Tag: sleeping beauty

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More Things To Do in York and beyond as the festivities spread good cheer. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 55, from The York Press

Fergus Powell’s Moonface Martin, left, and Adam Price’s Billy Crocker in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

SEEING out the old year, welcoming in the new, Charles Hutchinson refuses to advocate putting your feet up in the festive season.

All aboard for the last chances to see: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, today to December 30

CLIMB aboard the S.S. American as it sets sail in Andrew Isherwood’s all-singing, all-dancing staging of Anything Goes, Cole Porter’s swish musical, charting the madcap antics of a motley crew leaving New York for London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

Meet nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown). Alas, Hope is engaged to fellow passenger Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Neil Foster). Enter second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell) to join Reno in trying to help Billy win the love of his life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Frances Marshall of History Riot: Presenting Tales From The Trail at York Castle Museum

Family-friendly performances of the week: History Riot in Tales From The Trail, York Castle Museum, Eye of York, York, today (27/12/2025) to January 3, except January 1, between 10am to 5pm daily

HISTORY Riot return to York Castle Museum with Tales From The Trail, an array of family-friendly performances, with start times being advertised at the admissions desk each day. Join two madcap Victorian characters for an urgent shopping trip on the Victorian street of Kirkgate this festive season.

Cue mystery, silliness and stories of the variety of items that they pick up along the way. Entry is included in general admission at https://beta.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/york-castle-museum/admission-tickets.

The billboard poster for The Tubs & Bull’s co-headline show at The Crescent, York

Double bill of the week: The Tubs and Bull, The Crescent, York, tonight, 7.30pm

IN A Please Please You Seasonal Rock’n’Roll Party, The Tubs and Bull team up for a co-headline show, featuring Dan Lucas at the double, complemented by some friends DJing in the bar.

Cardiff indie rock band The Tubs comprises Lucas, Owen Williams, Max Warren and Taylor Stewart; York alt. rock band Bull features songwriting frontman Tom Beer, guitarist Lucas, drummer Tom Gabbatiss, bassist Kai West and keyboard player and vocalist Holly Beer. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/the-tubs-bull/.

Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Still time for pantomime: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, until January 4

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty.

Written as ever by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced once more with award-winning Evolution Productions. Look out too for Kris Madden’s pyrotechnics: he indeed the fire starter, twisting, turning fire starter. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Turning ugly: Luke Attwood’s Melody Hard-Up and Brandon Nicholson’s Harmony Hard-Up in UK Productions’ Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Charlie Kirkpatrick

Still time for more pantomime: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, until January 4

CORONATION Street star Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother leads the Grand Opera House pantomime cast, joined by Tobias Turley (ITV’s Mamma Mia I Have A Dream) as Prince Charming and West End star Rachel Grundy (Rocky Horror Picture Show, Legally Blonde) as Cinderella in UK Productions’ Cinderella, scripted by award-winning Jon Monie. 

Directed by Ellis Kerkhoven, West End drag stars Luke Attwood and Brandon Nicholson double down on the rather saucy mayhem in Ugly Sisters mode, joined in the capering comedy corner by Jimmy Bryant’s Buttons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

The creative team behind The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz at Castle Howard. Picture: Tom Arber

The Yellow Brick enters the home straight: The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, Castle Howard, near York, until January 4

CASTLE Howard is transformed for winter into an immersive Christmas experience, dressed in set pieces, decorations, floristry, projections, lighting and sound for The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz.

Created by CLW Event Design, headed up by Charlotte Lloyd Webber and Adrian Lillie, the show-stopping Emerald City High Street in the Long Gallery is the highlight, with life-size fabricated shop fronts inspired by York’s Shambles, while the 28ft Christmas tree sparkles in the Great Hall. Leeds theatre company Imitating The Dog provides the spectacular projections and soundscapes. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.

Snow show in A Winter Adventure at JORVIK Viking Centre

Deep freeze: A Winter Adventure at JORVIK Viking Centre, York, until February 22 2026

A WINTER Adventure brings a new wintery experience to the underground York visitor attraction, where the 10th century Vikings are celebrating Yule with natural decorations hung on their houses. For the first time, visitors can peer through Bright White’s time portal into the blacksmith’s house excavated on this site in the 1970s, seeing what it would have been like to live there.

They will then board a time sleigh to travel back in time around the backstreets, transformed by Wetherby set dressers EPH Creative, who have covered streets and houses in a thick blanket of snow, bathed in cold blue lighting. Pre-booking is essential for all visits to JORVIK at jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk.

Fever presents: Candlelight: Best Of Bridgerton On Strings, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, January 3, 6.30pm; Candlelight: Tribute To Queen & More, 8.30pm

DEAREST  Reader, Lady Whistledown has given her verdict: the event of the season is here! Bathed in the soft glow of candlelight, favourite melodies from Shondaland’s Bridgerton series on Netflix are re-imagined by the New World String Quartet in a magical 60-minute performance of Candlelight: Best Of Bridgerton On Strings.

Later that same night, Candlelight presents the music of Queen and More in a live, hour-long multi-sensory musical experience featuring We Will Rock You, Somebody To Love, Radio Ga Ga, Killer Queen, We Are The Champions, Another One Bites the Dust, Bohemian Rhapsody and many more. Box office: support.feverup.com.

Ancient Hostility: Passionate political and personal song in harmony at Navigators Art’s A Feast Of Fools III

Navigators Art presents A Feast Of Fools III, The Black Swan Inn, Peasholme Green, York, January 4, 7.30pm, doors 7pm

WELCOME to A Feast Of Fools III, York arts collective Navigators Art’s sign-off to “Holiday’s end – the last gasp of Mischief” in a celebration of Twelfth Night and Old Christmas packed with live folk music and a nod to the pagan and the impish.

On the bill will be: Ancient Hostility, performing passionate political and personal song in harmony;  North West folk duo Joshua Arnold and Therine, presenting vocal-led trad and experimental versions of British folk songs;  Pefkin, whose ritualistic hymnals draw heavily on the landscape and the natural world, and White Sail, York’s multi-instrumental alt-folk legends. Box office: www.ticketsource.co.uk/navigators-art-performance.

Pickering Musical Society’s principal panto players for Snow White at Kirk Theatre, Pickering

First panto of the New Year: Pickering Musical Society in Snow White, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, January 14 to 25, 7.15pm, except January 19; 2.15pm, January 17, 18, 24 and 25  

DIRECTED for the tenth year by resident director Luke Arnold and writer by Ron Hall, Pickering Musical Society’s 2026 pantomime combines comedy, spectacle, festive magic, dazzling scenery and colourful costumes.

The show features such principals as Marcus Burnside’s Dame Dumpling, Danielle Long’s Prince Valentine, Alice Rose’s Snow White, Paula Cook’s Queen Lucrecia and Sue Smithson’s Fairy Dewdrop. Audiences are encouraged to book early to avoid disappointment. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.littleboxoffice.com.

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Tommy Carmichael bounces back for second stint in York Theatre Royal panto comic role as Jangles in Sleeping Beauty

Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles with dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

AFTER performing in an Evolution Productions’ pantomime co-production with York Theatre Royal for the first time in Aladdin in 2024, Tommy Carmichael is reprising his daft-lad act as Jangles in Sleeping Beauty this winter.

“Oliver Scott, who works with Evolution director [and Theatre Royal panto writer] Paul Hendy a lot, directed me in The Wind In The Willows on an outdoor theatre tour [by Ely company KD Theatre Productions], when I played seven characters, including Chief Weasel, and then recommended me to Paul, so it fell sweetly into place for me,” Tommy recalls.

Based in Livingston, near Edinburgh, where his partner works, Doncaster-born Yorkshireman Tommy felt very much at home on the York stage straight away. “It was a lovely experience. I felt so welcomed by everyone who was already part of the Theatre Royal show [writer Hendy, director Juliet Forster, regular dame Robin Simpson], but it was also nice that there was a fluidity to creating the show.

