Posted on

Your Place Comedy debut is a stream dream of a Yorkshire living room hit

Stream team: Your Place Comedy compere Tim FitzHigham, left, and a pyjama-clad Mark Watson on screen during April 19’s online gig

REASONS to be cheerful part one. The first Your Place Comedy night, streamed live from Mark Watson and Lucy Beaumont’s living rooms to yours, was a big success.

Compered by Tim FitzHigham, Sunday’s online fundraiser for ten small, independent northern venues in Coronavirus shutdown drew more than 3,500 viewers.

“That’s considerably more than their combined capacities,” says a delighted event co-ordinator Chris Jones, Selby Town Council’s arts officer, who manages the Selby Town Hall arts centre.

“The show went even better than we had imagined, to say the whole project was put together from scratch in the space of two weeks by three people with no live streaming experience!” 

Reasons to be cheerful part two. “The show was free to watch on Facebook and YouTube, with an option to donate. We received £3,500 in donations, which will now be split between the venues,” says Chris.

Joining together in this rolling initiative to put the fun into fundraising are Selby Town Hall; The Ropewalk, Barton upon Humber; Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds; East Riding Theatre, Beverley; Junction, Goole; Helmsley Arts Centre; Shire Hall, Howden; Otley Courthouse; Pocklington Arts Centre and  Rotherham Theatres.

“In a nutshell, I was frustrated that the traditional relationship between venue, artist and audience – the venue providing the artist with income and the audience with entertainment – has been has been eroded for the foreseeable future by Covid-19 and I wanted to find a way to re-create that,” says Chris.

“So, at a time of huge uncertainty and upheaval in the Coronavirus lockdown, including for the live entertainment industry, I got these venues from around Yorkshire and the Humber to come together to provide our audiences with some much-needed laughter during these difficult times, each chipping in a small amount of money to put on Sunday’s live stream.

Lucy Beaumont: “Rather bizarre bedtime story”

“Their contributions to Your Place Comedy go towards paying the artists a guaranteed fee at a time when all live income has been taken away, and, in exchange, venues get a show to sell to their own audiences as one of their own, helping maintain those vital relationships with audiences they have nurtured over the years.”

Reasons to be cheerful part three. “Both Lucy and Mark were fantastic. Mark is relatively experienced when it comes to live streaming and was comfortable enough with the format to perform in his pyjamas,” says Chris.

“For Lucy, it was a first foray into ‘audience-free’ comedy, but her set was pitch perfect – even featuring a rather bizarre bedtime story! – and broadcast live from the pub that her husband, [comedian] Jon Richardson, has built in their house.”

How did the format work, Chris? “We were very aware that one of the limitations of live streamed comedy was a lack of audience interaction, so we devised a function that allowed viewers to send messages directly to the acts,” he says.

“This worked incredibly well and really gave the show that extra feeling of intimacy and warmth that you get from watching comedy in a small venue environment.”

Before Sunday’s inaugural show, Chris said: “If the first one is a success and this looks like a sustainable model, I would hope to do several more through the lockdown period and possibly beyond.”

Reasons to be cheerful part four. “We’re now planning a second show, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, May 3, with two new acts on the bill,” he says. “Watch this space.” Then watch www.yourplacecomedy.co.uk when the line-up is confirmed.

Should you still be wondering what exactly was Hull humorist Lucy Beaumont’s “rather bizarre bedtime story”…..no, you should have been watching!

Posted on

Yorkston Thorne Khan re-arrange Selby Town Hall concert for November 24

Suhail Yusuf Khan , left, JonThorne and James Yorkston: new album, new tour date in Selby

YORKSTON Thorne Khan, the first gig at Selby Town Hall to fall foul of the Covid-19 shutdown last month, has been re-arranged for November 24.

Tickets for the postponed March 20 show remain valid for the new date, with further tickets still on sale at selbytownhall.co.uk.

Yorkston Thorne Khan are Scottish songwriter James Yorkston (guitar, nyckelharpa, voice); Bishop’s Storford  jazz musician Jon Thorne (double bass, voice) and Delhi-born eighth generation sarangi player and vocalist Suhail Yusuf Khan.

