Tag: Robert Readman

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, delightful, delicious, de-lovely till Dec 30 ****

Alexandra Mather’s Reno Sweeney: Leading with pizzazz in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

IF your search is for anything but pantomime on the York stage over the festive season, then go full steam ahead for Cole Porter’s 1934 musical, one set on a Christmas steamer, it just so happens.

Pick Me Up Theatre supremo Robert Readman is on design duty (as well as in producer and co-choreographer mode), fitting out the Theatre@41 auditorium with blue-and-white seating on the deck of the SS American, the audience placed port or starboard side in a traverse setting.

The upper deck, as it were, likewise fills the mezzanine level with more seating in familiar sea-faring livery.

Add two white-frosted Christmas trees on raised platforms at either end that open up to turn into beds, and Theatre@41 looks a picture, a picture that has you wanting to join this fast-moving, fizzing, funny and fun party.

Susannah Baines’s Evangeline Harcourt and Mark Simmonds’s Elisha Whitney in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Andrew Isherwood is at the helm, steering Porter’s Anything Goes with a keen eye for comic as well as dancing rhythm, working in tandem with chief choreographer Ali Kirkham, whose CV reveals her past days on cruise ships.

On board is a cast that combines plenty of the cream of York’s theatre world with two new arrivals, Fergus Powell and Thea Fennell, who moved up from Cambridge only two months ago. Two classically trained voices are to the fore too: York Opera leading lady Alexandra Mather fronting a musical theatre production for the first time with aplomb as Reno Sweeney and University of York graduate Claire Gordon-Brown singing delightfully as Hope Harcourt.

As the SS American makes its stately way from New York to London under the ever watchful eye of Adrian Cook’s ship’s Captain, Mather’s nightclub singer-cum-evangelist Reno glides coolly hither and thither, as if Dorothy Parker were penning her lines.

Adam Price’s Billy Crocker, left, Alexandra Mather’s Reno Sweeney and Fergus Powell’s Moonface Martin in Anything Goes. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Newly red-headed and looking every inch the Thirties’ part, matched by her Angels (Chloe Branton’s Chastity, Sophie Curry’s Virtue and Sophie Kemp’s Charity), Mather’s Reno is working with her forlorn buddy, Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price, lovely singing tone), the stowaway desperate to woo his beloved Hope Harcourt (Gordon-Brown’s role).

Porter, as elegant as eloquent in his writing, has such fun with Crocker’s character, who must take on myriad  disguises not to blow his stowaway status. Price, light of comic touch, is a joy, particularly when faced with that old Skakespearean comic device of the mistaken identity.

He works well not only with Mather’s Reno, queen of the acid comment, but also with Powell’s Moonface Martin, Public Enemy #13 conman, who joins Reno in backing Crocker’s cause, while also seeking to elude detection. Both have to keep their wits about them, and Porter gives them lines plenty to fit that bill.

Thea Fennell’s Erma Latour is given a lift-off by Charlie Fox, left, and James Robert Ball’s Sailors in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Taking on disguises: Fergus Powell’s Moonface Martin, left, and Adam Price’s Billy Crocker take on ever more extreme steps in Anything Goes. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Charlie Fox, in a break from cruise-ship engagements, bonds with the equally agile James Robert Ball as a brace of nimble sailors, while Ball has a second string to his comedic bow as the righteous Minister Henry T Dobson, something of a turbulent priest to rock the ocean liner.

Neil Foster first played Hope’s fiancé, Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, the only Englishman aboard, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre all of 27 years ago, and the role fits him like a familiar glove, immaculately attired, thoroughly decent, delighted by American sayings. You might call Sir Evelyn nice bit dim in that Harry Enfield way, but Foster’s characterisation is more than mere caricature, and he revels in Sir Evelyn’s sudden revelation.

Susannah Baines’s grand mama Evangeline Harcourt (a role shared with Beryl Nairn), Mark Simmonds’s resolute Elisha Whitney and Leo Portal’s busybody Ship’s Purser are all in fine form too, and we are sure to see more of Pick Me Up debutante Fennell on the evidence of her Erma Latour, who’s a scream. Zachary Stoney and Reuben Baines, from Pick Me Up’s autumn hit production of Bugsy Malone, add a youthful spark here too as Spit and Dippy.

Fergus Powell’s Moonface Martin, left, with Reuben Baines’s Dippy, centre, and Zachary Stoney’s Spit. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Deputising for musical director John Atkin, who was on Father Christmas duty elsewhere on press night, Nigel Ball led the band as merrily as Porter’s wonderful tunes demanded, while Mather, Price and co delighted in his witty lyrics.

