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Pick Me Up Theatre to stage revived Young Frankenstein, now on the move to Joseph Rowntree Theatre after November call-off

Pick Me Up Theatre principals in Young Frankenstein: back row, from left, James Willstrop’s Dr Frederick Frankenstein, Helen Spencer’s Frau Blucher and Jennie Wogan-Wells’s Elizabeth Benning; front row, Jack Hooper’s Igor and Sanna Jeppsson’s Inga. All pictures: Jennifer Jones

YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre will stage the northern premiere of Mel Brooks’s musical Young Frankenstein  in the New Year after the late postponement of last autumn’s run at the Grand Opera House.

Andrew Isherwood has picked up the directorial reins for this stage conversion of Brooks’s comedy horror movie, produced in York by artistic director and designer Robert Readman.

Rehearsals re-started in early December for the January 31 to February 3 run at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, with the original principal cast still in place and Helen Spencer assisting with production management.

“This show is by the creators of the record-breaking Broadway sensation The Producers,” says Robert. “The comedy genius Mel Brooks has adapted his legendary comedy film from 1974 into a brilliant stage show of Young Frankenstein. I saw the West End production and loved it.

Following the science: James Willstrop’s Dr Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein

“Every bit as relevant to audience members who will remember the original as it will be to newcomers, the musical has all the of panache of the screen sensation with a little extra theatrical flair added. Young Frankenstein is scientifically proven, monstrously good entertainment.”

In Brooks’s spoof, the grandson of infamous scientist Victor Frankenstein, Dr Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronk-en-steen”, he insists), has inherited his family’s castle estate in Transylvania.

Aided and hindered by hunchbacked sidekick Igor (pronounced “Eye-gore”), leggy lab assistant Inga (pronounced normally), devilishly sexy Frau Blucher (“Neigh”!) and needy fiancée Elizabeth (“Surprise”!), Frederick finds himself filling the mad scientist shoes of his ancestor.

After initial reluctance, his mission will be to strive to fulfil his grandfather’s legacy by bringing a corpse back to life. “It’s alive!”, he exclaims as his experiment yields a creature to rival his grandfather’s monster. Eventually, and inevitably, this new monster escapes.

Working in tandem with Thomas Meehan, Brooks gleefully reanimates his horror-movie send-up of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, with even more jokes, set-pieces and barnstorming parody songs that stick a pitchfork into good taste. Among those songs will be Puttin’ On The Ritz, Please Don’t Touch Me, He Vas My Boyfriend, The Transylvania Mania and There Is Nothing Like A Brain!, among many more Transylvanian smash hits.

Helen Spencer’s Frau Blucher and Jack Hooper’s Igor

Leading Pick Me Up’s cast will be former world squash champion James Willstrop, continuing his transfer from court to stage player as Dr Frankenstein after his Captain Von Trapp in Pick Me Up’s The Sound Of Music at Theatre@41, Monkgate, last Christmas.

Starring opposite him again will be Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson (Maria in The Sound Of Music), here cast as Inga, while Jack Hooper, Mr Poppy in York Stage’s Nativity! The Musical in November 2022, will be Dr Frankenstein’s puppy dog of an assistant, Igor, “the classic Hammer Horror sidekick with a hump that keeps moving around”.

Helen Spencer (Mother Abbess in The Sound Of Music and Dolly Levi in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Hello, Dolly!) will play Frau Blucher, “the very stern housekeeper with surprising hidden depths”; Jennie Wogan-Wells, the Narrator in York Musical Theatre Company’s Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last May, will be ingenue Elizabeth Benning, Frankenstein’s fiancée from America. “Think Legally Blonde,” says Helen. “Very conscious of her image; very high maintenance, throwing a spanner in the works when she turns up.”

Craig Kirby (Tom Oakley in Pick Me Up’s Goodnight Mr Tom) will be in Monster mode and further roles will go to Tom Riddolls as Sgt Kemp, Sam Steel as Bertram Bartam and Andrew Isherwood, fresh from directing Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None for Pick Me Up last September, can be spotted as The Hermit as well as directing.

Rivals for Dr Frankenstein’s affections: Jennie Wogan-Wells’s Elizabeth Benning, left, and Sanna Jeppsson’s Inga

A supporting ensemble will play Transylvanians, students and more besides. Choreography is by Ilana Weets and the orchestra will be led by musical maestro Sam Johnson.

Readman had to call off Pick Me Up’s Halloween double bill of Emma Reeves and Lucy Potter’s The Worst Witch and Young Frankenstein at the Grand Opera House due to unforeseen circumstances. It has not been possible to re-mount Rosy Rowley’s production of The Worst Witch, featuring a young cast, but Young Frankenstein will take over the JoRo slot allocated originally to Pick Me Up’s now jettisoned production of Chicago, whose principal casting was in place, but whose rehearsals were yet to start.

Helen Spencer is relishing the resumption of rehearsals for Young Frankenstein. “Ilana had already put us through a huge amount of tap-dancing work:  a very delayed return to tap in my case, having not done it since school, and she’s been very patient,” she says. “We’re having such fun again.

“Young Frankenstein is very silly with some brilliant numbers and really vibrant comedy, and we’re very lucky to have such amazing actors. Robert says it’s the best principal cast he could have wished for, such a safe pair of hands and so skilled that it would have been such a shame not to have done it. Thankfully we’re going ahead in January.”

Pick Me Up Theatre in Young Frankenstein, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, January 31 to February 3 2024, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

NEWSFLASHES…Curtains…The Hollywood Sisters…Joseph Rowntree Theatre Musical Theatre Awards…Musicals In The Multiverse…

Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company cast members for Curtains poke their heads out from beneath the JoRo curtain, which will fom part of the musical mystery whodunit’s set in February, along with the auditorium at large

JOSEPH Rowntree Theatre Company’s next show will be Curtains, the 2007 Broadway musical mystery comedy with a book by Rupert Holmes, lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander and additional lyrics by Kander and Holmes.

