Tag: Royal Shakespeare Company

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More Things To Do in York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 14, from The York Press

Amabile Clarinet Trio: Playing innovative programme at York Late Music concert

HAMLET on a sinking ship, family politics on a calamitous wedding day and artists’ studios opening on two weekends are the headline acts on Charles Hutchinson’s latest bill of arts delights.

Classical concert of the week: York Late Music presents Amabile Clarinet Trio, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, April 11, 7.30pm

THE Amabile Clarinet Trio – York clarinettist Lesley Schatzberger, cellist Nicola Tait Baxter and pianist Paul Nicholson – presents an innovative programme featuring two premieres plus Thea Musgrave’s Canta Canta!, patron Nicola LeFanu’s Lullaby and Nocturne, American composer Robert Muczynski’s rarely played Fantasy Trio and the first York performance ofAlexander von Zemlinsky’s Trio in D minor.

The UK premiere of David Lancaster’s Canzone Sospesoand a world premiere from composer David Power will be complemented by a set of Morris newly transcribed by York composer Steve Crowther. Lancaster gives a pre-concert talk at 6.45pm, to be enjoyed with a complimentary glass of wine or juice. Tickets: latemusic.org or on the door.

Lesley Jones and Steve Coates: Teaming up for the last time for Swing When You Sing

Farewell concert of the week: Steve Coates Music Productions present Swing When You Sing, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, April 12, 7.30pm

BEV Jones Music Company and The Jubilee Celebration Singers producer Lesley Jones bids farewell to the York stage after 20 years of mounting shows with Swing When You Sing, presented with Steve Coates Music Productions.

Alan Owens’s 16-piece big band will be joined on stage by singers Ruth McNeil, Annabel van Griethuysen, Hayley Bamford, Johanna Hartley, Adele Barlow, Larry Gibson, Terry Ford, Stephen Wilson, David Hartley and Geoff Walker to perform Rat Pack, Minnie The Moocher, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Under The Sea, Cheek To Cheek, Sway (Latin), Fever, Mr Bojangles, Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Sing, Sing, Sing (with Bob Fosse-style dancing). “Varied? Yes! Upbeat? Yes! Emotional? Yes!” says Lesley. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

The poster for the launch of Bishy Road Community Choir 

Start-up of the week: Bishy Road Community Choir, Stables Yoga Centre, Nunmill Street, York, from April 13

THE Stables Yoga Centre and Rachel Davies are setting up the Bishy Road Community Choir to run on Mondays from 5pm to 5.50pm at £5 a session from April 13. This welcoming, musically accessible group will use song to promote happiness, wellbeing and community. No experience or musical skills are needed; only enthusiasm to try feel-good singing. To book a place, visit stablesyoga.co.uk/timetable.

Wedded bliss amid wedding-day blisters: Darren Barrott’s Marek and Joy Warner’s Sylvia in York Actors Collective’s Till The Stars Come Down

Family politics of the week: York Actors Collective in Till The Stars Come Down, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April14 to 18, 7.30pm, Tuesday to Friday; 2pm and 6pm, Saturday

PREMIERED at the National Theatre in 2024 and now receiving its York premiere, Beth Steel’s contemporary British family drama is set on the wedding day of Sylvia and Marek in a South Yorkshire mining town.

Directed by Angie Millard, Till The Stars Come Down explores the tumultuous dynamics of a working-class family in a changing world of economic  decline and political shifts as long-held secrets, passions, and tensions surrounding class, immigration, and social change spill over into chaos and tragedy. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Ralph Davis’s Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, set on a sinking ship, on tour at York Theatre Royal

Titanic anniversary event of the week: Royal Shakespeare Company in Hamlet, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to 18, 7pm plus 1.30pm, April 16 and 2pm, April 18

LET director Rupert Goold introduces the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, starring Ralph Davis, as the tour sets sail for York on the 114th anniversary of the Titanic’s descent to the depths. “Our production is set aboard a ship but one that is soon to founder, going down with all hands,” he says.

“Its inspiration comes from the most famous sinking in history, and just as that icy tragedy came to pass in a little over two and a half hours, our play takes place in real time and for about as long, as much catastrophic thriller as poetic meditation. This production asks what it means to be human and decisive when time is running out.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Jan Brierton and Henry Normal: Poetic humour at Milton Rooms, Malton 

Poetry at the double: Edge Street Live presents Henry Normal and Jan Brierton, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 16, 7.30pm

WRITER, poet, television & film producer and Manchester Poetry Festival founder Henry Normal is joined by Dubliner Jan Brierton for an evening of poetry and humour. Normal, whose credits include co-writing The Mrs Merton Show and the first series of The Royle Family, will be reading from his new book A Quiet Promise.

Brierton riffs on modern life, love and friendships, wellness and ageing, rage and domestic exasperation in her poetic reflections on being a wife, mother, daughter, sister and retired raver, plus plenty of stuff about tea, lipstick and biscuits. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Aggers & Tuffers: The chatter of cricket and the clatter of wickets at York Barbican

Not just cricket: Jonathan Agnew and Phil Tufnell in An Audience With Aggers & Tuffers, York Barbican, April 16, 7.30pm

TEST Match Special commentator-and-pundit duo Jonathan Agnew and Phil Tufnell take to the road for more cricket chat from beyond the boundary. Former Leicestershire and England fast bowler and three-decade BBC cricket correspondent Aggers teams up anew with record-breaking former England spin bowler and crowd favourite Tuffers, who gives his spin on his maverick playing days and second wind as a media personality on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, Strictly Come Dancing and A Question Of Sport. Box office update: limited availability at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Maureen Onwunali: Slam champ spinning words at Say Owt 

Slam champ of the week: Say Owt presents Maureen Onwunali, The Crescent, York, April 17, 7.30pm

YORK spoken-word collective Sat Owt’s guest poet for April’s gathering will be Dublin-born Nigerian poet and two-time national slam champion Maureen Onwunali.

Rich with political observations and carefully crafted verse, her work has been featured by musicians, radio shows and organisations, such as the British Film Institute, Penguin, BBC, Roundhouse, Apples and Snakes, Obsidian Foundation and the Poetry Society. Box office: seetickets.com/event/say-owt-slam-featuring-maureen-onwunali/the-crescent/3588134. 

 Jacqueline James: Demonstrating her hand-woven rug-making in Rosslyn Street, Clifton, at York Open Studios

Art event of the month: York Open Studios, York and beyond, April 18 & 19 and April 25 & 26, 10am to 5pm

ARTISTS and makers involved in York Open Studios are putting the final touches to their workplaces and studios within York and a ten-mile radius of the city, in readiness to welcome visitors across two weekends.

This annual event offers the chance to gain a sneak peek into where the artists work, their methods and inspirations, whether a regular participant or the 27 newcomers, spanning traditional and contemporary painting and print, illustration, drawing, ceramics, mixed media, glass, sculpture, jewellery, textiles and photography. For more information, visit yorkopenstudios.co.uk; access the interactive map at yorkopenstudios.co.uk/map.

Book launch event of the week: Michelle Hughes, Printing Birds and Wildlife in Linocut, The Harriet Room, York Cemetery, York, April 15, 6.30pm

Michelle Hughes at work on a linocut. Picture: Jackson Portraiture

YORK printmaker Michelle Hughes is holding a special evening to celebrate the launch of her book Printing Birds and Wildlife in Linocut and her upcoming tenth anniversary in business.

Published in February, Michelle’s beautifully illustrated book shares how to design, carve and print birds and wildlife using traditional linocut techniques, guiding readers from simple one-colour prints through to more advanced multi-colour methods, including jigsaw, reduction and multi-block printing.

“Whether you are completely new to linocut or already exploring printmaking, the book offers clear step-by-step guidance, practical tips and creative inspiration for capturing birds and wildlife in this rewarding craft,” says Michelle.

She started her creative business on June 1 2016 in the wake of her fourth redundancy. After a 25-year career in design, she decided to take a leap by working for herself.

