difference” comes to Pickering for the first time as vocal quartet Bill Scott, Lesley Machen, Jan Burtenshaw & Tim Tubbs perform a seasonal programme of carols, songs, poems and readings in every mood, from sacred, secular and lyrical to comic, sad and joyous.

Whether moved by the solemn beauty of a traditional carol or lifted by a light-hearted poem, this Yuletide fusion of music and tales promises to be a magical gathering. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk/events/yuletide-tales/.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the panoply of pantomimes. Here’s Hutch’s festive List No. 52, from The York Press

Wanderful: Coronation Street star Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York

CHRISTMAS music and pantomimes aplenty dominate Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for December fun-filled fulfilment. 

Having a ball: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, today until January 4 2026

LEEDS lad Bradley Judge’s Dandini joins the star-studded cast of Lisa George (Coronation Street) as Fairy Godmother, Tobias Turley (ITV’s Mamma Mia I Have A Dream) as Prince Charming and West End star Rachel Grundy (Rocky Horror Picture Show, Legally Blonde) as Cinderella in UK Productions’ Cinderella, scripted by Jon Monie. 

Directed by Ellis Kerkhoven, West End drag stars Luke Attwood and Brandon Nicholson bring the mayhem in Ugly Sisters mode as Harmony and Melody Hard-Up, joined in the comedy corner by Jimmy Bryant’s Buttons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

The Marian Consort: Performing with English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble at York Early Music Christmas Festival on December 8

Festival of the week: York Early Music Christmas Festival, mainly at National Centre for Early Music, York, until December 14

HIGHLIGHTS at this Yuletide feast of music spanning the centuries, complemented by contemporary tunes, include Yorkshire Bach Choir & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists performing Hayden’s The Creation tonight and The Chiaroscuro Quartet and Consone String Quartet uniting tomorrow for Mendelssohn’s Octet in E flat major Op 20.

The Marian Consort teams up with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble in Looking Bach To Palestrina on December 8 and Fieri Consort Singers and Camerata Øresund present Christmas Cantatas by Christopher Graupner and English Tavern Songs on December 12. Among further festival performers will be mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, Dowland’s Foundry, Apollo5, Lowe Ensemble, Irish folk singer Cara Dillon and Joglaresa. For the full programme and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk. Box office: 01904 658338.

York Theatre Royal’s pantomime cast in rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty. Picture: SR Taylor Photography

No sleep till January 4: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty.

Written once more by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced with award-winning Evolution Productions, the same team behind All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and last winter’s Aladdin. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 

Hannah King’s Peter Pan in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Rowntree Players’ festive visit to Neverland

Putting ‘Pan’ into pantomime: Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, today, 2pm and 7.30pm, Sunday, 2pm and 6pm; December 9 to 12, 7.30pm; December 13, 2pm and 7.30pm

JOIN Wendy, John and Michael as they fly with Peter Pan to the fantastical world of Neverland in Howard Ella and Gemma McDonald’s pantomime for Rowntree Players. Cling on to your seats as Peter and the Lost Boys do battle with Jamie McKeller’s rather nasty Captain Hook and his even nastier bunch of pirates. Fear not as Nanny McFlea and her ever eager apprentice Barkly are on hand to assist in the most ridiculous of ways. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Bec Silk’s Robin Hood and writer Martin Vander Weyer’s Dame Daphne in 1812 Theatre Company’s pantomime Robin Hood’s Helmsley Adventure

Ryedale pantomime opening of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Robin Hood’s Helmsley Adventure, Helmsley Arts Centre, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; Sunday, 2.30pm; December 9 to 12, 7.30pm; December 13, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; December 14, 2.30pm

HELMSLEY Arts Centre artistic director Natasha Jones directs company-in-residence 1812 Theatre Company in this traditional panto with a Knock Knock Joke Contest, scripted by dame Martin Vander Weyer.

Robin Hood will be rescuing the lovely Maid Marian from the wicked Sheriff of Pickering, while Black Swan landlady Dame Daphne will lead the merriment and mayhem. Knock Knock! Who’s there? Daphne! Daphne who? Daph-nitely book early to avoid disappointment on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk. 

Singer Dene Michael, dressed as a pineapple, in the finale to Kim Hopkins’s documentary film Still Pushing Pineapples, showing at City Screen Picturehouse on Sunday

Documentary film screening of the week; Still Pushing Pineapples (12A), City Screen Picturehouse, York, Sunday, 5pm

BLACK Lace’s Agadoo has been  voted the most infuriating  song of all time. What happens when you are forever associated with such a Marmite hit;  what comes after fleeting fame, and what does it mean to grow old still chasing a dream?

Perennial pineapple pusher and former Yorkshire band member Dene Michael is still singing the derided party anthem across fading clubland UK: a story now told in Selby-raised  filmmaker Kim Hopkins’s  humorous, moving, warts’n’all documentary, a pineapple slice of working-class social realism wrapped inside a road movie and abiding love story. Dene Michael, Hopkins and producer Margareta Szabo will hold a post-show Q&A. Box office: picturehouses.com/cinema/city-screen-picturehouse.

 A Nativity For York director Paul Toy

Nativity play of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York, All Saints Church, North Street, York, December 10, 7.30pm

USING medieval scripts from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays and music both medieval and folk in style, Paul Toy’s community cast tells a familiar story of a marvellous birth, threaded with humour, reverence and, sadly, hatred, where candlelight emphasises the constant struggle of the light  against the darkness.

The performance lasts one hour with no interval. Refreshments will be available. Box office: 033 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/york-nativity or on the door.

Christmas will be merry for Kate Rusby at York Barbican on December 11

Carol concert of the week: Kate Rusby, Christmas Is Merry, York Barbican, December 11, 7pm

BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby plays her regular festive fixture at York Barbican, returning with her folk band and the Brass Boys for two sets of jolly carols from South Yorkshire’s pubs, Christmas chart chestnuts and original winter songs.

Christmas Is Merry marks her 20th anniversary of these winter warmers, drawing on her six Christmas studio albums: 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over, 2017’s Angels And Men, 2019’s Holly Head and 2023’s Light Years. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Hyde Family Jam’s poster for their brace of Christmas jamborees at The Crescent, York on December 11 and 12

Christmas knees-up of the week: Hyde Family Jam, The Crescent, York, December 11, 7.30pm

FRIENDS! Come celebrate another Christmas with a right thorough knees-up at The Crescent with York buskers supreme Hyde Family Jam, a traditional-looking folk band that couldn’t be less traditional. They perform  the songs they love from any decade, any genre, in any way they fancy, played as fast and loud as possible. “We call it ‘folk gone wrong’,” they say. “Expect a few special festive bonuses too!” Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Recommended but sold out already: Hyde Family Jam’s December 12 gig and The Howl & The Hum’s traditional special Crescent Christmas gig, led as ever by Sam Griffiths after leaving York and Leeds for London.

Setting sail in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes: Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather, front centre) and her Angels, Sophie Curry, left, Chloe Branton and Sophie Kemp. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Getting a kick out of you musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 12 to 30

DITCH York’s December chills and climb aboard the S.S. American as it sets sail in Andrew Isherwood’s all-singing, all-dancing staging of Anything Goes!, Cole Porter’s swish musical, charting the madcap antics of a motley crew leaving New York for London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

Meet nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown). Alas, Hope is engaged to fellow passenger Sir Evelyn Oakleigh  (Neil Foster). Enter second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell) to join Reno in trying to help Billy win the love of his life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Michael Ball’s poster for his Glow UK Tour 2026, taking in Yorkshire gigs at Bradford Live (September 2), Sheffield City Hall (September 5) and Hull Connexin Live (September 6), as well as York Barbican (September 12)

Concert announcement of the week: Michael Ball, Glow UK Tour, York Barbican, September 12 2026

MUSICAL star and radio and TV presenter Michael Ball will promote his 23rd solo album, Glow, on next year’s 25-date tour. “There’s probably only one thing I enjoy more than being in the studio – writing, producing and singing songs with people I love – and that’s taking it all out on the road and performing those songs as well as all the old favourites to the audiences I love,” he says. “It’s going to be an exciting year, and I can’t wait to see you all.’’ Box office: https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/michael-ball-2026/.

In Focus: The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery, York, until January 12 2025

Bowl Of Apricots, acrylic painting, by Anita Klein

PYRAMID Gallery’s Christmas Collection, in Stonegate, York, features works by London artist and printmaker Anita Klein, York ceramicist Ben Arnup, Peak District sculptor Paul Smith, South Staffordshire mosaic artist Amanda Anderson and York floral artist Lesley Birch.

Exhibiting too will be Canadian-born painter, printmaker and cartographer Mychael Barratt, Oswestry ceramicist Jacqui Atkin and Perthshire oil painter artist and printmaker Ian MacIntyre, complemented by bird and fish blown glass by Bruce Parks, bronzes by David Meredith, Nerikromi vessels by York ceramist Patricia Qua and studio jewellery for the Christmas season by 50 British makers.