Kirkham’s choreography is playful, stylish, thrilling, making the most of the open deck with panache and exuberance, all enhanced by Julie Fisher’s fabulous costume designs. Throughout, Mather leads with pizzazz, hitting the heights with a knockout performance that affirms she is as much at home in musical theatre as opera. Cue a fight for her services! You’re the top, Miss Mather, as the opening number proclaims.

Does the director let anything go in Anything Goes? No, sirree, precision, precision, precision rules as he puts the swish into Isherwood, turning the madcap into the ever maddercap, the tap number into top of the taps, the romantic buds into full bloom.

All the while, the Porter hits keep a’coming: It’s De-Lovely, Let’s Misbehave, Bon Voyage, I Get A Kick Out Of You, Blow, Gabriel, Blow. Isherwood and his company get a kick out of every one of them, and so will you. Truly, it’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s de-lovely.

Pick Me up Theatre, Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Performances, 7.30pm, December 15 to 18, December 20 and December 27 to 30; 2.30pm, December 20, 21 and 27. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? James Robert Ball’s Sailor in Anything Goes

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Getting a kick out of you musical of the month: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

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

DITCH the December chills in York and climb aboard the S.S. American as Pick Me Up Theatre’s all-singing all-dancing Christmas production of Anything Goes! sets sail at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, on December 12.

Directed by Andrew Isherwood, Cole Porter’s swish musical follows the madcap antics of a motley crew as they chart their course from New York to London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

On board are popular nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and her pal, lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown).

Hope, however, is engaged to another passenger, English gent Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, played by Neil Foster, who is reprising the role after 27 years. “It’s amazing how I’ve remembered so many of the lines and lyrics,” he says. “They must have been buried somewhere in my memory.”

Sailing to England too is second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell), aka “Public Enemy #13”. Song, dance and fabulous farce ensue as Reno and Moonface try to help Billy win the love of his life.

Reno will be Alexandra Mather’s first lead in a musical after principal roles aplenty for York Opera. “Taking on Reno Sweeney is incredibly exciting for me,” she says. “I’m stepping into such a sharp and charismatic role, which is a dream come true.

“With Cole Porter’s music and the brilliant, witty script, the whole experience feels nostalgic, stylish and incredibly glamorous.”

“I’m stepping into such a sharp and charismatic role, which is a dream come true,” says Alexandra Mather of playing Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes

That pretty much sums up Susannah Baines and Beryl Nairn too, who will be  sharing the sassy role of Hope’s mother, Evangeline Harcourt. No strangers to a sequin and a spin around the dance floor, they cannot wait to take to the stage at Theatre@41.

“It’s a fantastic role and I’m honoured to be sharing it with such a great, talented friend,” says Susannah. “I just feel for the rest of the cast, dealing with two overbearing mothers! I love this era. It’s so elegant. And I’m really enjoying working with our choreographer Ali Kirkham.”

Ali is right at home with her role, not only as choreographer but also with the nautical setting of this musical. “I worked as a singer myself on cruise ships,” says the former head of musical theatre at Kirkham Henry Performing Arts in Malton.

“I produced shows for more than 20 years for the fabulous Fred Olsen liners and theatres around the world. Many of my ex-students have gone on to perform on the West End and Broadway, in television and films, and of course on top-class cruise lines. Like my former student Charlie Fox, who is joining our York cast between contracts.”

The full cast comprises: Alexandra Mather as Reno Sweeney; Adam Price, Billy Crocker; Neil Foster, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh; Fergus Powell, Moonface Martin; Claire Gordon-Brown, Hope Harcourt; Beryl Nairn/Susannah Baines, Evangeline Harcourt; Mark Simmond, Elisha Whitney, and Adrian Cook, Ship’s Captain.

Thea Fennell plays Erma Latour; Leo Portal, Ship’s Purser; James Robert Ball, Minister/Sailor; Zachary Thorp, Spit; Reuben Baines, Dippy; Chloe Branton, Angel; Sophie Curry, Angel; Charlie Fox, Sailor, and Sophie Kemp, Angel. Cameo roles go to Ryan Richardson, Rich Musk, Andrew Roberts, Sanna Jeppsson, Adam Sowter and Jim Paterson.

