Check mate: Paul Kemp’s Ben Wilkes, left, cowers as Bill Champion’s Jack Bothridge terminates their chess match in Show & Tell. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
IN the words of Alan Ayckbourn, “Show & Tell is about something which has preoccupied me for the last 60 years and probably more – theatre.”
In those years, the Scarborough writer-director has chalked up 90 plays – and still more are on their way. His SJT play for 2026 is written already and he is part way through 2027’s premiere too.
Play number 90, Show & Tell, is a “love letter to theatre”: the joy of theatre, the pleasure of writing and directing for Ayckourn at 85; the abiding delight for his audience in his abiding wit, social and cultural observation, foresight and insight, mischief-making and rug-pulling darker undercurrents.
Show & Tell is among his most playful in its celebration of the possibilities presented by ‘the play’ as an artform, here refracted through a backward glance at its back pages and his own too. A play full of play and full of plays, and indeed a play within a play.
All this is wrapped up in dark farce that “lifts the lid on the performances we act out on a daily basis,” as Sir Alan puts it. How much do we “show and tell”; how much do we conceal?
In this case, retired West Yorkshire managing director Jack Bothridge (grizzled, irascible Ayckbourn regular Bill Champion) has invited Homelight Theatre Company actor Peter Reeder (Richard Stacey) to the Bothridge family hall to tie up arrangements for a birthday party performance for his wife.
Unfortunately, belligerent Jack has no recollection of making any arrangements, mistaking the unnerved Peter Reeder for a meter reader. What’s more, Jack is not so much forgetful as in the incipient stages of dementia, in a hinterland between assertive clarity and confusion, as Ayckbourn exposes the misogyny, gruff bluntness, delusion and self-entitlement born of running a family business often on a capricious whim.
Champion is in terrific form here as a latter-day Lear, while Ayckbourn’s study of the generation that soils and spoils a family business is spot on in a nod to Ibsen and Arthur Miller. Look at Jack’s bullying treatment of Ben Wilkes (Paul Kemp), who ran his formal clothing department and is now his carer, outwardly as loyal as Lear’s Gloucester.
Writer-director Alan Ayckbourn in the Stephen Joseph Theatre poster for his 90th play, Show & Tell
However, there is much more to the reserved Wilkes than first meets the eye, caught wonderfully by Kemp, the essence of the gradual “show and tell” in Show & Tell. His shattering revelation, told to the sympathetic ear of actress and company manager Harriet ‘Harry’ Golding (Frances Marshall) is a gem of a quietly detonating scene.
Kemp’s Wilkes becomes embroiled in the other side of the story: Ayckbourn’s depiction of the world of theatre, past and present. Through the tribulations of the ailing Homelight Theatre Company, desperately in need of Jack’s booking, Ayckbourn hones in on the dramas faced by companies post-Covid, the struggle to draw an audience, the battle between artistic ambition and exigency.
He comments too on the fad for changing a company name to meet changing times, in this instance from the pioneering Front Room Theatre to the more inclusive-sounding Homelight. He duly recalls the groundbreaking days of Centre 42, the radical project of Arnold Wesker and Charles Parker, one said to have “inflicted the most damage on theatre since Cromwell”.
Act Two recalls Ayckbourn’s 1984 play A Chorus Of Disapproval in going behind the scenes, but crucially too it draws on Ayckbourn’s earliest days at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, directing a French farce in 1961 when artistic director Stephen Joseph told him his budget was “technically nothing…and if you push me, £5”.
In theatre tradition, by now joined by Olivia Woolhouse’s insouciant actress Steph Tate, Kemp’s Wilkes steps in when needs must, the cue for Stacey’s exasperated Reeder to act like a spoiled child in the readthrough and Kemp to scene-steal gloriously.
What follows this character-revealing shenanigans is the play within the play: a full-scale French farce, A Friend Indeed, in Ayckbourn’s knowing pastiche of the artform, played straight but inherently over-the-top in full period costume.
Theatre laid bare, life laid bare, warts and all, yet delivered with a love of the stage that never dims.
Alan Ayckbourn’s Show & Tell, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 5. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Bill Champion and Paul Kemp in rehearsal for Alan Ayckbourn’s Show & Tell. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ALAN Ayckbourn’s 90th play, a love letter to theatre delivered under the title of Show & Tell, opens at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight.
Ayckbourn directs Bill Champion, Paul Kemp, Frances Marshall, Richard Stacey and Olivia Woolhouse in a delightfully dark farce that lifts the lid on the performances we act out on a daily basis.
The plot? Jack is planning a big party for his wife’s birthday. Pulling out all pulling the stops, he has booked a touring theatre company to perform in the main hall of the family home. Unfortunately, however, Jack is becoming forgetful in his old age, unable to remember all the details of the booking.
The other side of the story? The Homelight Theatre Company is on its knees, desperately in need of a well-paid gig – and Jack’s booking is very well paid – but pinning him down on the details has been tricky. Something does not feel quite right.
“Show & Tell is about something which has preoccupied me for the last 60 years and probably more – theatre,” says Sir Alan, now 85. “It’s a love letter to theatre.
“The play is a dark farce that reflects that real life is curling around it all the time, with the structure of a play within a play: a play of the sort we would do in my second year with the Stephen Joseph Theatre Company at the Library Theatre, like A Game Of Love And Chance, a French farce. We had such a lark with that play, done as one of our attempts to attract a seaside audience.”
Show & Tell writer-director Alan Ayckbourn in his garden in Scarborough. Picture: Tony Barthlomew
Show & Tell presents an interesting challenge for the cast, says Sir Alan. “Once it starts, they have two challenges: they have to be the persona who comes into the rehearsal room, the actor they are playing, and then the character they’re playing in the play within the play.
“One of the things we’ll do is go from modern naturalism to French farce, but I don’t much of that leaping in and out. Once they start doing the play within the play, they do the play – and I don’t want to make the farce bad as it’s a celebration of theatre.
“They’re at the level where it’s not laughing out loud at their ineptitude, nor is it making fun of amateurs as then you’ve lost the point of the play. I’ve never tried to do that; I didn’t do that in A Chorus Of Disapproval either. The performance level should remain reasonably high.”
Come the finale, the play and play within a play elide. “There’s a moment at the very end, where the farce and Show & Tell proper coincide, when they’re taking their bow to endless empty rows, at which point a dormant member of the audience wakes with a jolt and joins in the clapping, and in doing so he encourages us all to do so as he breaks through the fourth wall. We get a Pirandelloesque flip there that I’m anxious to pull off.”
Ayckbourn’s love letter to theatre comes in the wake of a General Election where barely a breath was spent on the future of the arts. “Theatre is not a vote catcher,” reasons Sir Alan. “We need to make the arts more valued in the community. You do that by making people want to come and see it, and you don’t do it by pretending it’s something it isn’t.
“It isn’t an educational tool or an organised sing-song in an old people’s home; but it’ s something that is quite expensive to put on, and in order to put it in a space, whether small large, it depends on the financing.
Richard Stacey and Olivia Woolhouse rehearsing a scene from Show & Tell. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“But we need to make theatre less expensive. A few years ago, when we took Private Fears In Public Spaces to New York and received wonderful reviews, I was approached by the Shubert Organization, the big boys of New York theatre, who said they would like to transfer it to off-Broadway.
“I said the cast had gone on to do other things, but they said we could use American actors, and we put a company together, but then they started saying, ‘you need an assistant director’. ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. They kept adding roles. Fight director. Movement director.”
Size of theatre. Cost of furniture and set design. The list and potential costs grew. “So we abandoned the production in the end because it was too expensive to do, when in fact it was a six-hander with a simple stage and simple sound design. The old expression ‘two planks and a passion’ came to me, and I thought, anything we do has got to go back to basics.”
That thought sparked a memory of Sir Alan directing his first production for the SJT: Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight at the Library Theatre in 1961. “I asked Stephen [artistic director Stephen Joseph] how much the budget was. ‘Technically nothing,’ he said. “And if you push me, £5’. We scraped and we borrowed, and we still did it. The only cost that came in was the actors’ salaries and stage manager’s salary,” he recalls.
“What Stephen presented, and it comes into my play Show & Tell too, is that theatre is a meeting of audience and performers, and the audience are certainly not interested in who the director is – except with the cult of the director being so important now!”