Curator Terry Brett, who has owned the gallery for 31 years, has invited Anita Klein to fill the walls with 15 linocut original prints, new aquatint etchings and two paintings.

Bee Eater, ceramic vase, by Jacqui Atkin

“The gallery has enjoyed a long, unbroken relationship with Anita as a supplier of her extensive catalogue of prints that form a diary of her family life,” he says.

“Over the 28 years in which she has shown more than 800 different pictures at Pyramid Gallery, we have watched her career progress to the point where Anita has become one of the most collectable printmakers in the UK. It seems very fitting that she is the main focus of the Christmas Collection.”

As well as showing new linocut prints, Anita is selling copies of her book Out Of The Ordinary – 40 Years Of Print Making, featuring illustrations of 550 of her best-loved prints, published by Eames Fine Art.

The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery is open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm, Sundays, until January 12 2026. Closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 48, from Gazette & Herald

Mark Kermode Taking part in Aesthetica Short Film Festival’s Beyond the Frame strand at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Julie Edwards Visuals

THE 15th Aesthetica Short Film Festival tops the bill in a week when hauntings and musical buns rise to the occasion, as Charles Hutchinson highlights.

Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, all over York, today to Sunday

NOT so much a film festival as a “screen and media event”, in its 15th year, York’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival is bigger and broader than ever. Not only more than 300 shorts, features, documentaries, animations and experimental films, but also the VR & Games Lab; masterclasses and panels; workshops and roundtables; networking and pitching; Listening Pitch premieres; the inaugural New Music Stage and Aesthetica Fringe shows; Beyond the Frame events at York Theatre Royal; the UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO and the Podcasting strand. For the full programme and tickets, go to: asff.co.uk.

Mary Gauthier: Playing Pocklington Arts Centre tonight

Troubadour of the week: Mary Gauthier, Pocklington Arts Centre, tonight, 7pm

MARY Gauthier hung up her chef’s coat to move to Nashville at 40 to start a troubadour career, going from open-mic gigs to playing Newport Folk Festival a year later. Twenty-five years ago, this courageous lesbian songwriter’s groundbreaking debut album Drag Queens In Limousines announced: “Drag queens in limousines, nuns in blue jeans, dreamers with big dreams, they all took me in.”

The song has become an anthem for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider: as it turns out, all of us. It is typical of her deeply personal, yet paradoxically universal work, written in reaction to what matters most to her, as Gauthier expresses boldly what is often too hard for us to say. Box office:  01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Bugsy at the double: Zachary Stoney, from Team Malone, left, and Dan Tomlin, from Team Bugsy, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

Young performers of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

LESLEY Hill directs and choreographs York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast of more than 40 young performers in Alan Parker and Paul Williams’s musical, replete with the film songs You Give A Little Love,  My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be A Boxer?, Fat Sam’s Grand Slam and Bugsy Malone.

In Prohibition-era New York, rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. As custard pies fly and Dan’s splurge guns wreak havoc, penniless ex-boxer and all-round nice guy Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown. Can Bugsy resist seductive songstress Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, and stay out of trouble while helping Fat Sam to defend his business? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

David Sturzaker’s Gareth Southgate giving a team talk in James Graham’s Dear England, on tour at Leeds Grand Theatre

Sporting drama of the week: National Theatre in Dear England, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday, kick-off at 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees

JAMES Graham’s Olivier Award-winning play (and forthcoming television drama) takes its name from revolutionary England football  manager Gareth Southgate’s open letter during the Covid-19 pandemic.

David Sturzaker plays Southgate, Samantha Womack, team psychologist Pippa Grange, in this “inspiring, at times heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting story” of England, penalties, lost finals and a new-found national identity. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Ben Rosenfield and Laura McKeller in Neon Crypt and The Deathly Dark Tours’ The Wetwang Hauntings – Live!

Halloween horrors and jump scares of the week: Neon Crypt and The Deathly Dark Tours in The Wetwang Hauntings – Live!, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BETWEEN 1986 and 1993, a series of often violent hauntings rocked the small Yorkshire town of Wetwang. The cases went cold and all the records were lost…until now! Join York ghost walk guide Dr Dorian Deathly and his team as they dig into the history and horrors of these cases. “This show is not for the faint of heart,” he forewarns. Suitable for age 13 upwards. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Jessica Shaw’s Forms Of Water, on show at Pocklington Arts Centre

Ryedale exhibition of the week: Jessica Shaw, Forms Of Water, Helmsley Arts Centre, until February 27 2026

BASED on the edge of the North York Moors, printmaker Jessica Shaw explores the impact of water and ice on landscape, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s assertion that “in time and with water, everything changes”. 

Combining screenprint, woodcut, monoprint and etching with diverse media such as gouache and acrylic ink, her work draws from organic patterns and shapes made by water and ice, detailing their effect on the North York Moors National Park’s topography by highlighting the shapes of its high ground and the curls of its rivers, to the ephemeral ice patterns found in puddles and windows in winter.  

Katie Leckey: Directing Griffonage Theatre in Kafka By Candlelight

Deliciously disturbing stories of the week: Griffonage Theatre, Kafka By Candlelight, The House Of Trembling Madness, Lendal, York, tonight to Friday, 6.30pm and 8.30pm  

“NO rest for the week,” say Griffonage Theatre, York’s purveyors of the madcap and the macabre, who are performing Kafka By Candlelight in the cavernous belly of the House Of Trembling Madness cellar as part of Aesthetica Short Film Festival’s debut  Aesthetica Fringe, featuring 25 shows across the city.

This one showcases five of Franz Kafka’s strangest short stories, told disturbingly in the darkness with the audience in masks (optional). “Dare to join us?” they tease. Box office: eventbrite.com/e/kafka-by-candlelight-tickets-1815618316259.

Entwined: Nik Briggs’s cooking copper, Ben, and Harriet Yorke’s carer, Gemma, in York Stage’s York premiere of The Great British Bake Off Musical

York musical premiere of the week: York Stage in The Great British Bake Off Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BAKING battles, singing sponges and a sprinkling of hilarity is the recipe for York Stage’s York premiere of The Great British Bake Off Musical, rising to the occasion under the direction of Nik Briggs, who also makes a rare stage appearance as one of the Bake Off contestants.

Expect a sweet and savoury symphony of British wit and oven mitts, propelled by a menu of  jazz hands and jubilant original songs that capture the essence of the Bake Off tent, from nerve-wracking technical challenges to triumphant showstoppers. Be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster ride, where cakes crumble, friendships form and dreams become fruitful reality. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Understaffed and overworked: The hotel workforce on clean-up duty in John Godber Company’s Black Tie Ball. Picture: John Godber Company

One helluva party of the week: John Godber’s Black Tie Ball, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

ON the glitziest East Yorkshire fundraising night of the year, everyone wants to be there. The Bentleys are parked, the jazz band has arrived, the magician will be magic, but behind the bow ties, fake tans and equally fake booming laughter lie jealousies and avarice, divorces and affairs, as overdressed upstairs meets understaffed downstairs through a drunken gaze. 

The raffle is ridiculously competitive, the coffee, cold, the service, awful, the guest speaker, drunk, and the hard -pressed caterers just want to go home. Welcome to the Brechtian hotel hell of John Godber’s satirical, visceral comedy drama, as told by the exasperated hotel staff, recounting the night’s mishaps at breakneck speed in the manner of Godber’s fellow wearers of tuxedos, Bouncers. Box office:  01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Offcut Theatre’s poster for Libby Pearson’s Four By Three

Uplifting mini-dramas of the week: Offcut Theatre in Libby Pearson’s Four by Three, Milton Rooms, Malton, Thursday, 7.30pm

PAULINE, Bill and Martin invite you into parts of their lives through three separate monologues before coming together in a short play in Libby Pearson’s hopeful, uplifting, light-hearted look at the need for human contact.

In The Woman Next Door, is Pauline a lonely, nosey neighbour or a woman full of unfulfilled longing? In Silk FM, Bill runs a very local radio station; catch it on Thursdays, 1pm to 3pm, term-time only. In The Picker, Martin is desperate to be acknowledged for his innovative litter-picking ideas. In Shelved, Pauline, Bill and Martin run a volunteer-led library, where the council may have plans for it, but so do they. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, splurging all & sundry until Saturday ****

Joseph Egan’s club boss Fat Sam, from Team Malone, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

THIS is Pick Me Up Youth Theatre by all but name, revelling in the chance to fire off splurge guns at those joyless dullard authoritarians determined to make artistic expression more and more difficult for young people.