The cover artwork for Michelle Hughes’s book Printings Birds and Wildlife in Linocut

What began with freelance graphic design and a few linocut prints has grown into a thriving creative practice. Today, Michelle creates limited-edition linocut prints, teaches in-person workshops, runs online courses for students around the world and produces commissions for organisations, including the National Trust.

What to expect at the event:

  • A short talk about Michelle’s journey to becoming a professional printmaker
  • Behind-the-scenes insights into how the book was created
  • The chance to see original prints and lino blocks featured in the book
  • A Q&A session about linocut printmaking
  • Book signing
  • Opportunity to buy signed copies

“Come and celebrate wildlife, printmaking and the joy of carving and printing by hand,” says Michelle, who will be participating in York Open Studios 2026 at Venue 37, in St Swithin’s Walk, Holgate, York, on April 18 & 19 and April 25 & 26, 10am to 5pm.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 15, from Gazette & Herald

Ralph Davis’s Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, set on a sinking ship, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Marc Brenner

HAMLET on a sinking ship, family politics on a calamitous wedding day and artists’ studios opening on two weekends are the headline acts on Charles Hutchinson’s latest bill of arts delights.

Titanic anniversary event of the week: Royal Shakespeare Company in Hamlet, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7pm plus 1.30pm, April 16 and 2pm, April 18

LET director Rupert Goold introduce the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, starring Ralph Davis, as the tour sets sail for York on the 114th anniversary of the Titanic’s descent to the depths. “Our production is set aboard a ship but one that is soon to founder, going down with all hands,” he says.

“Its inspiration comes from the most famous sinking in history, and just as that icy tragedy came to pass in a little over two and a half hours, our play takes place in real time and for about as long, as much catastrophic thriller as poetic meditation. This production asks what it means to be human and decisive when time is running out.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Wedded bliss amid wedding-day blisters: Darren Barrott’s Marek and Joy Warner’s Sylvia in York Actors Collective’s Till The Stars Come Down

Family politics of the week: York Actors Collective in Till The Stars Come Down, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, 7.30pm, tonight to Friday; 2pm and 6pm, Saturday

PREMIERED at the National Theatre in 2024 and now receiving its York premiere, Beth Steel’s contemporary British family drama is set on the wedding day of Sylvia and Marek in a South Yorkshire mining town.

Directed by Angie Millard, Till The Stars Come Down explores the tumultuous dynamics of a working-class family in a changing world of economic  decline and political shifts as long-held secrets, passions, and tensions surrounding class, immigration, and social change spill over into chaos and tragedy. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Aggers & Tuffers: The chatter of cricket and the clatter of wickets at York Barbican

Not just cricket: Jonathan Agnew and Phil Tufnell in An Audience With Aggers & Tuffers, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7.30pm

TEST Match Special commentator-and-pundit duo Jonathan Agnew and Phil Tufnell take to the road for more cricket chat from beyond the boundary. Former Leicestershire and England fast bowler and three-decade BBC cricket correspondent Aggers teams up anew with record-breaking former England spin bowler and crowd favourite Tuffers, who gives his spin on his maverick playing days and second wind as a media personality on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, Strictly Come Dancing and A Question Of Sport. Box office update: limited availability at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Patricia Veale School of Dance: Showcasing young talent in Show Dance

Dance show of the week: Patricia Veale School of Dance in Show Dance, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Friday, 7.30pm, and Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

IN an exciting celebration of dance, the Patricia Veale School of Dance showcases its talented dancers in their very first Show Dance, drawing inspiration from classic musicals on film  and Broadway, complete with top hats, flair and razzle-dazzle. Expect a vibrant mix of ballet, jazz, contemporary, tap and much more besides. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Rainey’s Revue: Evoking A Night In Harlem in….Helmsley

Jazz gig of the week: Rainey’s Revue: A Night In Harlem, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm

LED by Richard Exall on tenor saxophone and clarinet and musical director Dom Barnett on piano, Rainey’s Revue presents meticulous arrangements of Ma Rainey’s songs while capturing the essence of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. 

Sam Kelly, on drums, and Marianne Windham, on double bass, set the rhythmic foundation for the enchanting voices of Chrissie Myles and Emily Windham, whose vocals evoke the jazz clubs of yesteryear. Box office: 01439 771700 or  helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Comedy gig of the week: Hilarity Bites Comedy Club presents David Eagle, Anth Young and Nicola Mantalios, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 8pm

HILARITY Bites headliner David Eagle has performed on BBC Radio 2’s topical comedy series The Now Show, supports Boothby Graffoe on tour frequently and is one third of three-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-winning band The Young’uns. Being blind, his comedy often explores how his disability means the most ordinary, commonplace events are turned into surreal and convoluted dramas.

Fellow north eastern act Anth Young finished runner-up in the Great Yorkshire Fringe New Comedian of the Year competition in 2017 in York. Completing the bill, Greek-Geordie bisexual comedian Nicola Mantalios won the 2025 Funny Women Stage Awards, hosts weekend shows at Newcastle Stand and runs her own gigs, such as Queers and Beers, in Newcastle. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

The Rollin Stoned: Covering the hits and deeper cuts from The Rolling Stones’ 1960s’ catalogue at Milton Rooms, Malton

Tribute gig of the week: The Rollin Stoned, Milton Rooms, Malton, Saturday, 8pm

THE rock’n’roll circus rolls into Malton for a tribute to The Rolling Stones that focuses on the Brian Jones years from 1964 to 1969.  Now in its 27th year, in The Rollin Stoned show the costumes are shamelessly camp, gaudy and fabulous, the instruments vintage, the wit irreverent, the trademark tongue never far from the cheek, but never to the detriment of the music.

As Keith Richards’ late mother, Doris, once remarked of the line-up featuring Mick Jaguar, Byron Jones, Keith Retched, Bill Wymandy, Charlie Waits and pianist Nicky Popkins: “Phenomenal…I can’t wait to tell Keith and  Mick that you could easily stand in for them.” Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Prachi Bhatnagar: Making York Open Studios debut at her Ouse Lea studio in York

Art event of the month: York Open Studios, York and beyond, April 18 & 19 and April 25 & 26, 10am to 5pm

ARTISTS and makers involved in York Open Studios are putting the final touches to their workplaces and studios within York and a ten-mile radius of the city, in readiness to welcome visitors across two weekends.

This annual event offers the chance to gain a sneak peek into where the artists work, their methods and inspirations, whether a regular participant or the 27 newcomers, spanning traditional and contemporary painting and print, illustration, drawing, ceramics, mixed media, glass, sculpture, jewellery, textiles and photography. For more information, visit yorkopenstudios.co.uk; access the interactive map at yorkopenstudios.co.uk/map.

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Royal Shakespeare Company sends Hamlet to the icy seas as Ian Hughes returns to York Theatre Royal 38 years since debut

Depths of despair: Ralph Davis’s Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, docking at York Theatre Royal from April 14 to 18. Picture: Marc Brenner

THE Royal Shakespeare Company’s visit to York Theatre Royal with Rupert Goold’s production of Hamlet, set on a sinking ship, will coincide with the 114th anniversary of RMS Titanic’s demise on the night of April 14-15 in 1912.

Around 1,500 people perished at sea that night from the estimated 2,240 on board. Death stalks Shakespeare’s tragedy too, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, King Claudius and Hamlet himself joining his already dead father,  King Hamlet.

“Hamlet is a play about the inevitability of death:  the death of fathers, the death of kings, the mortality facing each and every one of us, but it is also a play about how to live, what makes a good life and a just one too, however brief our allotted time,” says Goold.

“Our production is set aboard a ship but one that is soon to founder, going down with all hands,” says Goold. “Its inspiration comes from the most famous sinking in history, and just as that icy tragedy came to pass in a little over two and a half hours, our play takes place in real time and for about as long, as much catastrophic thriller as poetic meditation. It’s a production that asks what it means to be human and decisive when time is running out.”

Among those joining Ralph Davis’s Hamlet in Goold and revival director Sophie Drake’s touring cast in Shakespeare’s epic family drama of deceit and murder is Royal Shakespeare Company regular Ian Hughes in the roles of King Hamlet’s Ghost and the Player King.

