Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine in her New York City apartment in Present Laughter. Picture: Simon Annand
IN 2019, in North Yorkshire director Matthew Warchus’s take on Noel Coward’s 1939 study of the temptations and pitfalls of theatrical celebrity, Andrew Scott portrayed vainglorious actor Garry Essendine as gay at the Old Vic.
Now, in her second re-invention and re-imagination of a male character, following her portrayal of Shylock in the Black Shirt and Nazi-shadowed The Merchant Of Venice 1936 that played York Theatre Royal in November 2023, Tracy-Ann Oberman transforms Garry into Geri: Geri With A G, as the poster in her New York City apartment declares (presumably in a nod to Liza Minnelli and Bob Fosse’s 1972 musical documentary Liza With A Z).
Living opposite the newly opened Studio 54, whose muffled disco groves can be heard when she opens one of her multiple windows of her white-walled abode, Oberman’s Geri is a “hugely successful actress and singer”, a grand-standing English ex-pat with a coterie of fans, friends and hangers-on, who has clung on to being 39 for the best part of a decade, although she talks of her face needing work.
On the cusp of heading off on tour to Australia (rather than Africa in Coward’s original), and still craving the chance to play the elusive Hedda Gabler, she is besieged by would-be, definitely much younger lovers (Seb Carrington’s naive, besotted David Stillington and Kit Young’s cynical, deceitful Johannes) and an obsessed young playwright (Eva Feiler’s Rosina Maule, irritating to Geri and audience alike, alas).
Around her too buzz her humorously eccentric spiritualist (Gabriella Foley’s Miss Erikson), house servant-cum-bouncer (Perry Williams’s ultra-cool Fred), friend Morris (Jonathan Tafler) and his wife Henrietta (Charlotte Randle).
Present Laughter director Lindsay Posner
They are but drones by comparison with the comic elan of James Dreyfus’s Monty, Geri’s eloquent, exasperated secretary, and Adrian Lukis’s Len, her elegant, arch, implacable ex-husband, still ever present as they never got round to completing the divorce papers.
Such experienced hands, Dreyfus and Lukis are operating in a superior acting stratosphere to the touring company’s younger charges, comfortable with Coward’s waspish wit, with better timing than the rest, and bringing out the best too in Oberman, whose Geri is all Seventies’ blonde glamour, at once tiring of the fame game yet fearful of loneliness and still craving being desired. Whenever soul-searching threatens to consume her, throwaway sex beckons again: as much coward as Coward.
In Oberman’s transformations, the secretary’s change from Monica to Monty and the ex-wife’s switch from Liz to Len are by far the most effective, in part because of Dreyfus and Lukis’s comic prowess, but certainly Carrington, Young and Feiler fare less well, to the detriment of the play’s impact. The first half drags its feet, the second still lacks fire for too long until the sting is drawn at the finale.
Remembered in York for his Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions of Romeo And Juliet and Richard III in 2018 at the Eye of York, director Lindsay Posner elicits more style than substance overall, exemplified by Peter McKintosh’s set and costume designs, featuring two faux portraits by Geri’s Studio 54 friend Andy Warhol.
Like in those Pop Art portraits, there should be more going on beneath the surface, although it is striking that while we never see Essendine’s Geri on stage, she is always acting.
Theatre Royal Bath Productions & Augusta Productions present Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine and Seb Carrington’s David Stillington in Present Laughter, on tour at Grand Opera House, York. Picture Simon Annand
THEATRE Royal Bath Productions and Augusta Productions re-present Noël Coward’s provocative comedy Present Laughter in a new version, re-imagined by actress, playwright and columnist Tracy-Ann Oberman, at the Grand Opera House, York, from tomorrow (6/10/2026).
Last seen in York as Shylock in her revamp of The Merchant Of Venice 1936 at the Theatre Royal in November 2023, on her return she is playing Geri Essendine: the first time the character has been performed by a female lead, after being originated on stage by Coward himself in 1939 and traditionally being portrayed as Garry Essendine.
Andrew Scott played self-obsessed actor Essendine as a gay man at the Old Vic, London, in North Yorkshireman Matthew Warchus’s 2019 production. Now comes EastEnders, Friday Night Dinner, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actress Oberman’s reinvention of Coward’s study of the temptations and pitfalls of theatrical celebrity in a reflection on fame, desire and loneliness, spun inside a “chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching” (as the Old Vic publicity put it).