“It’s not completely set in stone, so you can play with ideas and suggest things to each other, so the show feels like it’s all of us making it, rather than one person’s ideas.”

Tommy Carmichael’s ever-cheerful Charlie in Aladdin at York Theatre Royal last winter. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

Now playing the comic’s role in a panto for the fourth time in Sleeping Beauty, Tommy loves bonding with audiences. “The audience is like an extra member of the cast, another character that you can bounce off at each show, as Paul Hawkyard [playing villain Ivan Tobebooed] said to me at Aladdin last year,” he says.

“That helped me because I’ve never been able to work out how the energy changes from rehearsing a scene four or five times in the rehearsal room, where you think ‘Am I doing this right?’, but as soon as you test it in performances, you think, ‘Ah yes, this does work’.”

A key characteristic of his role is to connect with the children in the audience, to be their idiot brother! “I teach children theatre, from the ages of six to 18, in Livingston, where I work at Proscenium Stage School, so that’s very transferable to the stage show, as all the things I wouldn’t necessarily know, they bring into class!”

Tommy is delighted to be bouncing back to York this winter. “The fact that I’ve been asked back is an honour,” he says. “I feel so grateful that the Theatre Royal trusts me with it, because, from doing an audition to starting in the rehearsal room, they don’t know what you’ll be like, but they liked what I gave them in Aladdin and I’m just so excited to be back.”

Tommy Carmichael’s poster portrait, announcing his return in Sleeping Beauty

As is the lot of a jobbing actor, Tommy has performed in myriad spaces. “I performed in the grandeur of Ely Cathedral in The Wind In The Willows; I worked with Immersion Theatre Company in Harlow, and during lockdown I did an open-air show in a tent with all the sides off!,” he says.

“I’m a very sweaty person, and you could see the condensation come off my head and hands. That was in Dick Whittington, when I played the dame.”

In his amateur theatre days, Tommy appeared as the dame “a lot”. “I got my panto training in dames, and I’ve played the villain too,” he says. “But I love playing the comic, being able to shout and have the whole audience as your friend, being silly without the pressure of telling the story. I love that thing of ‘Can we just get on with it?’, and I’ll say ‘No’!”

Tommy is back in York after touring in the interactive cabaret show Big Strong Man with  the Doncaster company The Growth House, whose motto is “Don’t Grow Up, Grow Out”, delivering “personal, passionate and experimental live events that are part protest, part party and all theatre”.

Tommy Carmichael: Spending Christmas Day back home in Doncaster

“They’ve become the resident company at CAST in Doncaster and are now being mentored by the Emma Rice Company [formerly Wise Children],” he says. “That show [Big Strong Man] is like a game show, where four different types of masculinity all fight for who should be ‘the ruler of all men from now until the end of time’.”

Combining storytelling, song, dance, improv, ladders, competition, boy band parodies, lip syncs, placards, blocks, charity-shop suits, karaoke and a bear in a celebration of northern culture and community spirit, “it’s a show where four Northern men are given the impossible task of fixing the men’s mental health crisis in one night. We did it in theatres and working men’s clubs too, taking it to spaces where men in various works of life feel more comfortable.”

Being in York for the winter season has its advantages at Christmas for Tommy. “It had been ten years since I was able to go back to the family at Christmas, but fortunately my family are in Doncaster, so I could see them last Christmas and will do so again this year, having been used to not spending Christmas with them, so that’s lovely.”

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions present Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal  until January 4 2026. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Doing time in pantomime: Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, centre, in the Sleeping Beauty slosh scene with dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, left, and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Copyright of The York Press

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Jocasta Almgill takes shine to dark side as wicked fairy Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty

Jocasta Almgill’s wicked fairy Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

WEST End star Jocasta Almgill has headed home to Yorkshire to patrol the dark side as villainous Carabosse, East Riding accent and all, in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal.

One hundred years of sleep await Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora but there will be no rest for Jocasta’s wicked fairy until January 4 2026.

Originally from Hull and now based in London, she has appeared in such musical roles as Diana Morales in A Chorus Line (Curve Leicester/Sadler’s Wells/national tour) and Rizzo in Grease (Dominion Theatre, London), receiving nominations for the 2022 Black British Theatre Award for Best Supporting Female in a Musical and the 2023 WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Performer in a Musical.

No wonder York Theatre Royal creative director and Sleeping Beauty director Juliet Forster enthuses: “We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome Jocasta to York for this year’s panto. She is an incredible talent and audiences are in for a real treat.”

Amid her myriad credits, Jocasta has performed in York previously. “I was in the original tribute to The Blues Brothers, which came to the Grand Opera House years ago in my first job out of college [Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, from where she graduated in 2009 after three years of musical theatre studies],” she says.

East Yorkshire-raised actress Jocasta Almgill

“Then I came back on tour in 2018 with Hairspray, when I was Peaches, one of The Dynamites.” Watch this space for news of a possible return there in a “big musical” next year.

In the meantime, Jocasta is revelling in breaking new ground in Sleeping Beauty. “Carabosse is my first baddie. It’s such fun,” she says. “I always do the Fairy normally, and I love the Fairy in panto, but she’s there to tell the story.

“As Carabosse, I can just have fun and have a lovely time being bad, so I’m really enjoying playing the baddie. Basically Carabosse is so annoyed she’s not been invited to Aurora’s Christening that she casts a spell on her that, before her 18th birthday, she will prick her finger and then be asleep for 100 years.”

Such bad behaviour contrasts with Jocasta’s previous goody-goody pantomime roles for Evolution Productions, York Theatre Royal’s panto partners. “Last year I played Cupid the Fairy in Beauty And The Beast at Canterbury; prior to that, Myrtle the Mermaid in Peter Pan in St Albans.

“In 2020, for Evolution, I was at The Hawth Theatre in Crawley, when we were socially distanced with the tier system in place for Covid 19, and we managed to stay open through the run. It was called something like Dame Dolly Saves Panto!” Indeed it was.

Jocasta enjoys working with the award-winning Evolution team each panto season. “One hundred per cent! It’s why a lot of actors go back to work with them each year, having that security of a good show each winter, which frees you up to do other acting jobs over the rest of the year, knowing you have a job at Christmas.”

Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse in her lair. “She’s my first baddie. It’s such fun,” she says. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

This year took Jocasta to Japan to reprise her role as Diana Morales in A Chorus Line. “It started off as a Curve production in Leicester, then went to Sadler’s Wells, and then some Japanese producers picked it up,” she says.

“We were there for ten weeks, playing three cities, Tokyo, Sendai, Osaka and then back to Tokyo. Japanese is a tricky language to learn, but within the company there were lots of Japanese people, so I could practise my Japanese.”

How did that go? “Sometimes they would laugh at me! Like when I thought I was saying ‘That was delicious’ and in fact I’d said ‘Would you marry me’!”

She took the opportunity to go sight-seeing in each city. “There was more time than you might think to do that – and I’m quite the early bird, getting up early to see things. It was very special to be there; an experience I shall never forget.”

Jocasta had pinned her hopes on playing a panto villain  earlier than this winter. “At St Albans two years ago, I said ‘I want to play Captain Hook’, which would have been so much fun, but then they cast me as Cupid,” she recalls.

Jocasta Almgill in rehearsal for her villainous role as Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty

“I thought, ‘it’ll never happen’, but thankfully they offered me Carabosse this winter, and I told them, ‘I’d love to do that’.”

Jocasta is delighted to be drawing the boos in Sleeping Beauty. “It’s great to be working with Evolution again. We have a brilliant show on our hands that’s really exciting and is a real spectacle, as well as being funny. Visually it’s amazing, and I’m very happy with my costumes,” she says.