From April 14 to 18, he will be returning to York Theatre Royal, 38 years since he made his professional debut in the 1988 pantomime Peter Pan, in the days when Frank Barrie played the dame. “Frank had made his debut there too in 1959 in Henry IV, Part 2, the play that marked my debut for the RSC in the 1990s – and I’ve  learned that Frank had played Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in [March] 1974,” says Ian.

Ian Hughes, front, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

“In another Yorkshire connection, Harrogate Theatre artistic director Andrew Manley saw me in Peter Pan and said afterwards, ‘do you fancy joining my Harrogate rep company?’. “I was a Kit Kat Girl in Cabaret; we also did Mrs Warren’s Profession, the regional premiere of Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money, Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On and the panto.

“Because I didn’t go to drama school, those Harrogate shows  with Andrew were effectively my  drama school after  starting with the Theatre Royal panto, when I played John Darling, the boy with the top hat and the round glasses – and we got to ‘fly’!

“The Theatre Royal was beautiful, and it was so lovely to play there, when Frank made me so welcome. He was marvellous, dry-humoured company with his wonderful anecdotes of who he had worked with as an actor from an earlier time, when he had performed with [Laurence] Olivier.”

Ian was born in the South Wales Valleys, growing up in Merthyr Tydfil and joining the National Youth Theatre of Wales at 16 to work under director Alan Vaughan Williams, who nurtured the talents of Rob Brydon, Michael Sheen and Ruth Jones too. “Alan took no prisoners, treating us like professionals,” he recalls. “It was invaluable for me. I loved it.”

Only seven years later, Ian would be understudying Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet in Adrian Noble’s production at the RSC. “I was 23, so I have a long connection with the play. I had to learn every line of the Second Quarto version, which runs to more than four hours [making Hamlet the role with the most lines in Shakespeare’s 37 plays] – and I never went on once!

“Kenneth kept saying ‘people are flying in to see me, I have to go on’, so I never had the chance, despite learning all those lines.”

That sinking feeling: The Royal Shakespeare Company staging Hamlet on a ship in 1912. Picture: Marc Brenner

Instead, Ian had to content himself with playing Polonius’s servant  Reynaldo and Fortinbras. “Part of the reason that I joined the RSC was because I’d just won the inaugural Ian Charleson Award for my [title] role in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Torquato Tasso at the Lyric Hammersmith,” he says.

“I didn’t know anything about the award. I got asked to go to the National Theatre and found I was up against Simon Russell Beale in the RSC’s Edward II, thinking ‘I’m just this young actor from South Wales’. I won £5,000 and was presented with the award by Sir Alec Guinness. What a wonderful start to a career.”

Ian has gone on to play multiple parts for the RSC, most recently appearing in The Merry Wives Of Windsor two summers ago. Now he returns as the Ghost and Player King. “These parts appealed to me as a character actor,” he says. “I thought, ‘I fancy a go at these’, because of the interest in Hamlet, and the short tour appealed too.”

Analysing the impact of setting Hamlet on a ship,” Ian says. “In a nutshell, it brings out the claustrophobia. That exacerbates Hamlet’s feeling of frustration that he can’t escape. The sinking of the ship is effectively the metaphor of Denmark being a prison for Hamlet,  and I think that works very well. Shakespeare’s plays are open to reinterpretation, and this reinterpretation is very powerful, with all its technical accomplishments too.

“Because Hamlet has so many water and sea references, you could be drowning in the play.”

Royal Shakespeare Company in Hamlet, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to 18, 7pm plus 1.30pm, Thursday, and 2pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, set on sinking ship in 1912, to play York Theatre Royal on anniversary of Titanic’s demise

Djibril Ramsey’s Barnardo , Ralph Davis’s Hamlet and Colin Ryan’s Horatio in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

THE Royal Shakespeare Company will present multi award-winning Rupert Goold’s touring production of Hamlet at York Theatre Royal from April 14 to 18.

“Hamlet is a play about the inevitability of death:  the death of fathers, the death of kings, the mortality facing each and everyone of us, but it is also a play about how to live, what makes a good life and a just one too, however brief our allotted time,” says Goold.

The York run will coincide with the 114th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on the night of April 14-15 in 1912.

“Our production is set aboard a ship but one that is soon to founder, going down with all hands,” says Goold. “Its inspiration comes from the most famous sinking in history, and just as that icy tragedy came to pass in a little over two and a half hours, our play takes place in real time and for about as long, as much catastrophic thriller as poetic meditation. It’s a production that asks what it means to be human and decisive when time is running out.”

Georgia-Mae Myers’ Ophelia. Picture: Marc Brenner, Royal Shakespeare Company

Shakespeare’s epic family drama of deceit and murder will feature classical actor Ralph Davis  in the title role of Hamlet. He was nominated for the 2023 Ian Charleson Award for his performance as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, appeared as Edmund in King Lear, both at Shakespeare’s Globe, and played Iago in Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, for which he came second in the 2025 Ian Charleson Awards.

As well as theatre credits at the Almeida, Chichester Festival Theatre, Ustinov Studio and elsewhere, Davis’s RSC credits include Tamburlaine, Timon Of Athens, Richard III and King John.

Davis co-wrote, created and starred in Film Club for the BBC in 2025. His other screen credits include House Of The Dragon for HBO, Big Boys for Channel 4 and SAS: Rogue Heroes, Life After Life and Steve McQueen’s Small Axe for the BBC.

Ship shape: Rupert Goold’s cast in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

Alongside Davis’s Hamlet in the RSC cast will be Rob Alexander-Adams (Voltemand); Richard Cant (Polonius); Kat Collings (Ensemble); Raymond Coulthard (Claudius); Maximus Evans (Marcellus); Ian Hughes (Ghost/Player King); CJ Johnson (Player Queen); Julia Kass (Guildenstern); Poppy Miller (Gertrude); Georgia-Mae Myers (Ophelia); Mark Oosterveen (Cornelius/Priest); Djibril Ramsey (Barnardo); Colin Ryan (Horatio); Jonathan Savage (Ensemble); Jamie Sayers (Rosencrantz); Leo Shak (Francisco) and Benjamin Westerby (Laertes).

Goold directed Dear England for the National Theatre and Romeo And Juliet and The Merchant Of Venice (RSC). This year he will take up the role of artistic director of The Old Vic after 13 years at the Almeida Theatre.

He has received Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards for best director twice and won a Peabody Award in 2011 for Macbeth. In 2017 he received a CBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to drama.

Joining Goold on the creative team are revival director Sophie Drake; set designer Es Devlin; costume designer Evie Gurney; lighting designer Jack Knowles; composer and sound designer Adam Cork; movement director Hannes Langolf; video designer Akhila Krishnan;  fight director Kev McCurdy; dramaturg Rebecca Latham and casting director Matthew Dewsbury.

Poppy Miller’s Gertrude and Raymond Coulthard’s Claudius in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet. Marc Brenner

Sophie says: “I’m so looking forward to taking this exciting show on the road. We’ve assembled a wonderful cast, led by Ralph Davis, who promises to make a great Hamlet. It’s probably Shakespeare’s most famous play, but I’m sure no-one will have seen a Hamlet like this before. I can’t wait for audiences to see it.”

The Hamlet tour is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, whose funding makes it possible for the RSC to expand its tour to work in partnership with more places across England.

Royal Shakespeare Company  in Hamlet, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to 18, 7pm plus 1.30pm, April 16 and 2pm, April 18. Post-show discussion, April 17. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Hamlet is touring to Truro, Bradford, Norwich, Nottingham, Blackpool, Newcastle, York and Canterbury, from February to April 2026.

Here Ralph Davis discusses his role as Hamlet and why Shakespeare is “the best”.

What can audiences expect from this particular production of Hamlet, Ralph?

“They can expect something epic and cinematic. We’re doing it on a scale that will be very exciting to watch but also relatable. The play deals with a deeply human experience – Hamlet has to deal with the fallout of his father being murdered, and everything that spirals from that. So yes, I hope audiences will be both riveted and moved.”

Where is Rupert Goold’s production set?

