Baritone Sam Hird and guitarist Tom Bennett outside the Royal College of Music
JOIN York baritone Sam Hird and his fellow Royal College of Music graduate, guitarist Tom Bennett, for classical music by candlelight at All Saints’ Church, North Street, York, tomorrow night (9/12/2022).
A Winter Night’s Recital will feature songs from around the world including Schubert, Faure and Britten, complemented by festive favourites such as Adeste Fideles, O Holy Night and A Cradle In Bethlehem to stir the Christmas spirit at this cosy evening of December entertainment.
The 15th century All Saints’ Church will be the “perfect backdrop” to this 7pm to 9pm concert. A glass of mulled wine and a mince pie is included in the ticket price of £10 plus booking fee, available from samhirdmusic.co.uk or on the door.
Heading north for Christmas: Tom Bennett and Sam Hird
Here, CharlesHutchPress welcomes Sam Hird back home to York ahead of his first professional solo recital
Why did you choose All Saints for this concert, Sam? What makes it a “perfect setting”?
“I fell in love with this church a few years ago after being taken to a traditional service there. The acoustics were gorgeous, the church was beautiful – especially the mediaeval stained glass windows – and above all the atmosphere was incredible. As with so many places in York, you can really feel the history when you’re inside the building.”
Have you sung there before?
“I rehearsed there around the same time as that service. A particularly memorable moment was getting to sing Make Our Garden Grow from Bernstein’s Candide. Surrounded by a host of marvellous singers, I remember getting shivers from the sound ringing round the whole church after we’d finished the final ‘grow!’ of the piece.”
Congratulations on graduating this year with a First, Sam. How have you found the experience of studying at the Royal College of Music?
“It has always been an exhilarating experience from day one. Getting to learn from incredible industry professionals and singers that I’ve always looked up to, like the brilliant Sally Burgess, was invaluable. The astonishing feeling of walking through the same corridors that Benjamin Britten would have walked through has never worn off.” How has the training had an impact on your singing?
“It’s had a huge impact. Most of my experience in York before moving to the Royal College in London was in acting through song in musicals such Sweeney Todd, Assassins, My Fair Lady and playing Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
“The vocal training at the RCM, through so many top-notch practitioners, including my singing teacher, the baritone Peter Savidge, has built up my classical voice and given me a whole new toolkit for singing at a different level.”
Sam Hird and Tom Bennett performing an Elizabethan ballad in Pick Me Up Theatre’s April production of Shakespeare In Love, directed by Sam’s father, Mark Hird, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
When did you first perform with Tom?
“We used to play through Benjamin Britten folk songs in my room in halls in our first year, as and when we wanted some respite from pizza and the students’ union bar!
“But we first performed in front of an audience for my third-year recital, where we did some French folk songs and an aria from Don Giovanni.
“We also performed in York together in April when Tom’s guitar playing was an important part of Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Shakespeare In Love at Theatre@41, Monkgate, and we performed a beautiful Elizabethan ballad together. We’ll reprise it in our winter concert in a sequence of Shakespeare songs.”
What do you enjoy about performing to guitar accompaniment?
“It’s a completely different experience to singing with a piano; somehow it instantly feels more intimate. I find the sound-worlds of the voice and guitar blend really beautifully, and I like that there’s more scope to be a little more daring in terms of the quieter moments.”
When choosing a programme, what factors do you take into consideration to achieve balance?
“When Tom and I set out with programming, one of the key factors is available music, as most of what is written for voice and guitar is for tenors – lucky things! But we like to have sections in different languages with ebbs and flows in each part.
Sam Hird and Tom Bennett in a light moment outside the Royal College of Music
“We really enjoy putting in the first few pieces from a song cycle (like Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin) as that gives us a clear, defined journey to try and take the audience on with us.”
How has the winter season infiltrated tomorrow night’s programming?
“We’ll be covering a lot of ground in terms of styles and sound worlds but the candlelit winter setting with mulled wine definitely made us want to find some ‘cosy-sounding’ songs to suit the season – and a few classic Christmas tunes tucked themselves in early on in the planning stages.”
On leaving college, how do you go about building your career?
“Thankfully, I have another two years of Masters to try and get the definitive answer to that excellent question! I’ll be putting myself forward for quite a few competitions and keeping an eye out for auditions for appropriate solo opportunities.
“But the dream would be to join a Young Artist’s Programme, where I would hope to cover some main roles and perform smaller parts in operas. That would be an incredible learning experience and hopefully an important stepping stone for my musical career.”
Winter’s chill: Rebecca Vaughan in Dyad Productions’ Christmas Gothic
GHOST stories, pantomimes and Jools’s annual visit top Charles Hutchinson’s list of winter essentials to keep warm and alert.
Ghost stories of the week, part one: Dyad Productions in Christmas Gothic, Theatre@41, Monkgate, tonight (27/11/2022), 7.30pm
FROM the creators of I, Elizabeth, A Room Of One’s Own, Female Gothic and Austen’s Women comes a dark celebration of Christmas, adapted and performed by Rebecca Vaughan.
Come in from the cold and embrace the Christmas spirit as a spectral woman tells haunting tales of the festive season, lighting a candle to the frailties of human nature and illuminating the chilling depths of the bleak, wintry gloom at this time of feasts and festivities, visits and visitations, ghosts and more ghosts. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
A Dickens or three of a scary night: James Swanton in his Ghost Stories For Christmas
Ghost Stories For Christmas, part two: James Swanton, York Medical Society, Stonegate, York, select dates from November 29 to December 20, 7pm
YORK’S gothic ghost storyteller supreme, James Swanton, presents his most ambitious Dickensian schedule yet, with 12 shows back home and around 20 more around the country, transferring to London’s Charles Dickens Museum in the run-up to Christmas.
Ghost Stories For Christmas is made up of Swanton’s hour-long solo renditions of A Christmas Carol (eight performances) and the lesser-known The Chimes and The Haunted Man (two nights each). Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/ghost-stories-for-christmas/.
The Stylistics: Soul power at York Barbican
Good for the soul show of the week: The Stylistics, York Barbican, tonight (27/11/2022), 7.30pm
SOULFUL Philadelphia harmony veterans The Stylistics “can’t wait to be back in the UK, performing all our hits, bringing back great memories and having a great evening with you all” on their 27-date tour.
In the line-up will be founder members Arrion Love and Herb Murrell, complemented by ‘Bo’ Henderson and Jason Sharp, as the 2004 inductees into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame sing I’m Stone In Love With You, You Make Me Feel Brand New, Let’s Put It All Together, You Are Everything et al. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Robert Hollingworth: Director for University of York Choir & Baroque Ensemble’s concert at Central Hall. Picture: Frances Marshall
Christmas concert of the week: Long, Long Ago, Messe de Minuit pour Noel, University of York Choir & Baroque Ensemble, Central Hall, University of York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
UNIVERSITY of YorkChoir & Baroque Ensemble are joined by The 24 for a Christmas concert of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit for voices, strings and flutes, Howells’ four jazz-inflected Carol Anthems and Bo Holten’s First Snow.