Re-located from London to 1970s’ New York, Oberman’s Geri Essendine is a hugely successful actress who has been 39 for the best part of a decade. Her personality, wit and charm have earned her a legion of devoted fans, young and old, and a coterie of friends, acquaintances and hangers-on.
Set and costume designer Peter McKintosh’s design for Geri Essendine’s apartment in 1977 New York, featuring pastiche “Andy Warhol” portraits of actress Geri. Picture: Simon Annand
On the cusp of departing for a tour of Africa, Geri finds herself besieged by a bevy of would-be lovers, her long-suffering secretary, estranged husband and an obsessed young playwright. Will she ever disentangle herself from their tightening clutches and incessant demands? What’s more, deep down, does she really want to?
“Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays,” said Oberman, when announcing the tour in June. “But when I looked at it more closely, I saw something beyond the sparkling comedy. I saw a portrait of the cost of celebrity — of a fragile ego trapped inside a gilded cage, desperately trying to hold back the one thing that catches up with every icon: time, and the fear of becoming irrelevant.”
“The moment I flipped the gender, the stakes suddenly became even more fascinating,” noted Oberman, who is working with director Lindsay Posner for the third time, having played Belinda Blair alongside Felicity Kendal’s Dotty Otley in the 40th anniversary production of Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre, London, in 2022-2023 and appeared in Ryan Craig’s The Holy Rosenbergs at the Renier Chocolate Factory, London, from late-February to early-May this year.
“I think hopefully Tracy trusts the fact I can bring out her full potential as an actress, and we have that ‘shorthand’ between us that means we don’t have to tread as carefully as you would with anyone you don’t know already,” says Lindsay, whose directorial skills will be familiar to York audiences from his 2018 pop-up Elizabethan theatre productions of Richard III and Romeo And Juliet, set in 1980s’ Italy, for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre at the Eye of York.
Present Laughter director Lindsay Posner
“I know how to connect with her and work with her big personality,” he adds. “Tracy approached me and floated her concept, asking me if I thought it would work – and I did. One of the reasons I hadn’t done Present Laughter before was because the play had started to feel politically dodgy, watching an older man seducing women in their 20s. That would now be creepy and tedious.
“Tracy’s idea liberated the play and allowed it to be performed again with a whole new resonance, just as the Old Vic liberated it by making Essendine a gay man, where Andrew Scott played him.”
Lindsay continues: “Updating it to the 1970s and setting it in New York liberates it from people’s preconceptions of Coward being all about mahogany furniture and people wafting cigarette holders around.
“Now, Geri is living in a New York apartment opposite Studio 54, where Andy Warhol has become a friend and has painted her portraits on the apartment walls. In some ways, Geri feels more isolated and in some ways she’s trying to blend in. It’s made her more hedonistic and sexually promiscuous.”
The poster for Present Laughter starring Tracy-Ann Oberman
In Lindsay’s verdict, Oberman’s take on Present Laughter is “still 96 per cent Coward”. “We’ve been faithful to Coward but changed certain names, place names and settings,, but the structure is still totally Coward and most of the language too,” he says.
“I do feel that if you just still set it in the 1930s with a woman as the lead, it wouldn’t have worked. You have to update it. I think it now gives it a slightly more substantial resonance in terms of sexual politics.”
The play’s profusion of “talking in the first half before becoming a farce in the second” makes Present Laughter “very difficult to direct”. “Structurally it’s not as adept as some of Coward’s other plays,” says Lindsay. “You have to find the balance to keep it funny and interesting while sticking to the structure.
“The interesting thing about the play existing in the Thirties and well as the Seventies is that it allows you to question boundaries between people, to think about truth telling, and for Geri it’s about identity and identifying true feelings from false, both as an actor and in real life.
“Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman. Picture: Simon Annand
“In this play, there are people who are performing all the time. Geri is forced to perform [off stage] as she’s a celebrity and is expected to do that, which makes her more lonely, and that’s enhanced by bringing it into the 1970s.”
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Augusta Productions present Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, Grand Opera House, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Did you know:
LINDSAY Posner is at the helm of Present Laughter after his West End triumphs directing Noises Off, starring Felicity Kendal, A View From The Bridge, starring Dominic West, and The Deep Blue Sea, starring Tamsin Greig.
Posner is directing the world premiere of Park Myung-Sung and Seensee Company’s production of Nero (book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, the Tony Award-winning team behind Spring Awakening) at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London, from November 2 to December 5
Power, fame and excess combine in this new musical that reimagines the notorious figure of Nero for the modern age. Andrew Barth Feldman will play the Roman emperor who changed history forever. ruling from AD54 until his suicide in AD68.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine and James Dreyfus’s Monty in a publicity shot for Present Laughter
Who will be joining Tracy-Ann Oberman in Lindsay Posner’s cast for Present Laughter?