The trio will be touring in support of their third album, Navarasa: Nine Emotions, a January 24 release on Domino Recordings that followed 2016 debut Everything Sacred and 2017’s Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars after they first met by chance backstage in 2015 and played together ever since.

On the latest recording, they tackle Robert Burns and Sufi poetry, via Dick Gaughan and Amir Khusrow Dehlavi, traditional Scottish songs, ragas and their own spidery compositions.

At the heart of Yorkston Thorne Khan’s transporting new album is the subcontinent’s navarasa: the nine (nava) emotions or sentiments (rasa) of the arts. This “unifying underpinning” is a centuries-old organising principle, wherein the individual artistic emotions range from Shringara (love, beauty), through Hasya (laughter, mirth, comedy), Raudra (anger), Karuna (sorrow, compassion or mercy), Bibhatsya (disgust), Bhayanaka (horror, terror), Veera (heroism, courage), Adbutha (surprise, wonder), to Shanta (peace, tranquillity).

The artwork for Yorkston Thorne Khan’s Navarasa: Nine Emotions

Each song is connected to one of these emotions; for example Westlin Winds is paired with Adbutha, opening with the life-destroying Act I of Robert Burns’s poem Now Westlin Winds (And Slaught’ring Guns).

Then it deliciously transplants its disjoined, nature-extolling and life-affirming Act II on to Indian soil with a composition in Purbi, a dialect of old Hindi. “I learnt the song by listening to various qawwali [Muslim devotional song] singers singing at Hazrat Nizammuddin’s dargah [shrine] in Delhi,” says Khan. “Its source is Hazrat Amir Khusrau.”

In this way, Yorkston Thorne Khan unite one of the key spiritual visionaries and architects of Hindustani art music, the poet-philosopher Hazrat Amir Khusrau, with the key literary visionary of Scottish culture, Robert Burns. 

This bricolage of diverse cross-cultural elements is apparent across Navarasa: Nine Emotions.  Yorkston weaves in Scottish folk, sangster and literary strands; Thorne is grounded in jazz and groove. Then add New Delhi-based Khan’s feast of northern Indian classical, light classical and Sufi devotional musical and literary influences. “What binds these diverse musical strands together is a dark happiness,” says Yorkston.

Looking forward to the re-arranged show in the autumn, Selby Town Hall manager Chris Jones says: “Sadly James, Jon and Suhail’s show was the first in our calendar to fall victim to the lockdown. They are such a phenomenally talented trio, and the feedback I had heard from the early gigs on their tour was amazing, so it was desperately disappointing not to be able to give the Selby audience that experience.

“Thankfully though, we’ve been able to reschedule the show for November 24, and this is definitely one that’s worth waiting for.”

Posted on

Watson and Beaumont’s Sunday fun-day for your place from their living rooms

Come Hull or high water, Lucy Beaumont will be streaming online from her living room on Sunday

MARK Watson and Lucy Beaumont will star in the first Your Place Comedy night in a streamed show live from their living rooms on Sunday at 8pm.

At a time of huge uncertainty and upheaval in the Coronavirus lockdown, not least for the live entertainment industry, ten small, independent venues across the north have come together to “provide their audiences with some much-needed laughter during these difficult times”. 

The driving force behind the online venture is Chris Jones, Selby Town Council’s arts officer, who manages the Selby Town Hall arts centre. “In a nutshell, I was frustrated that the traditional relationship between venue, artist and audience – the venue providing the artist with income and the audience with entertainment – has been eroded for the foreseeable future by Covid-19 and I wanted to find a way to re-create that,” he says.

“So, I’ve got ten venues from around Yorkshire and the Humber to chip in a small amount of money to put on a live stream comedy gig this Sunday (April 19), featuring Mark Watson and Lucy Beaumont and compered by Tim FitzHigham.”

Joining together in this venue-focused initiative are Selby Town Hall; The Ropewalk, Barton upon Humber; Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds; East Riding Theatre, Beverley; Junction, Goole; Helmsley Arts Centre; Shire Hall, Howden; Otley Courthouse; Pocklington Arts Centre and  Rotherham Theatres.