Director Robert Hollingworth also will be donning his dressing gown for a reading of Dylan Thomas’s magical A Child’s Christmas In Wales. “All in all, it’s a strange alchemic mix but we know it works!” he says. “Trust us – and come and have your first mince pie of the season.” Box office: yorkconcerts.co.uk.
Bad to the bone: Michael Lambourne’s ABBAnazar in Harrogate Theatre’s Aladdin. Picture: Karl Andre
Yorkshire welcome back of the week: Aladdin, Harrogate Theatre, until January 15 2023
MICHAEL Lambourne, the booming-voiced thespian who needs no introduction to York Theatre Royal audiences, can probably be heard all the way from York when he plays the evil ABBAnazar in his Harrogate Theatre pantomime debut.
Lambourne joins daft lad Tim Stedman’s Wishee Washee and fellow Harrogate panto returnees Christina Harris(Princess Jasmine), Colin Kiyani (Aladdin) and Howard Chadwick, back on spa-town dame duty, as Widow Twankey, for the first time since Snow White in 2019. Ebony Feare’s Genie and Stephanie Costi’s Pandora the Panda are the new faces in Marcus Romer’s cast. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.
From CBeebies to York Theatre Royal: Maddie Moate’s Tinkerbell in All New Adventures Of Peter Pan
Putting the Pan into pantomime: All New Adventures Of Peter Pan, York Theatre Royal, December 2 to January 2 2023
CBEEBIES favourite Maddie Moate and three stars of last year’s Cinderella – Faye Campbell, Paul Hawkyard and Robin Simpson – fly into action for York Theatre Royal’s third collaboration with Evolution Productions.
Moate plays naughty fairy Tinkerbell, Campbell, Elizabeth Darling, Hawkyard, Captain Hook and Simpson, Mrs Smee, joined by Jason Battersby’s Peter Pan and Jonny Weldon’s pirate Starkey in creative director Juliet Forster’s production, scripted by Evolution’s Paul Hendy. Look out for acrobats Mohammed Iddi, Karina Ngade and Mbaraka Omari too. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Jools Holland: Returning to York Barbican with Vic Reeves as his specual guest
Jools et Jim show: Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, with Vic Reeves, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
ON the back of notching the 30th anniversary of his Later…With Jools Holland shows on BBC Two, the boogie-wooogie piano man joins up with fellow Squeeze alumnus Gilson Lavis, vocalists Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall and his exuberant big band.
The special-guest star turn goes to comedian, artist and chart-topping all-round performer Vic Reeves (aka Jim Moir), Holland’s Leeds-born podcast partner on Jools & Jim’s Joyride, fresh from his Yorkshire Rocks & Dinghy Fights exhibition at RedHouse Originals, Harrogate. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Long wait: Diversity bring Supernova to York in…2024
Looking and booking ahead: Diversity: Supernova, York Barbican, March 7 and 8 2024
LONDON street dance troupe Diversity’s 66-date Supernova tour to 40 cities and towns in 2023-2024 will take in a return to York.
Winners of the third series of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, Ashley Banjo’s dancers will be switching to the Grand Opera House from York Barbican, where they presented Connected, a show full of playful, comedic routines with powerful statements on human connectivity, in April this spring. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Infinite possibilities, finite world: Emilio Iannucci’s Roland and Carla Harrison-Hodge’s Marianne in Constellations at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Nick Payne’s Constellations, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, written in the stars, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly, 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com
White Rose Theatre in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, in the tunnel of love until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly; 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
HERE is a brace of award-garlanded boy-meets-girl one-act two-handers, each playing with time and space with all the elan of Alan Ayckbourn’s playful works of this ilk.
First up, Constellations, University of York alumnus Nick Payne’s multiverse play already staged in York this year by Black Treacle Theatre’s Andrew Isherwood and Jess Murray at Theatre@41 in February.
Named as one of the 50 best plays of the 21st century by the London Evening Standard, now it is in the supple hands of Stephen Joseph Theatre artistic director Paul Robinson, whose cast features Emilio Iannucci, an actor whose thrilling combination of mental agility and physical alacrity has delighted York Theatre Royal and Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre audiences alike.
In Payne’s exploration of the myriad paths one love story can take from one meeting, Iannucci plays beekeeper Roland – with more than one sting in the tale – opposite Carla Harrison-Hodge’s scientist Marianne. “The action takes place (sort of) chronologically,” the programme forewarns. “A change of scene indicates a change of universe”.
“Emilio Iannucci and Carla Harrison-Hodge jump from universe to parallel universe with dazzling speed”. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
To avoid any consternation over Constellations, in a nutshell, each scene – the first meeting, the first date and – spoiler alert – the break-up – unfurls in several different ways, as Iannucci and Harrison-Hodge jump from universe to parallel universe with dazzling speed over 70 minutes in a world of What Ifs and endless possibilities, the next leap dependent on the decision each makes.
Comparisons have been made with the films Sliding Doors and Groundhog Day and, more pertinently, with York-born author Kate Atkinson’s novel Life After Life. Sliding Doors keeps offering two possibilities; Groundhog Day replays the same day over and over; Life After Life positsalternative possible lives for Ursula Todd after death after death.
Bolder still, yet shadowed by the finite nature of life, Constellations combines science and art, physics and chemistry, romance and alternative realities, in an otherwise simple love story.
All life is here within these Constellations: happiness and sadness; honey sweetness and ill health; devotion and cheating; certainty and uncertainty; tremors of the heart and traumas of the mind; the everyday and the extraordinary; decisions big and small; questions and more question; connection and disconnection. A day in the life and the life in a day. The roll of the dice; the truth and the lies.
On a breathtaking set by TK Hay of wooden blocks within a geometric carapace of one and a half miles of fibre-optic cable lighting, Iannucci and Harrison-Hodge talk and move equally nimbly, in response to Payne’s text, Robinson’s direction and Jennifer Kay’s movement direction alike. Sign language speaks volumes too.
Like the sky-at-night lighting’s evocation of drawing lines from star to star, the multifarious stories travel up and down lines of humour and heartbreak, light and darkness, exhilaration and loss, warmth and sudden chill, to the point where you care deeply about Roland and Marianne, whatever direction their paths take. What’s more, you ponder what alternative routes your own life could have followed.
As Robinson puts it, Constellations is “deeply human, deeply moving, genuinely tilting the world for you”. In his notes, he challenges anyone not to leave the theatre “just a bit more aware of what a fragile and remarkable thing life is”. Job done, Mr Robinson. Fragile, remarkable, and always better for a trip to the theatre to appreciate that.