Alan Ayckbourn’s Show & Tell, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until October 5, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinees and 1.30pm matinees on September 12, 18, 19, 25 and 26, October 2 and 3. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Alan Ayckbourn in the poster image for Show & Tell
In Focus: Rehearsed reading of Alan Ayckbourn’s Father Of Invention, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 15/9/2024
THE first ever public performance of the AI-futuristic Father Of Invention, written by Alan Ayckbourn in lockdown, will be given in a fundraising rehearsed reading at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on September 15 at 3pm.
Ayckbourn directs a cast of Bill Champion, Paul Kemp and Frances Marshall from his 90th play, Show & Tell, joined by Ayckbourn alumni Liza Goddard, Elizabeth Boag, Laurence Pears and Naomi Petersen. This will be the first time the Scarborough writer-director, 85, has heard the work read aloud.
“Take a look at their rollcall of Ayckbourn-written-and-directed shows – we reckon they’ve racked up an impressive 39 between them,” says SJT press officer Jeannie Swales. “We haven’t counted last year’s reading of Truth Will Out, only shows that had a full production either here at the SJT or at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, including Show & Tell. Mind you, that’s still not quite half of the Ayckbourn canon of 90!”
One of a handful of dramas penned by Ayckbourn in the creative cocoon of his Scarborough home during the pandemic, Father Of Invention takes its title from its central character of technology magnate Lord Onsett, who has passed away.
“Lord Onsett was an entrepreneur who made billions from the rapid acceleration of Artificial Intelligence,” says Sir Alan. “His company introduced the now ubiquitous Artificial Sentient Lifeforms, which carry out vast swathes of jobs for humanity from cleaning to security.
“His family are gathered to discuss how his enormous estate will be divided but as ever with Lord Onsett, there are a few surprises in store…”
The Stephen Joseph Theatre artwork for Alan Ayckbourn’s Father Of Invention
Leading the gaggle of familiar faces will be “our old friend” Liza Goddard, who has appeared in Ayckbourn premieres of If I Were You, Snake In The Grass, Life & Beth, Communicating Doors, Life Of Riley and The Divide.
The omnipresent Bill Champion has roles in Comic Potential, Haunting Julia, GamePlan, FlatSpin, RolePlay, A Chorus Of Disapproval, Intimate Exchanges, Woman In Mind, Absurd Person Singular, Surprises, Arrivals & Departures, Farcicals, Henceforward…, No Knowing, By Jeeves, Season’s Greetings, The Girl Next Door, Welcome To The Family and now Show & Tell to his name.
Paul Kemp has made his mark in This Is Where We Came In, Drowning on Dry Land, Private Fears In Public Places, The Champion Of Paribanou, Woman In Mind, My Wonderful Day and The Divide, this summer adding Show & Tell to that list.
York actress Frances Marshall has appeared in premieres of A Brief History Of Women, Joking Apart, Season’s Greetings, Family Album and Truth Will Out; Elizabeth Boag in Arrivals & Departures, Farcicals, Roundelay, Confusions, Hero’s Welcome, The Divide, Family Album and Truth Will Out; Naomi Petersen in By Jeeves, Joking Apart, Better Off Dead, Birthdays Past, Birthdays Present, Haunting Julia, The Girl Next Door, Constant Companions and Truth Will Out.
All money raised from the rehearsed reading will go towards the SJT’s New Work Fund, helping the theatre to present new work on its two stages and to nurture new talent.
Ticket availability is “limited”. Hurry, hurry, to book on 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
York actress Frances Marshall in rehearsal for Alan Ayckbourn’s 90th play, Show & Tell at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ALAN Ayckbourn’s 90th play and the Fangfest arts weekend lead Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for the weeks ahead.
Premiere of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Show & Tell, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, September 5 to October 5
BILL Champion, Paul Kemp, Frances Marshall, Richard Stacey and Olivia Woolhouse will be the cast for the 90th play by Scarborough writer-director Alan Ayckbourn, a love letter to theatre.
In a delightfully dark farce that lifts the lid on the performances we act out on a daily basis, Jack is planning a big party for his wife’s birthday. Pulling out all the stops, he has booked a touring theatre company to perform in the main hall of the family home. Unfortunately, Jack is becoming forgetful in his old age, rendering him unable to remember all the details of the booking.
The Homelight Theatre Company is on its knees, desperately needing a well-paid gig – and Jack’s booking is very well paid. Pinning him down on the details has been tricky, however, and something does not feel quite right. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Mealtime mayhem in The Tiger Who Came To Tea at the Grand Opera House, York
Children’s show of the week: Nicoll Entertainment presents The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Grand Opera House, York, today and tomorrow, 11.30am and 2.30pm
JUDITH Kerr’s picture-book story The Tiger Who Came To Tea is celebrating 15 years on stage in writer-director David Wood’s 55-minute production that returns to York this weekend, exactly a year on from its last visit.
The doorbell rings just as Sophie and her mummy are sitting down to tea. Who could it possibly be? What they don’t expect to greet at the door is a big, stripey, tea-guzzling tiger in a family show packed with oodles of magic, sing-a-long songs and clumsy chaos! Age guidance: three upwards. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Allied Air Forces Memorial Day at the Yorkshire Air Museum, pictured in 2023
We will remember them: Allied Air Forces Memorial Day, Yorkshire Air Museum, Halifax Way, Elvington, near York, tomorrow (Sunday), from 1.45pm
THE Yorkshire Military Marching Band will lead the 1.45pm parade featuring standard bearers from 16 Royal British Legion and RAF Association branches in one of the biggest events in the museum’s calendar.
Representatives of the RAF will join with counterparts from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and France in honouring the bravery and sacrifices of the allied air crews who flew from the airfield during the Second World War, many of whom did not survive. The day will climax with a 2.15pm service in the main hangar, under the nose of Halifax Bomber Friday the 13th. Open to museum visitors and invited guests.
Busted: Concluding the 2024 season at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on Saturday
Coastal gig of the week: Busted, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, today, gates open at 6pm
BUSTED close Cuffe & Taylor’s summer of outdoor gigs in Scarborough 22 years after first bouncing into the charts with the pop-punk energy of What I Go To School For and a year on from releasing Greatest Hits 2.0, an album of re-recorded hits with guests to mark the reunion of James Bourne, Matt Willis and Charlie Simpson.
Expect number one smashes Crashed The Wedding, Who’s David, Thunderbirds Are Go and You Said No to feature in Saturday’s set list, along with Year 3000, Air Hostess, Sleeping With The Lights. Support comes from Skinny Living and Soap. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/busted.
William Dalrymple: Reflecting on India’s impact on the ancient world in his Grand Opera House talk
History talk of the week: William Dalrymple, How Ancient India Transformed the World, Grand Opera House, York, September 2, 7.30pm
HISTORIAN William Dalrymple, co-host of the Empire podcast, tells the story of how, from 250BC to 1200AD, India transformed the world: exporting religion, art, science, medicine and language along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific, creating a vast and profoundly important empire of ideas.
Dalrymple explores how Indian ideas crossed political borders and influenced everything they touched, from the statues in Roman seaports to the Buddhism of Japan, the poetry of China to the mathematics of Baghdad. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Tales of a foster parent in her Peacock show at Pocklington Arts Centre
Comedy gig of the week: Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Peacock, Pocklington Arts Centre, September 5, 8pm
KIRI Pritchard-McLean has had a busy few years, hosting Live At The Apollo, fronting the BBC Radio 4 panel show Best Medicine, co-hosting the All Killa No Filla podcast, starting a comedy school and becoming a foster parent.
After a couple of the eggiest gigs of her career in boardrooms, a show about being a foster carer has been signed off, wherein she lifts the lid on social workers, first aid training and what not to do when a vicar searches for you on YouTube. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Story Craft Theatre’s Cassie Vallance, left, and Janet Bruce: Making their Fangfest debutwith a magical and adventurous story for two to eight-year-olds, featuring music, games and puppetry, on both days at 2.30pm in the Fangfoss Hall orchard
Festival of the week: Fangfest Festival of Practical Arts, Fangfoss, near York, September 7 and 8. 10am to 4pm
THE annual Fangfest returns with its celebration of traditional and contemporary art and craft skills as creatives, businesses and charities gather next weekend.
The event features a flower festival, vintage and veteran cars, archery, Stamford Bridge History Society, music on the green, the Story Craft Theatre Company, a teddy bear trail, produce stalls and free craft activities, as well as 30 working craft exhibitors and workshops in needle felting, wood carving, spinning and embroidery. Entry to Fangfest is free; parking is £2 per vehicle in aid of Friends of St Martin’s School.
