Tag: Pip Cook

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REVIEW: Badapple Theatre Company in Kate Bramley’s The Thankful Village, York Theatre Royal Studio ****

Pip Cook’s Edie/Tommy, left, Josie Morley’s Nellie/Sydney and Keeley Lane’s Victoria/Mr Proud in Kate Bramley’s The Thankful Village

THIS revival of Kate Bramley’s feminist wartime comedy-drama on the home front marks the 11th anniversary of its commission on the centenary of The Great War.

The Thankful Village has been toured nationally four times by Bramley’s “theatre on your doorstep” company from Green Hammerton, near York, and premiered in France, rather further from your doorstep, in 2018, when an original Badapple cast member joined an all-French cast and crew.

For this all-too-brief return that will conclude with sold-out performances in Whitechapel, Preston on May 2 and Wath on May 3, writer and artistic director Bramley takes to the stage herself in tails to play a live score for the first time in a Badapple show after 27 years, calling on her skills as an international touring musician from the age of 17 to perform Jez Lowe’s score of original songs and music.

Receiving news from the war front: Keeley Lane’s Victoria in Badapple Theatre Company’s The Thankful Village. Picture: Louise Grazia

Her presence, whether on instrumental underscoring duty or accompanying the cast of Keeley Lane, Josie Morley and Pip Cook in song, adds even more poignancy to her story of hope, humour and humanity inspired by her trip to Ypres and the Flanders battlefield and written in honour of three remarkable figures: Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler, Sister Edith Appleton, whose diaries were invaluable for Bramley’s research, and Chaplain Tubby Clayton, whose legacy lives on at Talbot House, Poperinge.

“Amid tragedy, I was struck by the glimpses of joy, beauty and humour found in the darkest moments,” says Kate in The Thankful Times theatrical notes. “We invite you to share in a few laughs and a few tall stories as we pay our respects, in our own way, to those who have gone before.”

In harmony in song in The Thankful Village: Pip Cook, left, Keeley Lane and Josie Morley. Picture: Louise Grazia

The Thankful Villages were those that lost no men in The Great War. Six such villages were in the north of Yorkshire, although Bramley chose to create the fictitious Thankful-in-the-Vale as her setting for a story seen through the eyes of three Yorkshire women from the same rural household, below and above stairs, from August 1914 to the war’s end.

She presents a recognisably Edwardian Yorkshire rural community, where superior, starchy, cold Victoria (Keeley Lane) is in charge of chatterbox house maid Nellie (Josie Morley) and daydreaming, wide-eyed scullery maid Edie (Pip Cook) in the White Horse coaching inn.

The village men – Victoria’s officer-class husband, Arthur, and the fresh-faced girls’ boyfriends, Sydney and Tommy – have signed up for the war effort, and to emphasise their absence, Bramley places her play in the gentlemen’s smoking room of the inn, designed in compact, fold-away travel-friendly Badapple tradition  by Catherine Dawn.

Founder, director and writer – and international musician – Kate Bramley playing live in a Badapple show for the first time in the Green Hammerton company’s 27-year history

As in Bramley’s two Land Girl plays from the Second World War, The Great War unfolds predominantly through the women’s eyes, with news sent home in letters and postcards from loved ones. This is complemented by interludes where the trio plays the men on the front, when Lowe’s songs reveal his customary ear for a folk tune and his witty, poignant way with a line.

They mirror the songs of the time with such elan that you would swear they must have originated from wartime. They add to the storytelling, provide commentary and context, and plenty have the defiant humour so necessary to survive in the field of battle or in the loneliness and fear of separation, all the better for Bramley’s live, undemonstrative accompaniment.

Each woman progresses and changes through the heightened experience of war, Edie losing her naive wonderment, if not her innocence; Nellie becoming a field nurse (in a storyline inspired by Nellie Spindler and Sister Edith Appleton); and Victoria finally breaking her cold front.