Close together and drifting apart: Simon Radford’s Jamie and Claire Pulpher’s Cathy in a montage for The Last Five Years
YORK Stage director Nik Briggs has long wanted to bring Jason Robert Brown’s emotionally charged 2001 American musical The Last Five Years to York, but his ideal couplings to play Cathy and Jamie have never been in York at the same time.
The York premiere instead falls to White Rose Theatre, the city’s newest stage company, in a passion project for director Claire Pulpher and fellow actor Simon Radford, who both name it as their favourite musical.
Brown drew on the trials and tribulations of his own failed marriage to Theresa O’Neill. So much so that she sued him on the grounds of the musical’s story violating non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements within their divorce decree by representing her relationship with Brown too closely.
For Brown, read successful young novelist Jamie Wellerstein, Random House’s rising poster boy. For, well, let’s not say O’Neill, but any struggling actress, read Cathy Hiatt, from Ohio.
Brown’s sung-through musical has the novel structure of Cathy telling her side of the story from the end of the relationship backwards, while, at the other end of the stage, Jamie does so from the start forwards, as he lands a publishing deal at 23.
The songs take the form of internal monologues, alongside the occasional phone call, usually delivered with the other partner having left the stage, save for a duet where they touch for the first time, exchange marriage vows and swap ends to continue on the same trajectory. There is to be no middle ground in this relationship, no alternative paths, unlike in Constellations.
Simon Radford and Claire Pulpher in rehearsal for The Last Five Years
The singing brings to mind the work of Stephen Sondheim, melody playing second fiddle to recitative, (the form of accompanied solo song that mirrors the rhythms and accents of spoken language), whether upbeat when courting or for broken-hearted ballads.
The accompaniment, however, under the musical direction of Jon Atkin, is often beautiful as he leads a six-piece band with the strings to the fore: Marcus Bousfield on violin and Rachel Brown and Lucy McLuckie on sublime cello. Paul McArthur on guitar and Christian Topman provide the electricity.
The balance in the relationship can be played in different ways, more often with Jamie trying everything to save the relationship, to stimulate Cathy, in a gentler interpretation of the role. In song, Radford’s Jamie is intense, hyper, rising to the point of anger and shouting, uncompromising, in your face, over-confident, deceitful too.
Pulpher’s Cathy tunes into a different wavelength, more controlled, one where she experiences flights of happiness, frustration rather than embitterment with failed auditions, but moments of humour too before loss of confidence, insularity and loneliness take over.
Done this way, where Jamie is the one who is unreasonable, you wonder whether these two would ever have lasted five years or whether they were polar opposites never meant to travel in the same direction.
Nevertheless, the structure is engaging; the songs draw you in; the simple set of two chairs and one table at each end is well chosen, complemented by the regular changes of attire that match the two stories in one’s progress.
After the last two years in Covid’s shadow, seeing a new company of established York talents take its first steps in The Last Five Years is another reason to celebrate Theatre@41’s upward curve under chair Alan Park.
Review by Charles Hutchinson
Award-winning TK Hay lights up the SJT with fibre-optic design ‘unlike anything ever seen in a theatre production before’
Only connect: Cast members Carla Harrison-Hodge and Emilio Iannucci on TK Hay’s ground-breaking set design for Constellations. All pictures: Tony Bartholomew
HOTSHOT young designer TK Hay has created a dazzling and innovative set design for the multiverse story world of Nick Payne’s Constellations at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.
Crowned Best Designer in the Stage Debut Awards 2022, Hay has used over one-and-a-half miles of glowing fibre optic cable to create a web of light that surrounds actors Carla Harrison-Hodge and Emilio Iannucci.
Payne’s play looks at the ‘What Ifs’ that arise from a single meeting, following the crazy paving of the couple’s path through a multitude of possibilities depending on the decisions they make.
Shining light: Designer TK Hay
Hay was inspired by two installation artists to create a set “that is believed to be unlike anything ever seen in a theatre production before”: Chiharu Shiota from Japan, who makes huge and intricate networks of thread and yarn, and Italian “artist of pure light” Carlo Bernardini, who uses fibre optics, prisms and sculptural elements to form laser-like geometric installations.
“What we wanted was a design that responded to the action of the play, so the direction from the start was very visually focused,” says Hay.
“I was thinking about the connection between the two protagonists and how across all these different realities they are somehow managing to connect with one another.
Illuminating: TK Hay’s fibre-optic design for the SJT’s production of Constellations
“I pitched to Paul Robinson, the director, that we took Shiota’s and Bernadini’s work and fused it together – I thought it would look incredible!”
Robinson says: “TK’s design is absolutely remarkable: we’re pushing at not just what this play can do, but also what theatre form can do with what he’s come up with.”
The set design has created its own challenges for SJT’s production manager Denzil Hebditch, and technical manager Tigger Johnson.
Denzil says: “Working with fibre optics in this way wasn’t something we had done before, and we were concerned that we would struggle to achieve TK’s vision, but the results have been pretty spectacular!”
A floor-level view of TK Hay’s design in the Round at the SJT
Filip Fredrik’s Elements: Showing at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2022
A FILM festival with international pedigree, poetry clashes, comedy aplenty and Constellations shine out for Charles Hutchinson.
Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, across York, Tuesday to Sunday
AESTHETICA Short Film Festival returns for 300 films in 15 venues over six days in York in its 12th edition. The BAFTA-Qualifying event will have a hybrid format, combining the live festival with a selection of screenings, masterclasses and events on the digital platform until November 30.
New for 2022 will be York Days, a discount scheme with the chance to save 50 per cent on prices on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday programmes. Comedies, dramas, thrillers, animation, family-friendly films and documentaries all feature, complemented by workshops, the Virtual Reality Lab, installations and the festival fringe. Box office:asff.co.uk/tickets.
Malaika Kegode: Guest appearance at Say Owt Slam’s birthday party. Picture: Jon Aitken
Birthday party of the week: Say Owt Slam’s 8th Birthday Special, with Malaika Kegode, The Crescent, York, tonight (29/10/2022), 7.30pm
SAY Owt, York’s loveable gang of performance poets, Stu Freestone, Henry Raby, Hannah Davies and David Jarman, welcome special-guest Bristol poet Malaika Kegode to a high-energy night of words and verse, humour and poet-versus-poet fun.
“It started as a one-off gig! I can’t believe we’re still slamming eight years later,” says artistic director and host Raby. “Whether you’re a veteran or looking for something new, everyone is welcome at a Say Owt Slam, where each poet has a maximum of three minutes to wow randomly selected judges with their poetry.” Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
David O’Doherty: Change of date for York gig
On the move: David O’Doherty: Whoa Is Me, Grand Opera House, York, changing from Monday to February 5 2023, 8pm
HERE he comes again, albeit later than first planned, trotting on stage with all of the misplaced confidence of a waiter with no pad.