Bjorn Again: Thanking Abba for the music at York Barbican and Connexin Live, Hull, on their 2025 tour
Gig announcement of the week: Bjorn Again, York Barbican, September 28 2025, and Connexin Live, Hull, October 29 2025
AFTER festival appearances at Wilderness and Glastonbury this summer, Bjorn Again announce a British and Irish tour from September 26 to November 2 2025, taking in York Barbican on the third night and Connexin Live, Hull, a month later.
Founded in 1988 in Melbourne by Australianmusician/manager Rod Stephen, the tribute show carries the endorsement of Abba’s own Agnetha Fältskog. Designed as a tongue-in-cheek, rocked-up, light-hearted ABBA satire, the show is in its 37th year, having seen more than 100 musicians and vocalists and 400 technical crew/support staff contribute to 5,500 performances in 75 countries. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk and connexinlivehull.com.
In Focus: 60 songs, 50 years, four concerts, two nights, add up to Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall
Elvis Costello: 60 songs from 50 years in four shows in two nights at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall in September
ELVIS Costello brings his new career-spanning presentation, 15 Songs From 50 Years, to Leeds City Varieties on September 2 and 3 for four unique performances over two days, all sold out.
Walking in the footsteps of Harry Houdini and beyond the long shadow of Charlie Chaplin, Frank Carson and Leonard Sachs at the Swan Street music hall, Costello will be joined at each 75-minute show by keyboard player Steve Nieve, his long-serving, Royal College of Music-trained cohort in The Attractions and The Imposters.
Each day, the 7pm soiree will feature an entirely different repertoire to the 9.30pm set list, the songs being selected from each of the five decades of Costello’s songwriting, whether solo or in the company of Flip City; American country rock band Clover; The Attractions; Squeeze’s Chris Difford; The Coward Brothers, with T-Bone Burnett; the Confederates; Paul McCartney; the Brodsky Quartet; The Imposters; Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint or the Roots.
A 15-song programme will be printed in advance of each concert with few, if any repeats anticipated but with the possibility of impromptu choices along the way. Costello. 69, and Nieve, 66, very occasionally take requests but should never be mistaken for a jukebox.
The third and fourth performances, on the second day, will “propose a deuce of delights”: two entirely different 15-song set-lists selected from half a century of popular songwriting craft.
“Leeds City Varieties Music Hall has always been known for magic, melody, mirth and mayhem,” says Elvis Costello
“The four shows are guaranteed to feature 60 different songs, but we suspect this is just the start,” predicts the shows’ publicity machine.
Those who wanted to attend all four contrasting shows in this exclusive engagement were able to obtain a special season ticket to include premium seats for each show in the front rows or boxes with exclusive use of the bar in between shows.
Asked about the involvement of his perennial cohort, Steve Nieve, Costello said: “Well, to paraphrase John Lennon, Steve Nieve will ‘leap over horses, through hoops, up garters and lastly, through a hogshead of real fire’ to bring his particular brand of musical magnificence to these performances.”
Costello added: “The City Varieties Music Hall has always been known for magic, melody, mirth and mayhem. These are all well within our grasp. By the way, had my father not taken a trumpet-playing engagement in London, just before my arrival into this world, I would have been a Chapeltown boy and this would be my hometown gig.“
In the wortds of the City Varieties blurb: “Unsurpassed in variety and voluminosity, Costello’s renowned refrains, romances, broadsides, bulletins and ballads are perfectly matched by Steve Nieve’s pulchritudinous and pulsating piano playing.
“The paragon of the profound and the peculiar, these premier performers present a penetrating pageant for perceptive and perspicacious patrons.”
For ticket updates on late availability, visit leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/costello-and-nieve-2024.
Shaparak Khorsandi: “Letting you back into her mind after ADHD diagnosis”
AFTER reassessing her life through the prism of an ADHD diagnosis in last year’s Fringe show, ShapChat, and her Scatter Brain memoir, Shaparak Khorsandi lets you back into her mind in her new show at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre on October 2.
“Warning: it’s cluttered in there,” says the 51-year-old British Comedy Award-nominated comedian, raconteur, I’m A Celebrity contestant and author of fiction and non-fiction.
Among other things, her Scatterbrain show will be a love letter to letter-writing, a trip back through Khorsandi’s early years as a comic and woman-about-town, and a whirlwind tour of her “hilarious and sometimes frantic brain”. At least, it might be, given the promise of “delightfully shambolic” comedy.
As the tour publicity puts it: “Although it might not be remembered by Shaparak herself, that’s part of how ADHD works. And actually, we’ll probably check in with her in case she’s decided to start a career as an antique furniture expert instead.
“The diagnosis has helped Shaparak make sense of many aspects of her behaviour and personality, as movingly chronicled in Scatter Brain (subtitled How I Finally Got Off The ADHD Rollercoaster To Become The Owner Of A Very Tidy Sock Drawer, published by Penguin Books).
“In this national tour of the same name, a woman who deserves the tag of national treasure uses her newly liberated mind as a springboard for a comedic rollercoaster ride.”
Impatient Productions present Shaparak Khorsandi: Scatterbrain, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, October 2, 7.45pm. Box office: 01723 370541or sjt.uk.com. Khorsandi’s 23-date September 11 to December 3 tour also visits Hull Truck Theatre, October 3, 7.30pm, and Old Woollen, Farsley, Leeds, October 16, 8pm. Box office: Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; Farsley, oldwoollen.co.uk.
York actress Frances Marshall in rehearsal for Alan Ayckbourn’s 90th play, Show &Tell. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
ALAN Ayckbourn’s 90th play and the Fangfest arts weekend lead Charles Hutchinson’s recommendations for the weeks ahead.
Premiere of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Show & Tell, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, September 5 to October 5
BILL Champion, Paul Kemp, Frances Marshall, Richard Stacey and Olivia Woolhouse will be the cast for the 90th play by Scarborough writer-director Alan Ayckbourn, a love letter to theatre entitled Show & Tell.
In a delightfully dark farce that lifts the lid on the performances we act out on a daily basis, Jack is planning a big party for his wife’s birthday. Pulling out all the stops, he has booked a touring theatre company to perform in the main hall of the family home. Unfortunately, Jack is becoming forgetful in his old age, rendering him unable to remember all the details of the booking.
The Homelight Theatre Company is on its knees, desperately needing a well-paid gig – and Jack’s booking is very well paid. Pinning him down on the details has been tricky, however and something does not feel quite right. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Allied Air Forces Memorial Day at the Yorkshire Air Museum, pictured in 2023
We will remember them: Allied Air Forces Memorial Day, Yorkshire Air Museum, Halifax Way, Elvington, near York, Sunday, from 1.45pm
THE Yorkshire Military Marching Band will lead the 1.45pm parade featuring standard bearers from 16 Royal British Legion and RAF Association branches in one of the biggest events in the museum’s calendar.
Representatives of the RAF will join with counterparts from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and France in honouring the bravery and sacrifices of the allied air crews who flew from the airfield during the Second World War, many of whom did not survive. The day will climax with a 2.15pm service in the main hangar, under the nose of Halifax Bomber Friday the 13th. Open to museum visitors and invited guests.
Busted: Concluding the 2024 season at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on Saturday
Coastal gig of the week: Busted, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Saturday, gates open at 6pm
BUSTED close Cuffe & Taylor’s summer of outdoor gigs in Scarborough 22 years after first bouncing into the charts with the pop-punk energy of What I Go To School For and a year on from releasing Greatest Hits 2.0, an album of re-recorded hits with guests to mark the reunion of James Bourne, Matt Willis and Charlie Simpson.
Expect number one smashes Crashed The Wedding, Who’s David, Thunderbirds Are Go and You Said No to feature in Saturday’s set list, along with Year 3000, Air Hostess, Sleeping With The Lights On, Loser Kid and Everything I Knew. Support comes from Skinny Living and Soap. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/busted.
William Dalrymple: Reflecting on India’s impact on the ancient world in his Grand Opera House talk
History talk of the week: William Dalrymple, How Ancient India Transformed the World, Grand Opera House, York, September 2, 7.30pm
HISTORIAN William Dalrymple, co-host of the Empire podcast, tells the story of how, from 250BC to 1200AD, India transformed the world: exporting religion, art, science, medicine and language along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific, creating a vast and profoundly important empire of ideas.
Dalrymple explores how Indian ideas crossed political borders and influenced everything they touched, from the statues in Roman seaports to the Buddhism of Japan, the poetry of China to the mathematics of Baghdad. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Tales of a foster parent in her Peacock show at Pocklington Arts Centre
Comedy gig of the week: Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Peacock, Pocklington Arts Centre, September 5, 8pm
KIRI Pritchard-McLean has had a busy few years, hosting Live At The Apollo, fronting the BBC Radio 4 panel show Best Medicine, co-hosting the All Killa No Filla podcast, starting a comedy school and becoming a foster parent.
