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More Things To Do in and around York? Here come Halloween screams and Noises Off. Hutch’s List No. 44, from The Press

Noises Off: Michael Frayn’s on-stage and off-stage comedy on York Theatre Royal’s main stage from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith

HALLOWEEN films and double bills, classic comedy and a time-travelling York legend, a Disney deep freeze and a punk/jazz collision help Charles Hutchinson leave behind October for November frights and delights.  

Play of the week: Noises Off, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

MATTHEW Kelly, Liza Goddard and Simon Shepherd lead the cast in Theatre Royal Bath’s touring revival of Michael Frayn’s riotous Noises Off, directed by Lindsay Posner, who staged Richard III and Romeo And Juliet for York’s first season of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre productions in 2018.

Structured as a play within a play, this cherished 1982 farce follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company stumbling its way through the fictional farce Nothing On, from shambolic final rehearsals to a disastrous matinee, seen silently from backstage, before the catastrophic final performance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Punch Porteous – Lost In Time at All Saints North Street

York legend of the week: Punch Porteous – Lost In Time, All Saints North Street, York, tonight, 7pm.

HAVE you heard or indeed seen the eccentric, evasive York legend Punch Porteous: soldier, philosopher, worker (when absolutely unavoidable), husbandman, connoisseur of ale and now the subject of poet Robert Powell, creative practitioner Ben Pugh and producer John Beecroft’s “multi-media drama experience”?

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster directs Powell, Nick Naidu and Imogen Wood in Powell’s story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary predicament, lost in time in York. While the city shape-shifts around him, he is catapulted unpredictably into different eras of its history from c.70 to c.2023. Box office: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/punch-porteous-lost-in-time/.

The poster for Navigators Art & Performance’s Punk/Jazz explorations at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York

Music, poetry and comedy bill of the week: Navigation Art & Performance present Punk Jazz: A Halloween Special, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 7.30pm

COMPLEMENTING the ongoing Punk/Jazz: Contrasts and Connections exhibition at Micklegate & Fossgate Socials, Navigators Art & Performance bring together energetic York punk band The Bricks;  intense improvisers Teleost; the Neo Borgia Trio, formed for the occasion from a University of York big band; grunge-influenced Mike Ambler and the experimental Things Found And Made.

Taking part too will be firebrand polemical poet Rose Drew and comedians Isobel Wilson and Saeth Wheeler. Box office: https://bit.ly/nav-punkjazz.

The Gildas Quartet: Presenting the String! concerts at the NCEM

Children’s concerts of the week: MishMash presents String!, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow, 11.30am and 2pm

THE Gildas Quartet lead tomorrow’s double celebration of the string quartet in informal 40-minute performances featuring a diverse programme from Haydn to Jessie Montgomery, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges to Dvorak, and everything in between.

Staged creatively to bring the audience into the music, these fun concerts are suitable for ages seven to 11 and their families. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Community film event of the week: The Witches (PG), Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 2.30pm

MAKE It York and The Groves Community Centre team up for a Halloween screening of Robert Zemeckis’s visually innovative 2020 film The Witches. Based on Roald Dahl’s novel, it tells the darkly humorous, heartwarming tale of an orphaned boy who goes to live with his loving Grandma in late-1967 in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis, where they have an run-in with the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Emily Portman & Rob Harbron: Delving into folk traditions to emerge with a fresh sound

Folk concert of the week: Emily Portman & Rob Harbron, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

EMILY Portman, from The Furrow Collective, and Rob Harbron, who performs with Leveret, Fay Hield and Jon Boden, have formed an inspired collaboration to delve into English folk traditions with an intricately woven contemporary sound.