“I sing quite a few big numbers. Paul [Evolution Productions’ artistic director and York panto writer Paul Hendy] always has me doing some rocky numbers. I did Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle as Welcome To The Panto in Beauty And The Beast, and here I’m doing Hellfire, from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame musical.

“I get to open Act Two with Pinball Wizard, and I’ve got a duet with Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam where we compete with each other in Ugly Kid Joe’s Everything About You.

“The cast bounces off each other so well, and I love working with Robin [Robin Simpson’s dame Nurse Nellie], who’s hilarious. Luckily I don’t have too many scenes with him or I’d be giggling!”

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions present Sleeping Beauty until January 4 2026. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Jocasta Almgill in her poster portrait, announcing her appearance in Sleeping Beauty

Behind the scenes of Sleeping Beauty pantomime with S R Taylor Photography

YORK Theatre Royal pantomime photographer S R Taylor Photography has gone behind the scenes to give a glimpse into the backstage magic of this winter’s co-production with Evolution Productions.

Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs regular dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s villainous Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s daft lad Jangles, CBeebies’ star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora, Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia and fire act Kris Madden’s Guardian of the Raptor in the panto run until January 4 2026.

Here is a selection of Taylor’s plethora of panto photographs.

Behind you: S R Taylor Photography takes a picture of York Theatre Royal dame Robin Simpson as Nurse Nellie prepares to enter the stage

Aoife Kenny’s Aurora in a quiet moment in the wings

Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam on full beam

Raptor the dinosaur and fire act Kris Madden’s Guardian of the Raptor turn up the heat in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal

Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie in a riot of colours in Sleeping Beauty. The dame’s costumes are designed by Michael J Batchelor and Joey’s Dame Creations

Kris Madden lighting the wheel of fire for his pantomime pyrotechnics in Sleeping Beauty

Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia performing a duet in a captivating scene in Sleeping Beauty

Hat trick! Kris Madden prepares to light up the panto with one of his fire highlights

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What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond. Hutch’s List No. 52, from Gazette & Herald

Wanderful: Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York

CHRISTMAS music and pantomimes aplenty dominate Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for December fun-filled fulfilment. 

Having a ball: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, until January 4 2026

CORONATION Street star Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother leads the cast of Tobias Turley’s Prince Charming, Bradley Judge’s Dandini and West End actress Rachel Grundy’s Cinderella in UK Productions’ Cinderella, scripted by Jon Monie. 

Directed by Ellis Kerkhoven, West End drag stars Luke Attwood and Brandon Nicholson bring the mayhem in Ugly Sisters mode as Harmony and Melody Hard-Up, joined in the comedy corner by Jimmy Bryant’s Buttons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Radiant: Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

No sleep till January 4: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty.

Written once more by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced with award-winning Evolution Productions, the same team behind All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and last winter’s Aladdin. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 

Hooked: Jamie McKeller savours the role of Captain Hook in Rowntree Players’ The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan at the JoRo. Picture: Matt Hillier

Putting ‘Pan’ into pantomime: Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Friday; Saturday, 2pm and 7.30pm

HEAD to the fantastical world of Neverland in Howard Ella and Gemma McDonald’s pantomime for Rowntree Players. Cling on to your seats as Hannah King’s Peter Pan and the Lost Boys do battle with Jamie McKeller’s rather nasty Captain Hook and his even nastier bunch of pirates.

Fear not as Michael Cornell’s Nanny McFlea and McDonald’s ever-eager apprentice Barkly are on hand to assist in the most ridiculous of ways. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Paul Toy: Directing York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York

Nativity play of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York, All Saints Church, North Street, York, tonight, 7.30pm

USING medieval scripts from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays and music both medieval and folk in style, Paul Toy’s community cast tells a familiar story of a marvellous birth, threaded with humour, reverence and, sadly, hatred, where candlelight emphasises the constant struggle of the light  against the darkness.

The performance lasts one hour with no interval. Refreshments will be available. Box office: 033 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/york-nativity or on the door.

Kate Rusby: Winter wonderland of South Yorkshire folk carols at York Barbican

Alternative carol concert of the week: Kate Rusby, Christmas Is Merry, York Barbican, tomorrow, 7pm

BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby plays her regular festive fixture at York Barbican, returning with her folk band and the Brass Boys for two sets of jolly carols from South Yorkshire’s pubs, Christmas chart chestnuts and original winter songs.

Christmas Is Merry marks her 20th anniversary of these winter warmers, drawing on her six studio Christmas albums: 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over, 2017’s Angels And Men, 2019’s Holly Head and 2023’s Light Years. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Musical director Dylan Allcock in rehearsal with cast members Emilio Encinoso-Gil and Hannah Christina for Elizabeth Godber’s Jingle All The Way at Pocklington Arts Centre

Deer duo of the week: Jingle All The Way, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow to December 23; relaxed performance on December 14, 1.30pm

FROM the team behind The Elves And The Shoemaker Save Christmas and Jack Frost’s Christmas Wish comes Elizabeth Godber’s latest Christmas family adventure, co-directed by Jane Thornton with musical direction by Dylan Allcock.

Reindeer siblings Rex (Emilio Encinoso-Gil) and Rosie(Hannah Christina) are reluctant to start at a new school just before Christmas, especially when that school is the East Riding Reindeer Academy, home of supreme athletes. Although Rosie fits in quickly, Rex struggles to find where he belongs, but a school-wide competition might change all that. Santa has a position free on his sleigh squad; could this be Rex’s big chance? Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Setting sail in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes: Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather, second from left) and her Angels, Sophie Curry, left, Chloe Branton and Sophie Kemp. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Getting a kick out of you musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Friday to December 30

DITCH York’s December chills and climb aboard the S.S. American as it sets sail in Andrew Isherwood’s all-singing, all-dancing staging of Anything Goes!, Cole Porter’s swish musical, charting the madcap antics of a motley crew leaving New York for London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

Meet nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown). Alas, Hope is engaged to fellow passenger Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Neil Foster). Enter second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell) to join Reno in trying to help Billy win the love of his life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Swinton & District Excelsior Band: Festive cheer at Milton Rooms, Malton

Afternoon of festive music and joy: Swinton & District Excelsior Band’s Christmas Spectacular, Milton Rooms, Malton, December 14, 2pm

THIS musical matinee with the Swinton & District Excelsior Band features the senior band, training band and beginners’ group, who perform a joyful mix of carols and seasonal favourites with festive cheer for all the family. A raffle and retiring collection will boost band funds. Entry is free but donations are welcome at the close. To book, go to: ticketsource.co.uk/swinton-district-excelsior-band/t-nolgkxa.

Bill Scott & Friends: In concert at Kirk Theatre, Pickering

Yuletide Tales of the week: Bill Scott & Friends, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, December 17, 7.30pm

THIS Christmas celebration “in harmony with a difference” comes to Pickering for the first time as vocal quartet Bill Scott, Lesley Machen, Jan Burtenshaw & Tim Tubbs perform a seasonal programme of carols, songs, poems and readings in every mood, from sacred, secular and lyrical to comic, sad and joyous.

Whether moved by the solemn beauty of a traditional carol or lifted by a light-hearted poem, this Yuletide fusion of music and tales promises to be a magical gathering. Box office: 01751 474833 or kirktheatre.co.uk/events/yuletide-tales/.

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REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, no rest for the wicked or the wacky until January 4 2026 ****

Jennie Dale’s radiant Fairy Moonbeam in York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions’ Sleeping Beauty. All pictures: Pamela Raith Photography

NOT even the cast knows what to expect in York Theatre Royal’s sixth collaboration with Evolution Productions when a button is placed under the control of Moss, the dame’s pick from the audience for affable humiliation on Monday.

An inspired pick, it turns out, with a laugh as distinctive and unusual as his name, giving more grist to the mill for Robin Simpson’s saucy, smart returnee dame to grind.

This was press night, but a press night with a difference. When would Moss press that button to release the explosive power of the confetti cannon?