“It’s set on a sinking ship, which is reminiscent of a particular disaster that happened in 1912. It will be a real spectacle. We’ve got these amazing projections of the sea and storms, and a huge, raked stage.

“Hamlet is a play that feels big, and putting it right in the middle of the sea on a ship takes the audience to a very exciting place.

“That said, we’re not literally setting it on the Titanic: I don’t see all these characters as sinking and drowning. The play deals with the theme of justice, and the point of it when we’re all dying anyway.

“So the setting Rupert has chosen feels appropriately dangerous, with death and disaster all around whilst Hamlet is trying to work out what he should do when he’s told that his uncle has killed his father.”

Ralph Davis’s Hamlet clashing with Raymond Coulthard’s Claudius in the RSC’s Hamlet. Picture: Mark Brenner

How did you feel when you were picked to play Hamlet, probably the most famous stage role of all?

“I found out when I was sitting alone in my flat in Camberwell. It had been a few days since the audition, and I thought I’d given a fairly good account of myself, and I had a good feeling about things.

“Anyway I found I’d got the role, and, to use Hamlet’s words, I was ‘struck so to the soul’. I couldn’t believe it. I was so giddy and excited.

“Partly because I’ve already done quite a lot of Shakespeare, people have always asked me if Hamlet was a role I wanted to play. And I’d always said ‘no, it wasn’t something I was interested in’. But I know I was just saying that in case it never happened!

“I found out that I’d got the part quite a long time before rehearsals began, so I had a while to be excited about it. Of course I then read the play again, and thought, ‘God. What am I going to do with this?’”

How are you approaching it?

“I’m trying to approach it like any other role. It is different, of course, because it’s so iconic, and there are so many different preconceived ideas about what the part is and what the play is.

Skull’s out: Ralph Davis’s Hamlet contemplates once knowing Yorick well in Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

“I’m stripping all of that away, getting rid of all of that noise, and reading it like it is a new play. And trusting my instinct of what I think the role is.

“So I’ve been very resistant to knowing how anyone else has done it in the past. I’m just working from the words on the page – what’s happening in this scene? What’s this relationship about? Why is he saying these words at this point? I’m treating it like it’s a new play.”

What was your route into acting?

“My mum dropped me off at Playbox, a theatre company for young people, in Warwick when I was literally 18 months old. I don’t think you’re capable of acting at 18 months, but I was there for some sort of storytelling session.

“That place became a second home to me. It was a tremendously professional and exciting environment for a young person to be in, and I just did play after play after play there.

“And then I was at the RSC as a child actor. At the age of ten, I was in King John alongside actors like Richard McCabe and Tamsin Greig. Then, still as a boy, I was in Richard III, directed by Michael Boyd and with Jonathan Slinger in the lead.

“I’m treating it like it’s a new play,” says Ralph Davis of playing Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

“I also did lots of plays at Warwick School. I actually played Hamlet at school. That was set on a ship as well, although it was set pre-World War Two, so a bit later than the show we are touring. I think I was probably terrible because I was trying to do my A-levels at the same time!

“I went straight to RADA from school, and since then I’ve done a lot of Shakespeare, including a season at the RSC, and I’ve played Edmund in King Lear, Benedick in Much Ado and Iago in Othello at the Globe.”

Does Shakespeare particularly interest you?

“Yes. I’m just very old fashioned, or I’m just influenced by the people I would watch growing up. Those actors that I saw on stage would do a lot of Shakespeare until they were in their 40s, and then they’d make the leap to TV. And that’s what I wanted to do. And that’s sort of what I’ve done.

“I think my life was changed and shaped by the Shakespeare I saw at the RSC growing up, particularly Michael Boyd’s productions of the History plays. I think watching Jonathan Slinger in those plays probably did change my life.

“I thought, ‘that is something worth doing’. I find Shakespeare easier to do than modern texts sometimes because Shakespeare’s writing is the best there is.”

Ralph Davis’s Hamlet and Poppy Miller’s Gertrude in the RSC’s Hamlet. Picture: Marc Brenner

What were the highlights from the roles you have played?

“I enjoyed playing Benedick in Much Ado. I was 26, which is a young age to be playing that part, but I was leading a company at the Globe. It was shortly after Covid, during which I thought my dream of playing lead roles was perhaps over.

“Both Benedick and Iago were a real test of my abilities. And now, in rehearsals for Hamlet, I feel – and I know this might sound pretentious – that this part is going to change me. It’s such a challenge. Shakespeare really stretched the actor who played the role originally, because I think the play meant so much personally to Shakespeare.

“I also had a great time when I was in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida, alongside the likes of Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran. I had quite a small role, but it was such a fun company.

“What’s so nice about Hamlet is that I haven’t been on stage for about a year, and it’s lovely to be back in a company putting on a play.”

As well as acting, you write…

“Yes, I spent all of last year writing. I feel very fulfilled by making something and putting it in front of an audience. At RADA it was understandably all about acting, but I knew I also wanted to create things.

“I think Shakespeare’s stories are the best stories,” says Ralph Davis. Picture: Marc Brenner

“I co-wrote the BBC show Film Club. There’s a lot of work in getting something on TV, pitching it is a really tough process. But then you end up making it with all these talented people pulling in the same direction. I really like that feeling.

“In the future I’d like to direct as well. All of that said, I certainly feel fulfilled now working on Hamlet.”

How would you persuade audiences to see this production if they think Shakespeare is not for them?

“What I’m seeing in the rehearsal room is people speaking Shakespeare’s words, which really are words that we use nowadays, but just put in a more poetic and perfect order. People speaking the language like you and I are speaking now. And when actors harness those words and make them real, then I think there’s nothing more thrilling.

“And there’s no reason for anyone to be scared about the play, or feeling that they won’t be able to follow the story.

“I think people sometimes feel alienated because they hear words like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and certain words that are a little strange to the ear, but they make perfect sense when an actor delivers them right. And I think Shakespeare’s stories are the best stories. They are stirring and have fantastic characters.

“I’m really pleased that we’re taking this show on tour and reaching lots of different parts of the country, and perhaps people who’ve never seen Shakespeare before. I hope they find the experience as exciting as I did when I saw my first Shakespeare. Just don’t be scared of it – Shakespeare’s the best.”

Ralph Davis: Actor and writer

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REVIEW: The Last Picture, York Theatre Royal Studio, until February 14 ****

Robin Simpson’s Sam, the emotional support dog, in Catherine Dyson’s The Last Picture. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

“I CAN’T think of anyone better to play a dog than Robin,” said York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster at Saturday night’s post-show discussion.

She is referring to West Yorkshire actor and storyteller Robin Simpson, best known in York for his six seasons as the Theatre Royal’s pantomime dame – and already confirmed for next winter’s Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs too.

Simpson’s ability to connect with audiences is “extraordinary”, said director and associate artist John R Wilkinson, an ability needed for both his panto role and now York Theatre Royal, English Touring Theatre and An Tobar and Mull Theatre’s world premiere co-production of Catherine Dyson’s one-act solo play.

In a nutshell, what links the two parts is the requirement for “direct address” to the audience. Here Simpson is playing Sam, an emotional support dog on a Year 9 school trip to a museum (unspecified but the Imperial War Museum in all but name).

Robin Simpson: Storytelling prowess in The Last Picture. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Simpson is not dressed as a canine, nor does he walk on all fours, but his tabard bears the message “Don’t Pet Me I’m Working” and his roll-neck jumper and trousers evoke the colours of a Golden Retriever or Labrador.

This dog talks, taking the narrator’s role, while evoking the school head of history and a particularly sensitive schoolboy, and taking the audience by the hand as he invites us to imagine being in a theatre in 2026,then the group of school children, on the bus trip and in the museum, and most hauntingly, the victims of the Nazi Holocaust  in each Second World War picture.

Writer Dyson decreed only a few stage instructions, the most significant being that the pictures being described by Sam should never be shown. Instead, the images should be formed in our imagination – one of theatre’s most powerful tools – but such is the impact of Kristallnacht  (the Night of Broken Glass), the children’s exodus from Poland, the Jewish ghettos and the concentration camps that, when combined with Dyson’s descriptions and Simpson’s storytelling prowess, we readily draw on imagery from history books, films and documentaries.