Why, why, why? I defy anyone not too see the benefits, the joys, the camaraderie, the sheer fun of being on stage, working as a team but flourishing individually, in Bugsy Malone, British writer-director Alan Parker’s 1976  gangster spoof with words and Jazz Age  music by Paul Williams.

The Grand Opera House stage is buzzing with energy, with comic glee, with the sharpest of suits and glitziest of gowns (outstanding work by Julie Fisher & Costume Team).

A gauze screen with a full canvas of a young chap in suit and pork pie hat, and the title Bugsy Malone in boldest red, establishes immediately that Pick Me Up producer Robert Readman and fellow designer Rich Musk are going to hit the right notes on the design front.

Theo Rae’s Fizzy: Outstanding performance, topped off by his rendition of Tomorrow

In familiar Readman style, there is a stairway to either side of a mezzanine level, on which musical director Adam Tomlinson’s band members are kitted out in Prohibition-era attire.  To the front of them, singers will be picked out by squares of light bulbs.

To the sides of the stage are yet more banks of light bulbs, the kind to be seen in dressing rooms. A revolving stage turns from well-stocked bar to a plain backdrop. Images of New York’s skyline and more besides are projected on drapes. The evocation of the Big Apple and Fat Sam’s Club is complete, and it looks fantastic, good enough, frankly, for a touring professional show.

Readman has focused on the staging this time. Lesley Hill, from the Attitude Dance Club in Copmanthorpe, takes on the dual role of director and choreographer, and her cast responds with both aptitude and just the right attitude to portray 1920s’ gangland New York.

“This has been a truly wonderful experience,” says Lesley, in the programme, and that enjoyment is writ large in her cast. Make that casts, not cast, because performances are being shared between Team Bugsy and Team Malone, some actors appearing in both, and more than 40 involved overall.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s Dandy Dan at the double: Kurtis Moss from Team Bugsy, left, and Max Porter from Team Malone

The love for this musical among the performers – one of the Blousey Browns said she had watched Parker’s film more than 100 times – is evident from the start, whether in principal or ensemble roles, in the opening Bugsy Malone and Fat Sam’s Grand Slam numbers.

The joy for these young swells is being centre stage, children playing adult roles, showing up the absurdities, mannerisms and machinations of adult behaviour by playing it straight, eliciting laughter from doing so, as speakeasy boss Fat Sam (Team Malone’s Joseph Egan on press night) goes to turf war with Dandy Dan (Max Porter) who is holding all the aces.

Penniless boxing promoter Bugsy (Zachary Stoney) is Fat Sam’s fixer, drawn to wannabe club singer Blousey Brown (Elizabeth Reece), but can he resist the charms of seductive songstress and former flame Tallulah (Cara Suddaby, now Dandy Dan’s moll)?

You watch throughout with a beaming smile, loving the audacity, the confidence, the dazzling look and the delightfully daft comedy of this sassy, snazzy jazzy show, suffused with knockout performances, not only from Stoney, Egan, Porter, Reece and Suddaby, but also Tommy Lonsdale (good surname for a boxer) as putative pugilist  Leroy in the outstanding ensemble routine So You Wanna Be A Boxer?

Their name is Tallulah: Cara Suddaby, left, and Freya Horsman in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

Taylor Carlyle’s Knuckles gives a cracking performance too, as does Nancy Walker is her cameo as Lena Marrelli, the loose-cannon star singer.

On talent watch, keep an eye on Theo Rae’s Fizzy, a stage natural with a wondrous voice already. Good news, he will be fizzing his way through every performance, serving in both teams.

As if Bugsy Malone were not fun enough already, SAHA Media provides even more thrills in Fat Sam and Dandy Dan’s car on the big screen.

Bugsy Malone remains the perfect avenue for theatre colts and fillies to learn the ropes, here kitted out with New York accents, custard pies and whipped cream-firing splurge guns in this tongue-in-cheek look at gang warfare in 1920s’ America that hits the target with every song, every gag.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, resumes tomorrow until November 8, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york

Bugsy Malone times two: Team Malone’s Zachary Stoney, left, and Team Bugsy’s Dan Tomlin

Introducing: Team Bugsy and Team Malone’s Bugsy and Blousey Brown

HAVE you heard the one about the three All Saints Catholic School pupils and the Manor Church of England Academy boy?

They are all starring Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone at the Grand Opera House: All Saints’ Zachary Stoney, 12, as boxing promoter and speakeasy boss Fat Sam’s fixer Bugsy, and Elizabeth Reece, 13, as aspiring singer from the sticks Blousey Brown, in Team Malone and Manor student Dan Tomlin, 12,  as Bugsy to 11-year-old All Saint Darcey Powell’s Blousey in Team Bugsy.

All four have seen Alan Parker’s 1976. “I must have seen it at least 100 times,” says Darcey. “It’s my favourite musical movie.” Elizabeth? “I’ve grown up watching it.” Zachary? “I kind of grew up watching it. It’s one of my favourite musical films.”

Elizabeth Reece’s Blousey Brown and Zachary Stoney’s Bugsy in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

For Dan, however, “I was completely new to Bugsy Malone, but then I watched it for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it,” he says.

Director-choreographer Lesley Hill’s cast may be divided into teams, but this quarter has enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other. “Me and Dan have given each other notes,” says Zachary. “It’s constructive to do that.”

“We all have our differences in how we interpret our roles, but sometimes you can draw inspiration from each other,” says Darcey. “I’m making the role for myself, but watching Darcey too,” says Elizabeth.

Darcey Powell’s Blousey Brown and Dan Tomlin’s Bugsy

They are all thrilled to be in such an iconic show. “It’s such an opportunity to be on this stage, at this theatre, playing this role,” says Darcey. “It’s just that feeling, that emotion of getting up on stage and doing this show.”

“I cried when I got the part of Blousey!” says Elizabeth. “I’d say I’m best at my dancing, but I’ve loved doing all the other things in this show. I’ve taken inspiration from seeing what Blousey [Florrie Dugger] did well in the film, but thinking about what style I can bring to it myself.”

“I was thinking I was going to get Fat Sam’s role, but I was so pleased that I ended up with Bugsy,” says Zachary. “Having the opportunity to do my own version of Bugsy is such fun.”

Darcey Powell’s Blousey Brown, left, standing back to back with Elizabeth Reece’s Blousey Brown

“I auditioned for Dandy Dan, the bad guy, but then I was picked to play Bugsy, and I’m so glad because I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as I am because I wasn’t expecting it,” says Dan.

“I’ve been waiting for this role for so long because it’s a great part in a great show,” says Darcey. “Growing up, I’ve always wanted to play Blousey, so it’s lovely to be doing it,” says Elizabeth.

Sitting chatting in the front row of the Grand Circle, their enjoyment of performing together is abundantly clear. “We’re all good friends, and working with each other you build such good friendships,” says Darcey.

“We’re loving the chance to play the leads in an all-child cast,” says Zachary. “Usually you’re playing a kid, but in Bugsy Malone, we’re children playing adults – and that’s cool!”

Pick Me Up Theatre cast members in Lesley Hill’s knockout production of Bugsy Malone

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the Halloween spooks and ghost train rides. Hutch’s List No. 48, from The York Press

Film critic Mark Kermode: Book talk and gig with his band Dodge Brothers at York Theatre Royal in the Beyond the Frame strand of Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2025. Picture: Julie Edwards Visuals

THE 15th Aesthetica Short Film Festival tops the bill in a week when Sir Gareth Southgate and David Walliams are keen to talk too,  as Charles Hutchinson highlights.

Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, all over York, November 5 to 9

NOT so much a film festival as a “screen and media event”, in its 15th year, York’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival is bigger and broader than ever. Not only more than 300 shorts, features, documentaries, animations and experimental films, but also the VR & Games Lab; masterclasses and panels; workshops and roundtables; networking and pitching; Listening Pitch premieres; the inaugural New Music Stage and Aesthetica Fringe shows; Beyond the Frame events at York Theatre Royal; the UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO and the Podcasting strand. For the full programme and tickets, go to: asff.co.uk.

Joseph Egan’s club boss Fat Sam from the Team Bugsy cast for Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone

Young swells of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, until November 8, 7.30pm, except Sunday and Monday; 2.30pm, both Saturdays and Sunday

LESLEY Hill directs and choreographs York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast of more than 40 young performers in Alan Parker and Paul Williams’s Jazz Age musical, replete with the film songs You Give A Little Love,  My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be A Boxer?, Fat Sam’s Grand Slam and Bugsy Malone.

In Prohibition-era New York, rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. As custard pies fly and Dan’s splurge guns wreak havoc, penniless ex-boxer and all-round nice guy Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown. Can Bugsy resist seductive songstress Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, and stay out of trouble while helping Fat Sam to defend his business? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Mark Steel: Addressing the leopard in his house at York Theatre Royal tonight

“Leftie, working-class, BBC Radio 4 favourite” comedy gig of the week: Mark Steel: The Leopard In My House, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm

COMEDIAN, nation-travelling radio presenter and writer Mark Steel has not so much an elephant in the room as The Leopard In My House. Under discussion is his battle with throat cancer, one that he is winning (thankfully) and that has spawned his new comedy tour show. Cancer, by the way, has done nothing to dull the edge of Steel’s trademark acute political and cultural observations.