Portman (voice, banjo and piano) and fellow composer Harbron (concertina, guitar and voice) released their debut album, Time Was Away, last November, comprising eight English folk songs and two 20th century poems set to music. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Chris Green accompanying FW Murnau’s Nosferatu

Halloween screaming/screening of the week: Nosferatu: Live Silent Cinema, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

CHRIS Green’s score was commissioned by English Heritage for an outdoor screening of FW Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionist vampire film at Dracula’s spiritual home of Whitby Abbey. Now the composer plays his haunting blend of electronic and acoustic instruments for the first time in York to accompany the first cinematic interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, one that gave birth to the horror movie. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Please Please You’s poster for Steve Gunn’s Rise solo concert

Double bill of the week: Please Please You presents Steve Gunn & Brigid Mae Power, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm

EXPERIMENTAL Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn’s “forward-thinking” songwriting draws on the blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz and psychedelia, suffused with a raga influence. His website says he is “currently somewhere working on new music”, although York will be the first of 12 solo gigs in Britian, Spain and Poland in November.

Wednesday’s gig will be opened by Irish singer-songwriter Brigid Mae Power, whose latest folk-tinged dreampop album, Dream From The Deep Well, arrived in March. Box office: seetickets.com/event/steve-gunn/rise-bluebird/.

Meet York Stage’s young princesses in Disney’s Frozen Jr

Musical of the week: York Stage in Disney’s Frozen Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

IN a story of true love and acceptance between sisters, Disney’s Frozen Jr follows the journey of Princesses Anna and Elsa, based on the 2018 Broadway and West End musical set in the magical land of Arendelle, with all the Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez songs from the animated film.

Producer Nik Briggs directs a cast led by Megan Pickard, Bea Charlton, Matilda Park and Esther de la Pena as the princesses. Malachi Collins plays the Duke of Weselton, Lottie Marshall, Bulda, and Oliver Lawery, King Agnarr. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

In Focus: Say Owt Slam, with special guest Polarbear, The Crescent, tonight, 7.45pm

Spoken word artist and writer Polarbear: Making an apperance at tonight’s Say Owt Slam at The Crescent, York

SAY Owt, York’s loveably gobby gang of performance  poets, take over The Crescent community venue twice a year for a raucous night of spoken word and poetry in the form of a stellar slam.

Fast, frantic and fun, a slam gives each poet three minutes to wow the audience. Regular host Henry Raby enthuses: “We love doing Say Owt on a Saturday night, because it’s a party! A poetry party!

“Although one poet will be crowned a Say Owt Slam Champion, this isn’t a bitter battle. It’s a celebration as poets bring a variety of styles and forms. In the past, we’ve had tender personal reflections, hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy poems and fiery political tirades.”

Special guest at tonight’s Say Owt Slam in York will be Polarbear. “The last time he graced our city, Polarbear (a.k.a Steven Camden) was supporting Scroobius Pip and Kae Tempest,” says Henry. “He’s an internationally acclaimed spoken word artist and award-winning writer from Birmingham, whose poetry drips with gorgeous storytelling.

“He talks about people and places with a unique ear for language: celebrating the tiny human characteristics.”

Since first stepping on stage in 2004, Polarbear has performed his work and led creative projects from Manchester to Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur to California, as well as featuring on BBC Radio1, 3 and 6Music, attracting 155,000 views on YouTube and releasing a live album on Scroobius Pip’s Speech Development record label.

A few surprises might be in store tonight too. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/say-owt-slam-featuring-polarbear/ or on the door.

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Tragic news as York Shakespeare Project confirms Macbeth run. Auditions ahoy!

Emma Scott: Retaining her lead role in York Shakespeare Project’s Macbeth, delayed by the pandemic until October 2021

SOMETHING wicked this way comes…at last.

The curse of “the Scottish Play” had struck again – in the form of a global pandemic, no less – to stop York Shakespeare Project’s penultimate production, Macbeth, only days before its opening night on March 30 2020 at Theatre @41, Monkgate.

Fifteen months later, however, committee member Tony Froud can confirm this morning: “Hot on the heels of announcing our reboot of our ever-popular Sonnet Walks for this summer’s Sonnets At The Bar, we are very pleased to confirm that our production of Macbeth is returning, with Leo Doulton continuing as director. Rehearsals will start in September for performances in the week commencing October 25.”

