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More Things To Do in York and beyond despite the rise of the “Delta” blues. List No. 35, courtesy of The Press, York

In suspense: Ockham’s Razor go aerial for This Time at York Theatre Royal

FROM circus at York Theatre Royal, to Moby Dock on a Hull dry dock, Benedetti in Pickering to Riding Lights on film, Charles Hutchinson enjoys his ever busier perch to spot what’s happening.

Circus in town: Ockham’s Razor in This Time, The Love Season, York Theatre Royal, June 8 and 9, 8pm

CIRCUS theatre company Ockham’s Razor’s This Time is a show about time, age and the stories we tell ourselves, presented by a cast ranging in age from 13 to 60.

Circus and aerial skills, autobiographical storytelling and original equipment combine in a visual theatre piece that looks at love, support and struggle in families, alongside perceptions of strength and ability: how we are strong in different ways at different times in our lives.

Nicola Benedetti: Live and In Person for Ryedale Festival. Watch out for Martin Dreyer’s review for CharlesHutchPress

Festival residency of the summer: Nicola Benedetti: Live and In Person, Ryedale Festival 40th Anniversary Launch Concert, Pickering Parish Church, tomorrow (4/6/2021), 4pm and 8pm

TOMORROW, in-person music making returns to Ryedale Festival at Pickering Parish Church, when Scottish-Italian violinist Nicola Benedetti opens her 2021 festival residency by launching the Live and In Person series.

She will join her regular chamber music partners, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Alexei Grynyuk, to perform one of Beethoven’s wittiest and most loveable works and an inspired piano trio by Brahms.

May Tether: Last seen in York as Jill in York Stage’s pantomime , Jack And The Beanstalk; now the Goole actor will appear as Lily in John Godber Company’s Moby Dick on Hull dry dock. Picture: Ant Robling

Outdoor play of the month: Moby Dick, John Godber Company, Stage@The Dock, next to The Deep, Hull, until June 12

JOHN Godber and Nick Lane’s radical reworking of Herman Melville’s epic novel, Moby Dick, is being staged in Hull’s dry dock amphitheatre by an East Yorkshire cast of eight from the John Godber Company

Adhering to Covid-safe rules, and with a playing time of 70 minutes and no interval, this fast-paced physical production transports socially distanced audiences to the deck of Captain Ahab’s ship the Pequod in his catastrophic battle with the monster white whale, Moby Dick.

Godber’s production references Hull’s global importance as a port, its former prowess as a whaling centre and contemporary conservation issues of conservation.

Riding Lights’ poster for the York International Shakespeare Festival stream of the York’s company’s theatre-on-film performance of Pericles

“Film” of the week: Riding Lights Theatre Company in Pericles, York International Shakespeare Festival, online, tomorrow (4/6/2021) to Sunday

YORK company Riding Lights present their sparkling, streamlined, 80-minute theatre-on-film performance of a lesser-known but still gripping  Shakespeare work, Pericles, The Prince Of Tyre, online.

In a “perilous voyage through the storms of life”, brave adventurer Pericles sets off to win the girl on everyone’s lips. Uncovering a sinister truth, he plunges into a rolling surge of events that leaves him broken, gasping for life.

Topical themes of abuse of power, desperate crossings of the Mediterranean and sex trafficking ensure this extraordinary saga sails uncomfortably close to home. For tickets, go to ridinglights.org/pericles.

Roger Taylor: New solo album, “surprise” solo tour, for Queen drummer. Picture: Lola Leng Taylor

York gig announcement of the week: Roger Taylor, Outsider Tour, York Barbican, October 5.

QUEEN legend Roget Taylor will play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire show of his “modest” 14-date Outsider tour this autumn.

In a “surprise announcement”, rock drummer Taylor, 71, confirmed he would be on the road from October 2 to 22. “This is my modest tour,” he says. “I just want it to be lots of fun, very good musically, and I want everybody to enjoy it. I’m really looking forward to it. Will I be playing Queen songs too? Absolutely!”

Outsider, his first solo album since 2013’s Fun On Earth, will be released on October 1 on Universal, dedicated to “all the outsiders, those who feel left on the sidelines”.

Put back in the Summer Of ’22: Bryan Adams moves his Scarborough Open Air Theatre and Harewood House concerts to July 2022

On the move: Changes afoot at Scarborough Open Air Theatre for 2021 and 2022

CANADIAN rocker Bryan Adams is moving his entire ten-date UK outdoor tour from 2021 to the summer of ’22, now playing Scarborough Open Air Theatre on July 1 and Harewood House, near Leeds, on July 10. Tickets remain valid for the new shows.

In further OAT changes, Kaiser Chiefs have moved to August 8; Keane, August 21; Olly Murs, August 27; UB40 featuring Ali Campbell and Astro, August 28; Snow Patrol, September 10, and Duran Duran, September 17.  Westlife stick with August 17; Nile Rodgers & Chic with August 20.

For next summer’s line-up, Ru Paul’s Drag Race: Werq The World has changed to May 29 2022; Crowded House, June 11; Lionel Richie, July 2, and Lewis Capaldi, July 7.

Quiet Beech Wood, mixed media, by Janine Baldwin at Blue Tree Gallery, York

Exhibition of the week: Summer Eclectic, Blue Tree Gallery, Bootham, York, until July 3

SUMMER Eclectic marks the reopening of Blue Tree Gallery after a run of online shows.

“It’s good to see York open again for all to visit and enjoy, as we help to keep York culturally alive, safe and well,” say Gordon and Maria Giarchi and their gallery team. “We’ll be open to the public with this show and it’s available online too.”

On view are original paintings by Yorkshire artists Janine Baldwin, Colin Cook, Deborah Grice and Karen Turner.

