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Open Swim promises lush music, wild stories and wise words but no swimming, please, on The Arts Barge on Friday

Adderstone’s Cath Heinemeyer and Gemma McDermott: Wild swimmers, alt-folk duo and organisers of Open Swim on The Arts Barge

YORK’S floating venue, The Arts Barge, will be flowing with music and words at a special river-theme themed gig on Friday night at Foss Basin.

“The barge, alias Selby Tony, has woken up from its winter sleep and is ready for action,” says Arts Barge coordinator Hannah West. “It’s all aboard for Open Swim – but with no swimming allowed!”

In a joyous “aquatic feast of lush music, wild stories, wise words and all-round exquisite vibes”, the 7pm to 11pm bill comprises alt-folk duo Adderstone; multi-instrumentalists White Sail; storyteller and hypnotherapist Lara McClure’s strange tale of aquatic beasts, York slam champ Hannah Davies’s riverside poems; Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen’s poem invoking York’s rivers and Amy-Jane Beer’s stories of paddling along Britain’s rivers.

Poet Hannah Davies by the riverside in York

Ticket sale proceeds from Open Swim will go to Right to Roam, a charity that campaigns for better access to wild spaces. On the night, there will be the chance to buy a signed copy of Right to Roam’s hot-off-the-press new book, Wild Service, featuring a contribution by nature writer Beer.

“Rivers should be safe and accessible for swimmers, paddlers and other water users, both human and wild,” says the Right to Roam campaigner. “But only three per cent of the UK’s rivers have an uncontested right of access, and as we know, sewage and agricultural pollution mean that most of those are in poor health.

“Our own wellbeing is dependent on theirs. We need to reconnect with our rivers, to be able to care for them and fight for them. That’s why the book is called Wild Service, and this gig is an act of wild service.”

Kai West’s poster artwork for Friday’s Open Swim on The Arts Barge

Sewage…agricultural pollution…rivers in poor health: no wonder Open Swim is not a swimming invitation! Catherine Heinemeyer, one half of gig organisers Adderstone, comments:  “It’s wonderful to imagine a time when water companies have cleaned up their act and York’s rivers are beautiful clean places to swim – but alas, that’s not the case right now!

“As wild swimmers ourselves, we wanted to host an event to highlight the wild watery spaces we all love. And what better place to host a water-themed gig than the river itself?

“The Arts Barge is a wonderful local project that York is very proud of and we’re so excited to see it move closer to its full potential. Please come along and be enchanted by the wonderful line-up of musicians and artists we have put together, but please don’t bring your cossie!”

Richard Kitchen: Poet, artist and Navigators Art & Performance’s co-founder

All artists have agreed not to take a fee, thereby maximising the gig proceeds, with donations and bar takings going to The Arts Barge. “We’re totally reliant on volunteers and donations, and this summer we’re aiming to build the long-awaited deckhouse to create a covered area on the deck to finally stop the rain getting in,” says Hannah

“This will be a big step forwards towards becoming the fully accessible community arts space York has imagined and come to love. See the story and look out for future events this summer at www.artsbarge.com.”

Running /swimming order

Part 1: 7.30pm, Amy-Jane Beer and Adderstone , intertwined . 8.15pm, short break.

Part 2, Spoken word. 8.35pm, Richard Kitchen; 8.45pm, Lara McClure; 9.05pm, Hannah Davies. 9.25pm, short break.

Part 3: 9.45pm, White Sail; 10.25pm, The Parting Glass (all performers). 11pm, goodnight.

Tickets cost £8.50 from Eventbrite, via www.artsbarge.com/events, or £10 on the door.

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What’s On in Ryedale, York & beyond when a football play is more fun than England. Hutch’s List No. 22, from Gazette & Herald

Lynda Burrell, left, and Catherine Ross, curators of Museumand’s exhibition of Caribbean culture, 70 Objeks & Tings, at York Castle Museum. Picture: Gareth Buddo

CARIBBEAN culture and football cup history, sublime saxophone and peerless guitars, riverside poetry and balletic heroes stand out in Charles Hutchinson’s cultural week ahead.