Dyson’s structure is methodical, building momentum all the while. A head count is taken as regularly as Simpson’s Sam asks us how we are feeling after each picture. Simpson’s narrator explains how Sam can sense our emotions, our distress, without having the capacity to understand the play’s greater question: Why?

Director John R Wilkinson in rehearsal with actor Robin Simpson for the world premiere of The Last Picture

Gradually, we see teacher, breakaway 13-year-old pupil and dog all break down in reaction to what they are encountering, all  conveyed so expressively by Simpson. 

We learn too of other children’s reactions: wanting to know when lunch will be; wondering why something that happened so long ago in a different country should matter to them as they head from room to room, one marked Escalation, Deportation, Final Solution. They reach for the mobile phones at the earliest opportunity to flick through the latest posts.

Interestingly, contrary to myth, dogs do see in colour, but not in the same way we see colour, and here Wilkinson and set designer Natasha Jenkins complement Dyson’s descriptions of colour used by Sam to sum up the mood of each scene.

The back wall is covered with a plain cloth (an aid for us to build up a picture); the flooring has a metallic black sheen, framed by Isle of Skye lighting designer Benny Goodman’s strip lighting that changes from white to yellow. When the cloth drops suddenly, the stage is bathed in fiery orange.

Natasha Jenkins’s set design for York Theatre Royal’s production of The Last Picture. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

The minimalism stretches to the props: one table to the side, with a water bottle marked Sam (for Simpson’s vocal lubrication) and five lecture hall/school room chairs that Simpson uses in differing ways, most disturbingly to portray dead children when lain on their side.

Every detail has been thought through to the max, honed in four weeks of rehearsals, a research visit to Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield, and in Wilkinson’s bond with Dyson over the power of abstract, non-literal  theatre and European drama, as well as in Simpson’s remarkably adroit performance.

The Last Picture had begun life as one of 37 new plays picked from 2,000 entries to mark the500th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023 with a national playwriting initiative, when Wilkinson directed a rehearsed reading at York Theatre Royal and saw its potential for a full-scale production.

Robin Simpson’s Sam in a rueful moment in The Last Picture. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

This is that production, the full picture of The Last Picture, and what a fitting, moving first show for the Theatre Royal to make for the Studio space since the accursed Covid pandemic.

Add Max Pappenheim’s sound design, a devastating use of Mendelssohn’s music – deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis – and movement direction full of circular rhythm by Alexia Kalogiannidis, and Dyson’s play is unique, wholly original, thoroughly theatrical.

The Last Picture is unmissable, unforgettable, urgently needed theatre at its best.

The Last Picture, York Theatre Royal Studio, until February 14, 7.45pm plus 2pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees, then on tour. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. The tour will visit HOME Manchester, February 18 to 21; Bristol Old Vic, February 24 to 28; Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, March 5 to 7;  Mull Theatre, March 11 and 12; Bunessan Village Hall, March 13; Iona Village Hall, March 14.  

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REVIEW: Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday ****

Kara Tointon’s “eloquent and elegant” Constance Middleton in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Constant Wife. All pictures: Mihaela Bodlovic; set and co-costume designer Anna Fleischle; co-costume designer Cat Fuller

OLIVIER Award winner Laura Wade and Royal Shakespeare Company co-artistic director Tamara Harvey open up W Somerset Maugham’s 1926 comedy of well-heeled manners for re-examination in 2026, upping the female ante while retaining the elegant period setting.

First staged at the RSC’s Swan Theatre last June, Wade’s sparky, sparkly adaptation chimes with her hit play Home, I’m Darling’s focus on gender roles, feminism, relationships and life choices while echoing the in-flagrante shenanigans of her Disney + television take on Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novel Rivals.

All while staying true to the sceptical satire of Somerset Maugham, such a perceptive observer of human behaviour, exposing our foibles and failings, our uncontrolled urges, in the mire of the moral maze, where deceit and deception play out in different ways.

Philip Rham’s Bentley at the piano in The Constant Wife

He does so with a mischievous air, lighting the touch-paper, then stepping back and watching the fireworks fly, his input mirrored by Philip Rham’s immaculate, piano-playing butler, Bentley, ever alert, ever on hand with the right word or action, yet stoically detached as the heat rises around him.

Bentley remains unflappable, unhurried, a quality shared by Harvey’s direction that lets Wade’s dry-witted dialogue breathe to maximum comic effect, revelling in the chess game of words that fizz like an Alka-Seltzer in water.

Wade’s impact is more reinvigoration (like Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors update of Goldoni’s Italian farce) than reinvention. Whether using “kid” rather than “child”, or “dot dot dot”, she sometimes veers towards modern idioms, but her take on Somerset Maugham’s characters still exudes the high-society 1920s as much as the Art Deco designs and colours of Anna Fleischle’s set for the London flat of Harley Street doctor John Middleton (Tim Delap) and his wife Constance (Kara Tointon, last seen on a York stage in Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight at the Grand Opera House in 2017).

Gloria Onitiri’s gloriously carefree Marie-Louise Durham in The Constant Wife. Picture:

Through gauze, movement on stairways and corridors can be seen, informing the audience of who will be entering, and keeping us one step ahead in the tradition of French farce, although the comedy style is more akin to the drawing-room dramas of Noel Coward (and Oscar Wilde too), played out to Jamie Cullum’s jagged new jazz score.

The year is 1927; Constance’s impetuous interior designer sister, Martha Culver (Amy Vicary-Smith, in height-of-Twenties’ fashion Russian boots) is in heated discussion with their cynical mother, Mrs Culver (Jane Lambert understudying gamely – good voice, but stooped demeanour – for Sara Crowe).

We learn that Constance is deeply unhappy. “Nonsense,” counters her mother in Lady Bracknell mode. “She eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances.”

Tim Delap’s John Middleton and Kara Tointon’s Constance Middleton not seeing eye to eye in The Constant Wife

Should they tell Constance that they suspect John is being unfaithful? Enter Tointon’s flapper-dressed, poised, gliding Constance and next her best friend, the whirlwind Marie-Louise Durham (Gloria Onitiri), as Wade front-loads the women in Somerset Maugham’s story.

Spoiler alert, it turns out that Constance already knows of cocksure John’s affair, as the play takes a time-out to go back 12 months to when she walked in John and carefree Marie-Louise without them knowing.

That transition is played out with a directorial and design sleight of hand, as the fireplace, wallpaper and door change to before Martha’s interior re-design (topped off with ‘wallpaper’ rolling down to reveal ‘One Year Earlier’). This is typical of the wit of Harvey’s direction.

Sisters doing it for themselves…in different ways: Amy Vicary-Smith’s Martha and Kara Tointon’s Constance in The Constant Wife

Vicary-Smith’s Martha, by the way, is a fusion of two Somerset Maugham characters, the sister and an interior-designer friend, and it works a treat, as Constance takes up an invitation to join her business (hence the re-decoration).

In Wade’s most striking interjection, she plays an ace card with her use of that very fashionable device, meta-theatre, (first by having Constance and still-besotted former beau Bernard Kersal (Alex Mugnaioni) heading off to watch a play called The Constant Wife, then by Martha recapping what unfolded and unravelled  in Act One at the outset of Act Two.

Aside from Bentley at the very start, the men have been held back until the play’s conceit has been established. We judge them through Wade, Harvey and the women’s filter, but they are still given a fair hearing, each tall, dapper, buttoned up and not as clever as they think, whether over-confident John, malleable Bernard or Jules Brown’s cuckolded Mortimer Durham.

Jules Brown’s thoroughly duped Mortimer Durham

Fleischle and Cat Fuller’s costume designs, especially for Constance, Martha and John’s suits, delight as much as the central performances as Somerset Maugham/Wade posit the question of what happens when a wronged woman does not react in the expected way, so much so that everyone else then objects to how Constance has responded (not least in confiding only in Bentley, who has a secret of his own) as she seeks her route to freedom and fulfilment against the conventional tide.