Josie Morley’s Nellie, left, and Pip Cook’s Edie on scrubbing duty at the White Horse in The Thankful Village. Picture: Louise Grazia

Bramley’s feminist undercurrent to these individual stories is the rising swell of the suffrage movement, as women took on roles previously the preserve of men, and so the play is a hymn of praise to suffragette activist Emmeline Pankhurst too.

Cook, who will spend the summer touring Twelfth Night as Viola and Maria with Miracle Theatre, draws on her talent for comedy, peppered with pathos too, as the ever-willing Edie.

Lane captures Victoria’s implacable, impervious, sometimes imperious nature, her frugality and winter-chill harshness, before a redemptive conversion at the close that would make Scrooge leap for joy. Her Victoria even says “We are not amused” at one point.

“A passion for living life in a fury”: Josie Morley’s Nellie in Badapple Theatre Company’s The The Thankful Village. Picture: Louise Grazia

The best-drawn character is Nellie, with her diarist turn of phrase in her journal despatches, performed so movingly by Morley, and it is her journey – and her passion for living life with a fury – that gives The Thankful Village its emotional clout and poignant final twist.

As in its 2014 premiere, and now amid the warmongering and rutting stags of today’s worsening  male domination, it makes you thankful for the under-appreciated Great War service of women, whose story too often has been drowned out by the fusillade of men’s deeds fired off  by history books. Bramley’s poetic work is more of a distaff companion piece to the War Poets.

Badapple Theatre Company in The Thankful Village, York Theatre Royal Studio, today at 2.30m and 7pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Badapple Theatre Company in panto mash-up Sleeping Beauty And The Beast, until January 5 2025 ****

Putting the cross into cross-dressing: Richard Galloway’s Wicked Witch of West Yorkshire in Badapple Theatre Company’s Sleeping Beauty And The Beast. Picture: Karl Andre

YES, you read that show title correctly. Sleeping Beauty And The Beast is a panto-mash-up of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty And The Beast from the inquisitive, anarchic mind of Richard Kay. And what a smash of a mash he makes in this madcap marriage.

“Three actors, two pantomimes, one hour, what could possibly go wrong,” read Badapple Theatre Company’s invitation to York writer, director and composer Kay’s delightfully playful show. The answer, on preview night at Stillingfleet Village Institute, turned out to be the absence of a crucial prop, met with a profuse apology from the tech desk!

The intrepid cast of Richard Galloway (in his third Badapple show), Pip Cook (in her second) and Livy Potter (in her company debut) improvised admirably in a show that is fleet of foot and quick of mind throughout.

Potter’s Fairy Naturel and friends must thwart the evil potion plant-poisoning plans of the “Bad to the Bone” Wicked Witch of West Yorkshire (Galloway putting the cross into cross-dressing in roughly applied blue eye-shadow, gash of red lipstick, heavy stubble, rudimentary wig and a mardy mood) as Kay weaves pollution, a dig at water companies and, later, the re-wilding of a country estate into the mix.

Pip Cook’s Belle: One of her eight roles in Sleeping Beauty And The Beast. Picture: Karl Andre

A Donald Trump mask, references to July’s General Election, Brexit, Covid, climate change and Nigel Farage, plus a jibe at how Royal Families “can get away with anything” provide a bit of politics too to please the Ben Eltons of this world, while Kay’s dips into 2024 culture include a pastiche of Claudia Winkleman in Traitors mode, a mention of Taylor Swift and a nod to Brat, Charli XCX’s word of the year.

The two overlapping stories, fused into one with “too much plot”, are set in the neighbouring villages of High Uppington and Lower Netherdale, where Cook’s Belle (in blue) and Potter’s Beauty (in matching pink) must be saved from their fairytale fates with the fairy’s help as the admirably alliterative Wicked Witch vows to “nobble these numpties” when learning of the prophecy that either Belle or Beauty will save the planet.

Those villages are depicted on the front of William Fricker’s proscenium arch set, a wonderfully unpredictable design with a rotating core that facilitates puppets making sporadic entries and Cook somehow squeezing through a seemingly too small space to make a hasty exit.   