The creative team comprises director Andrew Isherwood; musical director John Atkin; sound and lighting designer Will Nicholson; choreographers Ali Kirkham and Robert Readman (who also handles design and production) and wardrobe mistress Julie Fisher, assisted by Jo Hird.

Pick Me up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 12 to 30. Performances, 7.30pm December 12, December 15 to 18, December 20 and December 27 to 30; 2.30pm, December 13, 20, 21 and 27. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/seasons/b4dda860-03cd-492d-b990-026e1ec590a3

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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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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Fun Home, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm ****

Alison times three in Fun Home: Libby Greenhill as ‘medium’ Alison, Claire Morley as Alison and Hattie Wells as ‘small’ Alison. Picture: Mike Darley

APOLOGIES for the tardiness of this review, delayed by five days of binging on Prague culture.  Nevertheless, it is not too late to see Pick Me Up Theatre’s York premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s award-garlanded musical Fun Home.

Well, hopefully not too late to acquire a ticket for tonight or tomorrow. York Medical Society’s Theatre Room is one of York’s more compact performance spaces (capacity 60, for lectures; 45, for cabaret; 24, for board meetings). And now 40 for Fun Home.

Director-designer Robert Readman gives the portrait-bedecked room more of a drawing-room entertainment vibe, or maybe a parlour. Make that a funeral parlour, as a funeral home – or ‘Fun Home’ as the Beckdel family call their unconventional Pennsylvanian abode – is where ‘small’ Alison and brothers Christian (Oliver Smith) and John (Teddy Alexander) play and make up songs amid the coffins.

Young Alison (Hattie Wells) is one of three Alisons in Fun Home, whose story is drawn from cartoonist Alison Beckdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Omnipresent is adult Alison (Claire Morley), at the age of the 43 – the same age that her father, suicidal spoiler alert, stood in front of a truck – looking back on her childhood and her coming out at 19 at university in New York (‘medium’ Alison, played by 16-year-old Libby Greenhill).

“It’s such a moving and unusual story and I love the score and the book,” says Readman, who rates five-time Tony winner Fun Home among his very best productions.

He is not wrong. Hattie Wells reveals a precocious talent, so confident on stage already, singing brightly and delivering a spot-on American accent, as her Alison shows a preference for jeans over dresses and a love of drawing. Her solo rendition of Ring Of Keys, is a high-point of a musical that eschews an interval to achieve maximum impact.

Likewise Libby Greenhill shows maturity beyond her years in her account of ‘medium’ Alison, with her love of literature and first love for fellow student Joan (Britney Brett), expressed so humorously and passionately in the song I’m Changing My Major To Joan. She is particularly impressive in the scenes where she craves her parents’ response to telling them by letter that she is a lesbian.

Alison’s mother, Helen (Catherine Foster, in fine singing voice), is a professional actress, but the focus is on her home life, where husband Bruce (Dale Vaughan) is a towering mass of complexities, contradictions, gaslighting control and linear, intolerant  thinking, yet with a teacher’s love of literature, a reckless streak and an expressive sideline in house restorations.

Doors to the Theatre Room are kept open for the corridor sounds of Bruce kicking out in anger, shouting in foul-mouthed froth at his wife and introducing ‘small’ Alison to her first dead body, adding to their shock value.

Bruce is homosexual, and not a closet one, openly hitting on students (played by Cain Branton) without regard for his wife’s feelings. Vaughan’s frank, fearless, frightening performance is one of the best on the York stage this year.

Everything is observed by Morley’s Alison, drawing and writing captions for her memoir, trying to make sense of it all, not least her father’s suicide, and she does so with a mixture of humour and tragedy in Morley’s first musical since her All Saints schooldays. And she really can sing!  Who knew!

Oh, and if you miss tonight or tomorrow’s shows, you could always head to Manchester for the Royal Exchange production from July 3 to August 1 next summer.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Fun Home, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm Content guidance: Themes of LGBTQ+, suicide and strong language. Parental guidance: 12 plus. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/pickmeuptheatre.com.

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Meet the three Alisons in Pick Me Up Theatre’s York premiere of Fun Home

Alison times three: Libby Greenhill, left, Hattie Wells and Claire Morley in the Fulford Social Hall rehearsal room for Pick Me Up Theatre’s Fun Home. Picture: Kevin Greenhill

PICK Me Up Theatre’s York premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s award-garlanded musical Fun Home opens at the York Medical Society, Stonegate, on September 10.

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

“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 graphic novel, 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.” Please note, the seating capacity is only 40, so prompt booking is advised. 