At the RSC production’s core is an outstanding performance by Tointon on her return to the stage after moving to Norway. Her Constance is elegant, eloquent, quick of wit and mind, mischievously humorous, yet serious, a woman in a relationship where they still have love for each other but are no longer in love.

David Pugh & Cunard present the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

By Charles Hutchinson 

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 4, from Gazette & Herald

A scene from Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Tristram Kenton

CUBAN dance luminary Carlos  Acosta’s Havana reinvention of The Nutcracker tops  Charles Hutchinson’s latest selection of cultural highlights.

Dance show of the week: Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana, Grand Opera House, York, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

CAST illness has put paid to tonight and tomorrow’s performances, but dance superstar Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana will still turn up the heat in his modern Cuban twist on the snow-dusted 1892 Russian festive ballet on Friday and Saturday. Built on Cuban composer Pepe Gavilondo’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s score, Acosta moves the celebration of joy, life, love and family to modern-day Havana.

More than 20 dancers from Acosta’s Cuban company Acosta Danza perform the familiar story of a young girl transported to a magic world, but one newly incorporating the culture, history and music of his home country. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Tim Delap’s John Middleton and Kara Tointon’s Constance Middleton in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Constant Wife. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic; set and co-costume designer Anna Fleischle; co-costume designer Cat Fuller

Play of the week: Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday , 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

SET in 1927, The Constant Wife finds Constance as a very unhappy woman. “Nonsense,” says her mother, who insists “she eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances”. 

Played by Kara Tointon, she is the perfect wife and mother, but her husband is equally devoted to his mistress, who just happens to be her best friend. Tamara Harvey directs the new adaptation by Home, I’m Darling playwright and Rivals television series writer Laura Wade. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Mishmash’s Ruby’s Worry: Easing worries at NCEM, York

Family show of the week: Mishmash: Ruby’s Worry, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Saturday, 11.30am and 2.30pm

RUBY had always been happy, perfectly happy, until one day she discovered a worry. The more she tries to rid herself of that worry, the more it grows and grows. Eventually she meets a boy who has a worry too. Together they discover that everyone has worries, and that if you talk about them, they never hang around for long! Mishmash’s Ruby’s Worry is told through live music, song, puppetry and physical theatre, taking the audience on a delightful musical adventure. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Talent showcase of the week: HAC Studio Bar Open Mic Jan 2026, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

THIS social evening in Helmsley Arts Centre’s Studio Bar offers the opportunity to hear Ryedale musicians and artists perform. The bar will be open serving beer from Helmsley Brewery and Brass Castle Brewery, an assortment of gins, wines from Helmsley Wines and more. There is no need to book to listen or participate, just turn up.

Mountaineer Simon Yates, of Touching The Void fame, has sold out his My Mountain Life talk on Friday at 7.30pm. Box office for returns only: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Femme Fatale Faerytales: Telling Mary, Mary’s contrary tale

A homecoming, a haunting, a holy rebellion: Femme Fatale Faerytales present Mary, Mary, Fossgate Social, Fossgate, York, February 1 and 2, 8pm (doors 7pm)

MARY, Mary quite contrary, wouldn’t you like to know how her garden grows? Step into the fairytale world of Femme Fatale Faerytales as Sasha Elizabeth Parker unveils a dark, lyrical, feminist re-telling of an age-old classic. Part confession, part ritual, part bedtime story for grown-ups, Mary, Mary invites you to meet the woman behind the nursery rhyme in all her wild, untamed, contrary glory.

In her York debut, expect enchanting storytelling, poetic prophecy and a subversive twist on the tales you thought you knew on two intimate, atmospheric nights in one of York’s cult favourite haunts. Box office: wegottickets.com.

Packing in the acts for PAC Comedy Club line-up at Pocklington Arts Centre

Comedy gig of the week: PAC Comedy Club, Pocklington Arts Centre, February 5, 8pm

RICH Wilson, winner of the New Zealand Comedy Festival Best International Act award, tops the PAC Comedy Club bill next Thursday. He has performed at all the major UK comedy clubs, as well in New York and Las Vegas and at the Perth Fringe, Melbourne International Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

Supporting Wilson will be Jonny Awsum, who shot to fame on Britain’s Got Talent with his high-energy musical comedy, and Yorkshireman Pete Selwood, who specialises in observational material with killer punchlines, introduced by surrealist compere and BBC New Comedian of the Year regional finalist Elaine Robertson. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The Yorkshire Gypsy Swing Collective: In full swing at Milton Rooms, Malton

Jazz gig of the week: The Yorkshire Gypsy Swing Collective, Milton Rooms, Malton, February 7, doors, 7.30pm

THIS gypsy jazz supergroup with musicians from all around Yorkshire plays music inspired by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli of the Quintette du Hot Club de France. 

The collective of Lewis Kilvington and Martin Chung, guitars, James Munroe, double bass, Derek Magee, violin, and Christine Pickard, clarinet, remains true to Django and Stephane’s spirit while pushing the genre of gypsy jazz forward into a modern sphere. Expect fast licks, burning ballads and even some Latin-inspired pieces. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

Liz Foster: Exhibiting at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, from February 12

Exhibition launch: Liz Foster, Deep Among The Grasses, Rise:@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, February 12 to April 10

YORK artist Liz Foster’s new series of abstract paintings, Deep Among The Grasses, invites you into rich, expansive imagined spaces where she explores memory, landscape and the childhood feeling of being immersed in wild places.

Full of colour, feeling and atmosphere, this body of work is being shown together for the first time. Everyone is welcome at the 6pm to 9pm preview on February 12 when Leeds-born painter, teacher and mentor Liz will be in attendance.

Super Furry Animals: Playing first shows in ten years in 2026, including Live At York Museum Gardens

Gig announcement of the week: Live At York Museum Gardens present Super Furry Animals, York Museum Gardens, July 11

FUTURESOUND completes the line-up for its third Live At York Museum Gardens season with Welsh art-rock icons Super Furry Animals, celebrating more than 30 years together with multicolour hits and off-piste deep cuts, lovingly handpicked from  nine albums.

Gruff Rhys, Huw Bunford, Cian Ciarán, Dafydd Ieuan and Guto Pryce are returning to the concert platform in 2026 for the first time in ten years. Joining them in York will be a quartet of special guests, unconventional kindred spirit Baxter Dury, compatriot indie-pop septet Los Campesinos!, fast-rising Nottingham alt-country group Divorce and the Welsh Music Prize-nominated woozy, Sixties-inspired psychedelia Pys Melyn.

Futuresound Group project manager Rachel Hill says: “We’re thrilled to announce Super Furry Animals as the final headliner for our third Live at York Museum Gardens series. None of it would be possible without the collaboration, trust and support of the team at York Museums Trust and being able to put together such an incredible line up for the summer makes us excited for the future of our partnership.”

York exclusive postcode presale (YO1, YO10, YO19, YO23, YO24, YO26, YO30, YO31 and  YO32) go on sale at 10am today at https://futuresound.seetickets.com/event/super-furry-animals/york-museum-gardens/3567101?pre=postcode.

General sales open at 10am on Friday at https://futuresound.seetickets.com/event/super-furry-animals/york-museum-gardens/3567101.

Tickets are on sale already for Liverpool’s  Orchestra Manoeuvres In The Dark on July 9 and South Yorkshire ’s Self Esteem on July 10 at futuresoundgroup.com/york-museum-gardens-events.

The poster for Super Furry Animals’ concert in York Museum Gardens

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More Things To Do in York & beyond as Royal Shakespeare Company revisits 1920s. Hutch’s List No. 4, from The Press

Kara Tointon as Constance Middleton in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Constant Wife. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic; set and co-costume designer Anna Fleischle and co-costume designer Cat Fuller

LAURA Wade’s new adaptation of The Constant Wife for the RSC leads off Charles Hutchinson’s latest selection of cultural highlights.

Play of the week: Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, January 26 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

SET in 1927, The Constant Wife finds Constance as a very unhappy woman. “Nonsense,” says her mother, who insists “she eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances”. 