JAMES Dreyfus will play Monty. Dreyfus is known for major roles in television sitcoms Gimme Gimme Gimme and The Thin Blue Line, as well as Mount Pleasant, more recently. He won the 1998 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in a musical for Lady In The Dark at the National Theatre; other notable stage roles include The Producers and Cabaret.
Adrian Lukis will play Len. Screen credits include Pride And Prejudice, The Crown, Judge John Deed, Peak Practice, and Black Mirror. His theatre work includes The Price in the West End, Orson’s Shadow at Southwark Playhouse, Being Mr Wickham – which he co-wrote and has performed in London, New York and on tour, with Original Theatre Company, playing the Haunted Season at York Theatre Royal in October in October 2021.
From February 27 to May 2 this year, he appeared in Lindsay Posner’s production of The Holy Rosenbergs at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Luk
In the company too will be Richenda Carey as Lady Saltburn, Seb Carrington as David Stillington, Eva Feiler as Rosina Maule, Gabriella Foley as Miss Erikson, Charlotte Randle as Henrietta, Jonathan Tafler as Morris, Perry Williams as Fred and Kit Youngas Johannes.
Tracy-Ann Oberman on ‘flipping the gender’from Garry to Geri Essendine in Noël Coward’s comedy Present Laughter
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Geri Essendine in Present Laughter: “For stars like Geri and her gang, the party is never just a party,” she says. Picture: Simon Annand
“THERE is a beautifully preserved myth surrounding Noël Coward. For many, he exists in a world of silk dressing gowns, perfectly enunciated vowels and silver cigarette cases.
“Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays. But when I looked at it more closely, I saw something beyond the sparkling comedy.
“I saw a portrait of the cost of celebrity — of a fragile ego trapped inside a gilded cage, desperately trying to hold back the one thing that catches up with every icon: time, and the fear of becoming irrelevant.
“In Coward’s original 1939 play, Garry Essendine is an ageing stage idol, prone to theatrical tantrums and ill-advised affairs, while those around him manage his chaos. But the moment I flipped the gender, the stakes suddenly became even more fascinating.
“Enter Geri Essendine – who has been thirty-nine for the best part of a decade. The idea of a badly behaved middle-aged actress, conducting herself every bit as outrageously as her male counterparts, immediately intrigued me.
“I thought of Mae West, who wrote and produced her own work and famously enjoyed the company of many of her leading men. Ithought of Joan Collins and her uniquely British glamour, of Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli. Women with agency, self-belief, power and unafraid to use their glamour and influence.
“But would it work in pre-war London? Or could another setting honour Coward’s original while allowing us to look at it through a different lens, without losing any of its wit, farce and brilliance?
“I found myself drawn to New York in 1977, at the height of Studio 54. The endless queues outside, the celebrities gliding into those hallowed VIP spaces (sometimes on horseback), where strong charismatic women were centre stage in a world of glamour, excess and an intoxicating sense of belonging to ‘the in crowd’. Where bad behaviour and egotismwas rife across all genders.
“And I began to wonder: what if Geri were an expatriate British actress? A hugely successful West End star who had arrived in America 15 years earlier with her chosen family – her dashing ex-husband, her fiercely loyal secretary and her producers – all determined that she would conquer Broadway and make all their fortunes.
“Geri needs them desperately, and they need her. Without each other, can they even exist? Can Monty, Len, Henrietta, Morris – and Geri herself – survive the arrival of the handsome Johannes, whose presence threatens to blow “the firm” apart?
“Get close to Geri and you enter the inner sanctum. Here is a woman who knows minor royalty, whose intelligence and talent have made her irresistible to everyone around her, and whose star power still burns brightly.
“Huge thanks must go to Alan Brodie and the Noël Coward Estate for giving me permission to explore the idea, and to Lindsay Posner, Danny Moar and Simon Beresford for encouraging me to see whether it might work.
“Setting Present Laughter in the world of Studio 54 throws a fresh light on questions that feel surprisingly contemporary. In an industry that has so often been harsher on women than men, ageing and relevance are notsimply matters of vanity. For performers whose lives have been shaped by applause and attention, the fear of losing the spotlight can feel overwhelming.