“There’ll be lots of talking, some apologising and some songs on a glued-together plastic keyboard from 1986,” promises David O’Doherty, comedian, author, musician, actor and playwright, 1990 East Leinster under-14 triple jump bronze medallist and son of jazz pianist Jim Doherty. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Flo & Joan: Musical comedy duo offer thoughts on topics of the day
Musical comedy of the week: Flo & Joan, Sweet Release, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 7.3pm
FLO & Joan, the British musical comedy duo of sisters Nicola and Rosie Dempsey, play York as one of 30 additional dates on their 2022 tour after their return to the Edinburgh Fringe.
Climbing back out of their pits, armed with a piano and percussion, they poke around the classic topics of the day with their fusion of comedy and song with a dark undertow.
The sisters have penned five numbers for the West End musical Death Drop and have written and performed songs for Horrible Histories (CBBC), Rob Delaney’s Stand Up Central (Comedy Central) and BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Emilio Iannucci: Starring in Nick Payne’s romantic two-hander Constellations at the SJT
Play of the week outside York: Constellations, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, running until November 12
WHEN beekeeper Roland meets scientist Marianne, anything could happen in University of York alumnus Nick Payne’s romantic and revealing exploration of the many possibilities that can result from a single meeting. Reminiscent of Sliding Doors and Kate Atkinson’s novel Life After Life, this two-hander starring Carla Harrison-Hodge and Emilio Iannucci ponders “What if?”.
“Constellations plays with time and space in the most brilliant way,” says director Paul Robinson. “Deeply human, deeply moving, it genuinely tilts the world for you. I challenge anyone not to leave the theatre just a bit more aware of what a fragile and remarkable thing life is.” Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
Bring It On: “The thrill of extreme competition”
Backflip of the week: York Stage in Bring It On: The Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Saturday matinee, 2.30pm
THE York premiere of Bring It On backflips into the JoRo in a youth theatre production directed by Nik Briggs. Inspired by the film of the same name, this story of the challenges and surprising bonds forged through the thrill of extreme competition is packed with vibrant characters, electrifying contemporary songs and explosive choreography.
This Broadway hit is the energy-fuelled work of Tony Award winners Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton), Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) and Tom Kitt (Grease: Live). Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Humour on hand: Harry Hill promises Pedigree Fun on his first tour since 2013
Very silly show of the week: Harry Hill, Pedigree Fun!, Grand Opera House, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
COMEDIAN, writer, actor, artist and former doctor Harry Hill and his big shirt collars take to the stage for an all-singing, all-dancing surrealist spectacular in his long-awaited return to the live arena for the fist time since 2013’s Sausage Time tour.
“I hadn’t realised how much I missed performing live until lockdown stopped me from doing it,” he says. “The good news is I’m planning a very silly show.” Full of pop-culture spoofs, no doubt.
Audiences will meet Harry’s new baby elephant, Sarah, along with regular sidekick Stouffer the Cat. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
John McCusker: Fiddler supreme on 30th anniversary tour
Fiddler on the road: The John McCusker Band 30th Anniversary Tour, National Centre for Early Music, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
SCOTTISH fiddle player John McCusker will be joined by Ian Carr, Sam Kelly, Helen McCabe and Toby Shaer for his concert series in celebration of 30 years as a professional folk musician since cutting his teeth in The Battlefield Band at 17.
To coincide with this landmark, McCusker has released a Best Of album featuring tracks from his solo records and television and film soundtracks, alongside a book of 100 original compositions, John McCusker: The Collection.
“I’m delighted to be able to get this special show on the road and celebrate 30 years as a professional musician,” says McCusker. “I’m looking forward to performing the highlights from my back catalogue and revisiting memories associated with those tracks.
“It’s brilliant that I’ve been able to make music and perform for 30 years and I’ve worked with so many incredible people in that time. I’ve never had a plan; good things have just happened and, so far, it’s worked out as well as I could possibly have dreamed of. I can’t wait to play with my friends again.” Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
York Settlement Community Players’ cast for Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike: Mick Liversidge (Vanya), top left, Victoria Delaney (Sonia) and Susannah Baines (Sasha); Andrew Roberts (Spike), bottom left, Sanna Jeppsson (Cassandra) and Livy Potter
York premiere of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday, Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm, 7.30pm
VANYA and his sister Sonia live a quiet life in the Pennsylvania farmhouse where they grew up, but when their famous film-star sister, Masha, makes an impromptu visit with her dashing, twenty-something boyfriend, Spike, a chaotic weekend ensues.
Resentment, rivalry and revealing premonitions begin to boil over as the three siblings battle to be heard in Christopher Durang’s comedy, winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best New Play with its blend of Chekhovian ennui, modern-day concerns of celebrity, social networking and the troubling onset of middle age. Jim Paterson directs Settlement Players’ production. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Plastic Mermaids: “Emotional exploration of the many facets of heartbreak”
Time to discover…Plastic Mermaids, The Crescent, York, November 10; Oporto, Leeds, February 2 2023
AFTER playing Glastonbury and Camp Bestival in the summertime, Isle of Wight five-piece Plastic Mermaids are off on an 11-date tour to promote their second album, It’s Not Comfortable To Grow, out now on Sunday Best.
Led by brothers Douglas and Jamie Richards, who approach life like an art project, they face up to their dark side in an emotional exploration of the many facets of heartbreak on such psych-rock and electronica numbers as Girl Boy Girl, Disposable Love, Something Better and Elastic Time. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Doctor Dorian Deathly’s nights of face melting horror must wait until January2023
YORK spookologist and ghost botherer Doctor Dorian Deathly was to have swapped walking the (ghost) walk for talking the (ghost) talk for Halloween season, but Covid has “done a right number on him”, in the words of Deathly Dark Tours operations manager Dede Deathly.
Moving indoors from the city streets, Visit York’s New Tourism Business Award Winner for 2022 would have been presenting six fright nights of scary tales, spooks caught on film and ghost stories of England’s “most haunted city”, to be experienced from the relative safety of a seat at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from tonight until October 31. The performances will take place from January 24 to 28 2023 instead.
When the show does go ahead, the deadpan Doctor Deathly will present The Complete History Of Ghosts in A Night Of Face Melting Horror through a combination of stories, paranormal sciences, horror, theatrical trickery, original music and perhaps the odd unexpected guest at 8.30pm each night.
“Together we will huddle around the stage and explore spine-chilling tales of hauntings, both local and further afield, dissemble horrors captured on film and follow the ghost story through from its origins to the Victorian classics and modern-day frights,” says Doctor Deathly, whose face-melting macabre amusements are suitable to age 13 plus as he considers what makes spines shiver and examines our obsession with tales of death, murder and hauntings.
Doctor Deathly was struck by the idea of doing a show at Theatre@41 after seeing Pick Me Up Theatre in The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ The Musical last December. “It sparked the bit of the brain that causes trouble!” he says. “Rather than just having our ghost walks for Halloween, which we know will sell out, I thought, ‘let’s do something here’.