The show is ticking over nicely when suddenly… Bang! Cue Kool And The Gang’s Celebration, Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora being jolted from her Sleeping Beauty slumbers and a mass outburst of cast  “corpsing”.

Come Hull or high water: Jocasta Almgill’s villainous Carabosse in boastful skulduggery mode with her creepy Goth acolytes in Sleeping Beauty

Whereupon Simpson’s ever-gregarious Nurse Nellie improvises, interjects, scolds Moss and interrupts Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia as he tries to resume singing Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’s aptly titled Die With A Smile once he regains his composure, only to put him off his stride again.

This is panto mayhem at its best, unpredictable, bringing out Simpson’s innate sense of capitalising on the moment. One of many reasons why his dame is the poster face for next year’s Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs – his seventh Theatre Royal dame too.

That explosion is not the only moment when Sleeping Beauty goes off piste to winning effect. Tommy Carmichael’s returning daft lad, Jangles, finds himself in a pickle, when a bed fails to rotate in the obligatory ghost scene, leaving him in view of the audience.

In tandem with Simpson’s dame, he milks this glitch to the ad-libbing max, and it would surprise no-one if this easily solved technical hitch does not become a regular part of the show. It’s how pantomimes grow and change through a run, and one of live theatre’s greatest joys. No two shows are ever the same.

Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty

It helps that Evolution Productions director Paul Hendy writes such a well structured show with the strongest of foundations to leave Simpson and Carmichael, blossoming in his second York panto, to play fast and loose when chance allows.

Mortimer joins in the fun and games too, a playful change from the conventional straight-laced princely type entrusted with soppy ballads that peaks with the best slippy-slidey slapstick slosh scene at the Theatre Royal in years. Indeed, the slapstick is an upgrade on Aladdin last year, now more than a match for Hendy’s verbal wit.

Hendy and Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster, in their sixth panto partnership, place equal emphasis on story, set-piece, slapstick, spectacle and sass, respectful of tradition but thoroughly modern too. 

No YTR/Evolution panto would be complete without  a CBeebies star – it’s becoming a tradition in itself – and Jennie “Swashbuckle” Dale is the best yet, radiating joy, warmth and no little wit as the “fun, silly storyteller” Fairy Moonbeam. No wonder she worked with Victoria Wood, no less, in the past on What’s Larks!.

Top: Fired up! Kris Madden’s pyrotechnics in Sleeping Beauty. Bottom: The more vacuous than vicious Velociraptor called Raptor in Sleeping Beauty

She just happens to have a spectacular singing voice too – capable of going down valley, up, up, up Dale – at its best in a show-stopping sing-off with Jocasta Almgill’s “evil, stroppy and silly” Carabosse in Ugly Kid Joe’s Everything About You. 

Powerful voice, physical presence, a thoroughly good sport at being panto-villainous, Almgill tops it off with a Hull accent, exaggerated just so, you kner, for comic effect. Her rendition of The Who’s Pinball Wizard with re-tooled lyrics is a belter too.

The Hendy staples are wheeled out, from the dame’s cart with pictorial placards, this year on the theme of musicals, to an animal, still not on a par with Zeus the scene-stealing Border Collie two years ago but designed to thrill dinosaur-fixated children in the form of “the vicious Velociraptor”, whose bark turned out to be worse than his bite, as it were.

Indeed, the dawdling, limb-twiddling dinosaur somewhat undermined the impact of speciality act Kris Madden’s fire artistry as Guardian of the Raptor. I’d be tempted to fire the Raptor to give Madden the unimpeded spotlight his hot stuff deserves, but that wouldn’t fit with his role!

Robin Simpson’s gaudy, gregarious dame Nurse Nellie in Sleeping Beauty

As ever, there is as much to enjoy in Hayley Del Harrison’s punchy choreography as in Hendy’s puns in the punchlines, together with Terry Parsons, Michelle Marden and Stuart Relph’s dazzling set designs, Parsons, Amy Chamberlain and Ella Haines’s costumes and especially Michael J Batchelor and Joey’s Dame’s Creations’ ever-changing  wardrobe for Simpson’s dame. The pink theme for the walkdown attire is particularly striking.

Musical director, arranger, composer and drummer Edwin Gray adds to the drama with his superb arrangements for songs that vary from Chappell Roan’s Hot To Go, for the dame, to an ensemble mash-up of Schools Out/Baggy Trousers/ABC; from two Beatles’ numbers, the opening Good Day Sunshine and Golden Slumbers, to this year’s fizziest pop anthem, Golden, from KPop Demon Hunters.  

Ensemble players Alyssia Turpin, Elijah Daniel James, Sophie Flora, Chris Morgan-Shillingford, Carlotte Rose O’Sullivan and Jayden Tang play their part to the full too, bringing added oomph to songs and having fun in myriad cameos, such as Carabosse’s dungeon Goths and towering guards.

Politics pretty much misses out this year – nothing feels funny about politics right now – although a flooding joke goes down well in flood-familiar York. Sleeping Beauty is very much awake, picking up momentum as the best pantos do, with  Simpson, Dale and Almgill outstanding and Moss making sure everyone keeps their wits about them.

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions presents Sleeping Beauty until January 4 2026. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.  

Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora and Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles with the ensemble cast of Chris Morgan Shellingford, back row, left, Elijah Daniel James, dance captain Alyssia Turpin, Sophia Flora, and , front row Jayden Tang, and Charlotte Rose O’Sullivan

Did you know?

NEXT winter’s York Theatre Royal & Evolution Productions co-production will be the Theatre Royals’ first-ever pantomime staging of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs. Written by Paul Hendy and starring regular dame Robin Simpson, the show will run from December 4 2026 to January 3 2027. Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond the panoply of pantomimes. Here’s Hutch’s festive List No. 52, from The York Press

Wanderful: Coronation Street star Lisa George’s Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at the Grand Opera House, York

CHRISTMAS music and pantomimes aplenty dominate Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for December fun-filled fulfilment. 

Having a ball: Cinderella, Grand Opera House, York, today until January 4 2026

LEEDS lad Bradley Judge’s Dandini joins the star-studded cast of Lisa George (Coronation Street) as Fairy Godmother, Tobias Turley (ITV’s Mamma Mia I Have A Dream) as Prince Charming and West End star Rachel Grundy (Rocky Horror Picture Show, Legally Blonde) as Cinderella in UK Productions’ Cinderella, scripted by Jon Monie. 

Directed by Ellis Kerkhoven, West End drag stars Luke Attwood and Brandon Nicholson bring the mayhem in Ugly Sisters mode as Harmony and Melody Hard-Up, joined in the comedy corner by Jimmy Bryant’s Buttons. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

The Marian Consort: Performing with English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble at York Early Music Christmas Festival on December 8

Festival of the week: York Early Music Christmas Festival, mainly at National Centre for Early Music, York, until December 14

HIGHLIGHTS at this Yuletide feast of music spanning the centuries, complemented by contemporary tunes, include Yorkshire Bach Choir & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists performing Hayden’s The Creation tonight and The Chiaroscuro Quartet and Consone String Quartet uniting tomorrow for Mendelssohn’s Octet in E flat major Op 20.

The Marian Consort teams up with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble in Looking Bach To Palestrina on December 8 and Fieri Consort Singers and Camerata Øresund present Christmas Cantatas by Christopher Graupner and English Tavern Songs on December 12. Among further festival performers will be mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, Dowland’s Foundry, Apollo5, Lowe Ensemble, Irish folk singer Cara Dillon and Joglaresa. For the full programme and tickets, go to: ncem.co.uk. Box office: 01904 658338.

York Theatre Royal’s pantomime cast in rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty. Picture: SR Taylor Photography

No sleep till January 4: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal

YORK Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty.