“But we haven’t broken Noël Coward’s masterpiece. Quite the opposite. Beneath the mirrored disco ball, Present Laughter remains what it has always been: a dazzling comedy about love, vanity, friendship and thestrange business of being adored.
“Because for stars like Geri and her gang, the party is never just a party.”
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s East End pawnbroker and single mother Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, set in Cable Street, London, with Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts on the march
NOTHING will stop The Merchant Of Venice being a problem play, and that’s the problem. Especially against the backdrop of the hell of the Gaza Strip. Suella Braverman’s P45. The English Defence League on the attack. Peaceful Armistice Day protests in London and beyond, demanding a ceasefire, or was that antisemitism?
Amid this tempest, Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman and director Brigid Larmour’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s vituperative play arrives in York: a city with the darkest stain of history from the Jewish massacre at the site of Clifford’s Tower on March 16 1190, but with a new chapter opened after this autumn’s arrival of Rabbi Dr Elisheva Salamo as the spiritual leader of the York Liberal Jewish Community.
Is The Merchant Of Venice antisemitic, cursed by Shakespeare’s depiction of moneylender Shylock as English literature’s most archetypal Jewish character? “I think its legacy is antisemitic. So yes, I suppose it is an antisemitic play,” Oberman told the Guardian during rehearsals for this Watford Palace Theatre production in February.
Henry Goodman, who won an Olivier Award for his Shylock in Trevor Nunn’s 1999 National Theatre production, said in the same piece: “I think it depicts antisemitism, but is not antisemitic because it humanises.”
Abigail Graham, Jewish director of The Globe’s “radical” 2022 production, defined the play thus: “It’s not a play about antisemitism,” the Guardian quoted her. “It’s about the intersection between white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, antisemitism and racism”.
Why this preamble? You could make a case for each assessment, but ultimately the argument over whether The Merchant Of Venice is antisemitic will never be decided by any one production.
Ultimately, Graham has it right in referring to the intersection, one that now defines British or, more to the point, English discomfort at our colonial past and its continuing impact.
Let’s call The Merchant Of Venice an “uncomfortable” play, one where Shakespeare has Portia destroy Shylock in court, for the moneylender to slink away never to be heard again, only for a jocund ending to follow with fun and games over wedding rings as if we had strayed into one of his summer-lit comedies.
Unlike Shylock, Oberman and Larmour are not content to let it end there, instead adding a coda to round off the 1936 setting amid the rising tide of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascist Blackshirts, on the march through Cable Street in London’s East End on October 4 that year.
All Larmour’s cast strip off glad rags and fascist appareil to stand with Oberman’s Shylock, behind her banner They Shall Not Pass “We are stronger, prouder and safer together,” is her message, as she urges all the audience to its feet. (Well, that’s one way to ensure a standing ovation as sems to be becoming increasingly obligatory at theatre shows.)
Not everyone obliged, perhaps uneasy that the problems highlighted by this problematic play are more complicated, more nuanced, than that.
Shakespeare’s play has “always fascinated and repulsed” Oberman. “I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it,” she said. Does anyone “like it”, however? It is not Hamlet, nor King Lear, more questions than answers, but she wanted to “reclaim Shylock”, not to play Shylock for sympathy, nor shy away from the villainy, but to show why Shylock “becomes the monster that they make her” in the face of Jewish persecution.
Traditionally a male role, Oberman has taken inspiration from her great-grandmother’s hardy, dignified East London generation to depict Shylock as a Cable Street pawnbroker and single mother with an errant daughter (Grainne Dromgoole’s Jessica), played as righteous, resolute, rigorous and wronged.
This adds gender and misogyny to the degradation of the spat-upon Shylock at the hands of Raymond Coulthard’s sneering Antonio, dressed all in Mosley black, as he mocks her demand for her pound of flesh on failing to meet the terms of his bond.
Liz Cooke’s design depicts Shylock’s Cable Street home in drab, brutalist grey brick. By contrast, Portia’s film-noir high society elegance is denoted by a marble floor, a white curtain and silk dresses; Antonio’s business world by a chandelier.
Greta Zabulyte’s matching black and white video design begins with Mosley mid-speech, to be followed by fascist posters, newspaper headlines and period footage, all leading up to the Battle of Cable Street. Sarah Weltman’s sound design of smashed windows and loud, threatening voices and Erran Baron Cohen’s piano compositions shadow what is unfolding with haunting inevitability. The Star of David is highlighted on the wall, but Jew Dog is scrawled on Shylock’s door.