The highly comedic Cook will be kept busiest of all the cast, eight roles no less, ranging from apprentice villain David the Dimwit to Sir David of Attenborough, from Mother and Father in puppet form to Queen Carmella and King Charlie, requiring her to dash on and off ever more frantically for a costume change to switch from one royal to the other.

Livy Potter’s Lord Hunk in Sleeping Beauty And The Beast. Picture: Karl Andre

Potter, such an impressively diverse actress in past roles in “serious plays” on the York stage, has bags of fun in the lighter froth of pantomime, whether as Beauty, the feisty fairy or Lord Hunk, the nobleman who will become the Beast (represented by a puppet head).

Galloway’s ease with comedy, seen previously in Badapple’s revival of Kate Bramley’s Eddie And The Gold Tops, is given full expression in his rough and ready “dame”, the Wicked Witch, and he also revels in sending up a French accent as Lord Hunk’s gardener, the eco-conscious Bertie.

Three actors, two stories, only one hour, this is a novel pantomime but one steeped in tradition too, or at least playing with tradition. Kay, for example, can never resist putting the pun into panto. What is the child’s name? Belle. “It has a nice ring to it,” we are told. “Our baby Belle. Does it sound too cheesy.” There will be plenty more where those came from, best of all the Luke Littler one.

Kay dips into the fashion for meta-theatre with such self-aware comments as “That’s a slightly unusual tangent for pantomime” and “Hey, fourth character for you in this scene. That’s a record”, while his satire on every pantomime’s obligatory saccharine, soppy ballad turns into a point-making ode to rescuing the planet, Our Love For The Earth.

Writer, director and composer Richard Kay in the rehearsal room for Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

Kay is in a mischievous mood too, his tongue firmly in his cheek when he talks of “the “self-satisfied stench of rural village life” on a tour that will be playing to village audiences. ”.

You will love the clever little touches, such as the use of silhouettes with torches, a puppet speeding across the top of the set to signify “running all the way”, and Fricker’s creation of a “particularly prickly thicket” to spread across the set.

Given just how well this mash-up works in the Green Hammerton company’s match-up with Rural Arts On Tour, Badapple surely will ask Richard Kay to come up with another one for next winter. Any suggestions?

Badapple Theatre Company and Rural Arts On Tour present Sleeping Beauty And The Beast until January 5 2025. For tour and ticket details, head to ruralarts.org/whats-on/performances/ or email admin@ruralarts.org or phone 01845 526 536.

Performances: December 30, Amotherby, 1pm; Shipton-by Beningbrough, 7pm; December 31, Stillington, 1pm; January 2, Coverdale, 1pm; Green Hammerton, 7pm; January 3, Cononley, 1pm; Clapham, 7pm; January 4, Middleton St George, Darlington, 1pm; January 5, Sharow, Ripon, 1pm.

Dastardly double act: Pip Cook’s David the Dimwit and Richard Galloway’s Wicked Witch of West Yorkshire in Badapple Theatre Company’s pantomime mash-up. Picture: Karl Andre
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What happens when Sleeping Beauty meets Beauty And The Beast? Badapple Theatre make a pantomime mash-up

Writer-director Richard Kay rehearsing Badapple Theatre Company’s Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

THREE actors, two pantomimes, one hour, what could possibly go wrong in Badapple Theatre Company’s panto mash-up Sleeping Beauty And The Beast?

The intrepid trio of Richard Galloway (in his third Badapple show), Pip Cook (in her second) and Livy Potter (in her Badapple debut) will “go where no pantomimers have ever gone before” in the Green Hammerton touring troupe’s madcap marriage of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty And The Beast by York writer, director and composer Richard Kay

From tomorrow’s first preview in Sutton upon Derwent Village Hall until closing night at St John’s Church, Sharow, on January 5 2025, audiences can join Fairy Naturel and friends as they try to thwart the evil potion plant-poisoning plans of the Wicked Witch of The West (of Yorkshire) and save Belle and Beauty from their storybook fates.