What’s the plot? Boston’s Colonial Theatre is host to the opening night performance of a new musical in 1959. When the leading lady – a fading Hollywood star and diva, who has no right to be one – dies mysteriously on stage, the entire cast and crew are suspects.

Enter a local detective – and musical theatre fan to boot – who tries to save the show, solve the case, and maybe even find love before the show reopens, all without being killed.

Delightful characters, a witty and charming script and glorious tunes await you from February 7 to 10 at 7.30pm nightly plus a 2.30pm Saturday matinee. In the cast will be Steven Jobson, Jennifer Jones, Jennie Wogan-Wells, Rosy Rowley, Jonathan Wells, Paul Blenkiron, Ben Huntley, Jennifer Payne, Anthony Gardner, Chris Gibson and Jamie Benson, among others.

Proceeds from ticket sales on 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk will go to the JoRo.

The Hollywood Sisters: from left, Helen Spencer, Henrietta Linnemann, Rachel Higgs and Cat Foster

AFTER raising £1,000 for York Mind at their sold-out December 1 concert at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York close-harmony quartet The Hollywood Sisters – Helen Spencer, Cat Foster, Rachel Higgs and Henrietta Linnemann – will return there for another charity Christmas show with special guests next December. Watch this space for further details.

THE inaugural Joseph Rowntree Theatre Musical Theatre Awards will be launched formally in January. Watch this space.

Set up by the JoRo, the awards will run annually. “We’ve put out requests to all the companies that do full-book musicals in York, not specifically at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre,” says York actress, singer and director Helen Spencer, who is helping to run the awards with co-founder Nick Sephton. “At least seven companies have said they want to be involved.

“The way it works, each company nominates a judge; the judges will get together at the end of the year to decide who the winners are, with such categories as Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Choreographer, and then the awards ceremony will be held at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, Oscars style, in January.”

Explaining the concept behind the awards, Helen says: “The idea is to celebrate the amazing musical theatre scene we have in York and the amazing community we have that puts on these shows. This is a chance to celebrate all that creativity in our city.”

Scarlett Rowley in the first edition of Musicals In The Multverse at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in June 2023

TO quote CharlesHutchPress, from the June 30 review, “Musicals In The Multiverse turns out to be out of this world. A sequel will surely follow.”

Happy to report that this Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company revue will return to the JoRo in June 2024, dates yet to be confirmed.

Directed by Helen Spencer, the show’s modus operandi is “playful, radical too, and has the potential to be rolled out again,” as CharlesHutchPress wrote of June’s inaugural two-night run.

“Imagine alternative worlds – a multiverse – where musical favourites take on a new life with a change of gender, era, key or musical style, arranged with glee, joy and flourish after flourish by musical director Matthew Peter Clare for his smart band”. More details of the sequel will follow.

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No rehearsal, no director, no sight of the script in advance. Six actors, one per show, take on White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in York

Maurice Crichton: In the dark tonight, just as much as the audience for the hush-hush White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

AN actor’s nightmare will be an audience’s dream, promises producer Jim Paterson, when White Rabbit, Red Rabbit makes its York debut from tonight (7/11/2023) to Saturday at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

This groundbreaking play requires the actor to perform the script having never seen it before setting foot on stage.

Originally written in 2011 by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, who at the time was forbidden to leave his native Iran, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is a play designed to travel the world in his place. Whereupon the audience will join each different performer on a journey into the unknown.

Soleimanpour’s 70-minuite play has been performed all over the world by actors such as John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Sinead Cusack and Dominic West, all taking to the stage with no prior sighting of the script.

Now White Rabbit, Red Rabbit receives its York premiere at the hands of six actors, each performing the script for one performance only. “They will never have seen the script until I hand them an envelope to open as they enter the stage,” says Jim. “They are told almost nothing in preparation. There is no rehearsal or director.” 

Sanna Jeppsson: Saturday night performance

Given that the play relies on no-one knowing the plot, details cannot be shared in advance, and so audience and actor alike will be in the same position of not knowing what will happen, duly creating an “exciting and truly unpredictable show”.

“One of the best things about going to the theatre is that it’s a live experience where each performance is different and unpredictable,” says Jim. “Times that by 100 and you’ve got this play. Both the actor and the audience don’t know what’s going to happen from moment to moment, which I think will create a really exhilarating atmosphere.

“Each of our six actors is only performing the play once with no preparation – so each performance will be entirely unique for that audience. That’s why we’ve put on a ticket offer, so that you can come back to watch another actor perform it for half-price, and see what will be an entirely different take on the play.”

Jim adds: “A lot of us have had that dream where we’re suddenly in a theatre and are expected to go on stage in a play when we don’t know the lines or what we’re supposed to be doing. So, I’m massively grateful to these performers for agreeing to take the leap and make that scary dream a reality!”

First to step into the unknown tonight will be Maurice Crichton, stalwart of York Settlement Community Players and much else besides on the York theatre scene. “I think it’s going to be about the audience experiencing an actor being surprised by what they’re in, and – to an extent – vicariously experiencing those feelings themselves,” he says. “It excites me to see if I can relax enough to do the play justice!”

Alan Park: Friday man

Fresh from Settlement Players’ Government Inspector, Sonia Di Lorenzo will perform the Saturday matinee. “I’m looking forward to finding out what it’s about,” she says. “It sounds really intriguing from what I know of it – which is just the title! I’m excited to see how it unfolds and what it entails and where it’s all going to lead.”

Sanna Jeppsson will take on the Saturday night challenge. “It’s exciting and scary because I don’t know how I’m going to react in the moment: what my body’s going to feel like, what my pulse is going to be doing, what my breath is going to be doing – I just don’t know! But I’m very interested to find out,” she says.