“During the last couple of years, we were doing lots of online events, streamed on Facebook during lockdown to thousands of people around the world. There are only a certain number of ghost stories for York on a prescribed route, when people want to see Shambles and the Minster, and we thought, ‘how can we show different things?’.
“We came up with the online show Tales From The Fireplace, where people would send in ghost stories and pictures and videos of encounters with ghosts. It was essentially like a TV show, where we got a few funny ones sent in; we were coming at it from that angle, analysing them and breaking them down. Some were brilliantly well written.”
The now defunct poster for Doctor Dorian Deathly’s postponed Halloween event at Theatre@41
This prompted Doctor Deathly to construct A Night Of Face Melting Horror. “First and foremost, it’s entertainment. People love ghost stories and we thought, what if we flip it on its head and people have to come out to the theatre to celebrate ghost stories from the wild?” he says.
“The thread through the show is the history of the ghost story, talking about the origins of those stories, what they come from, their place in both texts and the imagination. Then we look at how it exploded in Victorian times with huge interest in these stories.”
Born in Scarborough, Deathly’s inventor, actor Jamie McKeller, moved to York in 2004/2005, first performing in A Christmas Carol at the Castle Museum and with Lee Harris and The Dreaming in Terry Pratchett’s Rincewind.
“I’d been to York on fleeting visits, then I was getting on the train here to rehearse. One day I was walking through York, and it was snowing, and I popped into a coffee shop. Looking out at the Minster, I remember thinking, ‘how can I not move here?’.”
For 15 years, he was a professional actor. “It’s exhausting, a grind,” he says, delighted to now have a constant, stable income as a ghost walker. “It’s my company too, so I can do these crazy things.“
Part of York’s Guild of Spookologists , alongside Mad Alice, Shadows Of York (Mackenzie Crompton) and Damian Freddi’s Dark Chronicles, Doctor Dorian Deathly’s Deathly Dark Tours has taken on a second York tour guide to meet demand, Dorian being joined by Dafydd Deathly, from Wales.
“He ran virtual tours for us in Edinburgh and now he’s come back to York, I asked him if he would join me because the tour is so busy. We run six nights a week,” says Doctor Deathly.
“Why are you here, for this show full of ghosts, in a world of such niceties?” asks Doctor Dorian Deathly
“We did two shows a night in Summer 2021, but it’s a very non-traditional ghost tour, very theatrical, very big, with magic tricks. It’s very tiring! 30-year-old Jamie doing that each night, fine; 42-year-old Jamie, maybe not!”
Why, Dorian, are we drawn to the horror, the horror, of ghost stories, especially in York? “It’s that obsession with fear, but why do we do that to ourselves?” he asks himself. “Why do we like putting ourselves in that situation?
“The opening song in A Night Of Face Melting Horror poses a question: I directly ask, ‘what’s wrong with you, with all of us, in a world of The Great British Bake Off and The Great Pottery Throw Down, why are you here, for this show full of ghosts, in a world of such niceties? That’s the answer we’re looking for; the answer to that!”
Why does York suit ghost storytelling, Dorian? “I have friends who are tour guides around the country and sometimes I feel sorry for them because they have to talk about things that are no longer there in their city. But in York you can see a piece of wood dating from the 12th century, and you watch Americans blink as they take that in,” he says.
Once back to full health, his acting side will flourish once more as Jamie takes on the role of the baddie, the Sheriff of Nottingham, in Rowntree Players’ pantomime, Babes In The Wood, at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, on December 3, 4 and 6 to 10. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Doctor Dorian Deathly’s A Night Of Face Melting Horror (or The Complete History Of Ghosts), Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, will not run from October 26 to31, 8.30pm nightly, after all as a result of illness. The new dates will be January 24 to 28 2023. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
For more information on Doctor Dorian Deathly’s walking tours, visit www.deathlydarktours.com or call 07851 032041.
Forestry commission: Jamie McKeller ventures into the dark side as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Rowntree Players’ 2022 pantomime, Babes In The Wood
A scene from Frantic Assembly’s 21st century retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, full of paranoia, sex and murder, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Tristram Kenton
REJOICE as doors to York’s grand designs ancient and modern are unlocked this weekend. Charles Hutchinson also checks out what’s on inside elsewhere.
Play of the week: Frantic Assembly in Othello, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday
FRANTIC Assembly’s award-winning, electrifying reimagining of Othello locates Shakespeare’s tragedy of paranoia, sex and murder in a volatile 21st century as Othello’s passionate affair with Desdemona becomes the catalyst for jealousy, betrayal, revenge and the darkest intents.
Shakespeare’s muscular yet beautiful text combines with the touring company’s own bruising physicality in a world of broken glass and broken promises, malicious manipulation and explosive violence, previously staged in 2008 and 2014 and now updated for 2022. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
“Rollercoaster romcom”: Olga Koch at Theatre@41
Comedy gig of the week: Olga Koch, Just Friends, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm
OLGA Koch, Russian-born, English-dwelling, story-telling stand-up and BBC Radio 4 show host, makes a return visit to Monkgate this weekend, following up last October’s Homecoming show.
Directed by Charlie Dinkin, this time she promises a “rollercoaster romcom you aren’t tall enough to ride”. “Strap in,” she advises. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Garforth House: One of 60 buildings opening up for York Unlocked this weekend
Tours of the week: York Unlocked, 60 locations, today and tomorrow
YORK joins the European Open Door cities and 60 Open House cities this weekend to showcase its urban landscape and buildings old and new. Among them will be Cumberland House (Kings Staith), Garforth House, York Guildhall, Bar Convent, Hiscox, Castlegate House, Duncombe Place Masonic Lodge, Hudson Quarter, Brew York (Walmgate), City Screen Picturehouse, Walmgate Bar, the Phoenix Inn and a plethora of churches.
“We aim to foster public appreciation of the architecture of York by organising the opening of 60 buildings and open spaces of merit for the public to explore for free,” say the organisers. “Our goal is to educate, engage and inspire.” For full details, head to: york-unlocked.org.uk/buildings-2022.
Will Clark: Violin soloist for York Guildhall Orchestra’s concert
Classical concert of the week: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm
THE first concert of York Guildhall Orchestra’s 42nd season also marks Simon Wright’s 30th anniversary as conductor. In a programme of popular music, local lad Will Clark is the violin soloist for Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, having earlier played with the orchestra as a youngster.
Old friends Leeds Festival Chorus join for Fauré’s Pavane and Lambert’s Rio Grande (piano soloist: Rebecca Taylor). Shostakovich’s Festive Overture will be the rousing opener; Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, the finale. In between come works by Porter, Wagner, Berlioz, Offenbach’s Can-Can; Handel, Tavener and Coleridge Taylor. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Beth Orton: Leeds Brudenell Social Club beckonsthis weekend
Gig of the week outside York: Beth Orton, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, tomorrow, doors, 7.30pm
BRIT Award winner Beth Orton concludes her autumn tour in Leeds, promoting her seventh studio album, released last month on her new label, Partisan Records.