First staged in the UK at the Young Vic in London in 2018, but yet to play the West End, Fun Home now makes its Yorkshire debut  with its story of 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.

Claire Morley in rehearsal for Fun Home. Picture: Kevin Greenhill

When her father dies unexpectedly, graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to recall 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.

“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,” says Robert.

Readman’s cast will be led by Claire Morley as adult Alison, aged 43, Libby Greenhill as Medium Alison, aged 19, and Hattie Wells as Young Alison, aged nine, joined by Catherine Foster as Helen, Alison’s mother, 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.

“Fun Home is one of those cult musicals where if you know it, you rave about it,” says Claire, who is performing in her first musical since playing a Ronette in Little Shop Of Horrors in her All Saints schooldays. “If you don’t know the show but come next week, I’m hoping it will become some people’s favourite musical.

Libby Greenhill’s Medium Alison: “Some of her scenes about self-identity and discovering she’s a lesbian are quite funny,” she says. Picture: Kevin Greenhill

“I’ve known about the show for some time, though I’ve never seen it, but I love the songs. I’ve used Maps for auditions and Changing My Major (Libby’s solo in our show), at drama school, and when I saw Pick Me Up Theatre were doing it, I thought ‘this is my chance’.”

Libby, 16, who is studying for A-levels in Classical Civilisation, Religious Studies and English Language (“my passion”), was the first to be cast by Readman in December. All Saints pupil Hattie followed later that month, picked while starring in Pick Me Up’s Oliver!, when appearing in Fagin’s gang alongside her mother Rhian’s Mrs Sowerberry. 

Looking ahead, Hattie, aged 11, has been cast as one of two Annies in York Light Opera Company’s production of Annie at York Theatre Royal next February.

Claire’s Alison will be omnipresent on stage. “Her memories make these characters emerge from her past. In one song, I sing that she’s 43, a similar age to when her father committed suicide, and so throughout the show she’s looking back on her life, her teenage days and childhood, and her relationship with her father.”

Young Alison actress Hattie Wells singing in the Fulford Social Hall rehearsal room. Picture: Kevin Greenhill

Libby says: “The musical is based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, where she’s looking back over her memories, switching between 19-year-old Alison, in her first year at college in Pennsylvania,  and 11-year-old Alison, and there’s no dragging in this show. It’s very immersive, about one hour 40 minutes long, so there’s no interval.”

Claire says: “The show builds to this dramatic event, so if it had an interval, it would break the momentum, and staging it in the round with the audience on all sides will benefit the show too.”

Hattie has found herself growing into the role. “It felt weird at first because things didn’t all make sense to me, and it seemed quite strange, especially when Bruce [the father] is really angry, when it’s very scary as Dale [Vaughan] is really good at being angry,” she says.  “It’s helped to watch clips on YouTube and to work with Robert in rehearsals.”

Libby stresses that Fun Home is not a dark comedy but has elements of both.  “There are dark things with the father, and then, in some of Medium Alison’s scenes about self-identity and discovering she’s a lesbian, they’re quite funny,” she says.

“Ultimately it’s life-affirming as Alison tries to work out how to move on while reconciling herself with how she was emotionally manipulated,” says Claire. “I think everyone who comes to the show will recognise something from their own lives, although it’s very specifically one person’s memories – and it’s definitely not all doom and gloom. It’s a good musical where people will come up with differing interpretations.”

The three Alisons will be seldom seen on stage together. “There’s only one moment where we acknowledge each other,” says Hattie.

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.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s show poster for Fun Home at York Medical Society

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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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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday ****

Everybody’s talking about Harvey Stevens’ Jamie: the break-out star of Pick Me Up Theatre’s production

MADE in Sheffield and exported to the musical theatre world, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie has its second York run this week after Nik Briggs’s Teen Edition for York Stage in June 2023.

Young actors are no less prominent in York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s production, led by Harvey Stevens, even younger at 15 than Ryan Addyman  was when fronting Briggs’s cast of 13 to 19-year-olds at 17.

Harvey has been dancing since his first class at the Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance aged three and will begin musical theatre studies at SLP College in Garforth in September. He is a stage natural, tall and lithe and mischievously energetic, here bringing his dream role of Jamie New to life with cheek and chutzpah.

There to watch him on the first night was his father, Antonie Williams-Browne, who had travelled up from Plymouth specially for the show. Twenty years ago, Antonie had shown off his own dance moves in Robert Readman’s UK amateur premiere of The Full Monty for Shipton Theatre Company at the JoRo, “lifting the first half to new heights” (York Press, July 27 2005) when playing the veteran, arthritic-limbed Horse.