Played by Kara Tointon, she is the perfect wife and mother, but her husband is equally devoted to his mistress, who just happens to be her best friend. Tamara Harvey directs the new adaptation by Home, I’m Darling playwright and Rivals television series writer Laura Wade. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Aesthetica Art Prize winner Tobi Onabolu’s Danse Macabre, on show at York Art Gallery

Last chance to see: Aesthetica Art Prize and Future Tense: Art in the Age of Transformation, York Art Gallery, today and tomorrow, 10am to 5pm

YORK arts movers and shakers  Aesthetica present  two landmark exhibitions, the 2025 Aesthetica Art Prize  and Future Tense: Art in the Age of Transformation, featuring large-scale immersive installations by prize alumni Liz West and Squidsoup.

On show among work by 25 shortlisted entries are main prize winner, London artist-filmmaker Tobi Onabolu’s exploration of spirituality, mental health and the human psyche,  Danse Macabre, and Emerging Prize winner Sam Metz’s bright yellow structures in Porosity, reflecting his sensory experience of the Humber Estuary.

Squidsoup’s Submergence immerses audiences in an ocean of 8,000 responsive LED lights, blurring the line between digital and physical space, while Liz West’s Our Spectral Vision surrounds visitors with a radiant spectrum of colour in a sensory encounter. Tickets: yorkartgallery.org.uk/tickets.

Ceramicist Emily Stubbs, left, and seascapes artist Carolyn Coles showcase their new work in The Sky’s The Limit at Pyramid Gallery, alongside Karen Fawcett’s bird sculptures

Exhibition launch of the week: Carolyn Coles, Emily Stubbs and Karen Fawcett, The Sky’s The Limit, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today until mid-March

SOUTH Bank Studios artist Carolyn Coles and PICA Studios ceramicist Emily Stubbs will be on hand from 11.30am to 2.30pm at today’s opening of The Sky’s The Limit, their joint exhibition with wildlife sculptor Karen Fawcett.

Like Carolyn, Emily has been selected to take part in York Open Studios 2026 on April 18 & 19 and April 25 & 26. Look out too for work by Pyramid Gallery’s Jeweller of the Month, Kate Rhodes, from Hebden Bridge. Gallery opening hours are: 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.

Anna Hale: Killer punchlines, musical flair and spiky resilience in Control Freak at The Crescent on Sunday

Comedy gig of the week: Anna Hale: Control Freak, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

ANNA Hale, comedian, singer-songwriter and unapologetic control freak, likes to write the jokes and the songs, plan the lighting cues and even sell the tickets for her gigs. When life spins out of control, however, can one perfectionist keep the show together, and, crucially, not let anyone else have a go?

Find out when encountering the killer punchlines, musical flair and spiky resilience of the 2024 Musical Comedy Awards Audience Favourite winner’s debut tour show. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Glenn Moore: So many Moore jokes at The Crescent on Tuesday

Show title of the week: Glenn Moore: Please Sir, Glenn I Have Some Moore, The Crescent, York, January 27, 7.30pm (doors 7pm)

EDINBURGH Comedy Award nominee Glenn Moore has written too many jokes again, so expect a whirlwind of punchlines from the Croydon stand-up and presenter on Tuesday. Here comes more and more of Moore after appearances on Live At The Apollo, Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, The News Quiz, Just A Minute and his own BBC Radio 4 series, Glenn Moore’s Almanac. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Snow and frost in Cuba: Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana brings heat and ice to the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Johan Persson

Dance show of the week: Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana, Grand Opera House, York, now January 30 and 31, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee 

UPDATE 27/1/2025: Cast illness has put paid to January 28 and 29’s performances.

DANCE superstar Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker In Havana turns up the heat in his modern Cuban twist on the snow-dusted 1892 Russian festive ballet. Built on Cuban composer Pepe Gavilondo’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s score, Acosta moves the celebration of joy, life, love and family to modern-day Havana.

More than 20 dancers from Acosta’s Cuban company Acosta Danza perform the familiar story of a young girl transported to a magic world, but one newly incorporating the culture, history and music of his home country. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Mike Joyce: Tales from his drumming days for The Smiths at Pocklington Arts Centre

On the beat: Mike Joyce, The Drums: My Life In The Smiths, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 28, 7.30pm

DRUMMER Mike Joyce has been asked numerous times, “What was it like being in The Smiths?”. “That’s one hell of a question to answer!” he says. Answer it, he does, however, both in his 2025 memoir and now in his touring show The Drums: My Life In The Smiths.

To reflect on being stationed behind singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr from 1982 to 1987, Joyce will be interviewed by Guardian music journalist Dave Simpson, who lives near York. Audience members can put their questions to Joyce too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

The poster for Country Roads’ celebration of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers et al at York Barbican

Country celebration of the week: Country Roads, York Barbican, January 30, 7.30pm

COUNTRY Roads invites you to a celebration of country superstar royalty featuring such hits as 9 To 5, The Gambler, I Walk The Line, Ring Of Fire, King Of The Road, Crazy, Rhinestone Cowboy, Jolene, Dance The Night Away, Walkin’ After Midnight and many, many more as the stars of fellow tribute show Islands In The Stream return in this new production. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Mishmash’s delightful musical adventure Ruby’s Worry, easing worries at the NCEM

Family show of the week: Mishmash: Ruby’s Worry, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, January 31, 11.30am and 2.30pm

RUBY had always been happy, perfectly happy, until one day she discovered a worry. The more she tries to rid herself of that worry, the more it grows and grows. Eventually she meets a boy who has a worry too. Together they discover that everyone has worries, and that if you talk about them, they never hang around for long! Mishmash’s Ruby’s Worry is told through live music, song, puppetry and physical theatre, taking the audience on a delightful musical adventure. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

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Kara Tointon makes stage return after five years away in The Constant Wife. Next stop: York Theatre Royal from Monday

Kara Tointon’s Constance Middleton in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Constant Wife. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic; set and co-costume designer Anna Fleischle; co-costume designer Cat Fuller

KARA Tointon  returns to the York stage on Monday for the first time since February 2017.

On that occasion, she appeared as Bella Manningham in Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight at the Grand Opera House. Now she takes the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s touring production of The Constant Wife at York Theatre Royal.

2010 Strictly Come Dancing winner Kara is starring in Olivier Award winner Laura Wade’s new version of W Somerset Maugham’s sparkling 1926 comedy of ill manners, directed by RSC co-artistic director Tamara Harvey.

“I haven’t done any theatre for a little while, not since I had my second son in 2021, but it doesn’t feel that long as time travels so quickly,” says Kara, 42. “For the last few years, I’ve been focusing on being a mum and moving to Norway in May 2024.

“My partner [Marius Jensen] is Norwegian and has always spoken to the boys [Frey, seven, and Helly, four] in his native tongue and wanted them to understand the language as well as speaking it, so we were spending more and more time there.

Actress Kara Tointon: Back on stage for the first time since having her second son in 2021

“In 2024, because they hadn’t started school yet – they start the year they turn six – we decided to settle in Norway, in the most southern part, where it does get extremely dark by 3.30pm, so you really have to make sure you have your Vitamin D. The sky is so different out there: it’s like nothing you’ve seen over here.”

The Constant Wife returns to Kara to British shores, leading Harvey’s cast from January 16 at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool,  to May 16 at Bath Theatre Royal, before embarking on a Transatlantic Crossing aboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2.

“I’m back – and it’s a really big role!” says Kara of playing Constance Middleton, who is a deeply unhappy woman in 1920s’ London.  “Nonsense,” says her mother. “She eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances.”

Constance may be the perfect wife and mother, but her husband is equally devoted to his mistress, who just happens to be her best friend.

“It’s a gift of a part, and I’ve been an avid fan girl of Laura’s work for years, since I saw a friend in her play Posh. She and Tamara are the best of friends, and they’re like a power team [having worked together on Wade’s play Home, I’m Darling].  It’s a bit of a ‘pinch me’ moment for me to be working with them. Every time Tamara gives me a note in the rehearsal room, it pushes me to do my best, and that’s exciting,” says Lara.