What’s on at home: Mark Watson , live from his living room

“Their contributions to Your Place Comedy go towards paying the artists a guaranteed fee at a time when all live income has been taken away, and, in exchange, venues get a show to sell to their own audiences as one of their own, helping maintain those vital relationships with audiences they have nurtured over the years,” says Chris.

“The show will be free to watch on Facebook and YouTube via www.yourplacecomedy.co.uk, but with an option to donate. All monies raised will be distributed evenly among the ten supporting venues, each of them now having to navigate their way through some challenging financial times.”

Mark Watson is an Edinburgh Comedy Award winner, television panel show regular and ever innovative performer. Lucy Beaumont, from Hull, is a BBC New Comedy Award winner who writes BBC Radio 4’s To Hull And Back and stars in the Dave channel’s Meet The Richardsons. Compere Tim Fitzhigham writes and stars in BBC Radio 4’s The Gambler and presents CBBC’s Super Human Challenge.

Summing up the living-room comedy initiative, Chris says: “In these trying times, when the wonderful audiences who make the work we do possible are unable to visit our venues in person, and when the performers who rely on us for their livelihoods have had many months’ worth of shows cancelled, the organisations involved in Your Place Comedy want to help support those who make live entertainment happen, bringing a little bit of joy to the audiences we miss so much.

“If the first one is a success and this looks like a sustainable model, I would hope to do several more through the lockdown period and possibly beyond.”

Compere Tim FitzHigham

For full details of Your Place Comedy, and to find out how to watch the show, visit www.yourplacecomedy.co.uk.

Posted on

Tim Brooke-Taylor RIP

Tim Brooke-Taylor, July 17 1940 – April 12 2020

BLAME Tim Brooke-Taylor for the stereotype image of the mithering, miserable, tight but bragging Yorkshireman.

Well, not only Tim, as we celebrate the comic genius and geniality of this son of Derbyshire, Cambridge Footlights president, Goodie and stalwart I’m Sorry I Haven’t panellist, who passed away yesterday, taken by the Covid-19 blight at 79.

The Four Yorkshireman sketch is often attributed to Monty Python, but wrongly so. It was in fact co-written by Brooke-Taylor for At Last The 1948 Show, the ITV series he made with Marty Feldman and future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman in 1967 and 1968.

Monty Python were subsequently to appropriate it and so too was The Secret Policeman’s Ball charity bash, when performed by Cleese, Terry Jones, South Yorkshireman Michael Palin and a young Rowan Atkinson.

“And you try telling the young people of today that and they won’t believe you,” you might say, borrowing the sketch’s pay-off line.

Tim recalled the sketch’s motivation when interviewed ahead of his An Audience With Tim Brooke Taylor show at Selby Town Hall in November 2014: the year when the grainy black-and-white footage of the original recording for At Last The 1948 Show was re-discovered.

“I come from Derbyshire, so all Yorkshiremen are a pain in the neck and we have a chip on the shoulder about them,” said the Buxton-born Brooke-Taylor, not entirely seriously.

“In the Seventies, I was asked by five different publishers to write about Yorkshire because I’d picked on the county, but then Yorkshiremen were not at their best in the Seventies, were they!”

“Geoffrey Boycott!” scoffed the cricket enthusiast. “But I’ve since met some very nice Yorkshiremen and I’ve had to change my attitude, which is rather annoying.”

Tim, the perennial wounded innocent in The Goodies alongside Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, went on to say why he loved being a team player, rather than performing solo. “I find that comedy is funnier in groups; there are great stand-ups but I love seeing people bouncing words off each other,” he reasoned.

Had Tim ever been tempted to write his autobiography, came the final question? “I’ve been offered deals, but I think the interesting ones are written by those with nasty things to say, like Roy Keane’s book,” he said. “My book would be too happy.”

Too happy? For all four of the grouchy Four Yorkshiremen, maybe, but not for the rest of us. Thank you, Tim Brooke-Taylor, for all the years of happiness and laughter your brought us.

“We’ll lead you to a better life,” you sang. “Goodies, goody, goody, yum, yum.”