Written once more by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced with award-winning Evolution Productions, the same team behind All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and last winter’s Aladdin. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 

Hannah King’s Peter Pan in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Rowntree Players’ festive visit to Neverland

Putting ‘Pan’ into pantomime: Rowntree Players in The Pantomime Adventures Of Peter Pan, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, today, 2pm and 7.30pm, Sunday, 2pm and 6pm; December 9 to 12, 7.30pm; December 13, 2pm and 7.30pm

JOIN Wendy, John and Michael as they fly with Peter Pan to the fantastical world of Neverland in Howard Ella and Gemma McDonald’s pantomime for Rowntree Players. Cling on to your seats as Peter and the Lost Boys do battle with Jamie McKeller’s rather nasty Captain Hook and his even nastier bunch of pirates. Fear not as Nanny McFlea and her ever eager apprentice Barkly are on hand to assist in the most ridiculous of ways. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Bec Silk’s Robin Hood and writer Martin Vander Weyer’s Dame Daphne in 1812 Theatre Company’s pantomime Robin Hood’s Helmsley Adventure

Ryedale pantomime opening of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in Robin Hood’s Helmsley Adventure, Helmsley Arts Centre, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; Sunday, 2.30pm; December 9 to 12, 7.30pm; December 13, 2.30pm and 7.30pm; December 14, 2.30pm

HELMSLEY Arts Centre artistic director Natasha Jones directs company-in-residence 1812 Theatre Company in this traditional panto with a Knock Knock Joke Contest, scripted by dame Martin Vander Weyer.

Robin Hood will be rescuing the lovely Maid Marian from the wicked Sheriff of Pickering, while Black Swan landlady Dame Daphne will lead the merriment and mayhem. Knock Knock! Who’s there? Daphne! Daphne who? Daph-nitely book early to avoid disappointment on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk. 

Singer Dene Michael, dressed as a pineapple, in the finale to Kim Hopkins’s documentary film Still Pushing Pineapples, showing at City Screen Picturehouse on Sunday

Documentary film screening of the week; Still Pushing Pineapples (12A), City Screen Picturehouse, York, Sunday, 5pm

BLACK Lace’s Agadoo has been  voted the most infuriating  song of all time. What happens when you are forever associated with such a Marmite hit;  what comes after fleeting fame, and what does it mean to grow old still chasing a dream?

Perennial pineapple pusher and former Yorkshire band member Dene Michael is still singing the derided party anthem across fading clubland UK: a story now told in Selby-raised  filmmaker Kim Hopkins’s  humorous, moving, warts’n’all documentary, a pineapple slice of working-class social realism wrapped inside a road movie and abiding love story. Dene Michael, Hopkins and producer Margareta Szabo will hold a post-show Q&A. Box office: picturehouses.com/cinema/city-screen-picturehouse.

 A Nativity For York director Paul Toy

Nativity play of the week: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York, All Saints Church, North Street, York, December 10, 7.30pm

USING medieval scripts from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays and music both medieval and folk in style, Paul Toy’s community cast tells a familiar story of a marvellous birth, threaded with humour, reverence and, sadly, hatred, where candlelight emphasises the constant struggle of the light  against the darkness.

The performance lasts one hour with no interval. Refreshments will be available. Box office: 033 666 3366, ympst.co.uk/york-nativity or on the door.

Christmas will be merry for Kate Rusby at York Barbican on December 11

Carol concert of the week: Kate Rusby, Christmas Is Merry, York Barbican, December 11, 7pm

BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby plays her regular festive fixture at York Barbican, returning with her folk band and the Brass Boys for two sets of jolly carols from South Yorkshire’s pubs, Christmas chart chestnuts and original winter songs.

Christmas Is Merry marks her 20th anniversary of these winter warmers, drawing on her six Christmas studio albums: 2008’s Sweet Bells, 2011’s While Mortals Sleep, 2015’s The Frost Is All Over, 2017’s Angels And Men, 2019’s Holly Head and 2023’s Light Years. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Hyde Family Jam’s poster for their brace of Christmas jamborees at The Crescent, York on December 11 and 12

Christmas knees-up of the week: Hyde Family Jam, The Crescent, York, December 11, 7.30pm

FRIENDS! Come celebrate another Christmas with a right thorough knees-up at The Crescent with York buskers supreme Hyde Family Jam, a traditional-looking folk band that couldn’t be less traditional. They perform  the songs they love from any decade, any genre, in any way they fancy, played as fast and loud as possible. “We call it ‘folk gone wrong’,” they say. “Expect a few special festive bonuses too!” Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

Recommended but sold out already: Hyde Family Jam’s December 12 gig and The Howl & The Hum’s traditional special Crescent Christmas gig, led as ever by Sam Griffiths after leaving York and Leeds for London.

Setting sail in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Anything Goes: Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather, front centre) and her Angels, Sophie Curry, left, Chloe Branton and Sophie Kemp. Picture: Felix Wahlberg

Getting a kick out of you musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Anything Goes, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, December 12 to 30

DITCH York’s December chills and climb aboard the S.S. American as it sets sail in Andrew Isherwood’s all-singing, all-dancing staging of Anything Goes!, Cole Porter’s swish musical, charting the madcap antics of a motley crew leaving New York for London on a Christmas-themed steamer.

Meet nightclub singer/evangelist Reno Sweeney (Alexandra Mather) and lovelorn Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Adam Price), who has stowed away on board in pursuit of his beloved Hope Harcourt (Claire Gordon-Brown). Alas, Hope is engaged to fellow passenger Sir Evelyn Oakleigh  (Neil Foster). Enter second-rate conman Moonface Martin (Fergus Powell) to join Reno in trying to help Billy win the love of his life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Michael Ball’s poster for his Glow UK Tour 2026, taking in Yorkshire gigs at Bradford Live (September 2), Sheffield City Hall (September 5) and Hull Connexin Live (September 6), as well as York Barbican (September 12)

Concert announcement of the week: Michael Ball, Glow UK Tour, York Barbican, September 12 2026

MUSICAL star and radio and TV presenter Michael Ball will promote his 23rd solo album, Glow, on next year’s 25-date tour. “There’s probably only one thing I enjoy more than being in the studio – writing, producing and singing songs with people I love – and that’s taking it all out on the road and performing those songs as well as all the old favourites to the audiences I love,” he says. “It’s going to be an exciting year, and I can’t wait to see you all.’’ Box office: https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/michael-ball-2026/.

In Focus: The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery, York, until January 12 2025

Bowl Of Apricots, acrylic painting, by Anita Klein

PYRAMID Gallery’s Christmas Collection, in Stonegate, York, features works by London artist and printmaker Anita Klein, York ceramicist Ben Arnup, Peak District sculptor Paul Smith, South Staffordshire mosaic artist Amanda Anderson and York floral artist Lesley Birch.

Exhibiting too will be Canadian-born painter, printmaker and cartographer Mychael Barratt, Oswestry ceramicist Jacqui Atkin and Perthshire oil painter artist and printmaker Ian MacIntyre, complemented by bird and fish blown glass by Bruce Parks, bronzes by David Meredith, Nerikromi vessels by York ceramist Patricia Qua and studio jewellery for the Christmas season by 50 British makers.

Curator Terry Brett, who has owned the gallery for 31 years, has invited Anita Klein to fill the walls with 15 linocut original prints, new aquatint etchings and two paintings.

Bee Eater, ceramic vase, by Jacqui Atkin

“The gallery has enjoyed a long, unbroken relationship with Anita as a supplier of her extensive catalogue of prints that form a diary of her family life,” he says.

“Over the 28 years in which she has shown more than 800 different pictures at Pyramid Gallery, we have watched her career progress to the point where Anita has become one of the most collectable printmakers in the UK. It seems very fitting that she is the main focus of the Christmas Collection.”

As well as showing new linocut prints, Anita is selling copies of her book Out Of The Ordinary – 40 Years Of Print Making, featuring illustrations of 550 of her best-loved prints, published by Eames Fine Art.