Written on a battered old piano that singer-songwriter Orton saved from Camden Market, Weather Alive collates memories and experiences spanning a lifetime, her story-telling, sonically experimental songs addressing struggles and healing. Box office: for returns only, brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
John Hewer as Harold, left, and Jeremy Smith as Albert in The Steptoe And Son Radio Show
Nostalgia of the week: The Steptoe And Son Radio Show, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
ADAPTED for the stage by John Hewer, The Steptoe And Son Radio Show doffs its cap to the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of the classic BBC television comedy.
In a show based on the original TV scripts of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Jeremy Smith and Hewer play out the woes of warring Shepherd’s Bush rag-and-bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold in three episodes: Is That Your Horse Outside?, A Death In The Family and Upstairs, Downstairs, Upstairs, Downstairs. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
The tour poster for The Proclaimers’ autumn travels
Tuneful twins of the week: The Proclaimers, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm
SCATHING Scottish siblings Craig and Charlie Reid return to York on their 35-date autumn tour in support of their end-of-empire 12th studio album, Dentures Out, ahead of their 40th anniversary in 2023 (stage time, 830pm).
Fellow Scot David Tennant names The Proclaimers as “probably my favourite band of all time”. “They write the most spectacular songs, big-hearted, uncynical passionate songs,” says the ubiquitous actor. John Bramwell opens the gig; good news for I Am Kloot devotees after a family bereavement led to the cancellation of his September 24 concert at Ellerton Priory. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Marc Almond: Heading back to York Barbican
Leeds legend of the week in York: Marc Almond In Concert, York Barbican, Friday, 7.30pm
SOFT Cell frontman Marc Almond plays York Barbican for the third time in five years after his Hits And Pieces tour date in April 2017 and guest spot at Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra’s November 2018 concert.
On his first solo tour in more than three years, Almond plays two sets, performing favourites from his extensive catalogue, his biggest hits and songs from his last album, January 2020’s Chaos And A Dancing Star, since when Soft Cell have released Happiness Not Included last year. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Tudor girl power: Jennifer Caldwell’s Anne Boleyn in SIX The Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith
HENRY VIII’s vengeful wives are not the only show in town. Charles Hutchinson finds alternatives aplenty.
Don’t lose your head over this but…SIX The Musical has sold out at Grand Opera House, York,October 11 to 16.8pm, Tuesday to Thursday; 6pm and 8.30pm, Friday; 5pm and 8pm, Saturday; 3pm, Sunday
DIVORCED, beheaded, scuppered. Those without a ticket for York’s hottest theatre show of the autumn are too late. Not one seat, even with a restricted view, is still available for Toby Marlow and Lucy Marlow’s irreverent historical musical romp that began as a Cambridge University show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Welcome to their Queendom where Tudor queens turn into pop princesses as the six wives of Henry VIII take to the mic to tell their tales, remixing 500 years of heartbreak into a 75-minute celebration of 21st-century girl power.
Tom Chaplin: Solo songs of midlife musings from the Keane frontman
Take your pick at York Barbican: Uriah Heep, tomorrow, 8pm; Tom Chaplin, Tuesday, 8pm; Will Young: 20 Years Tour, Thursday, 7.30pm; Boyzlife, Friday, 7.30pm
SPOILT for choice at York Barbican in a busy, busy week. British rock titans Uriah Heep’s 50th Anniversary Tour is now taking place in their 52nd year after playing 4,000 shows in 60 countries. Keane frontman Tom Chaplin showcases September’s release of his second solo album, Midpoint, exploring a part of life that everyone goes through: midlife.
On the pop front, singer, radio presenter, actor and writer Will Young marks two decades since his Pop Idol blossoming. No sooner have Boyzlife performed to 20,000 people at the Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta on Knavesmire than their Old School Tour sends the boy band duo of Boyzone’s Keith Duffy and Westlife’s Brian McFadden back to York. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Will Young: From Pop Idol young man to the polymath of today
Toasting the trailblazers: A Celebration Of Gilbert & Sullivan, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 7.30pm
A 26-piece orchestra and soloists perform favourites from The Mikado, The Pirates Of Penzance and HMS Pinafore, complemented by less familiar gems in a glorious night at the light opera.
Taking part will be singers from Opera North, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Carl Rosa and D’Oyly Carte, such as Alexander Robin Baker, Rebecca Bottone, Barry Clark, Siân Dicker, Yvonne Howard, Judith Le Breuilly, Timothy Nelson and Matthew Siveter. Box office: 0844 8717615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Bongo’s Bingo: A rave new world for a British classic at York Barbican
House music but not as you know it: Bongo’s Bingo, York Barbican, tonight; doors, 6pm; last entry, 7:30pm; first game of bingo, 8pm
MAKING its York debut only a stone’s throw from the demolished Mecca Bingo, Bongo’s Bingo “rejuvenates a quintessentially quaint British pastime with an immersive live show featuring rave rounds, nostalgia-soaked revelry, dance-offs, audience participation and crazy prizes in a night of pure and unadulterated escapism”.
Looking for a full house, promoter Jonny Bongo promises magic and music, mischief and mayhem in a bingo rave experience. Box office: bongosbingo.co.uk or yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sayaka Ichikawa in Ballet Black’s Black Sun at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Bill Cooper
Dance pioneers of the week: Ballet Black, Say It Loud & Black Sun, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 7.30pm
CELEBRATING their 20th anniversary, Black Ballet present two new works on tour. Choreographed and directed by founder and artistic director Cassa Pancho and company artists, Say It Loud charts this pioneering company’s progress, from the uncomfortable reasons behind its existence to the frenetic, creative energy that makes it such a necessary part of the British ballet industry.
South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma’s Black Sun, danced to an original score by Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, extracts energy from the sun and the moon giving rise to descendants of ancestors. These forces only meet to blacken, allowing us to draw from their powers as we prepare for life after life. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Dr Richard Shepherd: Pathologist, professor, lecturer, author, television presenter, apiarist and aviator, whose Unnatural Causes theatre tour will York and Leeds
Bringing death to life: Dr Richard Shepherd, Unnatural Causes theatre tour, York Theatre Royal, Thursday; Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, Friday, both 7.30pm
MEET Dr Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist who has solved the mystery of sudden and unexplained deaths aplenty, performed 23,000 autopsies and handled such cases the Hungerford Massacre, the Princess Diana inquiry and 9/11.
In Unnatural Causes, he not only tells the story of the cases and bodies that have haunted him the most, but also reflects on how to live a life steeped in death. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.co.uk
Make It Better: The theme for Day One of York Design Week
Festival of the week: Kaizen Arts Agency, United by Design and Dogeatcog unite for York Design Week 2022, Make It Work, October 13 to 17
YORK Design Week turns the spotlight on projects, organisations and people who are breaking and bending rules to create a fairer society, inviting you to explore how we can come together to “Make It Work”. “Let’s find creative and practical solutions to complex problems through collaboration, performance, and play,” say the organisers.