As mentioned earlier, one problem in The Merchant Of Venice is the contrasting tones: the chortling comedy of Portia’s hapless suitors seeking to win her hand, topped off by Gavin Fowler’s outwardly charming Bossanio, as if in a Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde comedy of manners, but the visceral, shocking hatred of Shylock, as exemplified by the thuggish excesses of Xavier Starr’s Gratiano. You can but choke on the comedy.
The transition of York-born Hannah Morrish’s Portia – my other character is a Portia too – typifies this dichotomy. Aloof but irresistibly attractive society belle, all-hours socialite, scheming aristocrat, as if she were the seventh Mitford sister, but then she becomes, as Oberman has indelicately put it, an effing bitch in her chilling courtroom humbling of Shylock.
This is a high-quality production, from design to vocal delivery, if fast-moving rather than moving, with well edited dialogue and a modernity to its theatricality and tone.
Does Obeman “reclaim Shylock” in what she calls her legacy heritage project? The play, the central character, Shakespeare’s motives, will still divide opinion, and new horrors will always inform them, but what Oberman and Larmour highlight is how unlikeable everyone is in The Merchant Of Venice. Until that unifying coda, but when will such a coda head over the horizon? Not any time soon.
Watford Palace Theatre in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Cable Street pawnbroker and single mother Shylock in the 1936 East End with fascism on the rise. Picture: Mark Senior
POLITICAL dramas, a heap of big comedy names, a newly revived Eighties’ band and a belated American debut will keep Charles Hutchinson out and about.
Controversial play of the week: The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
WATFORD Palace Theatre’s ground-breaking touring production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice has been adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an original idea by co-creator and actress Tracy-Ann Oberman.
As the tide of fascism swells in 1936, Oberman’s Shylock is a strong-willed single mother who runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts will soon march. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Ross Noble: Geordie surrealist in his natural habitat in Jibber Jabber Jamboree at Grand Opera House, York
Comedy at the treble at Grand Opera House, York: Dave Gorman, Monday, 7.30pm; Ross Noble, Wednesday, 8pm; Paul Smith, 7.30pm
DAVE Gorman’s Powerpoint To The People show aims to demonstrate that a powerpoint presentation need not involve a man in a grey suit standing behind a lectern and saying “next slide please”. Far more important things demand analysis, he urges.
Geordie surrealist Ross Noble returns to York on his 21st tour, Jibber Jabber Jamboree, for another journey into inspired, improvised nonsensical comedy with detours galore. Paul Smith’s Joker gig, full of audience interaction and everyday true stories, has sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Fame Hasn’t Changed Me, by Susan Bower, from Kentmere House Gallery’s winter exhibition
Exhibition launch of the week: Not Black Friday But Colour Friday!, Kentmere House Gallery, Scarcroft Hill, York, until December 22
ORIGINAL art by more than 70 artists features in the Christmas exhibition at Kentmere House Gallery. “Among them is Jonathan Hooper, a Leeds painter deservedly becoming recognised, winning awards and now showing in London and at the Millenium Gallery in Sheffield,” says gallery owner and curator Ann Petherick.
“Then there’s Susan Bower, a Marmite painter – most love her, a few don’t! Look out for Andrew Morris’s delightful view of Knaresborough’s marketplace. We have new work arriving all the time.” Open any day, 11am to 5pm; ring 01904 656507 or 07801 810825 or take pot luck.
Kirkgate, Leeds, by Jonathan Hooper, from Kentmere House Gallery’s winter show
Tribute show of the week: The Chicago Blues Brothers, Cruisin’ For A Bluesin’ Tour, Grand Opera House, York, November 12, 7.30pm
JOIN Jake and Elwood, The Sweet Soul Sisters and the amazing CBB Band for a hand-clapping, foot-stomping, hard-hitting night of soul, rhythm & blues, country and Motown. Expect exuberant spirit, irresistible energy and even a few surprises. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Raqhael Harte as Sophie Goodman, Mick Liversidge as Phil Goodman and Ian Giles as Ratko Ilich in Lumar Productions’ premiere of Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins
Premiere of the week: Lumar Productions in Sea Stones, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
AFTER eight novels and a regular column in The York Press, Tim Murgatroyd has written his debut play, an emotional, suspenseful night of the soul when four people are brought together in a lonely house by the sea.