After a couple of the eggiest gigs of her career in boardrooms to social workers, a show about being a foster carer has been signed off, wherein she lifts the lid on social workers, first aid training and what not to do when a vicar searches for you on YouTube. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Tribute acts at the treble: Coldplay It Again, Stereoconics and Oasis Here Now re-heat the hits at Milton Rooms, Malton
Tribute gig of the week: Coldplay It Again, Stereoconics and Oasis Here Now, Milton Rooms, Malton, September 7, 7pm
THIS tribute triple bill brings together Coldplay It Again replicating the look, sound and spirit of a Colplay show, Stereoconics’ faithful versions of Stereophonics’ songs and Oasis Here Now’s devotion to the style and swagger of Oasis in their Nineties’ heyday, just as the Gallagher brothers announce their first gigs since 2009 for next summer. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Gerry Grant: Demonstrating Raku firing at Fangfoss Pottery
Festival of the week: Fangfest Festival of Practical Arts, Fangfoss, near York, September 7 and 8. 10am to 4pm
TWENTY-FIVE years on from its inception, the annual Fangfest returns with its celebration of traditional and contemporary art and craft skills as creatives, businesses and charities gather next weekend.
The festival features a flower festival, vintage and veteran cars, archery, Stamford Bridge History Society, music on the green, the Story Craft Theatre Company, a teddy bear trail, produce stalls and free craft activities, as well as 30 working craft exhibitors and workshops in needle felting, wood carving, spinning and embroidery. Entry to Fangfest is free; parking is £2 per vehicle in aid of Friends of St Martins School.
Bjorn Again: Thanking Abba for the music in York and Hull on their 2025 tour
Gig announcement of the week: Bjorn Again, York Barbican, September 28 2025, and Connexin Live, Hull, October 29 2025
AFTER festival appearances at Wilderness and Glastonbury this summer, Bjorn Again announce a British and Irish tour from September 26 to November 2 2025, taking in York Barbican on the third night and Connexin Live, Hull.
Founded in 1988 in Melbourne by Australianmusician/manager Rod Stephen, the tribute show carries the endorsement of Abba’s own Agnetha Fältskog. Designed as a tongue-in-cheek, rocked-up, light-hearted ABBA satire, the show is in its 37th year, having seen more than 100 musicians and vocalists and 400 technical crew/support staff contribute to 5,500 performances in 75 countries. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk and connexinlivehull.com.
Barney Taylor’s Andy, front left, and Hannah Woodward’s Gloria lead the cheers in Brassed Off. Picture: Pamela Raith
YORK filmmaker Mark Herman’s 1996 colliery band drama Brassed Off was first turned into a stage play with music by Paul Allen at Sheffield Crucible in 1998.
Bridlington-born Herman and Alan Ayckbourn biographer and “failed trombonist” Allen were both in the audience for Tuesday’s Scarborough press night for Liz Stevenson’s co-production for Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, the Stepehen Joseph Theatre and the Bolton Octagon Theatre.
Like the Crucible, all three are theatres in the round, an intimate 360-degree seating configuration that engenders and enhances the intense sense of community that Herman and in turn Allen extol.
“Since the first performances in 1998 it has become more and more of a memory play,” writes Allen in his programme notes before adding: “It always was (the pits had nearly all closed or been scheduled for closure by then) but I don’t think I thought of it that way at the time.”
Stevenson’s 2024 production – 40 years after the cataclysmic Miners’ Strike and 30 after the 1994 setting of Herman’s film – is very much a memory play, still narrated by Phil’s son, Shane, but now the 38-year-old, enervated adult Shane (Andrew Turner), who goes on to play his idealistic eight-year-old self.
In trim white shirt and dark trousers, he matches the look of the Narrator in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, but whereas Russell’s character is all-knowing and menacing, Shane is wistful and still seeking answers: answers that tellingly are not forthcoming as hope withers on the vine.
Allen’s notes predict “no obvious collective future in the age of the internet”, but he does say ‘we are a community, in the theatre or the concert hall, just as a band or company of actors have that sense of community’. That sentiment is all the more pertinent in an age when the arts have been subject to funding cuts and a curriculum cull at schools at universities, just as the mining industry was crushed under the Tory boot in the 1980s and ’90s.
Director Stevenson was adamant Brassed Off in 2024 should not be a “nostalgia festival”, and it most definitely isn’t, even if brass band music always evokes the past, like the first whiff of Bisto. A memory play, yes, but one fuelled by bad memories, as much as by a beleaguered community pulling together, their northern humour and jesting, jousting banter defiant to the last in a play suffused with raw wounds, pathos and pride.
And the band played on: A rousing moment in miners’ lamps in Brassed Off. Picture: Pamela Raith
Simon Kenny’s set design could not be starker: a coal-black floor and a spoil heap on a curve, with a pile of coal at each end, to contrast with the canary-yellow crate seating, brought on and off stage by Stevenson’s cast, and the glint of the brass instruments.
The plot, should you need a refresher course, finds the mining community of Grimley, Yorkshire, fighting to keep the colliery open ten years after the Miners’ Strike. Widowed band leader Danny (Russell Richardson) is fighting too, both against ill health and to keep his dispirited band of brass-playing miners together, when his dream of qualifying for the national championships is countered by the spectre of a vote to decide the miners and the mine’s future.
We meet couples under stultifying pressure: Danny’s son, trombone player and hapless clown Phil (Joey Hickman) and wife Sandra (Daneka Etchells), struggling with debts and a new-born fourth child; veteran miners and band members Jim (Greg Patmore) and Harry (Matt Ian Kelly) and their exasperated wives Vera (Joanna Holden) and Rita (Maxine Finch).
Then comes the re-kindling of a school-day crush as Gloria (Hannah Woodward) returns to Grimley, to work on a research project and add her flugelhorn to the band, while stirring old feelings in local lothario Shane (Andrew Turner). A Montague-Capulet division plays out in their latter-day Romeo & Juliet wooing, but with Yorkshire frankness.
To quote Allen again: “Sharing a room, however briefly, and sharing an emotional roller-coaster, we are something more than our individual selves for a few hours but also utterly ourselves. Which is rather glorious.”
How right he is, and that sense of community striving to survive beyond the dying of the mining age is all the stronger for the band playing on. Here that band combines five actor-musicians from the cast (Hickman, Patmore, Kelly, Taylor and Woodward) with a pool of community musicians (including Kate Lock, from York) that changes from show to show.
Matthew Malone’s arrangements are a joy, bringing cheers and tears alike. So do Stevenson’s cast, especially Richardson’s stoical Danny, Hickman’s desperate Phil, Etchells’ despairing Sandra and the sparky sparring of Taylor’s Andy and Woodward’s Gloria.
Brassed Off: still angry, still moving, still as resilient and resonant as ever. Top brass, top class, you might say, as the standing ovation testifies.
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, and Octagon Theatre, Bolton present Brassed Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until August 31, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
The Delma Tomlin sculpture in the York Trailblazers trail of tansy beetle artworks
TRAILBLAZERS in beetle form, Georgian festivities, colliery band dramas, and riverside art take Charles Hutchinson in different directions in the week ahead.
Trail of the week: York Trailblazers, around York city centre, August 1 to September 30
FACT of the day: the river Ouse has the largest population of tansy beetles in the United Kingdom. Now sculptures of these insects form a new trail, York Trailblazers, a celebration of York’s unsung heroes mounted by York Civic Trust and Make It York with National Lottery Heritage Fund support.
Nominated by the public and community groups, the Trailblazers project highlights remarkable individuals who have made a difference to people’s lives either locally or globally.
Author Terry Deary: Introducing his new novel at the York Georgian Festival this evening
Festival of the week: York Georgian Festival, today to Sunday
THE second York Georgian Festival opens tomorrow, when Horrible Histories author Terry Deary’s 6pm showcase of his new novel, A History Of Britain In Ten Enemies, will be an early highlight.
Tours, talks and fascinating hidden Georgian gems will be at the heart of the festival. The first York Georgian Ball will be held at the Grand Assembly Rooms (now home to the ASK Italian restaurant) on Saturday at 7pm. Look out for Mad Alice’s Rogues Gallery Tour around the city at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. For the full programme and tickets, head to: yorkgeorgianfestival.co.uk.