Director Emilie Knight: Holding auditions for York Shakespeare Project’s Sonnets At The Bar. Here she is pictured playing Covid Nurse in 2020’s Sit-Down Sonnets at Holy Trinity churchyard, Gillygate, York

Auditions of the week: York Shakespeare Project’s Sonnets At The Bar, Bar Convent, York, Friday and Saturday

YORK Shakespeare Project has a not-so-secret new location for its latest sonnet adventures, the secret garden of the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, in Blossom Street, York, for Sonnets At the Bar 2021 from July 30 to August 7.

Open-to-all auditions will be held at the Bar Convent tomorrow (4/6/2021) from 5pm and on Saturday from 10am. Those wanting to arrange an audition time should contact director Emilie Knight at emknight65@aol.com, putting ‘Sonnets’ in the heading and indicating a preference of day and time day and time.

“I will provide details of everything you need to prepare when confirming your audition time,” says Emilie, who performed in last year’s Sit-down Sonnets.

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Blue Tree Gallery reopens with Janine Baldwin, Colin Cook, Deborah Grice and Karen Turner’s Summer Eclectic show

Quiet Birch Wood, mixed media, by Janine Baldwin at Blue Tree Gallery, York

SUMMER Eclectic marks the reopening of Blue Tree Gallery, in Bootham, York, in an exhibition running until July 3.

“It’s good to see York open again for all to visit and enjoy, as we help to keep York culturally alive, safe and well,” say Gordon and Marisa Giarchi and their gallery team. “We’ll be open to the public with this show and it’s available online.”  

On view are original paintings by Yorkshire artists Janine Baldwin Colin Cook, Deborah Grice and Karen Turner.

Leeds-born Janine Baldwin has settled into Scarborough. “Living on the North Yorkshire coast, I’m surrounded by beautiful moors, woodland and coastline,” she says. “These natural environments are a constant inspiration, and sketches made directly in the landscape form the basis of my studio work.”

Favouring a focus on mark-making and texture, she uses layers of charcoal, pastel and graphite to create her artworks gradually, influenced by Joan Eardley, Cy Twombly and Abstract Expressionism.

Morning Light Over Westerdale, acrylic on canvas, by Colin Cook

“I’m passionate about the conservation of our landscape and since 2006 I have been a conservation volunteer for the North York Moors National Park, working on projects such as tree planting and butterfly habitat management,” says Janine. “These projects have allowed a deeper understanding of the landscape, in turn enriching the artwork I create.”

Colin Cook lives and works near Whitby. “Originally I come from west London and lived in the south of England until moving to the north east to teach photography, digital imaging, drawing and painting in a further education college in 1989,” he says.

Colin had studied fine art at Isleworth Polytechnic and a degree in painting at Maidstone College of Art, graduating in 1979. He began exhibiting in 1987 at Gunnersbury Park Museum in west London, going on to be selected for the 10th Cleveland International Drawing Biennale at the Cleveland Gallery, Middlesbrough, and the BP Young European Artists exhibition of Works On Paper at the Barbican Concourse Gallery, London, in 1992.

Then, after many years of teaching, he began exhibiting again five years ago. The inspiration for his subject matter is drawn from the north-eastern coast and moors and the Lake District. “My paintings are representational, based on observation of the constantly changing and intriguing light,” says Colin

“My paintings are metaphysical in nature, representing vastness and ‘otherness’,” says Deborah Grice

“Most of my paintings are about creating an atmosphere through dramatic light and bold mark making. Compositional tension is important and hopefully created by the careful arrangement of the different pictorial elements: colour, texture, light, etc.”

His paintings are reliant on careful under-drawing to make the structure for the looser brush marks to sit on. The strongest shapes are worked in with large brushes and the smaller areas of specific focus are developed later.

“I prefer to work with acrylic paints and enjoy the flexibility that working with a water-based medium gives. Sometimes the paint is heavily impastoed and on other occasions it is built up in layers or glazes. Acrylic allows for a certain immediacy as it dries fairly quickly.”

Born in East Yorkshire, not far from the Yorkshire Wolds, Deborah Grice is a graduate of Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London.

Resolution III, oil and gold on canvas, by Deborah Grice

“I paint wild landscapes and weather,” she says. “My paintings are metaphysical in nature, representing vastness and ‘otherness’. Although my oil paintings can be thought of as traditional in manner, with the introduction of geometric lines, I feel my work is forward looking, relevant and timely.”

Deborah began applying geometrical lines as a visual device in 2008 after gaining her private pilot’s licence. “Through the use of navigational charts for my cross-country flights, I became interested in making the invisible visible,” she says.

“After a decade of assimilating ideas and thoughts, the lines have also begun to allude to aspects of ‘vision’: perception, meditation, escapism and the physicality of looking.”

Easingwold artist and documentary photographer Karen Turner responds to land and sea, city and village.

A Blowy Day In Scarborough, mixed media, by Karen Turner

“Living in the wonderful county of Yorkshire, I’m passionate about our beautiful countryside, rugged coastline, historic cities and working fishing villages,” she says. “They all have their own individual charm and give endless inspiration to an artist.


​“I’ve always been drawn to the sea and love to paint it with the fluid, often unpredictable qualities of watercolour and inks on paper. I also enjoy creating using big brushes and the colourful opaque effects of acrylic paint on canvas, capturing marine life and other animals.”

Exploring with colour and bold mark making, Karen works in a semi-abstract, naive style, capturing the landscape, wildlife and other aspects of the inspirational natural world.
“I love to create art that makes people smile, adding a splash of colour and brightness to everyday life,” she says.

Blue Tree Galllery, York, is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 11am to 5pm, as well as online at bluetreegallery.co.uk.