“This show is the story of my year, of wonderful characters and often tricky but bafflingly positive experiences,” says Steel. “Doing the show doesn’t quite make me glad that it happened, but it definitely makes up for it quite a bit”. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Magpies: Launching new EP at the NCEM

Folk gig of the week: The Magpies, National Centre for Early Music, York, tonight, 7.30pm

THE Magpies, the folk trio that hosts The Magpies Festival at Sutton House, near York, every summer, combine rich harmonies with fiddle-led fire and lyrical storytelling, wherein Bella Gaffney (banjo, vocals), Holly Brandon (fiddle, vocals) and Ellie Gowers (guitar, vocals) meld Anglo and American traditions.

Tonight’s intimate gig marks the launch of this autumn’s EP, The One Thing That I Know. Lead single Painted Pony is a stirring tribute to the St John and St Lawrence rivers of Canada: a song that flows with memory, movement and the quiet majesty of nature’s imprint. Box office for returns only: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

George Stagnell in the short film Bomb Happy, part of an Everwitch Theatre double bill

Theatre and film memorial of the week: Everwitch Theatre in Bomb Happy VE Day double bill, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 3pm

PRESENTED in the lead-up to Remembrance Sunday, whose focus this year falls on 80th anniversary of VE Day, Bomb Happy has been created by writer-performer Helena Fox and actor-vocalist Natasha Jones, of Everwitch Theatre.

From D-Day to VE Day, this powerful one-hour double bill of live performance (30 minutes) and short film (30 minutes) brings to life the verbatim accounts of two working-class Yorkshire Normandy veterans, highlighting the lifelong impact of post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep trauma, not only on war veterans but on their families too. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Leading light Mad Alice: Welcoming passengers to her Ghost Train on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway

Train ride of the week: Mad Alice’s Ghost Train, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Pickering Station, Sunday, 6.15pm and 8pm

JOIN York ghost walk hostess Mad Alice as she takes a spine-tingling ghost-train ride through the haunted heart of the North York Moors from Pickering to Levisham and back again in an hour-long eerie adventure. “I’ll be joined by Jonny Holbek, from York Light Opera Company, and professional actor Joe Standerline to help me tell stories in the carriage,” says Mad Alice. “Plus a few extra ‘ghosts’, who are actually either NYMR volunteers or York Light members – and even my own niece!”

All on board to learn of the mysterious ghosts that still haunt the carriages and stations; hear of supernatural tales and folklore of the land, and enjoy a special retelling of Charles Dickens’s ghost story, The Signal Man, all while sipping Mini Mad Alice’s Bloody Orange Gin & Tonic from York Gin (age 18 upwards). Box office for waiting list only: nymr.co.uk/Event/ghosttrain.

Sir Gareth Southgate: Discussing his new book Dear England at York Barbican…and the subject of James Graham’s play of that title at Leeds Grand Theatre

Ex-England manager at the double: In Conversation with Gareth Southgate, Lessons In Leadership, York Barbican, November 3, 7.30pm;  National Theatre in Dear England, Leeds Grand Theatre, November 4 to 8, kick-off at 7.30pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees

SIR Gareth Southgate, of Swinsty Hall, Fewston, Harrogate, makes the comparatively short trip to York Barbican to discuss his eight years of leading England’s footballers on the world stage with a revolutionary management style that combined calm empathy with mental resilience, courageous integrity with strong accountability.

David Sturzaker’s Gareth Southgate, in trademark waistcoat, in James Graham’s play Dear England, on tour at Leeds Grand Theatre. Picture: Mark Brenner

He will discuss his new book Dear England: Lessons In Leadership, a title shared with James Graham’s Olivier Award-winning play (and forthcoming television drama) that takes its name from Southgate’s open letter during the Covid-19 pandemic.

David Sturzaker plays Southgate, Samantha Womack, team psychologist Pippa Grange, in this “inspiring, at times heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting story” of England, penalties, lost finals and a new-found national identity. Box office: York, yorkbarbican.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

David Walliams: An evening of frank chat and outrageous anecdotes at York Barbican. Picture: Charlie Clift

Candid comedic conversation of the week: An Evening With David Walliams, York Barbican, November 4, 7.30pm

SKETCH comedian, prolific author, talent show judge and English Channel swimmer David Walliams presents an evening of laughter, storytelling and surprises, discussing his Little Britain breakthrough,  Come Fly With Me and his days on Britain’s Got Talent.

Expect the stories behind legendary TV sketches and reflections on his myriad books and the highs and lows of a career. Prepare for candid conversation and outrageous anecdotes, topped off with the chance to put questions to Walliams in the Q&A. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Ben Rosenfield and Laura McKeller in The Wetwang Hauntings – Live. Picture: Emma Warley

Halloween horrors and jump scares of the week: Neon Crypt & The Deathly Dark Tours present The Wetwang Hauntings – Live!, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 4 to 8, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BETWEEN 1986 and 1993, a series of often violent hauntings rocked the small Yorkshire town of Wetwang. The cases went cold and all the records were lost…until now! Join York ghost walk guide Dr Dorian Deathly as the Neon Crypt and The Deathly Dark Tours team digs into the history and horrors of these cases. “This show is not for the faint of heart,” he forewarns. Suitable for age 13 upwards. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Nik Briggs: York Stage director back on stage to play a contestant in The Great British Bake Off Musical

York musical premiere of the week: York Stage in The Great British Bake Off Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, November 5 to 8, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

BAKING battles, singing sponges and a sprinkling of hilarity is the recipe for York Stage’s York premiere of The Great British Bake Off Musical, rising to the occasion under the direction of Nik Briggs, who also makes a rare stage appearance as one of the Bake Off contestants.

Expect a sweet and savoury symphony of British wit and oven mitts, propelled by a menu of  jazz hands and jubilant original songs that capture the essence of the Bake Off tent, from nerve-wracking technical challenges to triumphant showstoppers. Be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster ride, where cakes crumble, friendships form and dreams become fruitful reality. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Katie Leckey: Directing Griffonage Theatre’s three nights of Kafka’ strangest short stories in the House of Trembling Madness cellar in Lendal

Deliciously disturbing stories of the week: Griffonage Theatre, Kafka By Candlelight, The House Of Trembling Madness, Lendal, York, November 5 to 7. 6.30pm and 8.30pm  

“NO rest for the week,” say Griffonage Theatre, York’s purveyors of the madcap and the macabre, who are performing Kafka By Candlelight in the cavernous belly of the House Of Trembling Madness cellar as part of Aesthetica Short Film Festival’s debut  Aesthetica Fringe, featuring 25 shows across the city.

This one showcases five of Franz Kafka’s strangest short stories, told disturbingly in the darkness with the audience in masks (optional). “Dare to join us?” they tease. Box office: eventbrite.com/e/kafka-by-candlelight-tickets-1815618316259.

York actor, writer and director Constance Peel: Presenting Service Please at Aesthetica Fringe 2025

In Focus: Introducing Constance Peel, Service Please, Aesthetica Fringe, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, November 4 and 7, 8.30pm; Micklegate Social, Micklegate, York, November 9, 2pm and 8pm

CONSTANCE (Connie) Peel, York-born director, producer, writer and performer, will present her debut one-woman show Service Please as part of the inaugural Aesthetica Fringe.

“I’ve been working as an assistant director and performer in theatre professionally for the past two years, since graduating from the University of York,” says Connie, 24. “This show explores the reality of working in hospitality, including the harassment and sexism you can face as a young woman.”

Service Please is billed as “a relatable and comedic monologue that follows Lara, a creative writing graduate, who hopes to write the next best-selling fantasy romance novel. There’s only one thing standing in her way, her casual waitressing job that keeps the money coming in.”

“We’ve all been there, but Lara wasn’t ready for the stressful and chaotic reality of working in the service industry,” says Connie, introducing her monodrama. “Can Lara keep her sanity and get her big writing break or will she crumble under the pressure of understaffed shifts, creepy comments and customers who say their only food allergies are ‘women’?”

Hospitality is the fastest-growing economic sector, worth £93 billion to the UK economy. “But it’s under severe pressure with more than 100,000 job losses predicted by the time of this month’s Budget, due to National Insurance rises (according to UK Hospitality),” says Connie.

“It’s evident working in the sector that to continue profits and keep up with the cost of living, food prices and discounts both need to increase while labour hours decrease. Being a server has never been more stressful and unpredictable and this experience (as other working-class experiences) is so often overlooked by theatre.” 