Expect classic pantomime japes, songs and costume changes galore as Badapple, in association with Rural Arts On Tour, undertake a joyous rollercoaster panto mash-up for all ages, all from the safety and comfort of a village hall, as Galloway plays the Wicked Witch and Cook and Potter the roles of Belle and Beauty plus multiple more roles each.

“The real world can be pretty scary at the moment, so this pantomime will provide some much-needed escapism on your doorstep,” says Richard. “Filled with the magic and glitz of a larger-scale panto packaged into your local hall, featuring multi-talented performers, cheaper ticket prices and less need to travel, you’ve got a festive theatre experience you can bring the whole family to without breaking the Christmas budget!”

Livy Potter: York actress making her Badapple debut in Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

This autumn, buoyed by Arts Council England funding, Badapple are already on tour with company founder and artistic director Kate Bramley’s new show Polaris The Snow Bear: “a classic Badapple family show with the usual comedy, puppets, songs, mayhem and a touch of snowy wonder  as Polaris and sidekick Sammy seek to save the Polar world – and Christmas itself”.

Now, after 26 years of performing original shows in the smallest and hardest-to-reach rural venues both regionally and nationwide, Sleeping Beauty & The Beast breaks new ground for Badapple. “This is the first Badapple show in which Kate has had pretty much no involvement,” says Richard. “That’s  quite some trust in me to have that honour, but it’s still very much true to the brand.

“The show came about in a slightly roundabout way. I’d performed in pantomime for many years, and in terms of writing, I’ve done a lot for York Maize and the York Castle Museum, and storytelling shows for Brimham Brocks too, walking around the rocks.

“The three-hander York Maize shows are very pantomimic in style, and I also did a show for York BID and Little Vikings, just before Covid, called The Hunt For The Magical Chocolatey Chips.”

At the same time, Richard has played his part in Badapple for ten years, co-directing and performing in a couple of shows and running the youth theatre, writing and directing Christmas shows for casts of up to 30.

Richard Galloway’s Wicked Witch of the West (Yorkshire) and Pip Cook’s Belle in rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

“So we had some ideas for doing Sleeping Beauty and Beauty And The Beast and Kate thought it would work well on tour. We were very lucky that Rural Arts [based in The Courthouse, Thirsk] contacted us at the start of the year to ask us to pitch to do their Christmas tour offering. They liked the idea of how these two stories go together so nicely,” he says.

“The brief was to write an hour-long panto with all the familiar elements and all the usual capers but with a cast of only three.

“So we’re doing a show with multi-roling, puppetry, pop songs and some original songs that I’ve written. We love the idea of blending two pantomimes, and because we’re an eco-conscious company, it’s also a pantomime with an eco-theme, where the Wicked Witch is destroying the planet with her potion boiling  but there is a prophesy that either Belle or Beauty will save the Earth, so the Wicked Witch wants to nobble both of them.”

What happened when he put the two stories together? “It’s been interesting to see where it went. Because Badapple tours to villages, I knew I wanted to set it in two neighbouring villages and then see how one could save the other,” says Richard.

“We’re also  delighted to have a set design by William Fricker, an old friend of mine that I’ve worked with before, who co-designed Hansel & Gretel at Shakespeare’s Globe and has created a wonderful proscenium arch set for us.”

Pip Cook: Following up the autumn tour of Badapple’s The Regalettes with Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

Fresh from making her Badapple debut in the autumn tour of Kate Bramley’s The Regalettes, Pip Cook is piling up the roles in Sleeping Beauty And The Beast. “I’m playing seven!” she says confidently. “Belle, the King, the Queen, Mother, Father, David Dimwit, David Attenborough.”

Later in this conversation in a break at Tuesday’s rehearsal in Hunsingore, it turns out she will be playing a Prince too. “Oh yes! I forgot about that one!”  she says.