“The idea is to positively shift conversation and behaviour around what design means and how it can offer innovative solutions to knotty problems. Our approach is open, accessible, and seeks to provide space for participants to experience unexpected perspectives and express their own voice.” Full details can be found at: yorkdesignweek.com.
Make It Grow: The green theme for Day Four of York Design Week
120 years and still going strong: York Musical Theatre Company in A Musical Celebration, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Thursday and Friday, 7,30pm
YORK Musical Theatre Company’s 120th anniversary will be marked with two evenings of songs from past productions such as West Side Story, Oklahoma, Guys & Dolls, Annie, Acorn Antiques, Jekyll & Hyde, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Pirates Of Penzance, the company’s first show in April 1903.
Company members combine with guest solo artists in a celebratory production directed by John Atkin. Founded in 1902 as York Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, York’s longest established amateur theatre company changed its name in its centenary year. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Ellen Carnazza, Andrew Purcell and Zach Atkinson in Badapple Theatre’s revival of The Frozen Roman, on tour this autumn. Picture: Karl Andre
What did the Romans ever do for us? Badapple Theatre in The Frozen Roman, on tour until November 13
GREEN Hammerton’s theatre-on-your-doorstep proponents Badapple Theatre take to the road this autumn with three actors new to the company: Zach Atkinson, Andrew Purcell and Ellen Carnazza.
In this revival of Kate Bramley’s play, they came, they saw, they built a wall, they went away again….or did they? When hapless villagers try to prevent a housing development being built in their midst, could the discovery of a burial site throw them a lifeline? Expect twists, turns and Latin puns as the situation in the village goes “ballisticus maximus”. For tour details, go to: badappletheatre.co.uk.
Ocean travel: Billy Ocean heads for Harrogate and Sheffield in 2023
Looking ahead: Billy Ocean, The Very Best Of Billy Ocean Tour, Harrogate Convention Centre, March 31 2023
BILLY Ocean will perform a hand-picked set of greatest hits and fan favourites on his 21-date tour next spring.
The Trinidad and Tobago-born British R&B singer, 72, has notched 30 million worldwide record sales and top ten singles on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Love Really Hurts Without You, Red Light Spells Danger, Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run), When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going, There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry) and Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car. The tour also takes in Sheffield City Hall on April 6. Box office: harrogatetheatre.co.uk; sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
Bookworm Matilda Wormwood (Aimee Dean-Hamilton) takes on the vile headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Jack Hambleton) with her special powers in Pick Me Up Theatre’s production of Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
HOW would Sam Steel, one of a brace of Miss Trunchbulls on Pick Me Up Theatre school play duty, sum up Roald Dahl’s joyous girl-power romp Matilda: The Musical Jr.
“It’s insane!” he decides. “There’s certainly anarchy. Everything that you think will happen won’t happen!”
Pick Me Up’s bright young things – some as young as six – are revelling in Robert Readman’s ebullient production all this week at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, led by Sam Steel and Jack Hambleton’s outrageous headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and Aimee Dean-Hamilton and Juliette Sellamuttu’s Matilda, the precocious, courageous pupil with special powers and limitless imagination, as they alternate performances.
“It’s all about beating the child bully with the help of loveable teacher Miss Honey as they take on the hateful Miss Trunchbull, the Olympic hammer-throwing champion of 1969,” says Robert. “Not that any Olympic Games were held in 1969, but the line in the song rhymed!
“Miss Trunchbull is apparently based on Alastair Sim’s headmistress in the St Trinian’s films, when he was so good playing it as a character – and also playing the twin brother – that you don’t think of the headmistress as male or female, just as a character.”
Jack adds: “It’s a woman but she’s so butch! Play Miss Trunchbull as a woman and it doesn’t work, but play it as a man who happens to have boobs and big shoulders and a hairpiece, it works!
“I try to bring out the most grotesque elements of myself and there’s a bit in there too of the teachers that I don’t like! It’s about getting the physicality right and the tone of the voice.”
When Sam is playing Miss Trunchbull, Jack takes the role of Matilda’s dreadful dad, slimy car salesman Mr Wormwood, and vice versa. “We’ve watched each in rehearsal but I don’t think we’ve ever discussed the roles with each other,” says Sam. “We just instinctively took a bit of each other’s performance.”
Robert chips in: “But they’re physically different, their voices are different, their mannerisms are different. Sam is blond, Jack darker, so they have their different hairpieces too.”
Clash of wills: Sam Steel’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull and Juliette Sellamuttu’s highly imaginative pupil, Matilda, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Likewise, Aimee, ten, and Juliette, nine, are “very different actresses”, says Robert, who welcomed the chance to have contrasting Matildas. “They didn’t audition for Matilda, but when did auditions for singing roles, they came out of the pack,” says Robert.
“I was kind of expecting to get a small role, so it was a bit of shock,” says Aimee. “But not like an electric shock!” says Juliette, who felt “very surprised” to be picked for the title role.
If Aimee could choose a special power, it would be “maybe healing people”. Juliette first liked the thought of being able to use the swish of a hand “if someone is being naughty”, then changed tack. “I’d like to make inanimate objects animate, like asking a stuffed animal to barge its way out of a window,” she says.
Juliette, whose father is Sri Lankan and mother, Polish, has been living in York for a year. “Before I came here, in Sri Lanka, I did a line as a witch in a small assembly piece for Halloween, when I was at Gateway College in Colombo,” she says.
Aimee, meanwhile, has performed with one of York’s leading amateur societies. “I’ve done shows in theatres with Steve Tearle for NE Musicals York,” she says.
On Readman’s stage design, bedecked in a multitude of letters to reflect bookworm Matilda’s love of words and spelling, Sam and Jack are throwing themselves with gusto into the appalling behaviour of Miss Trunchbull.
“It’s more interesting that she’s not just a villain, she’s an absolute monster,” says Jack. “It’s probably the most evil person I’ve played, which is a nice contrast after playing Adrian Mole – and I get to throw a girl [Amanda Thripp] by her pigtails!”
Please note, Amanda is played by a doll at this juncture, one of several little tricks up Robert Readman’s sleeve that add to the fun and games of a delightfully unruly show with a gleefully rebellious book by Dennis Kelly and smart, fun, bouncy songs by Tim Minchin, replete with such titles as Naughty, Chokey Chant and Revolting Children.
Pick Me Up Theatre in Matilda: The Musical Jr, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Sunday. Performances: 7.30pm, tonight, tomorrow and Saturday; 2.30pm, Saturday and Sunday. All SOLD OUT. A special performance of songs from a new musical, Prodigy, featuring the cast of Matilda, opens each show. Box office for returns only: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for Matilda: The Musical Jr. All remaining shows have sold out
Paul French’s Prospero and Effie Warboys’ Miranda in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s touring production of The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders
STORMY Shakespeare, bountiful balloons, rebellious schoolchildren, heaps of horror movies and Sherlock’s farewell tour are right up Charles Hutchinson’s street.