The Christmas Collection at Pyramid Gallery is open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm, Sundays, until January 12 2026. Closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

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Christian Mortimer steps into Prince’s role in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal

Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

THE last addition to the principal players in York Theatre Royal’s pantomime Sleeping Beauty is Christian Mortimer, a North Yorkshire actor and singer with previous form in the annual co-production with Evolution Productions.

Replacing the now unavailable York-raised musical theatre actor Scott Goncalves at a month’s notice,  Harrogate-based  Christian, 29, is playing Prince Michael of Moravia.

“I had to miss my first day of rehearsals as I was flying back from Tampa, Florida, where I was performing in a celebration of Frankie Valli’s music,” he says. “I’ve seen all parts of the world in this show, and this gig in Florida came about because someone who’d seen the show then hired us for his yacht club party.

“We were out there for five days  that overlapped with the start of rehearsals here. The weather was very different, 27 degrees when I’d go on my morning run!”

Christian Mortimer, centre, enjoying a rehearsal for York Theatre Royal’s Sleeping Beauty with pantomime dame Robin Simpson, left, and Tommy Carmichael. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

“Bari-tenor” Christian’s Frankie Valli  travels and work as a lead vocalist for Celebrity Cruises have taken him to Japan, South East Asia, “lots of” America, the Mediterranean and the West coast of Africa. “We went quad-baking on the Namibian sand dunes and had the best time ever doing it,” he says.

Sleeping Beauty choreographer Hayley Del Harrison contacted Christian with a late call to to say, “we’re looking for a Prince”. “Hence I’m not in any of the posters,” he says. “I had to send off my show reel to Hayley and to casting, and they came back with an offer. I said ‘yes’, and it’s ideal as I’m in Yorkshire already.

“I was in the ensemble here four years ago for Cinderella, when I worked with Hayley. That was the show with Robin Simpson and Paul Hawkyard as the Ugly Sisters [Manky and Mardy] and [comedian and ventriloquist] Max Fulham as a wonderful Buttons.”

It was the second winter of Covid-19 restrictions, a challenging time for theatres and actors seeking to live up to the maxim of “the show must go on”, as Christian recalls. “I started in the ensemble, covering for the Prince [Benjamin Lafayette], who got Covid.

Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia in rehearsal with Aoife Kenny’s Princess Aurora for York Theatre Royal’s Sleeping Beauty. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

“In the lead-up to Christmas, I had one show as the Prince with Faye Campbell as Cinderella, who got Covid, then two with Lauren Richardson, who stepped up from the ensemble to play Cinderella, but then she got Covid too, so a  stand-in was brought in. But then I got Covid!

“I was off for a week’s isolation period and was in my bedroom, by myself, on Christmas Day. It was definitely interesting to have to play off so many different  people with differing ways of saying things, which keeps you in the moment. That was a good lesson to learn.”

Since then, Christian has been abroad at Christmas twice, performing with The Other Guys (the Frankie Valli tribute). Now, he is back on home turf in regal mode as Prince Michael of Moravia. “He’s more of a set-up guy, driving the narrative forward, though he has a few jokes and he’s in the slosh scene, so he’s definitely good fun,” he says.

“Often the Prince is seen as being a bit wet, singing a few love songs, but this show is really well written [by Evolution Productions director Paul Hendy] to make the Prince a bit more out there and stronger.

Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael of Moravia singing a duet with Aoife Kenny’s Aurora in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal. Picture: S R Taylor Photography

“He has a fun number near the start, called Introducing Me, when he and Princess Aurora are getting to know each other, and he also sings Die With A Smile, the Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars song,  and A Thousand Years, the Christina Perri song that we’ve changed to A Hundred Years to fit the story.”

Christian, who studied at Rossett High School, York College and ArtsEd, in London, and cut his acting teeth with York Light Youth, York Light Opera Company and Pick Me Up Theatre in York, will be spending Christmas in Harrogate. “I’m commuting from home every day, and my brother Jordan and Natalie have just had a baby girl, Mia, so we’ll be together on Christmas Day,” he says.

Looking ahead, “I’ll be moving south in February with my girlfriend, Lizzy Parker, who’s a fellow musical theatre performer. She was in Heathers: The Musical as Heather McNamara, the one who wears yellow, and then did Next To Normal in the West End at the Donmar Warehouse,” says Christian.

“We’re moving to Stevenage, where we both have connections, and we’re both in a position to buy, but have never lived together until now, so we’ll move in together and then find somewhere on the outskirts of London.”

York Theatre Royal and Evolution Productions present Sleeping Beauty until January 4 2026. Box office: 01904 623568 or yortktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Dec 31 ****

Kiara Nicole Pillai’s Molly and Jacob Butler’s Dan, her best friend, in Nick Lane’s Sleeping Beauty at the SJT, Scarborough. All pictures: Tony Bartholomew

NO rest for the wicked Crepuscula in Sleeping Beauty, and no rest for Sleeping Beauty either, or Molly, as writer Nick Lane calls her in his radical reboot of Charles Perrault’s tale.

Molly, spoiler alert, will not sleep through much of Act Two,  in panto tradition, awaiting a Prince’s arrival to awake her from 100 years of deep slumber. The Prince, by the way, has been jettisoned too, replaced by best friend Dan.

Lane never goes down the obvious lane, nor indeed down familiar pantomime alleyways. He puts story first and foremost, appealing to children and the inner child in the adult alike, and rather than set-piece routines, he lets cast and audience have equal fun with how he can spin a familiar tale in new ways.

You Butter believe it: Annie Kirkman’s evil Crepuscula working in tandem with Oliver Mawdsley’s henchman Butter in Sleeping Beauty

What’s more, after 2024’s Aladdin didn’t match the peaks of Beauty And The Beast, Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland and A (Scarborough) Christmas Carol, Sleeping Beauty is Lane back at his best, pulling all the theatrical strings with his combination of thrills, spills and almost delirious silliness, topped off with big pop hits and a dance–off.

He happens to be directing the show for the first time too, no mean feat in the present circumstances when he is in the hop stage, awaiting his second hip operation as he heals from his first.

Sleeping Beauty moves between the modern world of Scarborough, or Scarborinia as Lane renames it  this year, the Dreamland of the slumbering Molly (Kiara Nicole Pillai) and the Fairy world of Perrault’s creation, occupied by Aurore, the queen (Pillai again), Clair du Lune (Amy Drake) and Crepuscula (the outstanding Annie Kirkman).

Sleeping Beauty writer-director Nick Lane in the Stephen Joseph Theatre rehearsal room

On the cusp of turning 12, Molly is Aurore’s daughter, born half fairy, half human, and so a “hairy”, as her dad is plain old human Dave (Jacob Butler). To protect her from Crepuscula’s clutches with her finger-pricking plan, she is living with Auntie Claire (Claire de Lune in human form) and Uncle Harry (Oliver Mawdsley, a tooth fairy obsessed with dental hygiene and an unfortunate track record for magic tricks going wrong).

Are you keeping up with all this minutiae? The great joy is that Lane allows it all to take shape, to work its spell, as a journey of discovery not only for Molly but for the audience tooe, everything seeping in as another pop banger bounces around the stage under Alex Weatherill’s musical direction and Dylan Townley’s composition and sound design skills.

Kirkman, wickedly good as the intemperate baddie Crepuscula, holds the aces in Act One, constantly entering Molly’s Dreamland where she keeps having the same alarming dream, the one with the Hippo-Faced Man (Mawdsley again).

Oliver Mawdsley’s Uncle Harry: Fearing another magic spell could be going wrong in Sleeping Beauty

Into this world too come the most unconventional henchmen you are likely to encounter this season: Sock and Butter, conjured from, yes, a sock and a pack of butter by Crepuscula into full-sized form that finds Kirkman’s Crepuscula wiping butter from Butter’s unwanted clench on to audience members’ knees with a gurning look of disapproval.