Presented by York company Black Treacle Theatre, in association with Aurora Nova, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit will be performed by Maurice Crichton tonight; Lara Stafford tomorrow; Maggie Smales, Thursday; Theatgre@41 chair Alan Park, Friday; Sonia Di Lorenzo, Saturday matinee, and Sanna Jeppsson, Saturday night.

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Tickets are £10 full price and any ticket buyers for one performance can see another one for £5 (plus booking fee).

Did you know?

BLACK Treacle Theatre produced Nick Payne’s Constellations in March 2022 and Gary Owen’s Iphigenia In Splott in March 2023, both at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

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James Willstrop to serve up Frederick Frankenstein in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Hallowe’en show Young Frankenstein

Squashbuckling: World champ James Willstrop swaps from court to stage to perform for Pick Me Up Theatre

PICK Me Up Theatre artistic director Robert Readman will direct the northern premiere of Mel Brooks’s stage conversion of Young Frankenstein at the Grand Opera House, York, over Hallowe’en.

The York company’s rehearsals are progressing well for the all-singing, all-dancing horror-movie spoof musical that will run from October 31 to November 4.

“From the creators of the record-breaking Broadway sensation The Producers comes this monster new musical comedy,” says Robert. “The comedy genius, Mel Brooks, has adapted his legendarily funny 1974 film into a brilliant stage creation of Young Frankenstein. I saw the West End production and loved it.”

Grandson of the infamous Victor Frankenstein, Dr Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronk-en-steen”) inherits his family’s castle estate in Transylvania.

Sanna Jeppsson: Playing lab assistant Inga in Young Frankenstein

Aided yet hindered by hunchbacked sidekick Igor (pronounced “Eye-gore”), leggy lab assistant Inga (pronounced normally), devilishly sexy Frau Blucher (Neigh!) and needy fianceeElizabeth, Frederick finds himself filling the mad scientist shoes of his ancestors, striving to fulfil his grandfather’s legacy by bringing a corpse back to life.

“It’s alive!” he exclaims as his experiment yields a creature to rival his grandfather’s monster. Eventually, and inevitably, this new monster escapes. “Hilarity abounds,” promises Robert, in Young Frankenstein’s combination of madcap success and monstrous consequences.

Working in tandem with Thomas Meehan, Brooks gleefully reanimates his horror-movie send-up of Mary Shelley’s novel with even more jokes, set-pieces and barnstorming parody songs that stick a pitchfork into good taste. Among those songs will be Puttin’ On The Ritz, Please Don’t Touch Me, He Vas My Boyfriend, The Transylvanian Mania, There Is Nothing Like A Brain! and many more Transylvanian smash hits.

Leading Readman’s cast will be erstwhile world squash champion James Willstrop, continuing his transfer from court to stage after playing Captain Von Trapp in Pick Me Up’s The Sound Of Music last Christmas.

Helen Spencer: From Hello, Dolly! to hello, Frau Blucher

Starring opposite him again will be Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson (Maria in The Sound Of Music), here cast as Inga. Jack Hooper, Mr Poppy in last year’s Nativity!, will be Igor; Helen Spencer, seen latterly as the Mother Abbess and Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, will play Frau Blucher; Jennie Wogan-Wells, the Narrator in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, will be Elizabeth Benning.

Craig Kirby, Mr Tom in Goodnight Mr Tom, will be in Monster mode and further roles will go to Tom Riddolls as Sgt Kemp, Sam Steel as Bertram Bartam and Andrew Isherwood, fresh from directing Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, as The Hermit.  A supporting ensemble will play Transylvanians, students and more besides.   

“Every bit as relevant to audience members who will remember the original as it will be to newcomers, Young Frankenstein has all the of panache of the screen sensation with a little extra theatrical flair added,” says Robert. “Young Frankenstein is scientifically proven, monstrously good entertainment.”

Pick Me Up Theatre in Young Frankenstein, Grand Opera House, York, October 31 to November 4, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

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REVIEW: York Light Opera Company in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

The magnificent seven in York Light’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change: Sanna Jeppson, left, Mark Simmonds, Monica Frost, Emily Hardy, James Horsman, Emma Dickinson and Richard Bayton. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen Photography

LOVELY show to finish off York Light’s 70th anniversary. Something a little different. All about love. That adds up to three reasons espoused by director Neil Wood to see the American musical comedy with the tripartite title.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change has its place in musical history as the second longest-running off-Broadway musical revue, premiered by the American Stage Company in 1996.  

Now it swaps New York for York while retaining its American accents for 20 vignettes of universal resonance, each delving into a different aspect of love and relationships, their joys and their challenges.

Those vignettes, humorous, honest, heartfelt, heartwarming and heartbreaking, are full of life, lust and love’s labours lost and found, charting the path from dating to marriage, parenthood to ageing.

Richard Bayton at the wheel, with passengers Emily Hardy, Monica Frost and Mark Simmonds in the On The Highway Of Love vignette

Writer and lyricist Joe DiPietro and composer Jimmy Roberts bring momentum, mischief, romance, frankness, sauce, familiarity, delight, jaw-dropping awkwardness, pathos and passion, surprise and shock, to savvy, soulful, sweet, sour, salacious scenes ranging in length from five to eight minutes, diverse in style, tone and content.

Updated in 2018 to reflect changing times and fads, some take the form of dialogue or a monologue; some are songs; others combine the two. Like a taster menu, there is always another juicy morsel coming along to savour in each 55-minute half.

On an end-on stage with tables and chairs on one side, a sofa bed on the other, those vignettes are in the hands of a cast of seven – spreading the roles wider than the original production’s quartet of actors – and each of York Light’s magnificent seven takes on at least six parts, some as many as eight.

Neil Wood, directing York Light for the first time, put his company through Laban technique rehearsals to settle on characterisation and movement, giving each scene due weight with an emphasis on exposing the vulnerability in so many of the lovers’ tales.