“I play some of the characters at the same time: Mother and Father as puppets on each hand, and the King and Quen dashing on and off. It’s pretty manic.

“I absolutely love the Badapple style: I had loads of fun – and lots of moustaches – in The Regalettes, which was a typical Badapple show with a lot of heart and a message as well as comedy [in a play set in the 1930s in the fictional Yorkshire village of Bottledale, where a new movie premières at the tiny Regal cinema].”

Beauty is Livy Potter’s latest role as she settles into focusing on a freelance professional acting career, as well as writing and arts marketing, after working at York Theatre Royal and the University of York and being chair of the York Settlement Community Players.

Livy Potter’s Beauty, left, and Pip Cook’s Belle rehearsing a scene from Badapple Theatre Company’s Sleeping Beauty And The Beast

“I haven’t seen Badapple’s work in the past but I’m feeling very much part of the family now,” she says. “The friendliness and approachability have really struck me. Badapple are all about supporting local talent, which is really important to me,” says Livy, who also will be playing Fairy Naturel and Lord Hunk, who becomes the Beast.

“This show is something new in its style, and I’ve always wanted to do panto, so this is the perfect introduction for me – and the audience will definitely have a role to play, which will be fun.”

Like Pip and Livy in their matching blue and pink attire, Richard Galloway is dressed in character, in a skirt, in the rehearsal room for his principal role as the Wicked Witch. “I’ll also be playing the long-suffering French servant of Lord Hunk, and there’s a cuckoo puppet and a Prince in there for me too,” he says.

“This is my third Badapple show, after I did two last year, when I took over from Danny Mellor in Danny’s one-man show Yorkshire Kernel [a poignant war memorial comedy] and did the 25th anniversary tour of Kate’s play Eddie And The Gold Tops. Plenty of variety there!”

Badapple Theatre Company and Rural Arts On Tour present Sleeping Beauty And The Beast from December 17 to January 5 2025, preceded by previews at Sutton upon Derwent Village Hall tomorrow, 7pm, and Stillingfleet Village Institute, on Saturday, 6.30pm. For full tour and ticket details , head to ruralarts.org/whats-on/performances/ or email admin@ruralarts.org or phone  01845 526 536. Tickets for the previews and Green Hammerton Village Hall performance (January 2, 7pm) are on sale on 01423 331304 or at badappletheatre.co.uk.

Richard Galloway, right, in Badapple’s 25th anniversary tour of Kate Bramley’s Eddie And The Gold Tops, when he performed with Zach Atkinson and Emily Chattle. Picture: Karl Andre

Copyright of The Press, York

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Badapple Theatre set out to save the Polar world and Christmas in new family show Polaris, on tour from today to January 5

Tom Mordell’s Polaris the Snow Bear and Danny Mellor’s Sammy the Seal in Badapple Theatre Company’s Polaris The Snow Bear. Picture: Karl Andre

MEET Polaris, the travelling snow bear and star of a new family Christmas show by Green Hammerton’s Badapple Theatre Company that opens tonight.

Polaris is on the longest journey of his life: to find the great Mr. Hat-In-Burrow, a renowned human naturalist who – legend says – has the key to saving the Polar world.

When he arrives unexpectedly by iceberg in a small village in the North of England, Polaris does not receive the warm welcome he expected! Many complicated and comedic adventures ensue as he tries to put everything right in time for Christmas with the help of his reluctant sidekick, Sammy the Seal.

Tom Mordell

Written and directed by Badapple director Kate Bramley, this festive tall tale for all ages five upwards, as well as the young at heart, will tour to small village halls throughout Yorkshire and then nationwide from November 29 to January 5 2025 with a cast of Tom Mordell as Polaris (and other roles) and company favourite Danny Mellor as Sammy the Seal (and other roles too). Jez Lowe’s songs and Catherine Dawn’s design completes the snow-dusted picture.

For the past 26 years, Badapple have performed  original shows in the smallest and hardest-to-reach rural venues nationwide, bringing theatre and music “to your doorstep”.