Harvey Stevens’ Jamie New, front left, and his Mayfield School classmates in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Son Harvey is a colt by comparison, with room for expansion in both his vocal and acting range, but already he has a thrilling presence on stage: everybody will be talking about his Jamie this week.

Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Dan Gillespie Sells (from Horsham pop practitioners The Feeling) and writer/lyricist Tom MacRae drew on an original idea by co-writer Jonathan Butterell for the 2017 Sheffield Crucible Theatre premiere of a show that completed a populist trilogy of Steel City comedy dramas.

First came the defiant spirit and sheer balls of The Full Monty; next, the classroom politics and fledgling frustrations of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and lastly “Jamie”,  the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes to be wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen.

Eight years on, “Jamie” still lives up to its billing as “the hit musical for today”, replete with bold humour, withering wit, northern nous and sassy social awareness, in a barometer of our changing times and attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression. Jamie’s reverence for RuPaul, whose Drag Race was not aired on BBC Three until 2019, affirms how  the show has kept  an eye on cultural shifts.

First we meet the Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School, a typical comprehensive classroom of 16-year-olds full of hopes and aspirations, but filtered through the realities of life in a northern town that makes them cynical and unruly too, typified by Stevens’ Jamie, draped languidly over his chair, bored and inattentive.

Zander Fick’s feisty drag queen Loco Chanelle in Everbody’s Talking About Jamie Picture: Matthew Kitchen

In the wake of Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, here is another young, restless Yorkshire dreamer in need of escape from the grey grime of a Sheffield council estate in a classic teen rebel story.

A breaker of rules and hearts alike, this lippy kid in lip gloss oozes confidence on the surface, graceful in high heels, but Jamie is naive and vulnerable too, desperate to strut before he can walk, especially when his stay-away father (Andrew Isherwood) is so disapproving and teacher Miss Hedge (Alexandra Mather) is so narrow-minded.

Stevens’ Jamie will be the teen star of the show, but gold stars also go to Fergus Green’s loathsome, self-loathing bully, Dean Paxton, and Ruby Salter’s quietly self-assured doctor-in-waiting Pritti Pasha, Jamie’s best friend, whose rendition of It Means Beautiful lives up to its title.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is told from more than the teen perspective, giving it the grit of a kitchen-sink drama, where the adult viewpoint of father and teacher is compounded by Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum Margaret (Rowntree Players’ pantomime clown Gemma McDonald revealing a deeper  side, her voice cracking under the emotion of singing her second heartfelt ballad, He’s My Boy.

Meet Sheffield drag queens Loco Chanelle, Tray Sophisticay, Laika Virgin and Sandra Bollock, alias Zander Fick, Andrew Isherwood, Mark Simmonds and Ryan Richardson, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Make-up: Renee Delait. Hair: The Birdcage, Brighton. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

She forms a defiant double act with Lottie Farmer’s Ray, her blunt but sharp friend, who is always popping round with a market stall bargain, backed up by a choice putdown for authority.

Equally supportive too is dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (Zander Fick, continuing his year of outstanding performances), in tandem with the bantering drag-queen veterans Sandra Bollock (Ryan Richardson),  Tray Sophisticay (Andrew Isherwood at the double) ) and Laika Virgin (Mark Simmonds), Sheffield’s variation on The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

Posted high above the stage, musical director Adam Tomlinson and his band, trumpet, trombone, tenor sax et al, are in top form throughout, for big numbers and instrumental interludes alike, while Ilana Weets’s choreography hits the mark, from And You Don’t Even Know It opening to Out Of The Darkness (A Place Where We Belong) finale.

Readman wears his director and designer hats with elan,  aside from a misbehaving, overworked  central door* that opens to Margaret’s kitchen, Loco Chanel’s studio, school classroom and Dad’s house alike. His triumphant production epitomises this musical’s call to “celebrate being yourself and find a place where you belong”: the stage for Jamie New and Harvey Stevens alike.

Pick Me Up Theatre, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Gemma McDonald’s Margaret, left, Harvey Stevens’ Jamie New and Lottie Farmer’s Ray in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

* Footnote from director-designer Robert Readman:

“JUST a quick note to say the misbehaving centre door is now fixed! It was originally going to swing both ways but it just decided to come out…”

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Meet Harvey Stevens, the new Jamie as Pick Me Up Theatre stages Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at JoRo Theatre

Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New, front left, with his fellow Year 11 pupils at Mayfield School in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

EVERYBODY’S talking about the new Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in York.