He is rewarded with performances that are truthful and comedic, moving and candid, playing to both individual and collective strengths in a whirl of costume and character changes relished by Richard Bayton, Emma Dickinson, Mark Simmonds and especially the chameleon Sanna Jeppsson and James Horsman. 

Mark Simmonds in Whatever Happened To Baby’s Parents?

Look out for Jeppsson’s arthritic hands when playing an old woman discussing love in a funeral parlour opposite Horsman in arguably the most affecting vignette, Funerals Are For Dating.

Emily Hardy and Monica Frost graduate from the York Light ranks to principal roles for the first time, Frost being particularly impressive, whether in the country pastiche Always A Bridesmaid or her confessional online dating monologue, The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz.  

Not since Lloyd Webber and Rice’s Joseph And The Technicolor Dreamcoat in their fledgling days has a musical pulled off so many pastiches, from country weepie to Luther Vandross soul, Ratpack smoothie to boastful rap, power balladry to Lloyd Webber and Rice themselves, demanding much of keyboardist Martin Lay’s resourceful band (with Rosie Morris on bass, Katie Maloney on reeds and Jez Smith on drums).

Billed as “riotous, rude and relevant”, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is indeed those three Rs, but it is also real, relatable and richly rewarding. We’ve all been there, done that, now watch love’s highs and woes from the safety of a ringside  seat. You will laugh, you will cringe, you may well cry too.

Performances: Tonight (Thursday) and Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Emily Hardy’s bride, James Horsman’s groom and Sanna Jeppsson’s priest in Wedding Vows
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York Light look at love in myriad forms in American musical comedy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change UPDATED

York Light Opera Company’s Emma Dickinson, left, Richard Bayton, Monica Frost and Mark Simmonds in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Picture: Matthew Kitchen Photography

RIOTOUS, rude and oh-so relevant, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change promises shocks and surprises plus character and costume changes galore in York Light Opera Company’s hands from tonight.

Writer Joe DiPietro and composer Jimmy Roberts’ off-Broadway musical comedy is directed by Neil Wood at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, in its 2018 updated revamp in a witty look at how we love, date and handle relationships.

Guiding love’s path through a series of comedic and poignant vignettes will be Richard Bayton, Emma Dickinson, James Horsman, Sanna Jeppsson, Mark Simmonds and Monica Frost and Emily Hardy in their first principal roles for York Light, as love lives are reflected in art, up close and personal.

“It holds the record as the second longest-running revue staged off-Broadway,” says Neil. “Originally it was done with a cast of four, but we decided to double it to eight to be able to swap things around, and when one cast member dropped out, we stuck to seven.

“We did the first read-through and sing-through in April, so it’s a quick turnaround for a show, but we’ve still had the time to explore a lot of multi-role playing. Some of the cast are playing as many as eight characters, so we did some Laban technique workshops, looking at how characters are created, getting inside them and how the actors move.”

Richard Bayton and Emily Hardy, front, with Monica Frost and Mark Simmonds rehearsing On The Highway To Love

His first step as the director was to find the world depicted in the show’s 20 vignettes. “Then you must find the key thing within each scene; those moments that are poignant; those moments that are the turning point for a character.

“To do that, we had a really rigid rehearsal timescale with only two scenes per night, to really explore each scene, one running to eight minutes, the others to five or six minutes. It’s not a sung-through musical; some scenes are purely dialogue; some scenes are just a song; others are a mix of dialogue and song.

“Those songs vary in style from a Luther Vandross-style soul number to a country music song and a Rat Pack-style number.”

In her York Light debut after performing for Pick Me Up Theatre and York Stage, Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson will be playing eight roles. “They vary from young and bold to old and experienced; shy and timid to a downtrodden housewife; a happy single woman to a sporty type – a tennis player, though the only thing I do for that is carry a tennis racket!” she says.

“It’s a fantastic array of characters in a show that has such a variety of scenes that can be real or twist reality in others, where you can go more crazy with a character.”

James Horsman and Sanna Jeppsson rehearsing the scene where two old people in a funeral parlour discuss love’s labours lost and found

Neil chips in: “That’s when you have to decide whether a scene is naturalistic or you can break the fourth wall and be very Brechtian, grabbing the audience by the hand or talking directly to them.

“I’ve been really impressed with what the cast has done in making 3D characters. Once you’ve created a scene, you can develop those characters and they have to be true. As well as their physicality, you need to find their vulnerability.

“That’s a key thing we’ve worked on: the intimacy of the scenes where you’re almost a voyeur into people’s most vulnerable moments.”

Last seen on stage leading York Light’s cast in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, Neil is enjoying pulling the strings from the director’s chair. “When we get into Theatre@41, half the fun will be the quick changes, with some full costume changes in only 30 seconds to the accompaniment of scene-change music,” he says.

“The show is split into two 55-minute halves with a 20-minute interval, and the joy for the audience is that everyone will see relationships on stage that they recognise or have been in themselves.

Sanna Jeppsson, left, Emily Hardy, Monica Frost, Richard Bayton, Mark Simmonds and James Horsman in York Light Opera Company’s rehearsal room

“It’s laugh-out-loud funny, a show where you will come out beaming from ear to ear – and you don’t have to think too hard either!”

For Sanna, the rehearsal process has contrasted with her past productions in York. “That’s because this show is so episodic, so it’s almost felt like a different play at each rehearsal, which has been fun as an actor,” she says. “Now it’ll be fascinating to see what kind of reaction we’ll get from the audience, as we bring all those scenes together.

“I’ve been there most nights, where we’ve rehearsed two scenes a night, and it hasn’t felt frantic at all, just enjoying developing new scenes at each rehearsal.”

Neil adds: “We’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to do it episodically, with the majority of the rehearsals being done chronologically, which has helped the cast.”