Two fathers. Two daughters. Each confronted with the consequences of the past as a high tide is turning and tests to their relationships are escalating. Tests that might cost them not only their dearest hopes and loves, but their very lives. “The truth can set you free. Or drown you,” says Murgatroyd. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Phil Grainger, left, and Alexander Flanagan Wright: Performing Orpheus at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
Double act of the week:Wright & Grainger in Orpheus, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Wednesday, 7pm to 9pm
ALEXANDER Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger’s Greek myth adaptation in spoken word and song heads to Rise after Adelaide Fringe award-winning success in Australia and at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as back home at Stillington Mill.
Dave is turning 30. Eurydice is a tree nymph. Bruce Springsteen is on the karaoke. Cue a tale of dive bars, side streets, ancient gods and how far you would go for love. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.
Long time coming: Ben Folds will stride into the Grand Opera House for his overdue York debut on Thusday
Gig of the week: Ben Folds, What Matters Most Tour, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday,7.30pm
AT 57, North Carolina pianist, songwriter, author and podcast host Ben Folds plays his debut York show in support of What Matters Most, his first studio album since 2015.
At the only Yorkshire gig of his nine-date British and Irish tour, Folds will be combining his new material with songs from his 35-year career. Guitarist and singer Lau Noah, from Catalonia via New York, is the support act. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Snake Davis: Sax to the max at Pocklington Arts Centre
Jazz gig of the week: Snake Davis & Friends, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm
JAZZ At PAC presents Snake Davis, saxophonist to the stars, from Paul McCartney, James Brown, Tina Turner and Eurythmics to Take That, Amy Winehouse, M-People and Lisa Stansfield.
First making his mark in York band Zoot & The Roots, Davis plays not only the saxophone family, but flutes, whistles and an ancient Japanese wind instrument, the Shakuhachi, too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Haircut 100: Wearing their favourite shirts at York Barbican on Friday
Fantastic day to see: Haircut 100, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
NICK Heyward’s short-lived Brit-funk band Haircut 100 are back together after more than 40 years, following up May’s Pelican West 40th anniversary shows in London and Oxford with the 15-date Haircut 100% Live tour that ends in York, their only Yorkshire location.
“We are coming back with a tour to beat all tours this autumn,” says Beckenham-born Heyward, now 62. “All the hits that you love [Favourite Shirts (Boys And Girls), Love Plus One, Fantastic Day et al] and new tracks that we are bursting to share with you.” The support act will be Brighton band of brothers Barbara. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
The tour poster for Only Fools And Horses The Musical, bound for York next year
Lovely jubbly look-ahead: Only Fools And Horses The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 5 to 9 2024
DIRECT from a four-year sold-out West End run, Only Fools And Horses The Musical is heading to York in Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan’s show, based on John Sullivan’s record-breaking 1980s’ BBC comedy.
Directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, it features a script and original score by John’s son and Whitehouse, bringing Peckham rogues Del Boy, Rodney, Grandad, Cassandra, Raquel, Boycie, Marlene, Trigger, Denzil, Mickey Pearce, Mike the Barman and the Driscoll Brothers to the stage with wide-boy humour and 20 songs. Bonnet de douche! Box office: atgtickets.co.uk.
Sarah Millican: Fully booked run at York Barbican
Recommended but sold out already
THREE nights, three sell-outs for South Shields humorist Sarah Millican at York Barbican from November 14 to 16 on her Late Bloomer tour, where she discusses Sarah then and now, dinners and lady gardens at 8pm nightly. Come along, laugh at her, with her, beside her, reads the invitation.
Zeus: Once the ancient Greek god of the sky, lightning, thunder, law and order; now a champion dog with a lead role in York Theatre Royal’s pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk
In Focus: Best dog in show: Zeus the collie collars role in Jack And The Beanstalk
YOUNG Kennel Club Crufts trophy winner Zeus has won a lead role in this winter’s pantomime at York Theatre Royal.
The six-year-old Border Collie, from York, will make his stage debut alongside EastEnders star Nina Wadia, returnee panto dame Robin Simpson and CBBC’s Raven star James Mackenzie in Jack And The Beanstalk from December 8 to January 7 2024.
A theatre spokesperson says: “Zeus’s amazing audition gave us all paws for thought. He’s a natural stage performer whose dogged determination to win the role was a real tail-wagging moment.”
Already Zeus is a winner on the canine stage with three Young Kennel Club Crufts trophies to his credit. Those closest to him say he is very agile and loves to play but has an “off switch”and likes to wind down too.
Pantomime director Juliet Forster was delighted to hear that Zeus is “very eager to please, playful and up for learning” as she will be training him for his acting debut.