From July 22 to 26, GCSE schoolboy Harvey Stevens will play the title role in York company Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Tom MacRae and Dan Gillespie Sells’s award-winning musical at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

This joyous underdog story was last staged in York in its Teenage Version by York Stage in June 2023. “I was too young for that, which I was really gutted about,” says Harvey, 15, from Acomb.

He has loved the story of Jamie New ever since his first experience of the film. “My mum hadn’t heard of it, so she was mortified, not knowing what she’d taken me to, but I loved it!” he says.

“I’ve seen every tour, every cast, since then. My favourite Jamie was Layton Williams, who I went to see at Leeds Grand [Theatre], though I take a bit from every Jamie to be honest, like the riffs in their singing…”

“…But you have your own style, in your singing and in your dancing,” says Gemma McDonald, the Rowntree Players pantomime favourite, who will be playing Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum, Margaret.

Harvey Stevens’s Jamie New with the high heels that will transform him from 6ft to 6ft 6ins in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Picture: Colin Wallwork

Premiered at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre in 2017, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen. Jamie New, from a Sheffield council estate, but feeling out of place, is so restless at sweet 16 to be “something and someone fabulous”, standing out from the crowd of Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School.

You sense that Harvey has that drive too. He took his first dance steps at the age of three at the Yorkshire Rose Academy of Dance in York. “I then started studying ballet at Let’s Dance, picked up jazz, tap and contemporary there in Year 4, and then I went to Northern Ballet in Leeds for three years,” he says.

From there, he moved on to Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, boarding there as he studied musical theatre, jazz and ballet dancing in Year 7 and 8, adding dancing in heels to his repertoire at SK Dance Fusion in York.

That will come in handy in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. “I’ll be 6ft 6 with my heels on as I’m 6ft,” says Harvey. “I’ll be looking over everyone on stage!

“I first wore heels on stage at the Move It dance convention in London in 2022.” As with all his dance moves, he took it in his stride. “For this role I’ve taken everything I’ve learnt from ballet and contemporary [dance], all the core techniques, taking the styles and joining them together.”

To be playing Jamie is “like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey. “I’ve always said I wanted to play him, and here I am. It’s such a good character to play and story to tell and I feel I can really relate to that age, and what he’s going through.”

“Playing Jamie is like a dream come true as it’s my first main role,” says Harvey Stevens. Picture: Jo Hird

Gemma, a former teacher, whose 15-year-old  son, Ethan, is in the cast too, says: “There’s all those similarities, all those experiences, of  what boys face. When I saw that Robert [director Robert Readman] was doing this show, I was thinking, I’m of an age where I can play this character, the mother, who’s got true Yorkshire grit to her.

“I love her songs, If I Met Myself Again and He’s My Boy, and all the words in those songs resonate with me. With having my son there as well, I know how he feels, having just done his Proms.

“I love how Margaret is so supportive of Jamie and never wants him to feel any of that negativity that he experiences from his dad. What she does is everything you would want to her to do as a mum in that situation.

“Any mum in the audience will sit there thinking, ‘I hope that’s how I am with my child’, even though Jamie’s mum does question it, worrying if he will be bullied.”

Jamie, like Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, is a young Yorkshire dreamer, one who  must overcome prejudice, beat the bullies and “step out of the darkness into the spotlight”.  Harvey has experienced bullying. “It can be anything, online bullying, but I don’t care what they say online. That just gets a block from me,” he says.

From September, Harvey will study musical theatre at SLP College in Garforth, his next step after taking GCSEs in Maths, English, Art, History and Salon (hair-styling). First, however, everybody will be talking about his Jamie from July 22.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Joseph Rowntree Theatre York, July 22 to 26, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Oliver Twist, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until December 30 ****

Winter gruel charges: The Pick Me Up Theatre ensemble in Oliver Twist

BILLED as “a new version of Oliver with a festive twist”, Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s turbulent tale of courage in adversity was first staged in Yorkshire as Hull Truck Theatre’s Christmas show in 2018.

Yes, ‘Christmas show’, as it comes booted with snippets of Victorian carols, folk  tunes and John Biddle compositions. It is not a musical, and definitely not to be confused with Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, instead being a storytelling piece of theatre with music as an Greek chorus-style ensemble commentary and complement to the unfolding drama.