Rather than Lady Macbeth in her end-of-days fevers, the constant hand washing, over and over again, has been bestowed on the rest of us in these Hands-Face-Space times of Macbeth’s mothballing.

At the time of the postponement, Tony had said with the foresight of one of Macbeth’s Witches: “The ideal solution would be to pick it up again with the same company of actors later in the year, but there could yet be complications.”

How right he was. “After 15 months, circumstances have changed and sadly some actors are no longer available. However, this means there’s an opportunity for new actors to join the company,” says Tony, who will still play Ross in Shakespeare’s dark tale of ambition, murder and supernatural forces.

“Many of the original cast will be continuing in the roles they had already worked hard bringing to life, but some roles, including Lady Macbeth, are open for audition.”

Director Leo Doulton: Setting his production of Macbeth in a dystopian “cyberpunk” future, to be performed in a promenade style

These roles are: Lady Macbeth, Duncan, Lennox, Lady Macduff and Third Witch/Third Murderer/Caithness/Seyton.

“The first round of auditions will be held over Zoom on the evenings of Thursday, June 17 and Friday, June 18 and during the day on Saturday, June 19, taking no more than ten minutes,” says Tony. 

“A small number of applicants will then be called back for in-person auditions on Saturday, June 26 and Sunday, June 27.”

Actors interested in auditioning should contact yorkshakespeareproject@gmail.com with their availability on the above dates, indicating which role or roles they are interested in.

Emma Scott will still lead the cast in the title role in Doulton’s “cyberpunk”Macbeth; Clive Lyons will play Banquo/Siward; Rhiannon Griffiths, Fleance/Donalbain/Son/Young Siward; Harry Summers, MacDuff; Eleanor Frampton, Malcolm; Sarah-Jane Strong, Angus; Joy Warner, First Witch/First Murderer/Doctor, and Alexandra Logan, Second Witch/Second Murderer/Gentlewoman.

Amanda Dales (Lady Macbeth); Jim Paterson (Duncan, Lady Macduff, Menteith), Nick Jones (Lennox) and Chloe Payne (Third Witch, Third Murderer, Caithness, Seyton) are unavailable for this autumn’s run, hence this month’s auditions.

Out! Spot now available. The role of Lady Macbeth is up for grabs in York Shakespeare Project’s pandemic-delayed Macbeth after Amanda Dales left York for pastures new in Cambridge

Although Macbeth is play number 29 in Shakespeare’s chronology of 38 plays, YSP had held back the Bard’s tragedy big hitter until production number 36 of 37 as part of a grand finale to the 20-year project planned for 2020, with The Tempest as the final curtain last autumn.

Alas, theatre’s harbinger of bad luck and its Weird Sisters then delivered double, double toil and trouble to YSP. “We were six rehearsals short of the finishing line, when the Coronavirus lockdown was imposed.” says Tony.

When Macbeth and we hopefully more than three shall meet again, we shall encounter a Leo Doulton production set in a dystopian “cyberpunk” future and performed in a promenade style, with the action taking place on the move, around the audience.

“Macbeth is a magnificent tragedy about the earthly struggle between the forces of order and chaos, and how the world becomes corrupted by Macbeth’s strange bargains,” says Leo, who made his YSP directorial debut at the helm of October 2019’s stripped-back Antony And Cleopatra.

“Cyberpunk is an exciting genre for exploring, highlighting and visualising those ideas for a modern audience. We no longer fear witches, but we are still scared of our society being shaped by powers with no concern for those below them.”

The date for The Tempest to conclude YSP’s Shakespeare cycle is yet to be put in Prospero’s book, but the final production is more than likely to be accompanied by an exhibition charting YSP from 2001 formation to stormy finale. “The York Explore library is expressing an interest in presenting it, ideally to coincide with The Tempest’s run,” said Tony in March last year.