“From the North Yorkshire team that delivered The Mice Who Ate Christmas, The Elves And The Carpenter and The Snow Dancer, expect a classic Badapple family show with the usual comedy, puppets, songs, mayhem and a touch of snowy wonder!” says Kate. “It’s perfect for grandparents and grandchildren to enjoy together as Polaris and sidekick Sammy seek to save the Polar world – and Christmas itself.”

Danny Mellor

The tour will take in 26 venues, as far afield as Lancashire, Cumbria, County Durham, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Herefordshire and Shropshire, as well as North, East and South Yorkshire.. All venue and ticket details can be found at: https://www.badappletheatre.co.uk/show/polaris-the-snow-bear/ or by telephoning 01423 331304.

Yorkshire dates include:

November 29, 7pm: Tockwith Village Hall, box office, 01423 331304.

November 30, 7pm: Kilham Village Hall, 07354 301119.

December 1, 7pm: Old Girls’ School, Sherburn in Elmet, 01977 685178.

December 3, 7pm: Green Hammerton Village Hall, 01423 331304.

December 7, 3pm: The Mount School, York, 01423 331304/badappletheatre.co.uk.

Badapple’s tour poster for Polaris The Snow Bear

December 11, 7.30pm: Bishop Monkton Village Hall, 01423 331304. 

December 17, 6pm: The Cholmeley Hall, Brandsby, 01347 889898.

December 28, 2pm: Ampleforth Village Hall, 07549 775971.

December 30, 4.30pm: East Cottingwith Village Hall, 07866 024009.

Did you know? Badapple’s travels in 2024 with The Regalettes

EARLIER this year, Badapple Theatre Company mounted spring and autumn tours of director Kate Bramley’s 1930s’-inspired comedy The Regalettes, the first from April 24 to June 7 with a Yorkshire cast of Ellie Pawsey and Rhiannon Canoville-Ord; the second from September 26 to  November 17 with Pip Cook and fellow York actress Nell Baker plus ‘cinema’ visuals and new twists.

In The Regalettes, Celebrity and rural life clash head on when a new movie premières at the tiny Regal cinema in the fictional Yorkshire village of Bottledale in Bramley’s play set in the 1930s, the cinema decade that spans Hitchcock noir and classic Technicolor showstoppers.

Ellie Pawsey’s The Falcon in Badapple’s The Regalettes. Picture: Karl Andre

Comedy and intrigue ensue as the intrepid heroines Hilda and Annie suddenly find themselves at the heart of a very silly mystery. Cue film sequences, music, songs and clowning in Bramley’s story that looks at the contrast for young women between isolated village life and the perceived glamour of the movies.

Bramley revealed how the idea for the play came about. “I’m a big film noir fan; it’s so stylish and elegant, and so well written – and the 1930s was a huge boom time for Hollywood and famous UK film makers as well.”

Rhiannon Canoville-Ord as Mademoiselle Escargot in The Regalettes. Picture: Karl Andre

Away from Hollywood, the decade was far from magical for many, with the Great Depression taking hold. “For ordinary working people, the 1930s was a time of increasing financial hardship which seemed a world away from the glamour of a movie set,” Kate noted.

“I suppose I thought there were some parallels to our modern-day experiences, but as ever it’s a comedy, and we just had a lot of fun piecing together a ‘what if’ mini-mystery that turns normal rural life upside down for our heroines.”

Nell Baker

The first tour set off in the wake of Badapple securing £28,381 grant funding from Arts Council England and £800 from East Riding Council. “Badapple is immensely grateful for this generous funding, which enables ours original brand of live theatre to reach rural locations across the country,” said Kate.

Later explaining how the 18-date second tour differed from the first, she said: “Bringing in a new cast has given the whole show a new lease of life. I have re-written some of the show and, alongside our new assistant director Connie Peel, we added some new visual twists and turns to the narrative, as well as our production team augmenting the overall design and style. We are always refining and creating and looking to make every tour be the best it can be.”

Pip Cook