Molly must find her way out of Dreamland  before the 100 years are up, journeying in Act Two from Golden Miles’ happy place to the Weird Lands and finally, and most dangerously, the Nightmare Swamps.

Rather than slumbering through Act Two, like President Trump appearing to “fall asleep” at his December 2 cabinet meeting, Pillai’s Molly is centre stage and restless to leave her Dreamland, and Sleeping Beauty is so much better for awakening the world going on inside her head.

Drake’s five: Amy Drake in one of her quintet of roles in Sleeping Beauty, where she plays Auntie Claire/Clair de Lune, Amber, Fake Claire and Fluffy Robin

Lane’s cast is a delight, from Pillai’s gymnastic, livewire Molly and stern Aurore to Mawdsley’s disaster-prone Uncle Harry, Kirkman’s disdainful villain Crepuscula to Butler’s amusingly ordinary Dan and Dave and slippery Butter. Amy Drake, called on to play no fewer than five roles, is terrific throughout, full of contrasts, excellent comic timing and physical comedy too, especially as Fluffy Robin.

Audience participation is key too, divided into four to shout out separate instructions, where Lane’s new expression “Bumfroth” earns Hutchinson’s Word of the Year for 2025, a far more worthy winner than the Oxford University Press picking that “rage bait” variation on “click bait”.

Lane’s direction is fun, lively, playful, imaginative and full of momentum, matching his writing’s sense of wonder, as if entering the world of Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll.

Let’s dance:Amy Drake, left, Kiara Nicole Pillai, Jacob Butler, Annie Kirkman and Oliver Mawdsley strike a pose on Helen Coyston’s stars-and-stripes set in Nick Lane’s Sleeping Beauty

Stephanie Dattani’s choreography hits the spot too, while Helen Coyston’s set, with Molly’s bedroom on the gantry and an open-plan design on ground level for maximum movement, is complemented by costume designs suited to each of the differing worlds. Crepuscula could be out of Six The Musical; Butter and Sock, from Leigh Bowery.

Mark ‘Tigger’ Johnson’s lighting design is suitably magical, while Magritte would love the multitude of lampshades decorating the sky above.

You should not rest until you have secured a ticket for this Sleeping Beauty, and should you be wondering, Nick Lane’s world of fantastical theatre will return for Puss In Boots from December 5 to 31 next year. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Annie Kirkman’s villainous Crepuscula putting Fairyland queen Aurore on alert in Sleeping Beauty
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More Things To Do in York and beyond as snow blanket covers JORVIK. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 51, from The York Press

The deep freeze: Snow goes underground in A Winter Wonderland at JORVIK Viking Centre

A FESTIVE trail, treasured exhibition and snow reboot, pantomime and A Christmas Carol spell out that winter staples aplenty are up and running, as Charles Hutchinson reports.  

Time travel of the week: A Winter Adventure at JORVIK Viking Centre, York, until February 22 2026

A WINTER Adventure brings a new wintery experience to the underground York visitor attraction, where the 10th century Vikings are preparing to celebrate Yule with natural decorations hung on their houses. For the first time, visitors can peer through Bright White’s time portal into the blacksmith’s house excavated on this site in the 1970s, seeing what it would have been like to live there.

They will then board a time sleigh to travel back in time around the backstreets, transformed for winter by Wetherby set dressers EPH Creative, who have covered streets and houses in a thick blanket of snow, bathed in cold blue lighting. Pre-booking is essential for all visits to JORVIK at jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk.

Christmas at The Bar Convent. Illustration by Nick Ellwood

Activity trail of the week: Christmas At The Convent, The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, Blossom Street, York, until December 22, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, last admission 4pm

DECEMBER visitors to The Bar Convent can uncover fascinating festive traditions through the centuries in a family-friendly activity trail through the exhibition that combines the convent’s history with the Advent season.

Families can enjoy finding clues, making decorations, dressing up, discovering traditions from Christmas past and much more. Look out for the traditional crib scene in the chapel. Tickets: barconvent.co.uk.

Garlands galore at An Inspired Christmas at Treasurer’s House, York. Picture: National Trust, Anthony Chappel-Ross

Festive exhibition of the week: An Inspired Christmas at Fairfax House, York, until December 21, open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am to 4pm, last entry 3.30pm

TREASURER’S House has undergone a winter transformation, where stories of its past residents come to life through handcrafted decoration as rooms are re-imagined by the National Trust with festive flair, inspired by the 17th-century house’s rich history.

Each room is styled to reflect the personalities and tales of those who once called Treasurer’s House home, from last occupant Frank Green, the visionary industrialist who gifted the property to the National Trust, to the Young family, Jane Squire, Ann Eliza Morritt, Elizabeth Montague, Sarah Scott, John Goodricke and Royal visitor Queen Alexandra, wife to King Edward VII. No booking is required, with free entry for National Trust members and under-fives.

Guy Masterson’s Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, on tour at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York

Festive ghostly return of the week: Guy Masterson in A Christmas Carol, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, today, 2pm 7.30pm

HEADING back to Theatre@41 for the fourth time, Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson presents Charles Dickens’s Christmas fable anew, bringing multiple characters to vivid life as ever, from Scrooge and Marley to the Cratchits and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come. 

Be dazzled, be enchanted by a performance destined to linger long in the memory. “It’s guaranteed to get you into the Christmas Spirit – in many  more ways than one,” says Masters. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Ellie Gowers: Songs exploring distance, longing and identity at Rise@Bluebird Bakery

Ecological songs of the week: Ellie Gowers, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Sunday, 8pm, doors 7.30pm

WARWICKSHIRE singer-songwriter – and Morris dancer to boot – Ellie Gowers blends contemporary acoustic sounds with the storytelling traditions of folk. Her 2022 debut album Dwelling By The Weir addressed ecological themes and her 2024 EP You The Passenger received airplay on Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie’s BBC 6Music show.

Her influences range from Mipso to Jeff Buckley is songs that explore distance, longing and identity. An extended version of the EP arrives this autumn 2025. Easingwold singer-songwriter Gary Stewart supports. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

St Agnes Fountain: Promoting new Christmas album Flakes & Flurries at NCEM, York

Folk gig of the week: Black Swan Folk Club presents St Agnes Fountain, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 1, 7.30pm

AFFECTIONATELY known as “the Aggies”, Chris While, Julie Matthews and Chris Leslie bring their Christmas cheer to the NCEM, presenting carols with a curve. They celebrate 25 years together with material from new festive album Flakes & Flurries (Fat Cat Records), old Aggie classics and a doff of the fedora to founder member David Hughes, who died in 2021. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Name of the dame: Robin Simpson will be playing Nurse Nellie in Sleeping Beauty at York Theatre Royal

Pantomime opening of the week: Sleeping Beauty, York Theatre Royal, December 2 to January 4 2026

THEATRE Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs returnee dame Robin Simpson’s Nurse Nellie, Jocasta Almgill’s Carabosse, Tommy Carmichael’s Jangles, CBeebies star Jennie Dale’s Fairy Moonbeam, Aoife Kenny’s Aurora and Harrogate actor Christian Mortimer’s Prince Michael in Sleeping Beauty.

Written once more by Paul Hendy, the Theatre Royal’s festive extravaganza is co-produced with award-winning Evolution Productions, the same team behind All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, Jack And The Beanstalk and last winter’s Aladdin. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. 

Mark Thomas in Ed Edwards’s play Ordinary Decent Criminal at York Theatre Royal Studio. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography

Recommended but sold out already: Paines Plough presents Mark Thomas in Ordinary Decent Criminal, York Theatre Royal Studio, December 2 and 3, 7.30pm

MEET recovering addict Frankie, played by political comedian Mark Thomas in his second acting role for playwright Ed Edwards after England & Son in 2023. In Ordinary Decent Criminal’s tale of freedom, revolution and messy love, Frankie has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail for dealing drugs. 