Brass band blues: A scene from Brassed Off at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Play of the week outside York: Brassed Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tomorrow (2/8/2024) to August 31
ADAPTED for the stage by Paul Allen from the 1996 screenplay by York filmmaker Mark Herman, Brassed Off takes to the stage in a co-production by Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre and Bolton’s Octagon Theatre, directed by Liz Stevenson.
The setting is 1994, ten years after the miners’ strike, when the tight-knit mining community of Grimley, Yorkshire, is fighting to keep the colliery open. Once the uncertainty around the pit’s future becomes too much for the pit band members, loyalty is tested, pressure mounts and the community begins to break apart. Can the band find a way to play on? Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Yard Act: Leeds art rock band play in their backyard on Saturday. Picture: Phoebe Fox
Leeds gig of the week: Yard Act, Here’s Our Utopia, Leeds Millennium Square, August 3, doors 6pm; 10.30pm finish
LEEDS art rock band Yard Act play their biggest gig yet on home turf at Leeds Millennium Square this weekend in the wake of the March release of second album Where’s My Utopia?.
Co-produced by James Smith’s indie quartet and Gorillaz member Remi Kabaka Jr, the album peaked at number four, following the number two success and Mercury Prize shortlisting of 2022 debut The Overload. Support acts will be English Teacher, Fat Dog and Ultimate Thunder. Box office: 0113 376 0318 or millsqleeds.com/whatson-event/yard-act/.
Laura Joy’s poster design for the 2024 York River Art Market weekends. She will be participating in all six days. Check out her work at laurajoydesign.co.uk
York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, August 3 and 4; August 10 and 10; August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm
ORGANISED by jewellery designer and York College art tutor Charlotte Dawson, York River Art Market returns to the riverbank at Dame Judi Dench Walk for a ninth summer season from this weekend.
Up to 30 artists and makers per day will be exhibiting ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, T-shirts, shaving products and more. “We care that each of the six events are never the same, so we host a different variety of creatives at each one,” says Charlotte. Admission is free.
Richard Hudson’s Unwind: On show at Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden. Picture: Celestine Dubruel
Exhibition of the week: Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden, Kirkgate, Thirsk, open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 5pm, last entry 4pm
THIRSK Hall Sculpture Garden showcases modern and contemporary sculptures in 20 acres of walled gardens and parkland at the grade II-listed town house, complemented by artwork in Gallery One and The Orangery.
Artists on show include Farnoush Amini, Kenneth Armitage, Tere Chad, Tim Ellis, Laura Ford, Richard Hudson, Jeff Lowe, Gerald Laing, Michael Lyons, Trory Menage, Zak Ové, Tim Pomeroy, William Tucker, Austin Wright and Emily Young. To find out more about the 2024 exhibition, visit willoughnygerrish.com. Tickets: thirskhall.com/sculpture-garden.
Chris Hagyard, pictured in Guys And Dolls mode, will sing in Bev Jones Music Company’s One Night Of Broadway Hits
Musical revue of the week: Steve Coates and Bev Jones Music Company present One Night Of Broadway Hits, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 3, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
BEV Jones Music Company performs hits from 26 musicals, including Guys And Dolls, in an unashamedly traditional fashion under the musical direction of James Rodgers.
His band is joined in this moving, lively and at times funny show by vocalists Chris Hagyard, Annabel Van Griethuysen, Anthony Pengelly, Ruth McNeil, Sally Lewis, Stephen Wilson, Geoff Walker and producer Lesley Jones, back on stage for this show, wearing a silver cat suit unseen since 2010, when she played Vera in Stepping Out. Box office: 01904 501395 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Hurry up Harry: The Three Inch Fools cast for The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII at Helmsley Walled Garden
Ryedale play of the week: The Three Inch Fools in The Secret Diary Of Henry VIII, Helmsley Walled Garden, August 6, 7pm; gates 6pm
THE Three Inch Fools, founded by the Cumbrian Hyde brothers, producer James and writer, composer and director Stephen, present an essential guide on how to keep your head in the Tudor Court in a new comical take on Henry VIII and his six-pack of infamous wives.
Unexpectedly thrust into the limelight, Henry must navigate the ups and downs of courtly life, all while fighting the French yet again and re-writing religious doctrine. Bring chairs, blankets, picnics, but not umbrellas. Park in the Cleveland Way car park. Box office: 01439 771700, helmsleyarts.co.uk or threeinchfools.com.
Korn-ucopia of heavy metal hits at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on August 8
Coastal gig of the week: Korn, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 8, gates 6pm
FORMED in California in 1993, Korn continue to push the limits of alt. rock and heavy metal after 40 million album sales, two Grammy awards and countless tours. Expect to hear such anthems as Blind, Falling Away From Me, Here To Stay, Freak On A Leash, Twisted Transistor, Make Me Bad and Did My Time as their European tour arrives in Yorkshire. Support acts will be Wargasm and Loathe. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/korn.
Riley Catherall: Playing Pig & Pastry, York, on a tour that takes the Australian singer-songwriter to Nayland, Kirton in Lindsay, High Wycombe and Stockholm, Uddevalla and Oland in Sweden
Introducing: Riley Catherall, Pig & Pastry, Bishopthorpe Road, York, August 8. Doors: 7.30pm for 8pm start
MELBOURNE singer-songwriter Riley Catherall’s graceful trajectory into the Australian alt-country world has not gone unnoticed. So much so that he will be playing in York on Thursday, promising songs of poetic sincerity from his June 14 sophomore album The Light, The Beautiful Liar and his 2021 debut When I Go, a record focused on leaving, losing love and finding somewhere to settle down. Box office: wegottickets.com/event/624233/.
Anastacia: Playing York Barbican next May on her Not That Kind 25th Anniversary Tour
Gig announcement of the week: Anastacia, Not That Kind 25th Anniversary Tour, York Barbican, May 4 2025
CHICAGO singer-songwriter Anastacia will play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire concert of the 13-date British and Irish leg of her Not That Kind tour next year, marking the 25th anniversary of her debut album.
“I didn’t get to do a tour for my first album, which makes this all the more special,” says Anastacia. “I can’t believe it’s been 25 years since Not That Kind; we will be sure to celebrate in true Anastacia style. It’ll be one big anniversary party. I can’t wait to see you all there !” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/anastacia-2025/.
In Focus:The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, August 9 and 10
Actress, vocalist and accordion player Natalia Tena fronts Molotov Jukebox at The Magpies Festival, backed by Balkan fiddle, Latin trumpet and a pounding rhythm section, on Friday
RUN by transatlantic folk band The Magpies, The Magpies Festival is rooted in the trio’s native Yorkshire, where they first met. Now in its fourth year, the 2024 event will be headlined on Friday on the main stage by bi-lingual six-piece Molotov Jukebox at 10pm, preceded by Chris While & Julie Matthews, 6pm, and Jim Moray, 8pm.
Friday’s Brass Castle Stage bill features Em Risley, 5pm; Taff Rapids Stringband, 7pm; The Turbans, 9pm, and Easingwold musician Gary Stewart’s Graceland, 11pm.
Saturday’s main stage bill will be topped by Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys at 10pm, preceded by Charm Of Finches, 12 noon, The Often Herd, 2pm, Jesca Hoop, 4pm, The Magpies, 6pm, and Nati (formerly known as Nati Dreddd), 8pm. Saturday’s Brass Castle Stage line-up comprises Painted Sky, 1pm; Suntou Susso, 3pm; Northern Resonance, 5pm; Awkward Family Portraits, 7pm, and Marvara, 9pm.
Festival organisers The Magpies
The all-female The Magpies – Bella Gaffney (singer, songwriter, guitarist and banjo player), fellow founder Holly Brandon (fiddle player and tunesmith) and Ellie Gowers (guitarist, singer and songwriter) – are set on championing gender equality in the music industry, achieving gender parity in both line-up and staff, as well as providing a safe and comfortable environment for female musicians and festival goers.
Festival director Holly Brandon says: “We are so excited to put on The Magpies Festival. We’ve been over the moon at the response to the festival, from the incredible performances from world-class folk musicians to the high-energy spirit that our attendees brought along. It’s felt like a whole new feel to a folk festival.”
Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets.
Sam Kellly & The Lost Boys: To be found at The Magpies Festival at Sutton Park on Saturday
The Gesualdo Six: Performing in the Chapter House at York Minster on July 9 as part of the 2024 York Early Music Festival. Picture: Ash Mills
A CELEBRATION of the voice, the truth behind Dracula, flying doctors and grim tales lead off Charles Hutchinson’s tips for jaunty July trips.