Tim Delap’s John Middleton and Kara Tointon’s Constance Middleton in The Constant Wife. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic; set and co-costume designer Anna Fleischle; co-costume designer Cat Fuller

“I think what’s incredible with this play is that we’re coming up to 100 years since it was written, but it’s now so relevant that it could be set in 2026, which makes it really relatable. The way Somerset Maugham had written this character as such a powerhouse, she steals the scene in every scene, and it forces us to consider how we make decisions in the moment when sometimes we should take stock.”

In a nutshell, returning home from dropping off her daughter at boarding school, Constance finds her husband disporting himself with her closest friend on the chaise longue. “The play’s about  how she deals with that situation, in that pivotal moment, and you think she’s wonderful because she handles it in such a brilliant way,” says Kara.

“It’s incredible that Somerset Maugham wrote such an incredible piece about a female character from a male perspective, and now I’m enjoying being in a room full of female-led vibes, where Laura and Tamara have elevated the play for a modern audience.

“They’ve made the perfect cuts and turned the structure into three parts, where we flashback once, and then we go back to the moment where we left off for the flashback.”

Harvey’s production will be full of 1920s’ style. “When I had the fitting for the gold dress, it felt very, very special. To have something made for you – really made for you – is fantastic,” says Kara. “The sets are fantastic too: it’s a visual feast, so luxurious.”

Kara Tointon in the tour poster for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Constant Wife

Recalling her experience of reading the first few pages of Wade’s adaptation. Kara says: “I laughed out loud – and that’s a good sign! I would say it’s a comedy, though you wouldn’t say a woman walking in on her husband having an affair should be a comedy, but you find yourself falling in love with these three very strong women in the play with their very different feelings and views.

“You can see that even though they’re very different, they’re very close – and that’s lovely to play, so I would say it’s a comedy with feeling.”

The Constant Wife is billed as a “comedy of ill manners”. “It’s all about humanity,” says Kara. “Everyone is messing up. Even with Constance, no matter how brilliantly she plays it, you could question some of the decisions she makes.

“When we do what we do to survive, everyone has a different way of surviving, and that’s why watching any drama is interesting because it makes you question how you would deal with difficult situations.”

Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, January 26 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Also Leeds Grand Theatre, April 13 to 18. 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 4, from Gazette & Herald

Kara Tointon as Constance in The Constant Wife, on tour at York Theatre Royal

LAURA Wade’s new adaptation of The Constant Wife for the RSC leads off Charles Hutchinson’s latest selection of cultural highlights.

Play of the week: Royal Shakespeare Company in The Constant Wife, York Theatre Royal, January 26 to 31, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

SET in 1927, The Constant Wife finds Constance as a very unhappy woman. “Nonsense,” says her mother, who insists “she eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances”. 

Played by Kara Tointon, she is the perfect wife and mother, but her husband is equally devoted to his mistress, who just happens to be her best friend. Tamara Harvey directs the new adaptation by Home, I’m Darling playwright and Rivals television series writer Laura Wade. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Jeffrey Martin: Blend of folk, Americana and literary short stories at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York

Folk gig of the week: Please Please You and Brudenell Presents present Jeffrey Martin and special guest Tenderness, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Saturday, 8.15pm (doors 7.30pm)

PORTLAND musician Jeffrey Martin’s narrative-driven songwriting  is a blend of folk, Americana and literary short stories with echoes of Raymond Carver. Before turning to music full time in 2016, he spent several years as a high-school English teacher, a profession he left to “chase his dreams at all cost.”

His lyrics are marked by his insight into the human condition, often focusing on the struggles and quiet dignity of people on the margins of society. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

Emily Stubbs: Exhibiting ceramics at Pyramid Gallery, York, from Saturday

Exhibition launch of the week: Carolyn Coles, Emily Stubbs and Karen Fawcett, The Sky’s The Limit, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, Saturday until mid-March

SOUTH Bank Studios artist Carolyn Coles and PICA Studios ceramicist Emily Stubbs will be on hand from 11.30am to 2.30pm at Saturday’s opening of The Sky’s The Limit, their joint exhibition with wildlife sculptor Karen Fawcett.

Like Carolyn, Emily has been selected to take part in York Open Studios 2026 on April 18 & 19 and April 25 & 26. Look out too for work by Pyramid Gallery’s Jeweller of the Month, Kate Rhodes, from Hebden Bridge. Gallery opening hours are: 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.

Snake Davis and Sumudu Jayatilaka: Performing together at Helmsley Arts Centre

Jools’ partners of the week: Snake & Sumudu, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

SAXOPHONIST to the stars Snake Davis and singer-songwriter Sumudu Jayatilaka often meet up to perform with Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra or to play together in arts centres.

Raised in Scunthorpe, now based in London, Sumudu has frequently toured as a backing vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and percussionist for Sir Van Morrison. At 15, she made her TV debut on BBCs Pebble Mill At One, performing her own composition, accompanied by Snake on sax and flute. Later they took part in a Royal Albert Hall concert with Burt Bacharach and Hal David.  At Helmsley, expect classic pop, original compositions and a touch of soul and jazz. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Shakin’ all over: Rebel Dean in Whole Lotta Shakin’, his tribute to Shakin’ Stevens at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Tribute show of the week: Whole Lotta Shakin’ – The Shakin’ Stevens Story, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

ENDORSED by members of Shakin’ Stevens own family, West End star Rebel Dean’s award-winning tribute to Great Britain’s biggest-selling singles artist of the 1980s tell the story of the rockin’ Welsh boy and his rise to chart-topping superstardom.

Whole Lotta Shakin’ combines a live band with rare footage and images in a nostalgic night of Shaky hits, Green Door, Oh Julie, You Drive Me Crazy and This Ole House et al, complemented by Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens and Elvis Presley numbers that he covered. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Anna Hale: Killer punchlines, musical flair and spiky resilience at The Crescent, York

Comedy gig of the week: Anna Hale: Control Freak, The Crescent, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

ANNA Hale, comedian, singer-songwriter and unapologetic control freak, has written the jokes and the songs, planned the lighting cues and even sold the tickets for her gigs. When life spins out of control, can one perfectionist keep the show together, and, crucially, not let anyone else have a go? Find out when encountering the killer punchlines, musical flair and spiky resilience of the 2024 Musical Comedy Awards Audience Favourite winner’s debut tour show. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Mike Joyce: Tales from his drumming days for The Smiths at Pocklington Arts Centre

On the beat: Mike Joyce, The Drums: My Life In The Smiths, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 28, 7.30pm

DRUMMER Mike Joyce has been asked numerous times, “What was it like being in The Smiths?”. “That’s one hell of a question to answer!” he says. Answer it, he does, however, both in his 2025 memoir and now in his touring show The Drums: My Life In The Smiths.

To reflect on being stationed behind singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr from 1982 to 1987, Joyce will be interviewed by Guardian music journalist Dave Simpson, who lives near York. Audience members can put their questions to Joyce too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Neil Sadler: Leading his blues band at Milton Rooms, Malton

Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club presents Neil Sadler Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, January 29, 8pm

NORTH Devon guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer Neil Sadler has worked with songwriters and composers Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, Don Black, Leslie David Reed and Tony McCaulay and honied his  guitar style with blues and rock artists Larry Miller, Mike Farmer, Dennis Siggery and Malaya Blue, as well as running No Machine Studios for 30 years

Sadler has led his present line-up since early 2024 featuring drummer Ray Barwell and bass guitarist Kev Langman. In January 2025, his Past To Present album was nominated for UK Blues Federation awards for UK Blues Traditional Artist of the Year and UK Blues Album of the Year. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

The poster for Country Roads’ celebration of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell et al at York Barbican

Country celebration of the week: Country Roads, York Barbican, January 30, 7.30pm

COUNTRY Roads invites you to a celebration of country superstar royalty featuring such hits as 9 To 5, The Gambler, I Walk The Line, Ring Of Fire, King Of The Road, Crazy, Rhinestone Cowboy, Jolene, Dance The Night Away, Walkin’ After Midnight and many, many more as the stars of fellow tribute show Islands In The Stream return in this new production. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.