Sexual harassment is an epidemic in the hospitality industry too, says Connie. “As many as 47 per cent of workers having experienced it – and 69 per cent witnessed it in 2021 (Culture Shift).

“These statistics, though informative, mask the personal cost to the individuals harassed and abused. My play presents interpretations of my own personal experiences, including those with harassment, and they’re an unfortunate part of the job when working as a waitress.

“They shouldn’t be, and awareness of this experience even in Fringe-scale theatre is always beneficial to the cause.” 

Lastly, says Connie, Service Please tells the story of an artist with no clear way into her industry. “This is the most personally accurate part of my script. I wrote and performed the 50-minute monologue while producing and marketing it alone for its six-day debut run at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe, where it won plaudits from critics and top reviews.

“Though this is hopeful for creatives, both in the execution of the play and my own story behind it, I wanted to show the emotional toll of struggling as an artist, especially as in the past five years there has been one third fewer art jobs (directly impacting my career).

“It was important that I brought this show back to where my career started, in York where I graduated from the University of York and where I’ve been working for the past three years between York and Leeds. I hope this production and my story makes people see the importance of a small-scale play like this in today’s society.” 

For tickets, go to: ticketsource.co.uk.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 47, from Gazette & Herald

Luxmuralis’s Echoes Of Yorkshire: Art, light and sound in harmony in York Museum Gardens. Picture: Duncan Savage, Ravage Productions, for York Museums Trust

GARDEN art & light installations, wartime memories and Dracula and Cinderella retellings spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest.

Installation of the week: Echoes Of Yorkshire, York Museum Gardens, until Sunday, 6pm to 8.20pm

LET light, colour and music surround you at Luxmuralis’s light and sound installation as artist Peter Walker, composer David Harper and lighting designer Steve Rainsford bring the story alive of the Yorkshire Museum and York Museum Gardens from 1,000 images. 

Immerse yourself in the story of the historic site with contemporary light and music showcasing York Museum Trust’s age-defining artefacts and extraordinary exhibits. Tickets: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk.

David Barrott, Catherine Edge and Adam Marsdin in rehearsal for Settlement Players’ production of Party Piece

Calamitous comedy misadventure of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Party Piece, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

AMERICAN director, writer, producer, historian and stuntman Martin T Brooks directs Settlement Players for the first time in Richard Harris’s calamitous 1992 comedy Party Piece.

Michael and Roma Smethurst are preparing meticulously for their fancy-dress housewarming party as Mrs Hinson, not the biggest fan of her upper-class new neighbours, keeps a criticising eye on the attendees. Then disasters strike: an embarrassing lack of guests, a burning barbeque, a marauding Zimmer frame and a corpse showing up at the front door. Cue chaos. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Cassie Vallance, left, and Jane Bruce in Story Craft Theatre’s Bat, Cackle And Pop! at York Theatre Royal

Children’s Halloween show of the week: Story Craft Theatre in Bat, Cackle And Pop!, York Theatre Royal Studio, today until Friday, 10.30am and 1pm

WINIFRED the Witch thinks everyone has forgotten her birthday. Not so. There will be a big surprise party, but first, a special birthday cake must be made.

“We just need the last three rather spooky ingredients,” say York company Story Craft Theatre’s Cassie Vallance and Jane Bruce. “Our show is bubbling with all sorts of ghosts and ghouls – more silly than scary – and there’s plenty of opportunities to dabble in some spell making, as well as flying with luxury BAT Airways.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Jimmy Regal & The Royals: Playing Ryedale Blues Club at Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Jimmy Regal & The Royals, Milton Rooms, Malton, tomorrow, 8pm

JIMMY Regal & The Royals are a tough and howlin’ harmonica-led three piece from South London, brandishing a sound from Mississippi to New Orleans, Mali to Canvey Island. Signed to Lunaria Records, they are touring to promote latest album Well Boss, a live set recorded at the Temperance in Leamington Spa. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Stage Hammer: Revamping Bram Stoker’s Dracula

High stakes of the week: Stage Hammer in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow and Friday, 7.30pm; Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Saturday, 7.30pm

WOLVES howl in the forests of Transylvania. Waves crash violently against the cliffs below Whitby Abbey. The infection is spreading. Count Dracula (Stuart Sellens) walks among us. Yorkshire solicitor Jonathan Harker (Callum Mathers) travels to a castle in the Carpathian Mountains to finalise the sale of property for a reclusive nobleman.

When he seemingly vanishes, fiancée Mina (Jennifer Jones) and her closest friend Lucy (Kathryn Lay) fall into the grip of a sinister force. Their only hope for survival is the mysterious vampire slayer Professor Van Helsing (Christopher C Corbett) in East Yorkshire troupe Stage Hammer’s new account of Bram Stoker’s vampire story, adapted by Corbett and directed by Lydia Baldwin. Box office: York, 01904 658338 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk; Pickering, 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk. 

Fizzy with the singers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone: Theo Rae, Isla Lightfoot, Olivia Swales and Beau Lettin

Musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, October 31 to November 8, 7.30pm, except Sunday and Monday; 2.30pm, both Saturdays and Sunday

LESLEY Hill directs and choreographs York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast of 40 young performers in  Alan Parker and Paul Williams’s musical, replete with the film songs You Give A Little Love,  My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be A Boxer?, Fat Sam’s Grand SlamandBugsy Malone.

In Prohibition-era New York, rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. As custard pies fly and Dan’s splurge guns wreak havoc, penniless ex-boxer and all-round nice guy Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown. Can Bugsy resist seductive songstress Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, and stay out of trouble while helping Fat Sam to defend his business? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Little Seeds Music: Refreshing the fairytale world in Cinderella Ice Cream Seller

Fairytale retelling of the week: Little Seeds Music in Cinderella Ice Cream Seller, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 2.30pm

OVER the past four decades, Cinderella’s has become the kingdom’s most beloved ice cream company, with a parlour on every street corner, but how did this humble maker become a multimillionaire business woman with her own empire?

Prepare your dessert spoons for a tale of perseverance, princes, palace balls, glass slippers and, yes, ice cream in writer-composer David Gibb’s hour-long family musical, wherein loyal Cinderella’s employees Talvi and Caldwell share her rags-to-riches tale and confront their own desires, hopes and the magic that lies within each scoop. Suitable for age five upwards. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Bomb Happy: Film and live performance double bill for VE Day at Milton Rooms, Malton

Theatre memorial of the week: Everwitch Theatre in Bomb Happy VE Day double bill, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 3pm

PRESENTED in the lead-up to Remembrance Sunday, whose focus this year falls on 80th anniversary of VE Day, Bomb Happy has been created by writer-performer Helena Fox and actor-vocalist Natasha Jones, of Everwitch Theatre.

From D-Day to VE Day, this powerful one-hour double bill of live performance (30 minutes) and short film (30 minutes) brings to life the verbatim accounts of two working-class Yorkshire Normandy veterans, highlighting the lifelong impact of post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep trauma, not only on war veterans but on their families too. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Chris Smither: Playing All Saints Church, Pocklington tonight

In Focus: Chris Smither, All Saints Church, Pocklington, tonight, 7.30pm

CHRIS Smither, truly an American original, returns to the UK to perform songs from his vast catalogue on his 2025 UK and Irish tour as he approaches his 81st birthday on November 11.

Honing his synthesis of folk and blues for more than 50 years, this profound songwriter and captivating performer, from Miamai, Florida, melds the styles of his two major influences, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt, into his own signature guitar sound.

His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and humanist philosophers. His songs have featured in films and TV shows and been covered by John Mayall, Emmylou Harris,  Bonnie Raitt and Diana Krall, among others.

Smither continues to tour festivals, music clubs and concerts halls all over the world. Now he showcases his 20th studio album, 2024’s All About The Bones, produced by long-time friend and producer David Goodrich, which complements eight new compositions with Smither’s renditions of Eliza Gilkyson’s Calm Before The Storm and Tom Petty’s Time To Move On.

The recording sessions took place at Sonelab Studios in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where Smither was joined by Goodrich, Zak Trojano, BettySoo and Chris Cheek.

The New York Times said of All About The Bones: “With a weary, well-travelled voice and a serenely intricate finger-picking style, Mr Smither turns the blues into songs that accept hard-won lessons and try to make peace with fate.”

Singer-songwriter BettySoo is Smither’s guest on the tour. Tickets for tonight cost £21.50 at www.smither.com.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond when walls come alive with art and light. Hutch’s List No. 47, from The York Press

Principal dancers, dance captains and siblings Anna Mai Fitzpatrick and Fergus Fitzpatrick in Riverdance’s 30th anniversary show, The New Generation

LEFT-FIELD Halloween entertainment, garden art and light installations, Normal comedy and a splurge gun musical spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest.