York festival of the week: 2024 York Early Music Festival, Metamorfosi, today until July 13
IN an eight-day celebration of music from the medieval to the baroque under the title of Metamorfosi, York Ealy Music Festival will focus on the human voice and song with performances by Concerto Soave, The Gesualdo Six, festival newcomers Vox Luminis and Cappella Pratensis & I Fedeli, The Sixteen, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rose Consort of Viols and Gawain Glenton’s Ensemble In Echo.
Taking part too will be mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, the Consone Quartet, Cubaroque, Apotropaïk and Utopia, climaxing with the biennial York International Young Artists Competition. Full festival programme and tickets at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Box office: 01904 658338.
Princess locked up in the castle: Freckle Productions in Zog & The Flying Doctors
Children’s show of the week: Freckle Productions in Zog & The Flying Doctors, Grand Opera House, York, today and tomorrow, 10.30am and 1.30pm
ZOG, super-keen student-turned-air ambulance, still lands with a bang-crash-thump. Together with his Flying Doctor crew, Princess Pearl and Sir Gadabout, they tend to a sunburnt mermaid, a unicorn with one too many horns and a lion with the flu.
However, Pearl’s uncle, the King, has other ideas about whether princesses should be doctors, and soon she is soon locked up in the castle. Can her friends and half a pound of cheese help Pearl make her uncle better and prove princesses can be doctors too in this Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler story with music and lyrics by Joe Stilgoe? Suitable for age three upwards. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Carnival time in Copmanthorpe
Carnival of the week: Cop’ Carnival, Copmanthorpe Recreation Centre, Barons Crescent, Copmanthorpe, York, today, 11.30am to 7pm
IN its 55th year, Cop’ Carnival features live music acts and dance troupes on the main stage, an inflatable assault course, fairground rides and attractions, street food vendors, free children’s entertainment, stalls and more besides. No dogs are allowed on site, apart from assistance dogs. Tickets are on sale at copcarnival.org.uk/tc-events/the-cop-carnival-day/; under-14s are admitted free of charge.
Sam Johnson: Playing with his jazz trio at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Jazz gig of the week: Sam Johnson Trio, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow (7/7/2024),
THE Sam Johnson Trio, led by pianist Sam Johnson with Georgia Johnson on bass and James Wood on drums, bring a mid-20th century jazz vibe to their performance, in the style of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, Oscar Peterson Trio and vintage Blue Note and Verve Records artists.
Combining original material with jazz standards from the past seven decades, the trio will be joined by guest soloists and frequent collaborators Richard Oakman (saxophone) and Kirsty Hughes (vocals). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Macabre: Killian Macardle, left, Annie Kirkman and Chris Hannon in Dracula: The Bloody Truth at the SJT. Picture: Pamela Raith
Comedy drama of the week: Dracula: The Bloody Truth, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight to July 27
THE Stephen Joseph Theatre teams up with Bolton’s Octagon Theatre to stage physical theatre comedy exponents La Navet Bete & John Nicholson’s Dracula: The Bloody Truth, based very loosely on Bram Stoker’s story.
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs Chris Hannon, Annie Kirkman, Alyce Liburd and Killian Macardle as vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing reveals the real story behind the legend of Dracula, the one with the Whitby connection. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Paul Weller: Reflecting on turning 66 at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
Coastal gigs of the week: Fatboy Slim, today; Paul Weller, tomorrow, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, gates open at 6pm
NORMAN Cook has come a long way, baby, since he played bass in Hull band The Housemartins. Now the BRIT award-winning, Brighton-based DJ, aka Fatboy Slim, heads back north to fill Scarborough with big beats and huge hooks in Rockafeller Skank, Gangster Trippin, Praise You and Right Here Right Now et al tonight.
The Modfather Paul Weller showcases his 17th studio album, 66, full of ruminations on ageing, in Sunday’s set of songs from The Jam, Style Council and his solo years. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Here wig go: Sarah-Louise Young in I Am Your Tribute at Theatre@41 Monkgate, York
Fringe show of the week: Sarah-Louise Young, I Am Your Tribute, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, July 11, 7.30pm
AFTER An Evening Without Kate Bush, the Julie Andrews-focused Julie Madly Deeply and The Silent Treatment, Sarah-Louise Young returns to Theatre@41 with her Edinburgh Fringe-bound new show, I Am Your Tribute.
In her “most ambitiously interactive performance yet”, she invites you to help her create the ultimate tribute to an act of your choosing. Along the way she will teach you the tricks of the trade, share her greatest hits and uncover the occasionally darker side of living in someone’s else’s shadow. Expect music, wigs and wonderment. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Rowntree Players cast members rehearsing for Grimm Tales
Fairy tales of the week: Rowntree Players in Grimm Tales, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 11 to 13, 7.30pm
AMI Carter directs Rowntree Players in Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of Grimm Tales, dramatised by Tim Supple, with Chris Meadley in the role of the Narrator.
The cast of 15 takes a journey through a selection of delightfully bizarre stories from the Brothers Grimm collection to reveal their true origins and to discover that the path to a happy ending can, indeed, be a little grim. Box office: 01904 501395 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
In Focus: Weekend events at Ripon Theatre Festival, July 6 and 7
The Tea Cosies: Street entertainment with Kitch’n’Sync today
PUPPETS, stories, dance, drama, circus and street entertainment pop up in new and surprising places alongside more familiar venues, such as Newby Hall, The Old Deanery, Ripon Cathedral, Ripon Arts Hub and Fountains Abbey, as Ripon Theatre Festival returns for its third year.
Saturday keeps festivalgoers on the move in a day of Pop-Up Events at various locations from 9.30am to 6pm. Ilaria Passeri hosts a morning of adventures for four-year-olds and upwards in Tales From Honeypot Village, featuring Rita the Mouse and the Tidy Trolls in the front room of The Unicorn Hotel at 9.30am and the back room of The Little Ripon Bookshop at 11.30am.
Puppeteers Eye Of Newt open their magical miniature suitcase for Ayla’s Dream, a captivating tale of night skies, light and counting sheep for three to ten-year-olds at Ripon Library at 10.30am (accompanied by a puppet workshop) and Ripon Cathedral from 12 noon to 12.30pm (performance every ten minutes).
York performer Tempest Wisdom takes a journey down the rabbit hole in the family-friendly Curiouser & Curiouser, a show for age five + packed with Lewis Carroll’s whimsical writings, inspired by Ripon Cathedral’s nooks and crannies. Free performances take place at Ripon Cathedral at 11am, 12.30pm and The Little Ripon Bookshop at 2.30pm.
Join the Master and Matron on the front lawn for an interactive game of giant Snakes And Ladders At The Workhouse Museum. Learn how life then, as now, is as precarious as a shake of the dice; slither down the snake to a shaven head and defumigation or ascent to a life out of the ashes from 11am to 12.30pm or 1pm to 3pm.
Festival favourites Lempen Puppet Theatre return with the free show Theatre For One in Ripon Cathedral from 10.45am to 11.30pm and Kirkgate from 1.30pm to 2.30pm and 3pm to 4pm. In a micro-theatre experience for one at a time, plus curious onlookers, a mini-performance of The Belly Bug or Dr Frankenstein will be staged every five minutes.
Tempest Wisdom: Taking a journey down the rabbit hole in Curiouser & Curiouser
Members of the Workhouse Theatre Group invite you to experience justice 1871 style in The Trial Of John Sinkler in a case of poaching and threatening behaviour from 2pm to 3pm at The Courthouse Museum.
Ensure justice is seen to be done or perhaps take a more active role in a lively scripted re-enactment led by Mark Cronfield, formerly of Nobby Dimon’s North Country Theatre company.
The festival fun continues in Kirkgate with buskers, bands and more from 3pm to 6pm, while Street Entertainment will be spread between Market Place, Minster Gardens and city streets with a fiesta of free events from 10am to 4pm.
Mark Cronfield and Tom Frere invite you to hail down the ultimate in Georgian transport for Sedan Chair Stories. Be carried above the hoi polloi as your footmen pass on their scurrilous stories from Ripon’s scandalous past.
Bearded Belfast multi-manipulator and circus performer Logy will be juggling danger and excitement in Logy On Fire, a show of full of raw rock’n’roll comedy. Look out for the beautiful birds of The Bachelors Of Paradise parading their glorious wingspans and beautiful tailfeathers.
In Stone Soup, a suitcase show performed from a travelling cart with music and comical puppets, Hebden Bridge company Eye Of Newt ask this question: can you really make soup with only a stone? The secret to making a delicious soup rests with a wandering stranger.