Exhibition of the week: 70 Objeks & Tings, York Castle Museum, until November 4; Mondays, 11am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm

70 OBJEKS & Tings, a celebration of 75 years of Caribbean culture, showcases 70 items that connect us to the Windrush Generation in an “extraordinary exhibition of the ordinary”.

Curated by mother and daughter Catherine Ross and Lynda Barrett, founders of Museumand, the National Caribbean Heritage Museum, it features objects that combine familiarity and practicality and have been passed down the generations. On show are cooking and household goods, food packaging and beauty supplies, funeral items, music, games, books and newspapers. Tickets: yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk. 

Johnny Marr: Playing songs from his 2023 compilation album, Spirit Power, and his back catalogue of The Smiths and Electronic gems at Scarborough Open Air Theatre

Coastal gig of the week: Johnny Marr and The Charlatans, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Saturday, gates 6pm

JOHNNY Marr, The Smiths and Electronic guitarist, superstar collaborator and solo artist, cherry-picks from all eras of his career, right up to his November 2023 compilation Spirit Power in his headline set.

First up on this north-western double bill on the East Coast will be Tim Burgess’s band, The Charlatans, as full of indie rock swagger as ever after 22 Top 40 hits, from The Only One I Know to North Country Boy. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats: Heading for York Barbican

Rhythm & blues gig of the week: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, York Barbican, tomorrow (27/6/2025), doors 7pm

NATHANIEL Rateliff & The Night Sweats play York Barbican as the only Yorkshire venue on their six-date South Of Here summer tour.

Noted for supplying the zeal of a whisky-chugging Pentecostal preacher to songs of shared woes, old-fashioned rhythm & blues singer and songwriter Rateliff will be showcasing his Missouri band’s fourth studio album on the eve of its Friday release. William The Conqueror support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Crowning glory: Ballet Black in If At First, part of the Heroes double bill at York Theatre Royal

Dance show of the week: Ballet Black: Heroes, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm

CASSA Pancho’s dance company returns to York with the double bill Ballet Black: Heroes. Choreographer Mthuthuzeli November contemplates the meaning of life in The Waiting Game, a 2020 work infused with a dynamic soundtrack featuring the voices of Ballet Black artists.

Franco-British artist Sophie Laplane, choreographer-in-residence at Scottish Ballet, follows up her 2019 Ballet Black debut, Click!, with If At First, her exploration of “a more subtle heroism, a quieter triumph over adversity, in a struggle that unites us all”. Humanity, heroism and self-acceptance combine in this celebratory piece. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Adderstone’s Cath Heinemeyer and Gemma McDermott: Organisers of Open Swim on The Arts Barge

All aboard but no swimming allowed: Open Swim, The Arts Barge, Foss Basin, York, Friday, 7pm to 11pm

YORK’S floating venue, The Arts Barge, will be flowing with music and words in a river-themed gig on Friday with proceeds going to Right to Roam, a charity that campaigns for better access to wild spaces.

On the bill will be alt-folk duo Adderstone; multi-instrumentalists White Sail Band; storyteller Lara McClure’s strange tale of aquatic beasts, York slam champ Hannah Davies’s riverside poems; Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen’s poem invoking York’s rivers and Amy-Jane Beer’s stories of paddling along Britain’s rivers. Tickets: artsbargecom/events or on the door.

Eliza Carthy: Solo concerts at the NCEM, York, and Fylingdales Village Hall

Folk gigs of the week: Eliza Carthy, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Friday, 7.30pm; Fylingdales Village Hall, Station Road, Robin Hood’s Bay, Sunday, 7.30pm

ELIZA Carthy, innovative fiddler and vocalist from the First Family of Folk, heads from Robin Hood’s Bay to York for a solo gig at the NCEM. At once a folk traditionalist and iconoclast, she revels in centuries-old ballads and Carthy compositions alike.