Zeus loves cream cheese, squeezy cheese too, and sometimes has carrots for breakfast. He eats at the table and even has his own chair. His favourite toys are balls and he has a collection of soft toys.
Zeus enjoys rounding up horses but not, as you might expect from a Border Collie, rounding up sheep. He is, however, best friends with two sheep, Maisie Midnight Fluffington and Wallace.
Pull the udder one: Anna Soden goes solo as Dave the Cow in Jack And The Beanstalk
He is yet to meet cows but will have his first close encounter with the bovine world in the rehearsal room as one of his co-stars will be Dave the Cow.
Dave is a rare breed of pantomime cow. “You’d almost think Dave is human,” says York actor and musician Anna Soden, who will inhabit the role on her own, rather than the usual two people squeezed uncomfortably into a cow costume.
Writer Paul Hendy, director of York Theatre Royal’s producing partner Evolution Productions, says: “In 19 years of writing and producing pantomimes, we’ve never had a human cow before. We wanted to do something different and director Juliet Forster was very open to that. It makes more opportunities in the show for the cow. It’s a much bigger part than usual. Dave is very much one of the gang.
“Our company is called Evolution for a reason: we are constantly evolving. One of the reasons pantomime has survived for 150 years or more is that it changes. There has to be a formula but within that you have to be original.”
Evolution is producing three Jack And The Beanstalk pantomimes around the country this winter. York has Dave; the shows at The Grove, Dunstable (starring EastEnders’ Steve McFadden, by the way), and Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, will have a more traditional cow.
Meanwhile, the Theatre Royal’s legendary pantomime cow Patrica is heading for pastures new this Christmas with a role in Bridlington Spa Theatre’s pantomime, Beauty And The Beast.
Patricia’s career has taken in television appearances in The Crystal Maze with pantomime stalwart Christopher Biggins and Bargain Hunt, as well as starring in her own series of moo-vies on You Tube.
York Theatre Royal presents Jack And The Beanstalk, December 8 to January 7 2024. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, on tour at York Theatre Royal . Picture: Mark Senior
EASTENDERS, Doctor Who and Friday Night Dinner star Tracy-Ann Oberman will play Shylock in a ground-breaking version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice on tour at York Theatre Royal from November 14 to 18.
Developed in association with HOME Manchester and with support from the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Merchant Of Venice 1936 has been adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an idea by co-creator Oberman.
Their thought-provoking and timely reimagining relocates the action to an electrifying new setting: London in 1936.
“It has a been a lifelong dream of mine to bring this play to the stage in a new way, reimagining Shylock as one of the tough, no-nonsense Jewish matriarchs I grew up around in Brent,” says London-born actress, playwright and narrator Oberman, 57, as she “takes this important, sharp, sexy and heartfelt production around the country”.
“I’m delighted this project is finally happening and look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history – just how close the establishment were to Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists.”
In Watford Palace Theatre’s touring production, the capital city is on the brink of political unrest, fascism is sweeping across Europe and Mosley’s fascists are threatening a paramilitary march through the Jewish East End. Strong-willed single mother Shylock, Shakespeare’s anti-hero, runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Mosley will march.
The poster for Watford Palace Theatre’s touring production of The Merchant Of Venice, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock
When charismatic, anti-Semitic aristocrat Antonio comes to her for a loan, a high-stakes deal is struck. Will Shylock take her revenge? Who will pay the ultimate price?
“The women in my family were as tough as nails,” says Tracy-Ann, recalling her great-grandmother and aunts, women with nicknames such as Machine-Gun Molly and Sarah Portugal, who arrived in London from anti-Semitic eastern Europe at the turn of the last century to build a life and make a living against the odds.
Oberman’s family history helped her to unlock Shakespeare’s most controversial play. Her relatives survived the Battle of Cable Street in London’s East End in 1936, when the Jewish community was targeted by Mosley’s Blackshirts, only to be confounded when the non-Jewish community stood by their Jewish neighbours.
In The Merchant Of Venice 1936, Oswald Mosley inspires Antonio (Raymond Coulthard), the sneering merchant who takes a loan from Shylock, while heiress Portia (Hannah Morrish) becomes “a beautiful glacial Mitford type – awful”, whose “quality of mercy” courtroom speech bears the mark of hypocrisy, not humanity.
Oberman’s single mother Shylock is fiercely committed, both to her independence and to her daughter. “I have one daughter,” she says. “It’s an intense relationship!”