Street performers and fatal fools Medieval Maniax promise to amuse and bemuse with their historical hysterics, music and illusions. Kitch’n’Sync, from Wales, invite you to have a natter with their colourful crochet trolley dollies, Dorothy Dunker, Tippy Teapot and Barbara Bourbon, alias The Tea Cosies.
Logy On Fire: Multi-manipulator and circus performer
A friendly team from Casson & Friends will connect you with the childlike joy of play in their interactive games, set to a bouncing electronic soundtrack, in Arcade.
Playing their part in the day too will be Yorkshire Voices, Medusa, Ripon City Morris Dancers, 400 Roses And Thorns, Ripon Drum Circle, The U3A Folk Group, The Wakeman Mummers, Ripon Rock Choir and Workhouse Walkabouts.
Weekend community performers contribute to the festival on Sunday too in the form of Lily Worth, Trinity Singers, Freddie Cleary, Ripon Goes To Bollywood, Henshaws Performing Arts Group, Danceability, Passion For Movement, Cricket On The Hearth, The U3A Ukulele Group and Ripon Walled Garden Performers.
Open-air theatre specialists Illyria present Oliver Grey’s adaptation of Hugo Lofting’s The Adventures Of Doctor Doolittle in the Newby Hall Gardens at 5.30pm (gates 5pm). In this new family musical, performed with wit and flair, Doctor Doolittle leads a simple life as a village doctor until one day, with the help of his wise old parrot Polynesia, he makes an extraordinary discovery: he can talk to animals.
Radical Leeds troupe Red Ladder Theatre Company return to the festival to with We’re Not Going Back, Boff Whalley’s Miners’ Strike musical comedy about 75 mines, three sisters, one cause and a six-pack of Babycham at Ripon Arts Hub at 7.30pm.
In early 1984, the everyday squabbles of sisters Olive, Mary and Isabel collide with a strike that forces them to question their lives, their relationships and their family ties.
Sunday has a couple of Pop-Up Events, led off by Opera Brunch with down-to-earth diva Nicola Mills, from Huddersfield, whose song menu at Valentino’s Ristorante ranges from Italian arias to crossover classics, served with sweet or savoury pastries and Bucks Fizz or a hot drink from 10.30am to 12 noon.
From 3pm to 4.30pm, in the Guardians’ Room of The Workhouse Museum, Fellfoss Theatre present a rehearsed reading and workshop performance of Fate And The Warrior, Mark Cronfield’s new play about the troubled and prolific Guyana-born author Edgar Mittelholzer, a pioneer of Caribbean culture. Join Cronfield and his scratch team of actors for a dark and intriguing tale in atmospheric surroundings.
Thingumajig Theatre in Kit And Caboodle
Ripon Spa Gardens and Market Place will play host to Sunday’s Family Day from 10am to 4pm. Look out for the Hedge Heads, suspicious-looking shrubbery lurking in the bushes; Henshaws Performing Arts Group’s The Golden Tree, fairy tales of heroes, villains, royalty and fools, and Open The Books’ The Story Of Daniel, a distillation of all the best bits in 20 minutes, dreams, lions et al.
In Wrongsemble’s epic new adventure The Not So Big Bad Wolf favourite tales are re-spun and woven by Little Red, adventurer, heroine and True Grimm podcaster, on a mission to debunk the myths around her so-called nemesis, with the help of a few storybook staples, her red cloak and a basket full of music, mayhem and magic tricks.
Thingumajig Theatre, from Hebden Bridge, return to Ripon with their big, beautiful, rolling mule packed with miniature puppet shows, full of stories and songs of remarkable journeys and refugees. Struzzo and Maxim, stalwarts of street theatre for many decades, promise music, magic and their famous ostrich.
Three quirky characters are waiting for a train but how will they pass the time in Grantham company Rhubarb Theatre’s show The Three Suitcases? Three Marie Antoinettes take to the street to feed the public their tasty treats in Let Them Eat Cake. Expect a right royal ruckus wherever these comedy pompous poodle-haired queens of comedy go.
Three courageous airmen, Roger, Reggie and Rupert, are caught in a freak storm in The Bombardiers. Armed only with their wits and extremely good looks, who knows where they will end up!
In The Fireman Dave Circus Skills Drop-In, Dave Ford, from Hebden Bridge, invites you to have a go at juggling, plate-spinning, diabolo, hula-hooping and more at Ripon Spa Gardens from 1pm to 2.30pm.
The 2024 festival concludes with Scottish company Folksy Theatre’s open-air production of Shakespeare’s leafy tale of banishment, love and disguise, As You Like It, at The Old Deanery at 7pm. Cue comedy stuffed with music, bold characters and audience interaction. Bring something to sit on, pack a picnic and come prepared for the weather.
“We believe that theatre should be for everyone,” says festival director Katie Scott. “Our varied and accessible programme of events provides real theatrical treats for seasoned theatre-goes, but also lively and low-cost opportunities for first-timers and families. We love bringing events to non-theatre spaces and working with local businesses and other partner organisations to create a buzz in the city which all can enjoy.”
For full festival details and tickets, head to: ripontheatrefestival.org. A preview of further events at Ripon Theatre Festival on July 6 and 7 will follow.
Folksy Theatre in As You Like It in the open air at The Old Deaneryon Sunday
Killian Macardle, left, Annie Kirkman and Chris Hannon in Dracula: The Bloody Truth at the SJT. Picture: Pamela Raith
THE truth behind Dracula, wall-to-wall graffiti, vicar irreverence and a blast of brass bring variety to Charles Hutchinson’s tips for jaunty July trips.
Comedy drama of the week: Dracula: The Bloody Truth, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight to July 27
THE Stephen Joseph Theatre teams up with Bolton’s Octagon Theatre to stage physical theatre comedy exponents La Navet Bete & John Nicholson’s Dracula: The Bloody Truth, based very loosely on Bram Stoker’s story.
SJT artistic director Paul Robinson directs Chris Hannon, Annie Kirkman, Alyce Liburd and Killian Macardle as vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing reveals the real story behind the legend of Dracula, the one with the Whitby connection. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Hamish Brown’s Alexis, left, Alexandra Mather’s Miss Aline Sangazure and Anthony Gardner’s John Wellington Wells in York Opera’s The Sorcerer. Picture: John Saunders
Everything stops for tea: York Opera in The Sorcerer, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
JOHN Soper directs York Opera in The Sorcerer, Gilbert and Sullivan’s first full-length comic opera, wherein Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre (Ian Thomson-Smith) hosts a tea party in the Ploverleigh Hall gardens to celebrate the betrothal of his only son, Alexis (Hamish Brown) to Miss Aline Sangazure (Alexandra Mather), daughter of Lady Annabella Sangazure (Rebecca Smith).
When a love-at-first-sight elixir is mixed into the celebration tea by a sorcerer, John Wellington Wells (Anthony Gardner, in the role played by Soper for York Opera in 2001), mayhem follows as the assembled guests fall under his magic spell. What could possibly go wrong? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Julia Bullock’s Geraldine Granger, Oliver Clive’s Hugo Horton, centre, and Grahame Sammons’s David Horton in 1812 Theatre Company’s The Vicar Of Dibley
Religious conversion of the week: 1812 Theatre Company in The Vicar Of Dibley, Helmsley Arts Centre, untilSaturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
JULIE Lomas directs Helmsley Arts Centre’s resident company in a stage play adapted from the original BBC television series by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer. When Reverend Pottle dies, much to the surprise of the Dibley Parish Council, his replacement is Geraldine Granger, a vicar who is also a chocoholic sex kitten.
Follow the antics of David Horton, his son Hugo, Jim, Owen, Frank and Mrs Cropley as they adjust to working with the witty and wonderful Geraldine, assisted by her verger, Alice Tinker. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Bright Light Musical Productions in Green Day’s American Idiot: York premiere at Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Picture: Dan Crawfurd-Porter
York musical of the week: Bright Light Musical Productions in Green Day’s American Idiot, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
NORTH Yorkshire company Bright Light Musical Productions make their JoRo debut in the York premiere of punk rock opera Green Day’s American Idiot with a cast of 14 directed by Dan Crawfurd-Porter and a seven-piece band under Matthew Peter Clare’s musical direction.