Posted on

CORONAVIRUS: Selby Town Hall cancels shows until the end of April

Selby Town Hall

SELBY Town Hall is cancelling all public ticketed events from today initially until the end of April.

The decision has been taken “in light of the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday and the UK government’s instructions regarding social distancing”.

A statement from Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones said: “This is a fast-changing situation, and we will be monitoring advice from the Government and Public Health England on a day-by-day basis to inform our course of action from May onwards.   

“Rest assured that the health of our customers, performers, volunteers and staff is our highest priority.”

The Selby Town Hall auditorium

Selby Town Hall will be contacting all ticket holders “as soon as we can”. “It may be possible to rearrange some performances either for later in the year or early 2021, while others will sadly be cancelled altogether,” said Chris.  

“To all our customers, you are fantastic. We are incredibly grateful for the support you have given, and continue to give, to the venue. We ask for your patience while our small team deal with what is an unprecedented situation.

“It will take us a few days to establish new dates for shows or confirm full cancellations. The most important message for the moment is not to travel to shows here in the near future, to stay safe, and to look after one another. We will be in touch with you all individually in due course.”


Posted on

Bronwynne Brent evokes Hazlewood, Nancy Sinatra and Morricone in Selby

Bronwynne Brent: “Creating songs that feel like you can live in them”

AMERICANA singer-songwriter Bronwynne Brent travels all the way from the Mississippi Delta to the howling winter winds of Yorkshire to play Selby Town Hall tonight (March 6).

“I absolutely love Bronwynne’s darkly brooding voice,” says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones. “She creates songs that feel like you can live in them, and somehow she manages to sound like Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra rolled into one.”

Tonight’s 8pm show will be Brent’s Selby debut, performing with her trio. “Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, she has the kind of stop-in-your-tracks voice that sounds like Southern sunshine,” says Chris.

“There’s a hint of Delta blues behind the ache in her songs, a glimpse of honky-tonk twang, an echo of riverboat can-cans, a whiff of Ennio Morricone and an atmosphere that conjures up of the darker side of country song-writing.”

Harking back to the glory days of Lee Hazlewood and Gram Parsons, Brent’s writing taps into the murky undercurrent of country that starts with old Appalachian murder ballads and continues through to today’s crop of psychedelic country songwriters. “Like a juke-joint Nancy Sinatra, Bronwynne unites all the best elements of Southern American roots music and ties these many different influences into a sound that’s both comforting and refreshing,” says Chris.

Brent has released two albums, 2011’s Deep Black Water and 2014’s Stardust, the second produced by Seattle’s Johnny Sangster with a “spaghetti northwestern” feel to it.

Playing with Calexico drummer John Convertino and Fiona Apple’s bassist, Keith Lowe, on Stardust, she sang songs with a heavy weight on their shoulders: her stories populated by battered women, defeated lovers, devilish characters, highway ghosts and lonesome wanderers.

Looking forward to tonight, Chris concludes: “Bronwynne Brent is incredible: one of the very finest contemporary voices you’re likely to hear. Her songs are so rich and brooding. They’re astonishingly well-crafted with a compelling dark underbelly mixing country, folk and glorious speakeasy jazz sounds. This show will be an absolute treat.”

Tickets cost £14 on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk or £16 on the door from 7.30pm.

Posted on

“Fourth funniest” comedy duo Max & Ivan to fulfil Commitment at Selby Town Hall

Max & Ivan: Commitment to Selby

THE Guardian’s fourth best comedy show of 2019, Max & Ivan’s Commitment, will play Selby Town Hall on February 7.

“I’m delighted that Selby is the only Yorkshire date on their UK tour and am genuinely very excited to see the show in our little venue,” says Chris Jones, Selby Town Council’s arts officer.

“It’s one of the most talked-about comedy shows of last year, receiving a slew of four and five-star reviews for its Edinburgh Fringe debut, and an agent for an entirely different comedian told me last week that it was one of the best things she’d seen…and that doesn’t happen very often.”