Producer Robert Readman’s set is dominated by a huge bridge, on a diagonal across the stage that divides the audience into a traverse configuration, used traditionally to heighten a sense of combat or conflict.

Helen Spencer’s Fagin in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oliver Twist

There would be no taking sides here, however, as everyone will be rooting for young Oliver Twist (Logan Willstrop, sharing performances with Frankie Whitford).

Born in a workhouse to a mother who loses her life, Oliver takes a 70-mile journey to London and is sold into an apprenticeship before being recruited by Fagin’s band of pickpockets and thieves as he sinks into London’s grimy underworld in his search for a home, a family and love.

Readman encloses Theatre@41’s black box Studio in wooden frames with a series of cloth “windows”, making the Victorian milieu all the more claustrophobic and imposing – and be warmed, look out for what will emerge through the cloth, even a Punch & Judy show.

The man in black: James Willstrop’s Bill Sikes casts his shadow over Oliver Twist

As ever with McAndrew, she combines well-sketched characterisation with detailed, evocative, fast-moving storytelling.

Hull Truck’s Fagin, my dears, was a woman, played by Flo Wilson. In Pick Me Up’s version, the thief chief is still performed by a woman, the show’s director Helen Spencer, but her Fagin is still referred to as “he”.

Spencer, who has had another splendid year astride the York stage, deepens her mezzo-soprano a tad, takes on a heavier physicality within a rags-and-riches coat and has something of the night about her. Having had to miss the first two performances with a “lost voice” she has certainly found it a terrific lead performance.

Playwright Deborah McAndrew

Jennie Wogan-Wells’s abused Nancy is striving against the odds to make her way in a male-dominated world, her light snuffed out by the brutal darkness around her.

Logan Willstrop’s Oliver is full of expression, resilience and enquiry, while the ever-reliable Tracey Rea and Nick Sephton are amusing company as the besotted Widow Corney and Mr Bumble, albeit that Sephton’s towering Bumble has his darker side too, as he slams his cane against the floor with a thunderous thud.

Neil Foster is on contrasting double duty, as the exploitative Mr Sowerberry and the kindly Mr Brownlow, and likewise Rhian Wells makes her mark as Mrs Sowerberry and Mrs Bedwin.

Matthew Warry, one of York’s best developing young talents, is in typically fine form as the cocky Noah Claypole, while Rich Musk’s cuts the mustard as Dr Grimwig.

Neil Foster’s Mr Brownlow in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oliver Twist

As with Hull Truck’s production, the Artful Dodger is still called “Jack” but is played here by both a lass, Libby Greenhill, and a lad, Reuben Baines, splitting performances. Your reviewer saw Greenhill: a Chaplinesque figure with comic timing and plenty of pluck.

Young Logan is not the only Willstrop in Pick Me Up’s cast. His father James is a tall, gaunt, black of heart, black of coat, pock-marked Bill Sikes: darker still than his Frederick  Frankenstein in Readman’s production of Young Frankenstein in September last year.

Matthew Peter Clare leads the musical forces with typical dash and Spencer directs with drive and focus with excellent use of ensemble as well as individual expression in her principals. All in all, a Dickens of a good show.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oliver Twist, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Performances at 7.30pm, December 27, 28 and 30, plus Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Tracey Rea’s Widow Corney and Nick Sephton’s Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist
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Helen Spencer takes on double challenge of playing gang boss Fagin and directing Oliver Twist for Pick Me Up Theatre

Helen Spencer’s Fagin in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oliver Twist at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

IN a new twist, the opening of Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oliver Twist at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, is being delayed by a day through cast illness.

All being well, the curtain will now rise on the York company’s winter production on Wednesday night.

At the show’s helm both on stage and off is Helen “Bells” Spencer, who is not only playing Fagin in Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s 1838 novel, but also has taken over the director’s seat from producer and designer Robert Readman five weeks ago.

“Robert started rehearsals while I was still rehearsing Last Five Years [Black Sheep Theatre Productions and Wharfemede  Productions’ November musical at the NCEM], so I wasn’t available until that was over, and then, after a while, he asked me to step in, taking over his vision.

“I’ve worked with Robert a lot over the last couple of years, so I know how his mind works. When Pick Me Up had to pull the original dates for Young Frankenstein, I took over the reins with Andrew Isherwood to re-mount the production, but this is a slightly different situation from that one, as we’re still working to Robert’s ideas.

