Tag: The HUnchback Of Notre Dame

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More Things To Do in York & beyond when the air turns blue and the skies glower. Hutch’s List No. 44, from The York Press

Roy Chubby Brown: No offence, but it’s simply comedy, reckons Britain’s stalwart potty-mouthed joker at York Barbican

FROM sacre bleu comedy to a French silent  film,  Graham Nash and Al Stewart  on vintage form to Grayson Perry on good and evil,  love’s vicissitudes to the Hunchback musical, October is brewing up a storm of culture, reports Charles Hutchinson. 

Blue humour of the week: Roy Chubby Brown, It’s Simply Comedy, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

GRANGETOWN gag veteran Roy Chubby Brown, now 80, forewarns: “Not meant to offend, it’s simply a comedy tour”. After more than 50 years of spicy one-liners and putdowns, he continues to tackle the subjects of sex, celebrities, politics and British culture with a high profanity count and contempt for political correctness. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Gemma Curry in Hoglets Theatre’s The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale at York Theatre Royal Studio

Children’s show of the week: Hoglets Theatre in The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale, York Theatre Royal Studio, today, 11am and 2pm

FRESH from an award-winning Edinburgh Fringe run, York company Hoglets Theatre invite primary-age children and families to an exciting adventure packed with beautiful handmade puppets, sea creatures, original songs and audience interaction aplenty.

Performed, crafted and directed by Gemma Curry, The Tale Of The Loneliest Whale celebrates friendship, difference and the beauty of being yourself in Andy Curry’s tale of Whale singing his heart out into the deep blue sea, but nobody singing back until…a mysterious voice echoes through the waves, whereupon Whale embarks on an unforgettable adventure. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Graham Nash: Sixty years of song at York Barbican. Picture: Ralf Louis

Vintage gigs of the week: Graham Nash, An Evening Of Songs And Stories, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm; Al Stewart, The Farewell Tour, York Barbican, October 7, 7.45pm

GRAHAM Nash, 83-year-old two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy award winner, performs songs spanning his 60-year career fromThe Hollies to Crosby, Stills andNash, CSNY (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) to his solo career, joined by Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), Adam Minkoff(bass, drums, guitars and vocals) and Zach Djanikian (guitars, mandolin, drums and vocals). Long-time friend Peter Asher supports.

The poster for Al Stewart’s farewell tour, visiting York Barbican on Tuesday

Glasgow-born folk-rock singer-songwriter Al Stewart marks his 80th birthday (born 5/9/1945) with his UK farewell tour. After relocating to Chandler Arizona from Los Angeles, his home for the past 45 years, he is winding down his touring schedule with his long-running time band The Empty Pockets. Time for the last Year Of The Cat. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jonny Best: Leading Frame Ensemble’s improvised score for The Divine Voyager at the NCEM. Picture: Chris Payne

Film event of the week: Northern Silents presents The Divine Voyager with Frame Ensemble, National Centre for Early Music, York, Monday, 7.30pm

FRAME Ensemble’s spontaneous musicians Jonny Best (piano), Susannah Simmons (violin), Liz Hanks (cello) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion) accompany Julien Duvivier’s lushly photographed, beautifully poetic 1929 French silent film The Divine Voyage with an improvised live score.

In a tale of faith and hope, rapacious businessman Claude Ferjac sends his ship, La Cordillere, on a long trading journey, knowing it is likely to sink after poor repairs. An entire village of sailors, desperate to support their families, has no choice but to set sail. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

James Lee, left, Helen Clarke, front, Wilf Tomlinson, back, and Katie Leckey rehearsing for Griffonage Theatre’s FourTold. Picture: John Stead

Time to discover: Griffonage Theatre in FourTold, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 6 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK devotees of the madcap, the macabre and making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, Griffonage Theatre transport audiences to the quirky rural town of Baile Aighneas – The Town of Dispute – for FourTold, a quartet of comedies by early 20th century Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory, never presented together in the UK until now under Northern Irish director Katie Leckey.

Encounter the bustling market and all its gossip in Spreading The News; the restaurant where newspaper editors wine, dine and mix up their Coats; the post office, where the splendid Hyacinth Halvey has sent word he is coming to town, and the bus stop where strangers such as The Bogie Men can quickly become friends! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Hannah Sinclair Robinson’s Jess and Joe Layton’s Robbie in Frantic Assembly’s Lost Atoms, on tour at York Theatre Royal next week. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Relationship drama of the week: Frantic Assembly in Lost Atoms, York Theatre Royal, October 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

FRANTIC Assembly follow up York Theatre Royal visits of Othello and Metamorphosis with their 30th anniversary production, a two-hander memory play by Anna Jordan, directed by physical theatre specialist Scott Graham.

Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson play Robbie and Jess, whose chance meeting, disastrous dates and extraordinary transformative love is the stuff of fairy tales. Or is it? Lost Atoms is a wild ride through a life-changing relationship, or Robbie and Jess’s clashing recollections as they relive the beats of connection, the moments of loss, but  are their stories the same and can their memories be trusted? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Grayson Perry: “Finding out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way” at the Grand Opera House

Question of the week: Grayson Perry: Are You Good?, Grand Opera House, October 7, 7.30pm

AFTER A Show For Normal People And A Show All About You, artist, iconoclast, television presenter and Knight Bachelor Grayson Perry asks Are You Good? A question that he thinks is “fundamental to our humanity”.

“In this show I will be helping you, the audience, find out if you really are thoroughly good or maybe quite evil, but in a fun way,” says Sir Grayson. “I always start out with the assumption that people are born good and then life happens. So, let’s pull back the curtain and see where your morals truly lie.” Add audience participation and silly songs, and expect to come out with core values completely in tatters. “Is it more important to be good or to be right? It’s time to update what is a virtue and what is a sin. No biggie.” Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie: Pure entertainment at York Barbican on Thursday

Oh, lucky you gig of the week: Lightning Seeds, Tomorrow’s Here Today, 35 Years Greatest Hits Tour, York Barbican, October 9, 8pm

NOW in his 36th year of leading Liverpool’s Lightning Seeds, Ian Broudie heads to York on his extended Tomorrow’s Here Today tour. Cue Pure, The Life Of Riley, Change, Lucky You, Sense, All I Want, Sugar Coated Iceberg, You Showed Me, Emily Smiles, Three Lions et al. Casino support. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

Jack Fry’s Quasimodo and Ayana Beatrice Poblete at Black Sheep Theatre Productions’s Selby Abbey photoshoot for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, opening next week at the JoRo

Musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 10, 11 and 14 to 18, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

BLACK Sheep Theatre Productions bring a cast of five leads, seven ensemble actors and a 23-strong choir to the York company’s larger-than-life staging of Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz’s musical rooted in Disney’s 1996 musical film and Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel.

Combining powerful themes of love, acceptance and the nature of good and evil with a sweeping score, Matthew Peter Clare’s show will be “like nothing you’ve seen before”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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Black Sheep Theatre Productions go larger than life for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame musical at Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Jack Fry as Quasimodo, left, and Dan Poppitt as the Voice of Quasimodo in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, pictured at Selby Abbey

BLACK Sheep Theatre Productions will stage their biggest show yet when presenting The Hunchback Of Notre Dame from October 10 to 18.

Matthew Peter Clare’s “larger-than-life” production marks the York company’s return to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre for the first time since mounting the UK amateur premiere of William Finn and James Lapine’s Falsettos in August 2023.

Combining the forces of Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Peter Parnell and Victor Hugo, ‘Hunchback’ features songs from Walt Disney’s 1996 animated gothic film with special arrangement from Music Theatre International. “We’re presenting the score in its entirety, as seen on Broadway,” says Matthew, whose cast comprises five leads, an ensemble of seven and a choir of 23.

“We have the songs from the film, such as Hellfire and Out There. However, Menken and Schwartz, have expanded on that on a quite incredible scale, usually bringing a darker tone that they really wanted to go for in the film and maybe were not allowed to. They’ve expanded on that theme incredibly well, making it a much more mature piece than the film.”

Jack Fry’s Quasimodo at Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ photoshoot at Selby Abbey

‘Hunchback’ addresses themes of love, acceptance and the nature of good and evil.  “Our production revolves around the question of what makes a man and what makes a monster,” says Matthew. “That’s the framing device we’re using to ask both the audience and ourselves.”

In a cast where Matthew has his actors presenting the story, within which they then take on roles, Black Sheep regular Dan Poppitt will play the Voice of Quasimodo in tandem with Jack Fry’s physical embodiment of the bell-ringer of Notre Dame cathedral in 15th century Paris. 

“There are parts we’ve taken from Victor Hugo’s 1831 book, such as whereas the Disney film has them all accepting Quasimodo, the implication in the book is that Quasimodo falls very deeply down a pit of despair,” he says.

“There’s a lyric in Someday that says, ‘some day life will be kinder, love will be blinder’, and that’s the key theme in a time when Quasimodo and her entire gypsy community were not accepted.”

Ayana Beatrice Poblete’s Esmerelda

Choreographer Charlie Clarke adds. “Unfortunately, it’s a timely motif for what’s going on now, where there is always this idea of being ‘other’ in this world.”

Quasimodo, the “hunchback” of the title, is best known for his deformity, but Black Sheep will be highlighting his other, arguably more significant impediment.

 “The key idea we’re exploring is the fact that in the text and every iteration of Quasimodo,  he has been at least partially deaf,” says Dan.