In her 32-year career, Carthy has performed with The Imagined Village, The Wayward Band and The Restitution, collaborated with Paul Weller, Jarvis Cocker, Pere Ubu, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Jools Holland, Patrick Wolf and Kae (CORRECT) Tempest, served as president of the English Folk Dance & Song Society and artist in residence in Antarctica and been described by comedian Stewart Lee as “not the Messiah, but a very naughty girl”. Broadside balladeer Jennifer Reid supports at the York gig. Box office: York, for returns only, 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk; Robin Hood’s Bay, trybooking.com/uk/events/landing/57434.

Saxophonist Snake Davis: Leading his band at Helmsley Arts Centre

Ryedale gig of the week: Snake Davis Band: Summer 24, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

SAXOPHONIST to the stars Snake Davis brings his four-piece band to Helmsley, promising “something for everybody, from floaty to danceable, from soul to pop, jazz to world music” in an uplifting set of original material and sax classics, such as Baker Street and Night Train. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

Football alternative to plod-along England at the Euros: Long Lane Theatre Club in The Giant Killers

Ryedale play of the week: Long Lane Theatre Club in The Giant Killers, Milton Rooms, Malton, July 4, kick-off at 7.30pm; East Riding Theatre, Beverley, July 16 and 17, 7.30pm

THE Giant Killers tells the story of how Darwen FC came to the public’s attention in 1870s’ Lancashire to proclaim Association Football as the people’s game and not only the preserve of the upper classes.

Andrew Pearson-Wright & Eve Pearson-Wright’s play recounts how a ragtag bunch of mill workers in Darwen took on the amateur gentlemen’s club of the Old Etonians in the FA Cup quarter-final in 1879, rising up against prevailing social prejudice and the might of the Football Association to earn a place in history as the first real ‘‘giant killers’’ in English football. Box office: Malton, 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com, Beverley, eastridingtheatre.co.uk

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More Things To Do in York and beyond with summer in full bloom. Hutch’s List No. 26 for 2023, courtesy of The Press, York

Vote Nature: York artist Jade Blood with her Community Notice Board installation for Bloom in the Artists Gallery behind York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham

FLOWER power indoors and out, musicals with a twist, trees and romantic entanglements hark the arrival of Charles Hutchinson’s new summer of love.

Garden of delights: Bloom at York Art Gallery, on display until October 8

FLOWERS, plant life and gardens have fascinated and inspired generations of artists. Cultivated by York Art Gallery curator of fine art Becky Gee, the Bloom display brings together more than 100 botanical artworks from York Art Gallery’s collection, alongside key loans, to explore the importance of nature and green spaces for enjoyment, creativity and wellbeing and highlight the gallery’s relationship with the neighbouring Museum Gardens, set up by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1828. Look out for York artist Jade Blood’s installations too.

Banjo player Curt Eller: Bringing his band to the Arts Barge on July 1

Down by the river: The Arts Barge presents Dylan Earl, on Selby Tony, Foss Basin, York, tonight, 7pm; Curtis Eller’s American Circus, July 1, 7pm

ARKANSAS singer Dylan Earl returns to the Arts Barge for a headline gig after his Arts Barge Hoodang appearance last year. Likewise, Curtis Eller’s American Circus show heads back to the barge, this time with full band in tow for a night of banjo-driven rock’n’roll. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk.

SIX of the best: The Queens giving Harry the hurry up. Picture: Pamela Raith

Quick return of the week: SIX The Musical at Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Sunday; also Leeds Grand Theatre, August 1 to 6

WAS it only last October that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s Spouse Girls musical/pop concert first wowed York? Its return has all but sold out again as the dancing queens with attitude tell their story in song in chronological order to decide who suffered most at Henry VIII’s hands once he put a ring on that wedding finger.