Inspired by the Californian band’s 2004 album, American Idiot tells the story of Johnny (Iain Harvey), “Jesus of Suburbia”, and his friends Will (William Thirlaway) and Tunny (Dan Poppitt) as they attempt to break out of their mind-numbing, aimless suburban existence. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
For those about to rock: Live/Wire take the highway to hell with AC/DC classics at The Crescent
Tribute show of the week: Live/Wire, The AC/DC Show, The Crescent, York, Friday and Saturday (sold out), doors 7.30pm
LIVE/WIRE, The AC/DC Show pays tribute to the Aussie heavy rock band, replete with a wall of Marshall amps for two hours of high voltage rock’n’roll. Podge Blacksmith, a double take for frontman Brian Johnson, revels in a set taking in everything from Highway To Hell and Whole Lotta Rosie to Back In Black and latest album Rock Or Bust. Box office for Friday only: thecrescentyork.com.
One of James Jessop’s works on show in Rise Of The Vandals at the disused office block at 2, Low Ousegate, York
Exhibition/installation of the week: Bombsquad, Rise Of The Vandals, 2, Low Ousegate, York, Friday to Sunday, 11am to 6pm.
SPREAD over four floors in a disused Low Ousegate office block, York art collective Bombsquad showcases retrospective and contemporary spray paint culture, graffiti, street art and public art in three galleries, a cinema room, a Wendy house and art shop, in aid of SASH (Safe and Sound Homes).
Taking part in Rise Of The Vandals are York graffiti archivist Keith Hopewell, James Jessop, Bristol legend Inkie, Chu, Rowdy, Kid Acne, Remi Rough, Prefab77, SODA, Replete, Jo Peel, Sharon McDonagh, Lincoln Lightfoot, Anonymouse, Boxxhead and live DJs in SODA’s booth. Free entry; donations are encouraged. Dog friendly.
Fatboy Slim: Cooking up the beats at Scarborough Open Air Theatre. Picture: fatboyslim.net
Coastal gigs of the week: Fatboy Slim, Saturday; Paul Weller, Sunday, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, gates open at 6pm
NORMAN Cook has come a long way, baby, since he played bass in Hull band The Housemartins. Now the BRIT award-winning, Brighton-based DJ, aka Fatboy Slim, heads back north to fill Scarborough with big beats and huge hooks in Rockafeller Skank, Gangster Trippin, Praise You and Right Here Right Now et al on Saturday night.
The Modfather Paul Weller showcases his 17th studio album, 66, full of ruminations on ageing, in Sunday’s set of songs from The Jam, Style Council and his solo years. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Paul Weller: Reflections on hitting 66 at Scarborough Open Air Theatre
Brass Band Summer Showcase of the week: Swinton & District Excelsior Brass Band, Milton Rooms, Malton, Sunday, 2pm
AS part of Brass Band Week, the Summer Showcase features the Swinton & District Excelsior Brass Band with trumpet and cornet soloist Sean Chandler. Taking part too will be the Swinton Training Band and The Workshop Band, including members from Swinton, Stape, Malton and Kirkbymoorside Brass Bands. Entry is free; tickets are available from 01653 696240, themiltonrooms.com or ticketsource.co.uk.
Sculptor Tony Cragg with his bronze work Outspan in the Great Hall at Castle Howard. Picture: Charlotte Graham
FROM landscape sculptures to community cinema screenings, a circus company’s novel assignment to a soap star’s heavenly musical role, Charles Hutchinson’s week ahead is taking shape.
Exhibition of the week: Tony Cragg at Castle Howard, near York, until September 22
SCULPTOR Tony Cragg presents the first major exhibition by a leading contemporary artist in the house and grounds of Castle Howard. On show are new and recent sculptures, many being presented on British soil for the first time, including large-scale works in bronze, stainless steel, aluminium and fibreglass.
Inside the house are works in bronze and wood, glass sculptures and works on paper in the Great Hall, Garden Hall, High South, Octagon and Colonnade. Tickets: castlehoward.co.uk.
The Lapins: Celebrating travel, exploration and adventure in music at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
World premieres of the week: York Late Music, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, Mike Sluman, oboe, and Jenny Martins, piano, Saturday (4/5/2024), 1pm; The Lapins, Saturday (4/5/2024), 7.30pm
MIKEY Sluman highlights the range of the oboe family – oboe, oboe d’amore, cor anglais and bass oboe – in his lunchtime programme of Lutoslawski, Talbot-Howard and Poulenc works and world premieres of Desmond Clarke’s Five Exploded Pastorals and Nick Williams’s A Hundred Miles Down The Road (Le Tombeau de Fred).
The Lapins examine ideas of space, place and time in an evening programme that extols the joys of travel, exploration and adventure through the music of Brian Eno, Stockhausen and Erik Satie, the world premiere of James Else’s A Tapestry In Glass and the first complete performance of Hayley Jenkins’s Gyps Fulvus. Tickets: latemusic.org or on the door.
The poster for The Groves Community Cinema festival at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Film event of the week: The Groves Community Cinema, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 5 to May 11
THE third Groves Community Cinema film festival promises a wide variety of films, from cult classics and music to drama and animated fun. Supported by Make It York and City of York Council, the event opens with Sunday’s Arnie Schwarzenegger double bill of The Terminator at 6.30pm and T2 Judgement Day at 8.45pm.
Monday follows up Marcel The Shell With Shoes at 2.30pm with Justine Triet’s legal drama Anatomy Of A Fall at 6.30pm; Tuesday offers Ian McKellen’s Hamlet at 7.30pm; Wednesday, Yorkshire Film Archives’ Social Cinema, 6.30pm, and Friday, cult classical musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch, 8pm. To finish, next Saturday serves up the animated Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse at 2.30pm and Jonathan Demme’s concert documentary Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense at 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Steve Cassidy: Performing with his band and friends at the JoRo
Nostalgic gig of the week: Steve Cassidy Band & Friends, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday (5/5/2024), 7.30pm
VETERAN York frontman Steve Cassidy leads his band in an evening of rock, country and ballads, old and new, with songs from the 1960s to 21st century favourites in their playlist.
Cassidy, a three-time winner of New Faces, has recorded with celebrated York composer John Barry and performed in the United States and many European countries. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Let us pray: Landi Oshinowo’s Deloris Van Cartier and Sue Cleaver’s Mother Superior in Sister Act, on tour at Grand Opera House, York
Musical of the week: Sister Act, Grand Opera House, York, May 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm, Wednesday and Saturday
SUE Cleaver takes holy orders in a break from Coronation Street to play the Mother Superior in Sister Act in her first stage role in three decades. Adding Alan Menken songs to the 1992 film’s storyline, the show testifies to the universal power of friendship, sisterhood and music in its humorous account of disco diva Deloris Van Cartier’s life taking a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder.
Placed in protective custody, in the disguise of a nun under the Mother Superior’s suspicious eye, Deloris (Landi Oshinowo) helps her fellow sisters find their voices as she unexpectedly rediscovers her own. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Lila Naruse’s Memory Tess in Ockham’s Razor’s circus theatre production of Tess at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Kie Cummings
“Bold new vision” of the week: Ockham’s Razor in Tess, York Theatre Royal, May 8 to 11, 7.30pm
CIRCUS theatre exponents Ockham’s Razor tackle a novel for the first time in a staging of Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles that combines artistic directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey’s adaptation of the original text with the physical language of circus and dance.
Exploring questions of privilege, class, consent, agency, female desire and sisterhood, Tess utilises seven performers, including Harona Kamen’s Narrator Tess and Lila Naruse’s Memory Tess, to re-tell the Victorian story of power, loss and endurance through a feminist lens. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jah Wobble & The Invaders Of The Heart: Night of dub, funk and world music at Pocklington Arts Centre
Funkiest gig of the week: Jah Wobble & The Invaders Of The Heart, Pocklington Arts Centre, May 9, 8pm
SUPREME bassist Jah Wobble’s two-hour show takes in material from his work with John Lydon in Public Image Ltd and collaborations with Brian Eno, Bjork, Sinead O’Connor, U2’s The Edge, Can’s Holger Czukay, Ministry’s Chris Connelly and Killing Joke’s Geordie Walker.
Born John Wardle in 1958, he was renamed by Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, who struggled to pronounce his name correctly. Wobble combines dub, funk and world music, especially Africa and the Middle East, in his songwriting. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
“Charming nonsense”: Steven Lee’s There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly at the SJT, Scarborough
Half-term show announcement of the week: There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, May 28, 2.30pm
FIRST written as a song in 1953, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly was a chart-topping hit for singer and actor Burl Ives before being adapted into a best-selling book by Pam Adams a few years later, one still found in schools, nurseries and homes across the world.
To mark the nursery rhyme’s 50th anniversary, children’s author Steven Lee has created a magical musical stage show for little ones to enjoy with their parents that combines the charming nonsense of the rhyme with his own “suitably silly twists”. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