He savours the accumulative impact of the 20 vignettes. “It’s not just 20 one-act plays, but real people, real amotions, real life, and it’s our job to make each scene as realistic as possible; to find the truth of these people,” he says.

“What I love about Joe DiPietro’s writing is that you definitely get every character’s viewpoint in each scene. He’s very clever at doing that.

Emma Harrison, left, Sanna Jeppsson, Emily Hardy and Monica Frost in a music rehearsal for I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

“In the updated version, there’s been a gender swap in the Two Franks scene, and if there’s one scene that’s a caricature, it’s that scene, but then the reality comes through.”

Neil believes he has come up trumps in finding a cast able to play multiple roles. Sanna, in turn, is thrilled to be taking on that challenge. “I’ve had my eyes on this show for many years, waiting for this opportunity after first hearing about it when I was training in London in 2013/2014,” she says.

“I thought, ‘I’d love to do a show with all these characters parts’, and now the chance has come. It’s everything I imagined it would be – and more. It’s been a joy to work on because the script is really good, the songs are really good…and the director is really good, obviously!”

Sanna will be playing characters ranging in age from 25 to 75, and as she added each new one in rehearsal, she found she could not decide on a favourite. She does, however, then highlight her scene with James Horsman, where they play two old people discussing love in a funeral parlour.

“It’s such a beautifully written scene that says so much with such carefully chosen words,” she says.

Sanna Jeppsson and Richard Bayton in a reflective moment during York Light’s rehearsals

Neil picks out Monica’s closing second-half monologue. “It’s set around online dating and that thing of what we want people to see, rather than who we are, and yet then she realises her true story is far more fascinating,” he says.

Twenty vignettes with so many characters call for a diversity of American accents. “I don’t think it would work if you were to transfer it to Yorkshire or France, but you can place it anywhere in America. Some of the scenes are very American,” says Neil.

“The rhythms of the language scream American,” says Sanna. “Though I did read that it has been translated into a number of languages and it’s been done with Australian accents, but not with British ones.”

“The country song, Always A Bridesmaid, needs to be sung in a Tammy Wynette style,” reemphasises Neil.  

As opening night arrives, he concludes: “This is a lovely show to finish off York Light’s 70th anniversary, something a little different, all about love.”

York Light Opera Company in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight (27/6/2023) until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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REVIEW: The Sound Of Music, Pick Me Up Theatre, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria Rainer with the von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music. All pictures: Helen Spencer

Pick Me Up Theatre in The Sound Of Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until December 30. Performances: 7.30pm, December 19, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 29; 2.30pm, December 20, 22, 27, 29 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

THIS is Theatre@41’s Christmas show, as signified by the seven fairy-lit fir trees on director-designer Robert Readman’s end-on stage.

Those trees evoke both the hills, alive with the sound of music, and the home, one for each von Trapp child.

However, although it may Christmastide, just as with 1938’s rising tide of Nazism in Austria, the hills and the cities in 2022 are all too alive with intolerance, extremism and anything but music.

James Willstropp: A commanding presence as Captain von Trapp

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical was last staged in York by Nik Briggs’s York Stage Musicals in April 2019 at the Grand Opera House on a grander scale. Readman has gone for a more intimate performance, the audience around the perimeter settling into deeply comfy chairs more normally to be found in smart houses, but being confronted by unsettling Nazi insignia, from uniforms to Swastika flags and armbands and a hale of heils. 

This heightens the beauty of the mountain setting, the purity and devotion of the nuns, the love among the children, the goodness of Maria and the resolute political convictions of Austrian naval captain Georg von Trapp, when countered by the strangling grip of Nazism.

It also enhances the pleasure of watching the performers, when so close up, all the better for facial expressions in a musical where song and dance numbers are never more than gather-round family sized in Jessica Sias Wilson’s choreography.

Led by Helen Spencer’s Mother Abbess, the choral singing of the Nonnberg Abbey nuns has a haunting stillness, and even the beloved How Do We Solve A Problem Like Maria? is more driven by the singing than movement. Sister Act, it aint!

Alexandra Mather’s haughty-but-ice Elsa Schraeder

Spencer’s Climb Ev’ry Mountain, once taken to the chart peak by Shirley Bassey, is sung with heart and matriarchal concern, in keeping with the character, rather than as a showstopper, but is all the more moving for that interpretation.

The two leads could not have been better cast. Since making her York debut  in The 39 Steps in November 2021, Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson has rapidly ascended the York theatrical circuit, showing diversity, equally adept in comedy and drama, and now revealing her talent for musicals too.

A radiant stage presence, she shines as Maria Rainer, the unsure trainee nun who finds her true calling with the von Trapp children, as the young nanny with nonconformist ideas, bursting with love and kindness, independent, strong-willed thinking, a zeal for nurturing, and a delight in bringing joy, yet we are always aware too that she is learning, as much as they are learning from her.

Her Maria is full of good humour too, her singing uplifting in The Sound Of Music, light, bright and playful in the set-pieces with the von Trapp children, My Favourite Things and Do-Re-Mi.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria: “Bursting with love, kindness and independent, strong-willed thinking”

James Willstrop has been making the headlines this year…for his sporting prowess, swishing all before him on the squash doubles court as world champion and Commonwealth games gold medallist, but he has another string to his bow as an actor on the stages of Harrogate and West Yorkshire.

Now he makes his York debut as widowed Captain von Trapp. Tall, commanding, carrying off a suit with an air about him, he begins with righteous austere authority, issuing orders to staff and children alike on his whistle, but warming under Maria’s influence, while never wavering from his bold stance against Nazism.

He has a lovely tenor too, best expressed in Edelweiss, and is handy with strings too, this time the guitar, not the squash racket. Word has it, he is keen to do more with Pick Me Up next year.