Of York interest, Knaresborough-raised Lou Henry returns to the stage where she made her professional debut in the 2019-2020 pantomime as Snow White. This time she plays the apparently not-so-squeaky-clean Catherine Howard, short-lived wife number five. Box office (probably for frustration only): atgtickets.com/york; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

Mark Simmonds, Monica Frost, Emma Dickinson and Richard Bayton (at the wheel) in rehearsal for York Light Opera Company’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

In pursuit of love: York Light Opera Company in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

RIOTOUS, rude and relevant, Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts’ off-Broadway musical revue is directed by York Light’s Neil Wood in its 2018 updated revamp in a witty look at how we love, date and handle relationships.

Guiding love’s path through a series of comedic and poignant vignettes will be Richard Bayton, Emma Dickinson, Monica Frost, Emily Hardy, James Horsman, Sanna Jeppsson and Mark Simmonds. Shocks and surprises incoming, as love lives are reflected in art, up close and personal. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company cast members rehearsing Musicals In The Multiverse

Expect the unexpected: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Musicals In The Multiverse, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm

IN a fundraiser for the JoRo, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company transports you into a multiverse full of musical theatre favourites with a twist. Guided by director Helen Spencer, enter a parallel universe where familiar songs have their traditional renditions turned on their heads in swaps of gender, major to minor keys, musical styles and eras. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Acoustic gig of the week: An Evening With Ocean Colour Scene’s Simon & Oscar, Harrogate Theatre, Thursday, 7.30pm

OCEAN Colour Scene vocalist Simon Fowler and drummer Oscar Harrison present an intimate acoustic performance of their big hits and anthems, from The Riverboat Song, The Circle and Traveller’s Tune to Hundred Mile High City and The Day We Caught The Train.

“Our acoustic shows are a real tonic: a great chance to look the audience in the eye and interact with them on a more personal basis than ever before,” says Fowler. Dexys Midnight Runners founder member Pete Williams supports. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

Murray Watts: His play Mr Darwin’s Tree will be performed at Stillington Mill

Science meets art: Mr Darwin’s Tree, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, July 1, 7.30pm

COMMISSIONED for Charles Darwin’s bicentenary and premiered at Westminster Abbey, Riding Lights luminary Murray Watts’s 75-minute play has since been staged in China, South Korea, and throughout the United States. Now Stillington Mill beckons.

Watts directs film, television and theatre actor Andrew Harrison – last seen at Stilllington in Fire From Heaven last summer – in a study of the relationship between the agnostic Darwin and his Christian wife Emma that explores science, faith, family, love and destiny. Box office: tickettailor.com/events/atthemill.

Saxophonist Snake Davis: Having a blast at Cop’ Carnival’s Jazz Night

Community event of the week: Cop’ Carnival Day, Copmanthorpe Recreation Centre, Barons Crescent, Copmanthorpe, York, July 1, 11.30am to 7pm

COP’ Carnival Day returns in its 53rd year for a day of dance troops, bands (including Miles And The Chain Gang), traditional games and attractions. Tickets are on sale at copmanthorpecarnival.org.uk and on the day.

The carnival week runs from June 27 to July 1, featuring a jazz night with saxophonist Snake Davis on Tuesday (7.45pm); a wine-tasting quiz on Wednesday (7.30pm, sold out) and a comedy night with Justin Moorhouse, Tal Davies, Roger Monkhouse and host Alex Boardman on Thursday (8pm). Copmanthorpe Methodist Church houses the carnival exhibition by 30 artists from today to July 1.

Jack Whitehall; Chance to Settle Down at York Barbican

Not many tickets left: Jack Whitehall: Settle Down, York Barbican, July 12, 6.30pm

SETTLE Down is comedian, actor, writer and presenter Jack Whitehall’s “most personal show to date”, driven by material aplenty focused on the big changes in his life.  

“It’s about my struggle to settle down gracefully,” says Londoner Whitehall, 34. “I’ve got a long-term partner, a ridiculous dog and am now hurtling towards middle aged without a clue. It’s about a foppish man-child’s cack-handed attempt at adulting!” Note the early start time; no late night for this all-work-and-no-play Jack! Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.