Playwright Deborah McAndrew

“We have a lot of mutual respect, so I can crack on, but it’s certainly a challenge that so many young people are in it. We have two ‘teams’: two Olivers, two Dodgers, two Roses, two Bets and ‘Children’s’ roles too; there are about 12 young people in all, ranging from eight to 17, so I’m working with a big age differences in the young cast.”

Not to be confused with Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver!, McAndrew’s stage adaptation “on the surface looks like an easy show, but it’s definitely not,” says Helen. “It’s incredibly complex, and one of the things that makes it harder is that no-one knows the songs in the way they do with Oliver! – and there are no recordings, bar for one song.”

Devised at the Bolton Octagon and staged at Hull Truck Theatre in December 2018 as “a new version of Oliver with a festive twist!”, McAndrew’s adaptation is an ensemble piece. “There’s a Greek-style chorus commenting on what’s happening and actors taking on different roles, so it’s quite a different way of working to what most people are used to in musical theatre,” says Helen.

“It’s not like coming on, singing a solo and going off, so the logistics have been more complex, especially when you have no familiarity with the score. I feel like what we got was the script and the basic score and we’ve tried to create our version with the actors we have and the musicians we have.

“I’m really glad I haven’t seen it before as we just want to do a version that makes sense to us, with the core adult cast pulling together to create the ensemble, and some of the adversity we’ve experienced has worked to our advantage.”

Into the dark: James Willstrop’s Bill Sikes

Readman has designed the set with a bridge across the stage. “We’ve been lucky to get into the theatre early enough to work on the show with the set in place. It  will look fantastic, very atmospheric, and not what people might expect at all,” says Helen.

“The show will have Christmassy moments but it will have a darkness to it too to allow characters like James Willstrop’s Bill Sikes to be really horrible, which has been a real joy in rehearsals.

“When you think of actors like James, Jennie Wogan-Wells [who plays Nancy] and me, we’re very happy to do musical theatre, with James as the classic leading man, Jennie as the bright-eyed leading lady, and me doing comic parts, so I think people will be surprised to see us in these darker roles – though I used to do straight acting roles before musical theatre and I always enjoyed playing serious parts.”

Helen will play Fagin, who runs a band of pickpockets and thieves in London’s grimy Victorian underworld, where Oliver is the new recruit in his search for a home, family and love. “I suppose the most obvious thing to say is that I’m a female and the original was not,” she says.

“We had a discussion about whether I should play it as a woman, or a women playing a man, and we decided to lean into being a female taking on a male part, so all the references are still to ‘he’ and ‘him’. I’m playing him as an old man.

Tracey Rea’s Widow Corney and Nick Sephton’s Mr Bumble in a scene from Pick Me Up Theatre’s Oliver Twist

“We decided to see how it would feel, and it does feel right. The way the script has been written, it is right to do it this way, rather than make it wholly appropriate to a woman. It’s so exciting to play a male character, which I would never do normally.

“To have the chance to do that, having a face-off and a bit of fisticuffs with Sikes, it’s so liberating, even though he’s an older, frailer man, because if you were an older woman you wouldn’t deliver it that way.”

Describing the music, Helen says: “What strikes me is that they’re not conventional songs; they are more conversational songs, no big numbers, but there are a couple of fun chorus bits. It’s very much about creating the atmosphere in the scenes, rather than through big numbers and big choreography.

“What we need is the actors’ expertise because the songs are difficult and the text is difficult, and that’s been a challenge for even our most experienced cast members, but everyone has risen to it.”

Pick Me Up Theatre in Oliver Twist, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 18 to 30, 7.30pm, except December 23 to 26 and 29; Saturday and Sunday matinees, 2.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Who’s in Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast for Oliver Twist?

Frankie Whitford: Playing Oliver Twist in Oliver Twist at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Oliver Twist – Frankie Whitford/Logan Willstrop; Fagin – Helen Spencer; Mr Bumble – Nick Sephton; Widow Corney – Tracey Rea; Mr Sowerberry and Mr Brownlow – Neil Foster; Mrs Sowerberry and Mrs Bedwin – Rhian Wells; Noah Claypole – Matthew Warry; Charlotte Sowerberry – Ruby Salter; Artful Dodger – Libby Greenhill/Reuben Baines; Nancy – Jennie Wogan-Wells; Bill Sikes – James Willstrop; Bet – Rosie Musk/Tempi Singhateh; Rose – Isla Whitford/Rosie Musk; Dr Grimwig – Rich Musk; Children – Lao Singhateh, Matilda Foster, Tempi Singhateh and Bea Wells.