Tag: The Water Lily-Pond

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Fringe show of the week: Stephen Smith in A Montage Of Monet, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, July 8 and 11

Stephen Smith’s Claude Monet in A Montage Of Monet. Picture: Amie Barton-Young

AFTER last summer’s sold-out Edinburgh Fringe run, Stephen Smith’s solo show A Montage Of Monet plays York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, on July 8 at 7.30pm and July 11 at 3pm.

Joan Greening’s 55-minute play invites audiences to step beyond Claude Monet’s Impressionist paintings and meet the complicated, passionate and often deeply flawed man behind them.

A Montage Of Monet explores the extraordinary life of Normandy-born Monet, from his turbulent love affairs and artistic rivalries to personal tragedy, financial hardship and the failing eyesight that threatened to end his career.

“While millions recognise his iconic water lilies, few know the remarkable story behind the artist himself,” says actor and Threedumb Theatre artistic director Stephen Smith, whose production holds a special connection with York.

Actor Stephen Smith stands by Claude Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond on his visit to York Art Gallery in 2024

“While preparing for the original Edinburgh production, I made a pilgrimage to York Art Gallery to see The Water-Lily Pond during the gallery’s hugely successful National Treasures: Monet in York exhibition in 2024.

“Standing in front of one of his most famous paintings while developing the role was an unforgettable experience, and it’s incredibly special to now be bringing the show back to the city.”

Smith’s production combines live performance with carefully curated projections of Monet’s paintings and those of his contemporaries, allowing audiences with little or no prior knowledge of Impressionism to immerse themselves fully in the story.

Writer Joan Greening, whose work has been performed across the UK and internationally, created A Montage of Monet specifically with Stephen Smith in mind after she saw him perform at the Edinburgh Fringe.

In the frame: Stephen Smith in A Montage Of Monet. Picture: Picture: Amie Barton-Young

“I immediately thought this brilliant young actor could play Monet,” she says. “It has been an enormous pleasure working with Stephen, who is a dynamic performer with original and clever ideas.”

Produced by four-time OFFIE Award-winning company Threedumb Theatre, A Montage Of Monet continues the London-based company’s reputation for creating bold, imaginative solo theatre that tours nationally and internationally.

Stephen Smith in A Montage Of Monet, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, July 8, 7.30pm and July 11, 3pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guidance: 12+.

Stephen Smith’s other Fringe shows of the week: One Man Poe at Ripon Theatre Festival, July 10, 8pm, and York Medical Society, July 11, 7.30pm

Stephen Smith in The Tell-Tale Heart in One Man Poe at Ripon Theatre Festival. Picture: Shay Rowan

THREEDUMB Theatre actor and artistic director Stephen Smith brings his gothic horror phenomenon One Man Poe to North Yorkshire for a special Ripon Theatre Festival performance on July 10 and the world premiere of an entirely new Poe double-bill in York the next night.

One Man Poe had sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and 2025, winning both the Derek Award for Best Overall Show and the Spookies Award for Best Horror Solo Show.

London-based Smith now returns north with two distinct One Man Poe productions. Ripon’s audience will have the chance to experience the original One Man Poe, featuring Edgar Allan Poe classics The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and The Pendulum, The Black Cat and The Raven, while July 11’s York audience exclusively will receive the first ever public performance of The Business Man and The Case of M. Valdemar.

Anyone heading for Edinburgh this summer can catch all six stories, presented as three different shows, when Smith returns for another Fringe run.

The Ripon Theatre Festival performance presents the four-story gothic anthology that has toured internationally to Europe, Dubai, Malaysia, New York, Baltimore and beyond, earning acclaim for Smith’s virtuosic solo storytelling and atmospheric theatrical style.

Stephen Smith as The Mesmerist in The Case Of M. Valdemar, from One Man Poe, pictured at St Cuthbert’s Kirkyard graveyard in Edinburgh. Picture: Colin Hattersley Photography

Meanwhile, York becomes the first city in the world to see Smith’s newest Poe adaptations before they transfer to the Edinburgh Fringe later this summer for a 42-show run.

The Business Man concerns a corrupt, bullying American businessman who builds his fortune through ruthless scams and opportunism before deciding the time is right to enter politics.