Elsa Schraeder might be seen as the female short-straw role, but Alexandra Mather brings more than Viennese airs and graces to the sometime sourpuss, the children’s putative “new mother”. There is ice but shards of haughty humour too, and her operatic voice has crystalline clarity.

Sam Steel’s naïve delivery boy Rolf Gruber

Andrew Isherwood’s “political cockroach” Max Detweiler is dextrous rather than sinister, dapper, flamboyant, peppering his performance with a comic edge more usually to be found in the Emcee in Cabaret.

Daisy Winbolt-Robertson impresses as wilful Liesl von Trapp (a role shared with Emily Halstead), as does Sam Steel as Rolf Gruber, the naïve delivery boy who takes up the Nazi cause (in a role share with Jack Hambleton).

Readman has assembled three sets of von Trapp children (Teams Linz, Graz and Vienna). Saturday night was Team Linz’s turn, and how they excelled, working so delightfully with Jeppsson’s Maria, yet blossoming individually too, especially Poppy Kay’s Brigitta.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria dancing with James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp

Natalie Walker’s five-piece band may be out of sight, behind a screen, but they play their part to the full, those so-familiar songs flying high on flute, trumpet, clarinet, keys and percussion.

Readman and Carolyne Jensen’s costumes are top drawer, from Von Trapp and Detweiler’s suits to Schraeder’s dresses. Look out too for the children’s clothes made out of curtains.

Readman surrounds the audience with tied-back drapes and floral decorations, a typically theatrical flourish to his design, to go with those glittering trees and steps. The lighting signifies each change of tone too.

Plenty of matinees as well as evening performances affords ample opportunity to visit Theatre@41 over the festive season for the best of Readman’s three productions in quick succession (after Matilda The Musical Jr and Nativity! The Musical).

Andrew Isherwood’s Max Detweiler and Alexandra Mather’s Elsa Schraeder
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How do you solve a problem like casting Maria? Call on Sanna Jeppsson for Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music

Sanna Jeppsson’s Maria Rainer in a scene with the von Trapp children in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Sound Of Music. Picture: Robert Readman

SANNA Jeppsson is following in the hill-loving footsteps of Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Marie Osmond and Connie Fisher in playing Maria Rainer, the trainee nun turned free-spirited nanny in The Sound Of Music from tonight in York.

The Swedish-born stage and film actress already has given stand-out turns as a mysterious, German-accented femme fatale in Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps in her York debut in November 2021; boundary-breaking Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare In Love in April and scene-stealing Cassandra, the hippy home help, in Christopher Durang’s American comedy Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike in November.

All three were staged at Theatre@41, Monkgate, as will be Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s final collaboration, under the direction of Robert Readman, hot on the heels of his delivery of Nativity! The Musical at the Grand Opera House last month and Matilda The Musical Jr at Monkgate in late-September.

From tonight to December 30, Sanna will play Maria opposite 2022 Commonwealth Games squash doubles gold medallist and Harrogate actor James Willstrop’s Captain von Trapp.

Sanna Jeppsson: Making her mark on the York stage since November 2021

Here CharlesHutchPress is alive with a flurry of questions for Sanna.

When did you first see The Sound Of Music, the film or on stage?

“I first saw the film when I was a child, maybe around seven years old, and I remember enjoying it. I thought it was fun and I loved all the songs, still do. I’ve never actually seen it on stage, so this is a whole new experience for me.”

Is the film as popular in your Swedish homeland as it is over here?

“I would say, yes. It’s a classic and iconic, it used to be on TV every Christmas, and I would dare to suggest most Swedes have probably seen it.

“And I’ve heard of sing-a-long showings – though they may not be quite as well attended as a sing-a-long Mamma Mia!”

What do you most like about the stage version as opposed to the film?

“I think the same as with all stage versions of films: the magic of live theatre!”

Are you a Julie Andrews fan? 

“Yes! I’ll admit I’m not her biggest fan, but I’ve always found her enchanting to watch and listen to.”

How much do you have to block Julie out of your mind to find your own Maria?

“Since being cast, I’ve resisted the urge to re-watch the film, so I haven’t seen it in years. Instead, I’ve aimed to find the character only though the text in the script. And let myself go on Maria’s journey of finding her purpose, which I think is one many people can relate to in some way.”

Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love atTheatre@41, Monkgate, York, in April 2022

What are the cornerstones of Maria’s character? 

“She’s a genuinely good person. Honest, loving, and obviously adores music and singing. She wants to do good for all people around her. She’s got a playful side that’s hard for her to control sometimes; she’s clever and witty too.

“I think her religion keeps her grounded and gives her confidence that as long as she’s honest and tries to do good, she can’t go wrong. I think that’s where she finds the courage to speak her mind and confront the Captain when she needs to.” 

What is your favourite song to sing in the show? 

“Wow! That’s a hard question. I love all of them. I have to say, though, that the songs with the children, Do-Re-Mi and The Lonely Goatherd, are super-fun to do. I basically just get to play and have fun with the kids!”

How have you found working with James Willstrop, squash ace and man of the musicals and theatre in Yorkshire?

“It’s been great! What I’ve most appreciated about James is how calm he seems at all times! Maybe it’s his many years in professional sport, but he doesn’t appear affected by nerves. He’s relaxed and easy to work with, and that helps a lot.”  

Sanna Jeppsson’s Cassandra, centre, in York Settlement Community Players’ Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike in November 2022. Picture: John Saunders

How does this role compare with your past Pick Me Up and York Settlement Community Players performances? Performing with children is a big part of this one…

“It’s my first musical with Pick Me Up, and also my first lead role in a musical. Also the first time working with children in the cast! Lots of firsts, I’ve just realised!

“As with previous Pick Me Up productions, it’s a strong cast and great production team, the children adding a playful energy to it, which has been interesting and fun to work with!

As there are three children’s teams, each team brings something different to the show, which makes the performance feel fresh and new for every run.”

What’s coming next for you on stage? 