Dance show of the week: Riverdance, 30th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, today and tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

VISITING 30 UK venues – one for each year of its history – from August to December 2025, the Irish dance extravaganza Riverdance rejuvenates the much-loved original show with new innovative choreography and costumes, plus state-of-the-art lighting, projection and motion graphics, in this 30th anniversary celebration.

For the first time, John McColgan directs “the New Generation” of Riverdance performers, none of them born when the show began. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Blair Bitch Project: Playing on Navigators Art’s bill at YO Underworld 6 at The Basement

Live, left-field, local new music, comedy and words for Halloween: Navigators Art presents YO Underworld 6, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm

IN this special Halloween edition, York arts collective Navigators Art plays host to riot grrrl punk and grunge-inspired York quartet Blair Bitch Project and improvising cellist and sound artist Gaia Blandina, performing collaborative, open-form pieces with Ish, featuring Iris Casling, double bass, Des Clarke, oboe, and Nika Ticciati, voice.

Joshua Arnold & Therine: Welcoming the coming of Samhain at YO Underworld 6

Taking part too are dark hurdy-gurdy and vocal-led trad and experimental drone folk combo Joshua Arnold & Therine, welcoming the coming of Samhain; Kane Bruce,  delivering his outrageously dark yet cheeky take on “taboo” topics, and Hull poet Melissa Shode, who explores identity in the socio-political climate and writes for release, justice and the voiceless. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/navigators-art-performance or on the door.

Steve Gunn: Showcasing his two 2025 albums at The Band Room, Low Mill, tonight. Picture: Paul Rhodes

Moorland gig of the week: Steve Gunn, The Band Room, Low Mill, Farndale, North York Moors, tonight, 7.30pm

STEVE Gunn, the ambient psychedelic American singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York, made his name as a guitarist in Kurt Vile’s backing band, The Violators. His myriad magical influences include Michael Chapman, Michael Hurley and John Fahey.

This weekend he will be showcasing his second album of 2025, Daylight Daylight, out on November 7 on No Quarter, as well as his first fully instrumental album, August’s Music For Writers. Box office: 01751 432900 or thebandroom.co.uk.

Hands and Voices: York choir singing at Laughs, Lyrics & You! at the Gateway Centre on Sunday

Inclusive open mic event of the week: Accessible Arts & Media presents Laughs, Lyrics & You!, Gateway Centre, York, Sunday, 2.30pm to 5pm

WHAT is Laughs, Lyrics & You!? “The idea is to have an open mic-type event, in a relaxed and friendly environment that’s accessible and fun, with tea and cake too,” says Accessible Arts & Media (AAM) chief executive officer Chris Farrell. “Our projects, IMPs, Movers and Shakers and Hands and Voices, will start the show with their wonderful music, dances and stories.

“Then it’s over to whoever would like to perform. Any talent is welcome, a duet, a solo instrument, a poetry reading, a recording of some original music, jokes…whatever you can think of would be great!” To take part, performers must contact projects@aamedia.org.uk or ring Hannah on 07762 428818. Admission is free; donations welcome.

Artist Ric Liptrot: Taking part in That Acomb Arty Thing

Art event of the week: That Acomb Arty Thing, Art Trail, until November 2; Open Studios, November 1 and 2

DISCOVER York artists’ work in venues around Acomb on the autumn Art Trail featuring Carla Ballantine, Linda Braham, Ric Liptrot, Jelena Lunge, Rae Merriman, Isaac Savage, Ginette Speed, Donna Taylor and Dianne Turner.

North Yorkshire Open Studios participants are hosting open studios next Saturday and Sunday: Paul Mathieson & Peter Mathieson, 49 Jute Road, 10am to 4pm; Peijun Cao, 60 Jute Road, 10.30am to 5pm; Fran Brammer, 81 Jute Road, 10am to 4pm; Charlotte Lister & Charley Hellier, 7 Chestnut Grove, 10am to 2pm; Robin Grover-Jacques, 35 Chestnut Grove, 11am to 4pm, and Mo Nisbet, 116 Acomb Road, 11am to 4pm.

Blue sigh thinking? Henry Normal reflects on himself, his mistakes, his Z celebrity status, in The Slideshow

Normal service resumed: Henry Normal, The Slideshow, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 8pm

THE Slideshow, as poet, film and TV producer/writer Henry Normal explains, is a multi-MEdia spectacular with the emphasis on the “me” in his celebration of his “meteoric rise to Z celebrity status”, followed by his joyous and inevitable slide into physical and mental decline.

Expect poetry, photos, jokes, music, dance, song, circus skills, costume changes, props and stories, exploring where Normal  went wrong in life, plus lessons you can learn from his mistakes, in this memoir with cautionary verse. Box office: helmsleyarts.co.uk.

David Barrott, left, Catherine Edge and Adam Marsdin in rehearsal for Settlement Players’ production of Party Piece

Calamitous comedy misadventure of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Party Piece, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 28 to November 1, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

AMERICAN director, writer, producer, historian and stuntman Martin T Brooks directs Settlement Players for the first time in Richard Harris’s calamitous 1992 comedy Party Piece.

Michael and Roma Smethurst are preparing meticulously for their fancy-dress housewarming party. Mrs Hinson, not the biggest fan of her upper-class new neighbours, is keeping a criticising eye on the attendees. Then disasters strike: an embarrassing lack of guests, a burning barbeque, a marauding Zimmer frame and a corpse showing up at the front door. Cue chaos. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Cassie Vallance, left, and Jane Bruce in Story Craft Theatre’s Bat, Cackle And Pop! at York Theatre Royal

Children’s Halloween show of the week: Story Craft Theatre in Bat, Cackle And Pop!, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 29 to 31, 10.30am and 1pm

WINIFRED the Witch thinks everyone has forgotten her birthday. Not so. There will be a big surprise party, but first, a special birthday cake must be made.

“We just need the last three rather spooky ingredients,” say York company Story Craft Theatre’s Cassie Vallance and Jane Bruce. “Our show is bubbling with all sorts of ghosts and ghouls – more silly than scary – and there’s plenty of opportunities to dabble in some spell making, as well as flying with luxury BAT Airways.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Rory Stewart: Discussing his new book, Middleland, at York Barbican

Book event of the week: Toppings presents Rory Stewart, Middleland, York Barbican, October 30, 7pm

NOW Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and Alastair Campbell’s co-podcaster on The Rest Is Politics, Rory Stewart spent nearly a decade as Conservative MP of Britain’s most rural constituency, Penrith and the Border.

Living in the Eden Valley, he found inspiration in the beauty of Cumbrian landscape, its rugged history as a frontierland, and the spirit of its people, prompting him to write Middleland: Dispatches From The Borders, a portrait of rural Britain today: a place caught in tensions between farming and the natural world, between the need to preserve and to grow, between local and national politics. Over to you, Rory.  Tickets: toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/rory-stewart-middleland/.

Fizzy with the singers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Bugsy Malone: Theo Rae, Isla Lightfoot, Olivia Swales and Beau Lettin

Musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Bugsy Malone, Grand Opera House, York, October 31 to November 8, 7.30pm, except Sunday and Monday ; 2.30pm, both Saturdays and Sunday

LESLEY Hill directs and choreographs York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast of 40 young performers in  Alan Parker and Paul Williams’s musical, replete with the movie songs You Give A Little Love,  My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be A Boxer?, Fat Sam’s Grand SlamandBugsy Malone.

In Prohibition-era New York, rival gangsters Fat Sam and Dandy Dan are at loggerheads. As custard pies fly and Dan’s splurge guns wreak havoc, penniless ex-boxer and all-round nice guy Bugsy Malone falls for aspiring singer Blousey Brown. Can Bugsy resist seductive songstress Tallulah, Fat Sam’s moll and Bugsy’s old flame, and stay out of trouble while helping Fat Sam to defend his business? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

In Focus: Tom Grennan, York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, July 25 2026

BEDFORD singer-songwriter Tom Grennan is the first act to be confirmed for the Music Showcase Weekend at the 2026 York Racecourse flat racing season.

Grennan, 30, has achieved three UK number one albums, 2021’s Evering Road, 2023’s What Ifs & Maybes and 2025’s Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want To Be, preceded by his top five-charting 2018 debut Lighting Matches. 

He has chalked up hit singles too with Little Bit Of Love, Let’s Go Home Together (with Ella Henderson), Remind Me, Lionheart (Fearless, with Joel Corry), Here, How Does It Feel, It Can’t Be Christmas, By Your Side (Calvin Harris, featuring Tom Grennan) and Not Over Yet (KSI, featuring Tom Grennan).

Next summer’s Knavesmire gig will form part of a busy touring schedule for Grennan, who also co-hosts the You About? podcast with TV and radio presenter Roman Kemp.

Racing and music fans can take advantage of a price freeze on adult general admission on the track’s website, meaning entrance to the main Grandstand and Paddock enclosure, starts at just £40 per person for a group of six. As well as free car parking, no booking fees apply on this route to purchase. To book, visit www.yorkracecourse.co.uk.