The Case of M. Valdemar explores one of Poe’s most disturbing concepts: a mesmerist attempting to hypnotise a dying man at the precise moment of death itself.

Smith, who has committed more than 18,000 words of Poe to memory, says: “Every year I deepen the work, and these new stories allow us to explore Poe’s wicked humour and his darkest fascination with mortality. The horror in Poe is never simply monsters – it’s human nature.”

Stephen Smith in One Man Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and The Pendulum, The Black Cat and The Raven, Ripon Theatre Festival, Ripon Arts Hub, Allhallowgate, Ripon,  July 10, 8pm. Tickets: https://www.ripontheatrefestival.org/event/one-man-poe/. Age guidance: 12 plus.

Stephen Smith as The Politician / Businessman, pictured on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh. Picture: Colin Hattersley

Stephen Smith in One Man Poe, The Business Man and The Case of M. Valdemar, York premiere, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, July 11, 7.30pm, with post-show Q&A with performer-director Stephen Smith. Tickets: 01904 623568 or https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/one-man-poe-the-business-man-and-the-case-of-m-valdemar/. Age guidance: 16 plus.

Both shows contain distressing or potentially triggering themes.

For details of One Man Poe at The Fringe see https://www.edfringe.com

Stephen Smith and One Man Poe: back story

A HUGE fan of the late Roger Corman/Vincent Price’s Edgar Allan Poe-cycle when a child, Stephen Smith reignited his love of classical horror stories during the pandemic by creating online renditions of Poe’s work via Facebook Live.

When the theatres reopened, he combined four of Poe’s most popular pieces in a solo show and named the extravaganza One Man Poe. First performed in 2021 at Watford Palace Theatre, the show has had multiple runs in London  and on tour in the UK.

Poe is sometimes referred to as “America’s Shakespeare” and Stephen is thrilled to share the stories to UK theatre audiences. However, the show has toured internationally to Dubai, Malaysia, Off-Broadway in New York and the International Poe Festival in Baltimore, Maryland.

Stephen has had the pleasure of performing the show at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, Poe’s cottage in the Bronx, New York, and even a special VIP catacomb performance at Poe’s burial site in Baltimore.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond as Monet’s Water Lily-Pond bids farewell. Hutch’s List No. 37, from The Press, York

Anna Hibiscus’ Song: Theatrical story of self-discovery from Nigeria at York Theatre Royal

FROM African storytelling to Milton Jones’s puns, Will Young’s joyous pop to Dewey Finn’s teaching methods, Charles Hutchinson finds reasons to smile.

Children’s show of the week: Utopia Theatre and Sheffield Theatres present Anna Hibiscus’ Song, York Theatre Royal, today, 11am and 2pm

THIS is the story of a young African girl named Anna Hibiscus, who lives in Ibadan, Nigeria, where she is so filled with happiness that she feels like she might float away. The more she talks to her family about it, the more her happiness grows. The only thing to do is…sing!

Told through music, dance, puppetry and traditional African storytelling, this theatrical story of self-discovery is adapted for the stage by director Mojisola Kareem from the book by Atinuke and Lauren Tobia. Suitable for children aged three upwards and their grown-ups. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

The Water-Lily Pond, oil on canvas, by Claude Monet, 1899, on show at York Art Gallery until tomorrow. Copyright: National Gallery

Last chance to see: National Treasures: Monet In York: The Water-Lily Pond, York Art Gallery, in bloom until tomorrow (8/9/2024), 10am to 5pm

SUNDAY or bust. This weekend brings to an end the National Gallery’s bicentenary celebrations in tandem with York Art Gallery after close to 70,000 people took up the chance to feel the radiance of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s 1899 work, The Water-Lily Pond, the centrepiece and trigger point of this special anniversary exhibition. 

On show too are loans from regional and national institutions alongside York Art Gallery collection works and a large-scale commission by contemporary artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Una Sinfonia. Monet’s canvas is explored in the context of 19th-century French open-air painting, pictures by his early mentors and the Japanese prints that transformed his practice and beloved gardens in Giverny. Hurry, hurry to book tickets at yorkartgallery.org.uk.