Performed by comedy duo Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez, Commitment is the true story of how Max, as Ivan’s Best Man, attempted to reunite Ivan’s teenage band – Voodoo 7:2, the premier “art rock post-punk funk” group in mid-Noughties Liverpool – for one final gig.

“It’s a show about dreaming big, growing up, and trying – but ultimately very much failing – to make it in the band,” says Chris.

“Directed by multiple Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Kieran Hodgson, it melds fast-paced visuals – including a wealth of embarrassing adolescent photos – with razor-sharp gag writing, classic double-act dynamics and a smattering of virtuoso multi-character performances.

“At its heart, the show is a storytelling hour about Max & Ivan’s real-life friendship and the lengths Max will go to in order to pull off the best night of Ivan’s life.” 

Olesker and Gonzalez have performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival; the SXSW (South By Southwest) festival in Austin, Texas; UCB Sunset in Los Angeles and Brooklyn’s Union Hall in New York, as well as touring throughout Britain.

Among their past work is the super-show The Wrestling, where the world’s best comedians step into the ring and wrestle alongside enormous professional wrestlers in Edinburgh and Melbourne.

At last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, they debuted Max & Ivan’s Prom Night, an anarchic, interactive, 1950s’ high-school prom show-cum-party, to a sell-out, thousand-strong crowd in Assembly High, a purpose-designed location. 

Max & Ivan created, wrote and starred in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom The Casebook Of Max & Ivan, attracting such guest stars as Matt Lucas, June Whitfield, Reece Shearsmith and Jessica Hynes, as well as appearing in BBC Two comedy W1A as Ben and Jerry.

“Max & Ivan’s Commitment tour is one of The Times’s picks of 2020,” says Chris. “I’m aware that Max & Ivan are not yet household names, but I would love as many people as possible to catch this 8pm show.”

Tickets cost £14 on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk or £16 on the door from 7.30pm.

Posted on

The Sandy Denny Project to open new season at Selby Town Hall with rare show

The Sandy Denny Project: rare treat at Selby Town Hall. Picture: Paul Michael Hughes

SELBY Town Hall’s spring season opens on February 1 with an 8pm performance by folk-rock supergroup The Sandy Denny Project, paying homage to the late Fairport Convention folk-rock singer.

“Featuring, among others, Sally Barker, a former finalist on BBC One’s The Voice, they don’t play a great many gigs together,” says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones. “This is one of only a couple of shows announced for 2020 – a rare treat.”

In a tragically short career – she died at the age of 31 – Sandy Denny sealed her place among the most influential and best-loved singer-songwriters of the past 50 years.

Britain’s pre-eminent folk-rock singer, she began her performing career with The Strawbs, then joined Fairport Convention, formed Fotheringay and released four solo albums.

Her song Who Knows Where The Time Goes? has been recorded by Judy Collins, Eva Cassidy, Nina Simone and Cat Power, while her wider work has been the subject of numerous reissues, documentaries and high-profile tribute concerts.

Sally Barker, from The Poozies, and fellow former Fotheringay MkII member PJ Wright, from The Dylan Project, are joined in The Sandy Denny Project by frequent Fairport Convention guest Anna Ryder, fast-rising singer, fiddler and guitarist Marion Fleetwood and a rhythm section of bassist Mat Davies and drummer Mark Stevens, from the now-defunct folk-rock group Little Johnny England.

Sandy Denny’s writing is approached not in the manner of a tribute band slavishly copying the records, but as an interpretation of her work by six musicians who share a folk-rock pedigree.

“Although Sandy died in 1978, her songs remain as fresh, poignant and as beautiful today as the time that they were penned, and with every year her reputation as a songwriter and interpreter of traditional material continues to grow,” says Chris.

“The repertoire of The Sandy Denny Project reflects the amazing legacy left behind by Sandy, through her work with the early incarnations of Fairport Convention, the sublime Fotheringay and her incredible solo songs.

“February 1 is a rare chance to see these six fantastic musicians perform their pitch-perfect tribute. The band really are of the highest folk-rock calibre and this is an opportunity no folk fan will want to miss.”

Tickets cost £19 on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk or £21 on the door from 7.30pm.