On the racecourse, the racing action will see seven thoroughbred contests with combined prize money of £380,000. The Group Two feature race will be the Sky Bet York Stakes.

The Summer Music Saturday meeting will be held on June 27; the Friday evening Music Showcase Weekend meeting on July 24. Music acts for both those days are yet to be confirmed; keep checking www.yorkracecourse.co.uk for further announcements, expected soon.

James Brennan, head of marketing and sponsorship says: “It is great news that Tom Grennan is joining the artists to have performed on the Knavesmire; a performer who has gone from strength to strength. It will herald a month for music and racing fans to remember.”

In Focus too: Luxmuralis presents Echoes Of Yorkshire, York Museum Gardens, until November 2, 6pm to 8.20pm

Luxmuralis’s Echoes Of Yorkshire transforming the St Mary’s Abbey ruins in York Museum Gardens. Picture: Duncan Savage, Ravage Productions, for York Museums Trust

LET light, colour and music surround you at the Echoes Of Yorkshire light and sound installation conjured by the internationally acclaimed Luxmuralis, who bring alive the culturally rich story of the Yorkshire Museum and York Museum Gardens.

Visitors are invited to “immerse yourself in the story of the historic site with contemporary light and music showcasing its age-defining artefacts and extraordinary exhibits. Join us to celebrate all that the museum and its gardens bring to our city and the wider north of England.”

In the 30-year collaboration of sculptor and artist Peter Walker and composer David Harper, Luxmuralis travels the world to create stories in light and sound for audiences at locations ranging from the Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral, London, to city-wide open-air projections in places such as Oxford and Limburg in the Netherlands.

Through combining fine art, light and sound, Luxmuralis reflects closely on the history and heritage of places by weaves together the contemporary and the ancient.

Now, for the first time, Luxmuralis is transforming the walls of York in Echoes Of Yorkshire in York Museum Gardens for ten evenings filled with six looping art installations and landscape lighting by Steve Rainsford.

Ticketed entry time slots are given every 20 minutes, but once in the gardens visitors can journey through the experience at their own pace with a recommended walking time of one hour. Refreshments will be available to buy on the night, including from Thor’s tipi.

Echoes Of Yorkshire is suitable for all ages. Audiences will experience the gardens’ history from the Roman period to its time as an abbey (St Mary’s Abbey) in tandem with Luxmuralis’s showcase of the Yorkshire Museum’s collections that span 60 million years from the Jurassic and the Mesolithic, through to the Romans, Viking, Anglo Saxon and Medieval.

Welcoming Luxmuralis to York Museum Gardens, Siona Mackelworth, head of audience and programme for York Museums Trust, says: “We are delighted that Luxmuralis agreed to produce a very special and bespoke show for us here in York.

“This is a celebration of all that the Yorkshire Museum brings to the city, its history and the location as the repository of great discoveries and stories. With this amount of content, the Luxmuralis light and sound show looks amazing.”

Luxmuralis artistic director Peter Walker says: “We’re thrilled to be collaborating with the team at Yorkshire Museum to deliver a truly distinctive experience set within the stunning and historically rich Museum Gardens.

“By drawing inspiration from the museum’s collections, this light installation re-imagines the architecture and landscape in an entirely new and transformative way.”

Tickets cost £13.50 per adult; £9.50 for children aged five to 16; free admission for under-fives. Box office: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk. Echoes Of Yorkshire is on a constant loop from 6pm to 8.20pm each night. Please note, only assistance dogs will be allowed into the gardens during the event.

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More Things To Do in York & beyond when willow whispers and cinema pops outdoors. Hutch’s List No.39, from The York Press

Willow artist Laura Ellen Bacon in the saloon at her Whispers Of The Wilderness exhibition at Beningbrough Hall. Picture: Anthony Chappel-Ross

WILLOW sculptures, outdoor cinema, musical premieres and the Yellow Brick Road are beckoning Charles Hutchinson. 

Exhibition opening of the week: Laura Ellen Bacon, Whispers Of The Wilderness, Exploring Wilderness Gardens, Beningbrough Hall, near York, until April 12 2026, Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm

WHISPERS Of The Wilderness brings together contemporary large-scale willow sculptures by Laura Ellen Bacon, historic pieces from across the National Trust collection to showcase Wilderness Gardens through time and a new drawing studio designed by artist Tanya Raabe-Webber.

Complemented by a new soundscape, audio chair, sketches of the developing sculptures and more, the exhibition is a sensory experience across the first-floor Reddihough Galleries and Great Hall. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/beningbrough.  

Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You, Sunday’s screening at Picturehouse Outdoor Cinema at York Museum Gardens

Film event of the week: City Screen Picturehouse presents Picturehouse Outdoor Cinema, York Museum Gardens, York, Stop Making Sense (PG), tonight, 6.30pm; 10 Things I Hate About You (12A), Sunday, 6.30pm

JONATHAN Demme’s Stop Making Sense, capturing David Byrne’s Talking Heads in perpetual motion at Hollywood’s Panatges Theatre in December 1983, re-emerges in a 40th anniversary restoration of “the greatest concert film of all time”.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Allison Janney, Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger star in 10 Things I Hate About You, wherein Cameron falls for Bianca on the first day of school, but not only his uncool status stops him from asking her out. Blankets, cushions and small camping chairs are allowed. Box office: picturehouses.com/outdoor-cinema/venue/york-museum-gardens.

Hal Cruttenden: Reflecting on the insanity of modern politics at Burning Duck Comedy Club. Picture: Matt Crockett

“Take no prisoners” gig of the week: Hal Cruttenden Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm

HAL Cruttenden promises to stick it to ‘The Man’, as long as ‘The Man’ does not stick it back to him. Expect hard-hitting pontificating on middle-aged dating, social media, the insanity of modern politics and his daughters loving him but not respecting him. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Artist Kerry Ann Moffat with her oil painting Sunlight Catching Wooden Sculpture at the Created In York pop-up gallery in High Petergate, York

Pop-up art space of the week: Created In York, hosted by Blank Canvas by Skippko charity, 22 High Petergate, York, 10.30am to 5pm, Thursdays to Saturdays; 11am to 4pm, Sundays

CHAMPIONING change through creativity, York art charity Skippko’s rolling programme of three-week Created In York shows is running in High Petergate until December 2025 in tandem with York Conservation Trust. On show until September 14 are oil paintings by Kerry Ann Moffat and linocuts and woodblock prints by Rachel Holborow.

York RI Golden Rail Band: Performing Sounding Brass and Voices with York RI Golden Railway Band. Picture: Keith Meadley

Musical partnership of the week: Sounding Brass and Voices, York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir and York RI Golden Rail Band, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight, 7.30pm

YORK Philharmonic Male Voice Choir and York RI Golden Rail Band reunite for a fourth joint concert in a tender and thrilling pairing of brass and voices, celebrating 100 years of music.

“From romantic film music to toe-tapping hits, there will be something for everyone,” says Golden Rail Band conductor Nick Eastwood.  Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Musicals Across The Multiverse choreographer Connie Howcroft, right, working on moves with Zander Fick, Ben Holeyman, Abbie Law and Lauren Charlton-Matthews

Interdimensional journey of the week: Wharfemede Productions in Musicals Across The Multiverse, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 10 to 13, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

DIRECTOR Helen “Bells” Spencer and musical director Matthew Clare follow up 2023’s Musicals In The Multiverse 2023 with another blend of iconic musical theatre hits reconfigured with surprising twists. 

“Think unexpected style swaps, minor to major key switches, gender reversals, era-bending reinterpretations, genre mash-ups and more,” says Bells.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Debbie Isitt’s cast in rehearsal for the world premiere of Military Wives – The Musical at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Danny With A Camera

World premiere of the week: Military Wives – The Musical, York Theatre Royal, September 10 to 27, times vary

YORK Theatre Royal stages the world premiere of writer-director Debbie Isitt’s musical based on the 2019 film, rooted in Gareth Malone’s The Choir: Military Wives project.

Faced with husbands and partners being away at war, the women are isolated, bored and desperate to take their minds off feelings of impending doom. Enter Olive to help them form a choir. Cue a joyous celebration of female empowerment and friendship, courage and ‘unsung’ heroes. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Libby Greenhill’s Medium Alison, left, Hattie Wells’s Young Alison and Claire Morley’s Alison in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home

York premiere of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Fun Home, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, September 10 to 19, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees

ROBERT Readman directs the York premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Krow’s five-time Tony Award winner, based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel. 

When her volatile father dies unexpectedly, Alison (Claire Morley) recalls how his temperament and secrets defined her family and her life. Moving between past and present, she relives her unique childhood at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions of her father’s hidden desires. Box office: ticketsourse.co.uk/pickmeuptheatrecom.