“Jack is a deaf actor who specialises in BSL (British Sign Language), so he performs Quasimodo’s dialogue through signs and I’m there as his interpreter, speaking his lines and singing his songs  – and the only person on stage who acknowledges my presence is Jack’s Quasimodo.

“And I will say that Jack, as the embodiment of Quasimodo, puts every emotion that he can into the dialogue and songs.”

Matthew Peter Clare: Black Sheep Theatre Productions founder and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame director

Matthew says: “We’re making more of Quasimodo’s deafness, rather than his deformity, because deafness makes it harder for him to communicate. His deformity doesn’t stop him communicating, though it doesn’t help, as far as society around him is concerned, but the thing that hurts him and affects him is that he can’t communicate.”

Charlie adds: “Jack is such an incredible dancer too, and it’s so beautiful to watch him incorporating dancing into his BSL signing. It’s not just the words. He throws his entire body into it, so it’s like watching a contemporary dancer.”

Filipino-born Ayana Beatrice Poblete will play the other ‘outsider’, the gypsy – or more correctly French Roma – girl Esmerelda, and she reckons the production could not be better timed, given the heated debate on immigration bubbling over in British politics.

“It’s a good reminder to bring it back to the point that there will always be a ‘separation’ because people are always on edge as they haven’t been exposed to it for a long time, so they think everything is dangerous, but hopefully it will be seen in our show as curiosity,” she says.

“I’m really blessed to get the chance to sing God Help The Outsiders, not only in representing that community, but also because they are outcasts in society and so they feel imposter syndrome, and this is Esmerelda’s response.”

Black Sheep Theatre Productions cast member Jack Hooper, pictured at Selby Abbey

Matthew adds: “This might sound bleak, but I would argue that Esmerelda is the only one in the show who starts out hopeful and remains hopeful despite what happens. It’s a show with twists, and storylines are developed, but her hopefulness is the through-line of the story.”

Ayana rejoins: I actually thought at first, maybe Esmerelda is too positive, when everything is so toxic, but that positivity is not meant for her, but for passing on to others.”

Charlie says: “Esmerelda is the only one that Frolo [the Catholic clergyman and antagonist of Hugo’s tale] sees as anything comparable to a god, and maybe that is why he’s fearful as he thinks of her as an ethereal being, comparing her to an angel. That’s what scares him, whereas Quasimodo and Phoebus see the love that radiates from within her.

“The other factor that marks her out is that not only is she Romani but she is a woman too.”

Black Sheep Theatre Productions n The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 9 to 18. Performances: 7.30pm, October 10, 11 and 14 to 18; 2.30pm, October 11 and 18. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

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York Stage Musicals confirm The Hunchback Of Notre Dame premiere…and Shrek is back too

Oh, what a Knight: Chris Knight as Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical in September 2019. Shrek will return to the Grand Opera House in 2021

YORK Stage Musicals are to present The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in…2022.

“Theatres may be closed at the moment but that does not stop us planning for the future,” says artistic director Nik Briggs.

“We are honoured to be producing The Hunchback Of Notre Dame at the Grand Opera House in Autumn 2022. With lyrics by Wicked’s Stephen Schwartz and music by Aladdin’s Alan Menken, this is a very exciting project for us indeed.

“It was one where we were approached by the rights holders, like with Shrek The Musical.  We love that because we’re not in the rat race to get it, and it’s nice they value the work we do, especially with Disney, who have very strict regulations.”

The York Stage diary for 2021 is taking shape with Shrek The Musical confirmed for a return to the Grand Opera House next spring, over the Easter holidays, and rights secured for Elf next winter.

Jacob Husband, as Adam, front, Alex Weatherhill, as Bernadette, and Joe Wawrzyniak, as Tick, in York Stage Musicals’ Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Benedict Tomlinson

More shows are being lined up too, not least a new work from Alex Weatherhill, who starred as Bernadette in York Stage Musicals’ production of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, in September 2017.

“Alex came to see us in Tim Firth’s The Flint Street Nativity and Steel Magnolias and said he wanted to do something for us, and we’re delighted as he writes the summer show at the Bridlington Spa,” says Nik.

Shrek The Musical will bring York Stage full circle, being the last show the company staged at the Grand Opera House before the Coronavirus pandemic shut down theatres and the first to be mounted by YSM once the Cumberland Street theatre re-opens.

As for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Nik says: “It’s a show we’ve always wanted to look at doing because it’s never been done in the West End, only in America, so it will be nice to bring it to York.”

Indeed it will but, after his tour de force as Shrek in Shrek The Musical last September, will Nik be playing the Hunchback? “Definitely not,” he insists. That Autumn 2022 slot still leaves plenty of time to change his mind, however.