“Nothing decided yet, but I have a few auditions coming up in the New Year, so hopefully I won’t have to stay away from the stage too long!”

Pick Me Up Theatre in The Sound Of Music, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 16 to 30. Performances: 7.30pm, December 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 28 and 29; 2.30pm, 17, 18, 20, 22, 27, 29 and 30. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Sanna Jeppsson’s femme fatale with Aran MacRae’s Richard Hannay in York Settlement Community Players’ The 39 Steps in November 2021. Picture: John Saunders

Did you know?

GRACE Kelly, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and Anne Bancroft were all considered for the role of Maria Rainer in Robert Wise’s 1965 film of The Sound Of Music.

Did you know too? 

SHIRLEY Bassey had a UK number one with Climb Every Mountain in 1961 as a double A-side with Reach For The Stars.

My Favourite Things has been recorded by Barbra Streisand (1967), Dionne Warwick (2004), Mary J Blige and Kelly Clarkson (both 2013).

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday ****

Sanna Jeppsson in noblewoman Viola’s guise as young actor Thomas Kent. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

SHAKESPEARE In Love was a film about theatre, as much as it was about love. Now it is a play about theatre, with even more theatre in it, more Marlowe as well as Shakespeare, as much as it is still about love.

It makes perfect sense to transfer the period rom-com from screen to its natural bedfellow, the stage, and who better than Lee Hall to effect that transition.  

For the north-eastern mining and dancing drama Billy Elliot, he adapted his own screenplay; this time, he makes merry with Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman’s boisterous and romantic script for John Madden’s 1999 award-winner, ruffing it up to the neck in Shakespeare in-jokes, but not roughing up its sophisticated wit.

Robert Readman: Producer, set designer and builder, costume guru and thespian, playing hammy Elizabethan actor Ned Alleyn. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Pick Me Up Theatre’s always quick-off-the-mark founder, Robert Readman, was typically speedy to pick up the rights to Shakespeare In Love for the York company’s tenth anniversary, whereupon a series of spot-on decisions were made.

First, appoint Bard buff and Pick Me Up ace card Mark Hird to direct the rollicking romp. Second, bring George Stagnell back to the York stage to play the title role. Third, talent-spot Swedish-born Sanna Jeppsson in York Settlement Community Players’ The 39 Steps (even when it fell at the first step, called off through cast illness after one night last November).

Four, utilise Readman’s skills, not only as producer and designer/builder, but also his dormant love of performing. When you need a thick slice of ham to play larger-than-life Elizabethan actor Ned Alleyn, “prince of the provinces”, who you gonna call? Why, Mr Readman, of course, tapping into his inner plummy Simon Callow.

Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps and George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare mutually admire his newly quilled lines in Shakespeare In Love. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Readman has conjured an end-on, raised stage built for the outdoors, but no less suited to the John Cooper Studio’s black box, with its echoes of Shakespeare’s Globe or the Rose; decorative flowers; curtains to cover amorous going-ons behind, and traps for hasty exits and entries.

Ensemble cast members sit beside the stage apron, watching the action when not involved. On a mezzanine level, musical director Natalie Walker and Royal College of Music student Tom Bennett are playing Paddy Cunneen’s gorgeous score.

Hird’s company looks the Elizabethan part too, Readman’s costume brief requiring hires from the Royal Shakespeare Company, no less, as well as York Theatre Royal and Leeds Playhouse, plus ear studs and earrings aplenty (for the men).

Ian Giles’s Henslowe and Andrew Roberts’s Ralph. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Praise too for Emma Godivala and York College’s work on hair, fake moustaches and make-up, especially for Jeppsson when taking the guise of young actor Thomas Kent.

The make-up for the men is deliberately heavy, in keeping with Shakespeare’s day, but everything else is conducted with a delightfully light touch under Hird’s direction, where the next scene chases the previous one off the stage, such is the gleeful urgency to crack on with such a cracking plot replete with cross-dressing, swordplay and backside-biting puppetry (courtesy of Elanor Kitchen’s Spot the Dog).

The only slowness is in the pace of lines coming to Shakespeare’s quill, surrounded by the company of actors awaiting the next play of his still fledgling career, outshone by dashing, daring Kit Marlowe (Adam Price), amusingly providing his young friend (Stagnell’s Will) with all his best lines.

Adam Price’s devil-may-care Kit Marlowe has a word with George Stagnell’s Will, in desperate disguise for his safety at this juncture. Picture: Matthew Kitchen

Theatre bosses Henslowe (Ian Giles) and rival Richard Burbage (Tony Froud) are vying for Shakespeare’s services; theatre backer “The Money” Fennyman (Andrew Isherwood) keeps applying the financial squeeze, often with menaces; Tilney (Neil Foster), the supercilious Lord Chamberlain with the insufferable killjoy manner of Malvolio, is determined to shut down theatres, whatever excuse he can find.

Queen Elizabeth (Joy Warner) wants a dog to have its day in every play; Guy Wilson’s John Webster just wants a chance; Shakespeare needs a muse. Enter Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps, alas promised to the ghastly Lord Wessex (Jim Paterson) against her wishes. Viola is banned from the stage under the rules, but takes the dangerous step of performing as Thomas Kent, and what a performer he/she is.

Viola’s amusing West Country Nurse (Beryl Nairn) becomes the template for that very character in Romeo & Juliet, and as Shakespeare’s work in progress changes from comedy  to tragedy, Alleyn plays Mercutio, fabulously outraged at being killed off so early.

Sam Hird, left, and Tom Bennett, from the Royal College of Music, on song in Shakespeare In Love

Shakespeare In Love gives us a developing play within a play, and while it helps to have some knowledge of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Burbage et al, it echoes Blackadder in having such fun with a period setting and re-writing history, here imagining how Romeo & Juliet and in turn Twelfth Night may have emerged.