Rob Newman: Wondering where we are going in Where The Wild Things Were at The Crescent

The future, now: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Rob Newman, Where The Wild Things Were, The Crescent, York, September 11, 7.30pm

ROB Newman wants to discuss where we are and where we are going, from future cities and philistine film directors to Dorothy Parker’s Multiverse Diaries. Throw in Pythagorean gangsters, intellectual bingo callers and a crazy character called Arlo for a comedic “tour-de-force utterly unlike anything else you will ever see anywhere else”. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Mick Tickner: Headlining the Funny Fridays bill at Patch

Comedy gathering of the week: Funny Fridays, at Patch, Bonding Warehouse, Terry Avenue, York, September 12, 7.30pm

AFTER May and June sell-outs and a summer break, Funny Fridays returns for a third night of stand-up hosted by promoter and comedian Katie Lingo. On the £10 bill are 2023 Hull Comedian of the Year Hannah Margaret, Jamie Clinton, Kerris Gibson, James Earl Marsters and headliner Mick Tickner. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk/e/funny-fridays-at-patch-tickets-1473792325519?aff=oddtdtcreator.

Erin Childs’ Dorothy with Toto (Freddie) in York Stage’s The Wizard Of Oz

Ruby slippers of the week: York Stage in The Wizard Of Oz, Grand Opera House, York, September 12 to 20, times vary

UNDER Nik Briggs’s direction, York Stage skips down the Yellow Brick Road as Erin Childs’ Dorothy, Toto and her friends, the Scarecrow (Flo Poskitt), Tin Man (Stu Hutchinson), and Cowardly Lion (Finn East), journey to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard (Ian Giles).

In navigating the enchanting landscape of Oz, Dorothy is watched closely by Glinda, the Good Witch (Carly Morton) as the Wicked Witch of the West (Emily Alderson) plots to thwart Dorothy’s quest and reclaim the magical ruby slippers. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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Pick Me Up Theatre to stage York premiere of five-time Tony award winner Fun Home at York Medical Society in September

Libby Greenhill’s Medium Alison, Hattie Wells’s Young Alison and Claire Morley’s Aliso in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre will stage Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s award-garlanded musical Fun Home at the York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, from September 10 to 19.

Please note, the seating capacity is only 40, so prompt booking is advised at ticketsource.co.uk/pickmeuptheatrecom for this electrifying version of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel.

The winner of five Tony Awards on Broadway, Fun Home opened at the Young Vic, London, in 2018 to sell-out audiences. Now comes its York premiere, directed and designed by Robert Readman.

Dale Vaughan’s Bruce, Alison’s father in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Meet Alison at three stages of her life as memories of her 1970s’ childhood in a funeral home merge with her college love life and her coming out.

When her father dies unexpectedly, graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to tell the story of the volatile, brilliant, one-of-a-kind man whose temperament and secrets defined her family and her life. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father’s hidden desires.

Director Robert Readman was thrilled when the rights to Fun Home became available.  “I jumped at the chance to produce this amazing musical – it is such a moving and unusual story and I love the score and the book,” he says.

“Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes as Alison looks back on her complex relationship with her father and finds they had more in common than she ever knew.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for next month’s production of Fun Home at York Medical Society

“It’s a remarkable show that won Tony awards for best musical, score, book, leading actor and direction, and we’re very lucky to have such a magnificent, tight cast to bring to life Alison Bechdel’s best-selling book, based on her own life. And I feel the atmospheric, very intimate venue of the York Medical Society will work so well for our production.”

Readman’s cast will be led by Claire Morley as Alison, Libby Greenhill as Medium Alison and Hattie Wells as Young Alison, joined by Catherine Foster as Helen,  Dale Vaughan as Bruce, Alison’s father, Teddy Alexander as John, Oliver Smith as Christian, Britney Brett as Joan and the multi-role-playing Cain Branton as JRoy/Pete/Mark/Bobby. Natalie Walker is the musical director.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Fun Home, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, September 10 to 19, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees Content guidance: Themes of LGBTQ+, suicide and strong language. Parental guidance: 12 plus. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/pickmeuptheatre.com.

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James Willstrop’s journey from world squash champ to Fringe theatrical stage brings him to Friargate Theatre

James Willstrop: Squash champ, actor and writer, taking Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be A Man? to Friargate Theatre, York, and the Edinburgh Fringe

FROM squash court champion to stage leading man, James Willstrop explores what success really means and what really matters in his debut solo show based on true events.

In a preview of his Edinburgh Fringe run at The Space @ Niddry Street (Lower) from August 1, former squash world number one-turned-Harrogate writer-performer James presents Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be A Man? at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York, on Monday night.

In his 50-minute musical ode, he ponders what happens when a self-obsessed, international squash player – dreaming only of becoming world champion – falls for someone who desperately wants a child before her body clock expires. “Where’s the solution when two dreams collide?” he asks.

James tries to find answers in the form of his beautiful mother, Lesley, who died ten years earlier, when he was only 16, nearly 17. Through his reflections and memories of her, while this supreme athlete endures one of the most brutal training sessions he has ever done, can he find a way to discover whether dedication to his lifelong craft and drive to become world champion matters most, or whether bringing a child into the world supersedes it?

“It’s a slightly nerdy, unique slant [on the subject of ambition]: you don’t get too many sporting plays,” says James. “I wanted to look at how much it overtakes you and how healthy is your desire to get to that level? What is the cost of it and what really matters?

“It does become quite skewed, but maybe it has to because what I achieved took a lot of dedication and effort. But it’s also a story about life and parenthood and how what matters changes over time. But if we didn’t have these ambitions, whether in art or sport, we wouldn’t get anywhere, would we?”

Father and son

Since childhood, Norfolk-born James has loved to act, perform and write, alongside his 23 years as a professional squash player, and now he combines the demands of parenthood with teaching squash and playing such Pick Me Up Theatre roles on the York stage as Dr Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein, Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist and acid-tongued theatre critic Patrick Burns in Nativity! The Musical.

He has written two books, Shot And A Ghost: A Year In The Brutal World Of Professional Squash and Interviews With Inspiration: Heroes And Icons…And What Drives Them To Succeed, as well as putting pen to paper for the Yorkshire Evening Post. Now he has taken on a very different writing challenge. “Everything has to be said in 50 minutes in this show,” he says.

“Sometimes I found myself thinking, I’m writing a story for the stage for the first time, I’m not an expert playwright, am I trying to squeeze in too much about my mum and my son? Is this too much?”

Those feelings, however, had to play second fiddle to his need to express himself. “A lot of it is written through the regrets of memory as you begin to entertain being a father, thinking about what  you get wrong [when growing up] and how you treated your parents. But it’s also about connection with my son Logan, Vanessa and Lesley.”

James attended a creative writing course at Leeds University just before the first Covid-19 lockdown. “They were encouraging me to keep theatricality in my writing,” he recalls. “I had Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads in my mind and I knew I didn’t want it is to be like a lecture.

“I want to ‘keep it theatrical’, so I’ve been working on how I can use movement, and it’s not a monologue as I’m trying to use other voices too.”

James Willstrop’s Doctor Frederick Frankenstein in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Young Frankenstein

He does make one comparison with squash. “On the squash court, you want to be in the centre, controlling the court, and you can do that on stage too,” says James.

A key ingredient in the show is the music: six original songs by Willstrop with arrangements by York musical director, orchestrator, composer and jazz group leader Sam Johnson, who will be playing keyboards on stage, complemented by recorded musicians.

“It’s been great to work on as James has written the words and tunes that I’ve fleshed out into fuller arrangements,” says Sam. “The thing I noticed from James’s voice notes is that they feel ‘through-sung’, as in a musical, where I’m putting form and structure to it.

“There’s still melody in the songs and they’re not forcing themselves into the story structure, so they feel natural where they are placed.”

James rejoins: “I’m just concerned to match how in good musicals songs are furthering the story, rather than just saying ‘I love you’ or expressing feelings. They must enhance the story,” he concludes.

James Willstrop in Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be A Man?, Friargate Theatre, York, July 28, 7.30pm. Box office: ridinglights.org. Edinburgh Fringe, Venue 9, The Space@Niddry Street (Lower), August 1 to 9, 7.25pm; August 11 to 16, 5.25pm; August 18 to 23, 7.25pm. Box office: 0131 2260000 or edfringe.com. Age guidance: 12 plus.

The poster for James Willstrop’s Edinburgh Fringe-bound solo show, Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be A Man?, previewing at Friargate Theatre, York, tomorrow

James Willstrop: the squash facts

ONE of only 23 world number one players in the history of men’s squash; one of England’s best ever players, gaining 80 caps. Won three world team championship titles for England. Became official world number one in January of 2012, a position held for 11 out of 12 months. British National Champion four times; Commonwealth Gold Medallist in 2018 and 2022.