NORTH Yorkshire stately homes Scampston Hall and Ripley Castle are to play host to Sounds In The Grounds, each presenting four nights of live music in the open air.
In a new venture from Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre founder James Cundall MBE, he will stage Covid-secure shows by The Bootleg Beatles, Abba Mania, Beyond The Barricade and A Country Night In Nashville.
The New York Brass Band, from old York, will be the support act every night in these fully staged productions with LED screens beside the stage.
In compliance with Covid-19 safety guidelines, audience members can watch the concerts from a designated picnic patch for two, four or six people. These socially distanced patches will be defined by painted lines at each 1,888-capacity grass arena within the grounds of Scampston Hall, near Malton, and Ripley Castle, near Harrogate.
“Sounds In The Grounds offers the opportunity to get together and enjoy a fun night of live music in a stunning setting in a socially distanced way,” says organiser James Cundall. “Whether you prefer the Swinging ’60s or showstoppers, platforms or cowboy boots, I hope we have something for everyone.
“Importantly, it’s an opportunity for musicians and technicians to showcase their talent again after weeks of inactivity during lockdown.”
Visitors should provide their own chairs and can bring a picnic, although tables should be left at home. Food and drink stalls will also be on site too.
Beyond The Barricades, featuring past principals from Les Miserables, will celebrate the world’s greatest West End and Broadway musicals at Scampston Hall on August 28 and Ripley Castle on September 4. The guest star will be Australian baritone Lockie Chapman, founding member and former lead singer of The Overtones.
Abba Mania will pay tribute to the super-Swedes at Scampston on August 29 and Ripley on September 5; The Bootleg Beatles will travel through the Fab Four’s back catalogue at Scampston on August 30; Ripley, on September 2; A Country Night In Nashville will evoke the energy and buzzing atmosphere of a Honky Tonk in downtown Nashville, while journeying through the history of country music at Scampston on August 31 and Ripley on September 6.
Tickets are on sale at soundsinthegrounds.seetickets.com/content/ticket-options. If you have any ticketing queries, email soundsinthegrounds@seetickets.com or contact the organisers directly on 07927 291267.
Organiser James Cundall’s separate enterprise, Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, mounted Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in a pop-up Elizabethan theatre at the Castle car park in York in Summer 2018 and 2019 (also at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford, that second year), but Lunchbox hit the financial rocks of liquidation in October 2019.
Welburn impresario Mr Cundall also runs Thor’s winter and summer bars in York and Yorkshire’s Winter Wonderland at York Designer Outlet.