Milton Jones: Not short of shirts for his Ha!Milton tour

Comedy gig of the week: Milton Jones, Ha!Milton, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7.30pm

THIS is not a musical. Milton Jones is tone deaf and has no sense of rhythm, he admits, but at least he doesn’t make a song and dance about it. Instead, he has more important things to discuss. Things like giraffes…and there’s a bit about tomatoes.

The shock-haired, loud-shirted master of the one-liner promises a whole new show of daftness. “You know it makes sense,” he says. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Will Young: Showcasing Light It Up’s joyous pop at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Jamie Noise

Pop gig of the week: Will Young, Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm

MARKING the August 9 release of his Light It Up album, Will Young is embarking on his most intimate tour yet, an up-close-and-personal evening of acoustic performances, stories and conversation across 50 dates.

The ten tracks are a return to embracing joyous unashamed pop music for Young, who has teamed up with Scandinavian pop production/writing duo pHD, as well as reuniting with Groove Armada’s Andy Cato and long-term writing partners Jim and Mima Elliot, for “the go-to pop album for a dance, for a cry and for a celebration”. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Simon Russell Beale: Shakespeare actor, now starring as Ser Simon Strong in House Of The Dragon, will be in conversation at York Theatre Royal on Tuesday night

Theatre chat: An Evening With Simon Russell Beale, York Theatre Royal, September 10, 7.30pm

WAS Shakespeare an instinctive “conservative” or, rather, gently subversive? How collaborative was he? Did he add a line to Hamlet to accommodate his ageing and increasingly chubby principal actor Richard Burbage? Did he suffer from insomnia and experience sexual jealousy?

In An Evening With Simon Russell Beale, in conversation with a special guest, the Olivier Award-winning actor will share his experiences of “approaching and living with some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters”, from his school-play days as Desdemona in Othello to title roles in Hamlet and Macbeth. Expect anecdotes of Sam Mendes, Nick Hytner, Stephen Sondheim and Lauren Bacall too. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Ruth Berkoff in The Beauty Of Being Herd, her debut show “for anyone who’s ever found it hard to fit in”. Picture: Alex Kenyon

Sheep and cheerful:  Ruth Berkoff: The Beauty Of Being Herd, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 12, and Terrington Village Hall, near Malton, September 28, both 7.30pm

HAVE you ever felt like an outsider? Hannah has. Her solution? She has decided to live as a sheep. “But don’t worry, she’s thought it all through. She’s even got a raincoat. And she’d love to tell you all about it at her Big Goodbye Party. Everyone is invited,” says Leeds writer-performer Ruth Berkoff, introducing her hour of comedy, original songs, heartfelt sharing and even a rave.

“Whether you’re shy, neurodivergent, have accidentally put your foot in it or simply had to spend time with people that weren’t ‘your people’, this is a show for anyone who’s ever found it hard to fit in.” Box office: York, tickets.41monkgate.co.uk; Terrington, terringtonvillagehall.co.uk.

Finn East’s Dewey Finn and Eady Mensah’s Tomika in rehearsal for York Stage’s School Of Rock: The Next Generation

Musical of the week: York Stage in School Of Rock: The Next Generation, Grand Opera House, York, September 13 to 21, 7.30pm, except September 15 and 16; 2.30pm, September 14 and 21; 4pm, September 15

YORK Stage is ready to rock in the riotous musical based on the 2003 Jack Black film, re-booted with a book by Julian Fellowes, lyrics by Glenn Slater and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Failed rock musician Dewey Finn (Finn East), desperate for money, chances his arm by faking it as a substitute teacher at a stuffy American prep school, jettisoning Math(s) in favour of propelling his students to become the most awesome rock band ever. Will he be found out by the parents and headmistress, leaving Dewey to face the music? Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Artistic director and cellist Tim Lowe: Running his 11th York Chamber Music Festival next week

Festival of the week: York Chamber Music Festival, various venues, September 13 to 15

FOR its 11th season, York Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist Tim Lowe is bringing together pianist Andrew Brownell, violinists Ben Hancox and Magnus Johnston, viola players Gary Pomeroy and Simone van der Giessen, cellist Marie Bitlloch and flautist Sam Coles.

The centenary of French composer Gabriel Fauré’s death will be marked prominently in the five concerts. For the full programme and tickets, go to: ycmf.co.uk.