On his arrival, none of his fellow convicts are what they seem, but with his typewriter, activist soul and sore lack of a right hook, he somehow finds his way into their troubled hearts, and they into his. In the most unexpected of places, Frankie discovers that the revolution is not dead, only sleeping. Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Jeremiahs: Irish folk band play York for the first time on December 3. Picture: Tony Gavin

York debut craic of the week: The Jeremiahs, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 3, 7.30pm

IRISH band The Jeremiahs have travelled extensively, including playing 26 states in the USA, performing rousing new songs and tunes in the folk genre, peppered with picks from the trad folk catalogue. Lead vocalist and occasional whistle player Joe Gibney, from County Dublin, is joined by his fellow founder,  Dublin guitarist James Ryan, New York-born fiddler Matt Mancuso and County Clare flautist Conor Crimmins. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

The one and only Jesca Hoop: Playing NCEM on December 4

Singer-songwriter of the week: Brudenell Presents and Please Please You present Jesca Hoop, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 4, 7.30pm

DISCOVERED by Tom Waits, invited on tour by Peter Gabriel and encouraged to relocate to the UK by Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Jesca Hoop left California for Manchester to carve out a singular path across six albums of original material. Collaborations with producers John Parish (PJ Harvey), Blake Mills (Feist), and Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers) have only sharpened the intricacy of her craft.

Now she has released Selective Memory, an unplugged reworking of 2017’s Memories Are Now, recorded live at home with bandmates Chloe Foy and Rachel Rimmer for Last Laugh Records. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/jesca-hoop-at-the-ncem-york/.

In Focus: York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust in A Nativity For York, on tour, November 29 to December 10

A Nativity For York director Paul Toy

YORK Mystery Plays Supporters Trust is touring A Nativity For York to Acomb, Fulford, Nether Poppleton and All Saints Church, North Street, bringing the Christmas story to York neighbourhoods from November 29 to December 10.

Directed by Paul Toy, this new and unique interpretation of the Nativity dramatises events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays, presented by a community cast and production team with music in candlelight.

Using medieval scripts from the York Cycle of Mystery Plays and music both medieval and folk in style, A Nativity For York “tells a familiar story of a marvellous birth, threaded with humour, reverence and, sadly, hatred”.

The candlelight emphasises the constant struggle of the light against the darkness in Toy’s production, set in a time of threat when a homeless couple and their newborn baby are driven from home by oppressors.  

“My vision is that of an underground, secret activity; clandestine performances of a play promoting banned religious doctrine in a time of oppression,” he says. “It mirrors both history and our current world situation, but it’s also a time of great hope.”

The York Mystery Plays were written in medieval times: 48 plays, once performed in the streets by the city’s Guilds, telling the Biblical story from Creation to Judgement Day, including the life of Jesus Christ.  

York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust is a registered charity whose group of volunteers aims to keep the story of the York Mystery Plays alive at the forefront of York’s cultural heritage.

Performances will take place at St Hilda’s Church, Tang Hall Lane, York, on November 29 at 1pm and 4pm; St Mary Bishophill Junior, York, December 2 and 4, 7.30pm; St Mary’s Church, The Village, Haxby, December 6, 1pm and 4pm, and All Saints Church, North Street, York, December 10, 7.30pm

Tickets are on sale at https://ympst.co.uk/nativitytickets or on 0333 666 3366. The performance lasts 60 minutes with no interval. Festive refreshments will be available.

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How Nick Lane is reawakening Sleeping Beauty in dreamland at the SJT with a girl called Molly and a Prince jettisoned for Dan

Having a laugh: Writer-director Nick Lane enjoying rehearsals for his variation on Sleeping Beauty at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture:Tony Bartholomew

REGULAR Christmas show writer Nick Lane is making his Stephen Joseph Theatre directorial debut with Sleeping Beauty, joined in the rehearsal room by actors Jacob Butler, Amy Drake, Annie Kirkman, Oliver Mawdsley and Kiara Nicole Pillai. 

“Have you ever had one of those dream?” he asks. “You know the ones, the one where you’re running but you can’t get anywhere? Or the one where you really, really need the loo but people keep getting in your way?

“What about the dream where you get cursed by a wicked fairy to prick your finger on your 12th birthday and fall asleep for 100 years?

“Not had that one? Molly has. She’s been having it a lot recently. Her 12th birthday is just around the corner. The day before Christmas Eve, in fact.”

Her Auntie keeps saying “One more sleep”. “But if Molly’s not careful, she could end up having have the longest and craziest sleep of her life!” says Nick, introducing his typically unconventional take on a familiar tale, one that opens at the SJT tomorrow.

“I didn’t want to do that Sleeping Beauty – even when she is awake, she has no agency and she’s barely in it!” he says. “So I’ve found a way of subverting it, where she will not just spend the second half asleep in a bed. She will in fact be in a dream world, so she will be ‘asleep’ but we will see her dream world.”

Nick has “tried to remain second cousins with the original Charles Perrrault story”. “The Wicked Fairy wants Fairyland for herself, and so sending ‘Sleeping Beauty’ to sleep is part of the gambit of leveraging Fairyland for herself.

“In the original story, the Wicked Witch wanted to kill Sleeping Beauty, but you’re not going to get many laughs if you kill her, so we change it to tricking her into being asleep in Dreamland.”

Nick continues: “What we’ve done is play around with the idea that there are three different types of dream: the Golden Miles of happy dreams; the Weird Lands, and the Swamp of nightmares.

“Our Sleeping Beauty, Molly, has to navigate her way from one place to another to find her way out of Dreamland to save us from an authoritarian fairy.

“The journey, and the order of that journey is integral to the plot, as she journeys through nice dreams, weird dreams and awful dreams.”

Nick’s Sleeping Beauty is “just an ordinary girl called Molly”. “She lives with Auntie Claire and Uncle Harry, she’s about to turn 12, and she’s been having these strange dreams about pricking her finger,” he says.

“The idea is that Molly is half-fairy, half human, otherwise known as ‘Hairy’. Being brought up by her aunt and uncle, she doesn’t know that her mother’s the Queen of the Fairies but her dad is a mere human, a bloke called Dave, living in Scarborinia.”

Auntie Claire is in fact Clair de Lune; the authoritarian fairy is called Crepuscula and her mother is Aurore. “Their names are all to do with light: dawn light, twilight and night light,” says Nick.

“Our Crepuscula is a fairy supremacist who believes that humans have no place in Fairyland, and Aurore had no right to bring her daughter there as Crepuscula believes she should be ruling Fairyland.”

Out goes the usual Prince of the story too, replaced by plain old Dan, while Nick creates two henchmen characters, Sock and Butter, out of…a sock and a pack of butter.

He loves steering clear of the conventions of pantomime to create his own form of boisterous, madly inventive Christmas show. “The thing is, because they’re such well-known stories, pantomime does a good job of making them silly while still trying to stick to the story, but I have always thought, ‘why not try to do something different with the story, like making Aladdin rubbish at magic,” he says.

“This time I thought, ‘what if Sleeping Beauty  could be ‘awake’ and make her way out through the 100 years’.”

Nick continues: “Pantomime tends to be a lot of mucking about and not enough storytelling, so I’m not a big fan of it. It doesn’t do a lot for me. I know it’s the only time that some people go to the theatre, but panto done badly is merely mucking around, when it needs to be more than that. What I do is kids’ stories but hopefully with adult appeal too – and kids are smarter than we think.”

As for Helen Coyston’s set design, Nick says: “Scarborinia is a kind of modern-day Scarborough, while Dreamland is more weird, with Sock and Butter living there, and it looks amazing. Like a quilt, all soft and lovely!”

Sleeping Beauty stays awake at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from November 29 to December 31. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.