The Merchant Of Venice had always fascinated and repulsed her, and this production duly sat in her head for years as she researched, planned and waited for lockdowns to pass.
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock: “A woman backed into a corner by all these men, with the palpable hatred and misogyny”. Picture: Mark Senior
Now that her female Shylock has come face to face with audiences at last, she says: “The thing that surprised me most was the court case. Just how powerful it was to see this woman backed into a corner by all these men, with the palpable hatred and misogyny. It was electric. You could cut the atmosphere in the auditorium with a knife. That was a revelation.”
Playing Shylock as a woman does not soften the character, emphasises Oberman. “I didn’t want to make her a victim or change her role in the story,” she says, before adding: “Maybe I underestimated the impact of a female Shylock. There are a couple of very shocking moments that really upset audiences.
“In an early scene, Antonio comes to borrow money, and Shylock describes him spitting on her and kicking her like a dog. When that behaviour is directed at a woman, it heightens the anti-Semitism.
“I think people also see a woman with her rage and anger. She loses her daughter, her money – she loses everything. And when you tell somebody that they’re a monster for long enough, they become that monster.”
The play speaks as much to the present as of the past. “At a time when we are looking at Britain’s involvement in colonialism and the slave trade, I think we also have to look at Britain’s flirtation with fascism,” says Tracy-Ann.
“Oswald Mosley and King Edward VIII, both great friends of Hitler, came close to power – we dodged a bullet. The great message of the play is about the pulling together of all communities. We’re better together, we’re stronger together, especially at times of huge financial and political insecurity. The past shows us what happens when we look inwards: we become very nationalistic and try to pit minorities against each other. We have to be vigilant.”
“We’re better together, we’re stronger together, especially at times of huge financial and political insecurity,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman as she tours the country in The Merchant Of Venice 1936. Picture: Mark Senior
Oberman dreams of the Battle of Cable Street being taught as part of the British civil rights movement. “Mosley had been sending his Blackshirts down into Cable Street, smashing doors, breaking windows, attacking synagogues and people on the streets, putting up the most horrific leaflets straight out of Hitler’s playbook,” she says,
“But my great grandmother always reminded me that their neighbours – their Irish neighbours, the Afro-Caribbean community, the dockers, the working classes – all stood together. That was a beautiful moment.”
Oberman acknowledges how personal this project is to her but audience reactions testify to common ground. “What has been very moving is how many people want to stay and talk at the end,” she says.
“A lot of people talk about their own family’s immigrant experience. Young political people want to talk about the Battle of Cable Street, and people who’d never seen a Shakespeare play about why they’d found it so accessible.
“One man came in with about 20 fascist newspapers from the 1930s that he’d found in his father’s loft, which we’ve used as part of our graphics. There were big conversations: is the play anti-Semitic? Was Shakespeare? Lots of really interesting conversations.”
One factor behind Oberman’s wish to stage The Merchant of Venice 1936 was teachers telling her of their anxiety over discussing this contentious play in their classrooms. This has led to the touring production being accompanied by educational work, mounted in tandem with the activist group Stand Up To Racism.
“At a time when we are looking at Britain’s involvement in colonialism and the slave trade, we also have to look at Britain’s flirtation with fascim,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman
The education team has not only visited schools and prepared a pack to support teachers, but “we’ve also created an online world which people can look at before or after seeing the play,” says Tracy-Ann. “It’s an incredible resource talking about the play, the 1930s, the history of anti-Semitism and racism, Oswald Mosley, everything you could want.”
After a diverse career on stage, taking in the RSC and National Theatre, iconic soap status as Dirty Den’s nemesis, Chrissie Watts, in EastEnders and TV comedy roles as Auntie Val in Friday Night Dinner and Mrs Purchase in Toast Of London, Oberman stands centre stage as the distaff Shylock.
“I can honestly say that when I went into this, it was never with an ego about playing Shylock, it was about wanting to tell the story. I just put my soul into it,” she says. “Every single bit of it has been a complete joy. It’s been more than a piece of theatre – for me, it’s been a mission. And it’s lived up to all my expectations.”
Audience tears and standing ovations have greeted The Merchant Of Venice 1936. “While they might not have liked my Shylock, they certainly understood why she wants that ‘pound of flesh’,” says Tracy-Ann.
“She stands in the courtroom with her handbag, with everything stacked against her. A lot of people know that feeling, believing the law is on their side, but discovering it’s only on the side of people that have power.”
The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, November 14 to 18; 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday, 2.30pm,Saturday.Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