What’s more, Stagnell and Jeppsson are a delight in the swelling love story, as well as in delivering Shakespeare’s lines when called on to do so.

Terrific performances abound around them, especially from Price, Isherwood, Paterson and Wilson, a young talent with a gift for physical comedy in the Marty Feldman and Tony Robinson tradition, while Warner’s cameos as Queen Elizabeth are a joy too.

To cap it all, Sam Hird and Tom Bennett’s performance of an Elizabethan ballad is beautiful, typical of  a swashbuckling performance that is a palpable hit in every way. If you love theatre, this play is why you do. If you don’t, go anyway and be converted. Tonight until Friday’s shows have sold out but tickets are still available for 2.30pm and 7.30pm on Saturday at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Review by Charles Hutchinson

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Shakespeare In Love’s celebration of the world of theatre moves from screen to stage in Pick Me Up Theatre’s hands

Pen pals: George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare and Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola de Lesseps in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Shakespeare In Love. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen Photography

YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre mark their tenth anniversary with a rollicking celebration of the joys of theatre, Shakespeare In Love.

Adapted for the stage by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall from Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman’s screenplay for the Oscar-winning 1999 film, the Elizabethan love story will be performed under the direction of Bard buff Mark Hird at Theatre@ 41, Monkgate, from tomorrow (1/4/2022) to April 9.

First staged by Sonia Friedman Productions in the West End with Cheek By Jowl’s Declan Donnellan in the director’s chair in 2014, Hall’s play was snapped up for its York premiere by Pick Me Up’s ever-alert founder, artistic director, designer and producer, Robert Readman (who will be making a rare appearance as actor Ned Alleyn).

“When Robert got the rights, I read it, and straightaway I thought, ‘my god, it’s brilliant’, with Stoppard and Norman as the starting point for the fantastic script, and Lee Hall then transforming it into a great piece of theatre,” says director Mark Hird.

“Anyone who thinks this Shakespeare In Love will be just the film on stage, it’s absolutely not. It’s so theatrical, and that makes it such a joy to put on. That’s what so special about it: it’s a love letter to theatre as well as being a great love story.

Where there’s a quill, there’s a way: George Stagnell’s Will Shakespeare at work

“Anyone who comes to the play who loves theatre will leave with a great big smile on their face at all the theatrical allusions. Lee Hall has put even more theatre aficionado jokes in there.”

Shakespeare In Love delights in the love story of struggling young playwright Will Shakespeare (played by George Stagnell) and feisty, free-spirited young noblewoman Viola de Lesseps (Sanna Jeppsson), his greatest admirer, who helps him to overcome writer’s block and becomes his muse.

She will stop at nothing, even breaking the law and dressing as a boy actor to appear in his next play, whereupon, in this turbulent world of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola quickly blossoms, inspiring him to write his breakthrough romantic drama, Romeo and Juliet.

“Basically, you have Will Shakespeare right back in the early days of his career, having done Titus Andronicus, Two Gentlemen Of Verona and Henry VI, but he’s not yet had a big hit,” says Mark.

“All Marlowe’s plays are being bigger hits at the time, and in fact there’s a lot more of Kit Marlowe in the play than there was in the film,” says George.

“The play what I wrote”: George Stagnell’s Will shows his latest work to Sanna Jeppsson ‘s Viola

“But the love story is still at the heart of the play, and it’s as beautiful on stage as it was in the film, but there’s now a lot more changes of energy, moving back and forth from the chaotic rehearsals, and all the fun that goes with that, interspersed with the love story,” says Mark.

Sanna first saw the film on Swedish TV with Swedish subtitles before moving to Britain and has watched it again since landing her role as the ground-breaking Viola. “She’s a very brave woman, doing something that was forbidden at the time; something she wouldn’t be allowed to do, being in a space she wouldn’t have had access to as herself, having to take the guise of a boy actor, Thomas Kent,” she says.

“Being on stage, feeling so alive for the first time, I can connect with that. I remember going on a backstage tour of Mamma Mia!, and then getting to go out on to this amazing stage and looking at all those seats, and wanting to be on there performing.

“That’s what I bring with me when Viola comes on as Thomas Kent, knowing she shouldn’t be there, and normally could only imagine the audience looking at her.”

“I always like to go on stage before a show, when the auditorium is empty,” says George. “When it’s quiet and no-one’s there, you take the space in and imagine how it will erupt with life. It’s like the calm before the storm.”

Mark adds: “There’s something about an empty theatre: you can feel the presence of the ghosts of all those who have been there before.”

 Sanna rejoins: “A theatre is a space where anything can happen, that moment of magic and then it’s gone.”

George Stagnell’s Will and Sanna Jeppsson’s Viola in disguise as young actor Thomas Kent

George has focused on playing young Will Shakespeare, not the feted Bard. “Pretty much since day one, I’ve had to come in not thinking ‘this is William Shakespeare’,” he says. “I don’t want to have that mentality of thinking about who he became, but to see him as this young man trying to find his way through a very complicated time in history, in the early days of his writing, when there was a lot of history that we don’t know and a lot of conjecture.”

Mark concurs: “That’s what’s so gorgeous about this piece. We all think we know about Shakespeare, but here we are watching a three-dimensional character called Will.”

Sanna had studied Shakespeare “a little bit at school, but not in its original language”, when growing up in Molkom, but when she lived out her long-held dream of moving to London in 2013, she attended the International College of Musical Theatre, rather than focusing on classical theatre.

“Almost every other person in London is an actor, which makes it hard there, and so I moved to York in 2019, where I now work as a civil servant for the Ministry of Justice, sitting on in trials sometimes.”

From courtroom dramas, Sanna’s attention now switches to courtship dramas on stage.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Shakespeare In Love, Theatre@41 Monkgate, York, April 1 to 9, 7.30pm, except April 3 and 4; 2.30pm, April 2, 3 and 9 . Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York