Theatre event of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Tempest, on tour from September 23 to October 1
YORK Shakespeare Project’s 20-year journey to stage every Shakespeare play concludes with a Yorkshire tour of The Tempest, the Bard’s powerful last play, directed by Parrabbola artistic director Philip Parr with Paul French as Prospero.
When an unusual collection of people is thrown together on an island by a storm, old injuries must be resolved, a new generation makes new plans and everyone is driven to find something of themselves in a disrupted world.
Parr uses communal storytelling in a new interpretation to highlight themes of colonisation, reconciliation and change. Full tour and ticket details can be found at beta.yorkshakespeareproject.org/the-tempest/.
What’s on Watson’s mind? Mark Watson reckons This Can’t Be It in comedy tour dates in York, Helmsley and Selby. Picture: Matt Crockett
Comedy gig of the week: Mark Watson, This Can’t Be It, Burning Duck Comedy Club, The Crescent, York, tonight (17/9/2022), 7.30pm
EVERYONE has been pondering the fragility of life in Covid’s shadow. Don’t worry, Bristol comic Mark has it covered. At 42, he is halfway through his days on Earth, according to his £1.49 life expectancy calculator app.
That life is in the best shape in living memory, but one huge problem remains. Spiritual investigation meets observational comedy as Watson crams two years’ pathological overthinking into one night’s stand-up. “Maybe we’ll even solve the huge problem,” he ponders. “Doubt it, though.”
Watson also plays Helmsley Arts Centre on October 7 and Selby Town Hall on November 17. Box office: York, thecrescentyork.com; Helmsley, 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk; Selby, 01757 708449 orselbytownhall.co.uk.
Mikron Theatre Company’s tour poster for Raising Agents
History in the baking: Mikron Theatre Company in Raising Agents, Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, Sunday, 4pm
MIKRON Theatre Company’s 50th anniversary tour brings the Marsden travelling players to York for a second time this summer this weekend. After the premiere of Lindsay Rodden’s Red Sky At Night at Scarcroft Allotments in May, here comes Rachel Gee’s revival of Maeve Larkin’s play about the Women’s Institute, Raising Agents.
Bunnington WI is somewhat down-at-heel, with memberships dwindling, meaning they can barely afford the hall, let alone a decent speaker. However, when a PR guru becomes a member, the women are glad of new blood, but the milk of WI kindness begins to sour after she re-brands them as the Bunnington Bunnies.
A battle ensues for the very soul of Bunnington, perhaps the WI itself, in a tale of hobbyists and lobbyists that asks how much we should know of our past or how much we should let go of it.
Raising Agents features not only a cast of Hannah Bainbridge, Thomas Cotran, Alice McKenna and James McLean but also songs by folk duo O’Hooley & Tidow, Mikron’s Marsden neighbours of Gentleman Jack theme-tune fame. Box office: email willyh@phonecoop.coop; ring 07974 867301 or 01904 466086; call in at Pextons, Bishopthorpe Road, York.
Boyzlife and balloons: Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden headline next Saturday’s line-up at the Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta
Festival of the week: Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta, Knavesmire, York, September 23 to 25
THE largest hot air balloon and music festival in the north will take off in York for the last time from Friday before moving elsewhere next year. Expect hot-air balloon launches, children’s entertainment, live music, a funfair, a Labyrinth Challenge obstacle course, food and drink and Friday and Saturday Night Glow lit-up balloons.
Friday’s acts will be Sam Sax, Scouting For Girls and DJ Craig Charles’s Funk and Soul Show; on Saturday, Huge, Brainiac Live (science show), Gabrielle, Heather Small and Boyzlife; on Sunday, YolanDa’s Band Jam, Andy & The Odd Socks, Howard Donald (DJ set) and Symphonic Ibiza, before a fireworks finale. Full details and tickets: yorkshireballoonfiesta.co.uk.
Clash of wills: Sam Steel’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull and Juliette Sellamuttu’s special-powered pupil, Matilda, in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Matilda: The Musical Jr. Picture: Matthew Kitchen
Children’s show of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical Jr, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, September 23 to October 2
REBELLION is nigh when Robert Readman’s York company Pick Me Up Theatre presents Matilda Jr, a gleefully witty ode to the anarchy of childhood and the power of imagination.
Packed with high-energy dance numbers and catchy Tim Minchin songs, this joyous girl power romp will have audiences rooting for the “revolting children” who are out to teach mean headmistress Miss Trunchbull a lesson, led by Matilda, the child with astonishing wit, intelligence, courage and…special powers! Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
All’s well that’s John Bramwell: I Am Kloot frontman to play “super-intimate” gig at Ellerton Priory. Picture: Ian Percival
Whatever happened to I Am Kloot? Off The Beaten Track presents John Bramwell, Ellerton Priory, Ellerton, near York, September 24, 7.30pm. UPDATE: 22/9/2022: GIG CANCELLED AFTER FAMILY BEREAVEMENT
FROM the team behind shows by Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys and The Beta Band’s Steve Mason in Stockton on the Forest Village Hall comes a “super-intimate” gig by I Am Kloot singer, songwriter and guitarist John Bramwell.
Since 2016, Bramwell has reverted to being a solo artist, releasing the home-recorded Leave Alone The Empty Spaces in 2018 and performing with John Bramwell & The Full Harmonic Convergence. The follow-up album, a more expansive affair with a working title of The Light Fantastic, is “scheduled for 2022”. Tickets are on sale via thecrescentyork.com or seetickets.com.
20 years later: Danny Boyle’s 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later will be shown in the Classic slot at the Dead Northern Horror Festival at City Screen. Copyright: Fox Searchlight
Film event of the week: Dead Northern Horror Festival ’22, City Screen Picturehouse, York, September 23 to 25
YORK’S only horror film festival returns to City Screen for three days, “bigger and bloodier than ever”, with a line-up of horror and fantasy-themed entertainment, new and classic feature films, live horror entertainment, parties, Q&As, special guests and exclusive merchandise.
Among the feature films will be After She Died, The Lies Of Our Confines, Shadow Vaults and Dog Soldiers on September 23; three world premieres with Q&As, Searching For Veslomy, Calling Nurse Meow and The Stranger, plus Eating Miss Campbell, on September 24, and The Creeping, The Group and 28 Days Later on the last day, when Paul Forster will host a séance at 7pm. Box office and full programme: deadnorthern.co.uk.
Farewell, but not goodbye: Dominic Goodwin’s Dr Watson, left, and Julian Finnegan’s Sherlock Holmes return in their long-running show, Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour
Double act of the week: Pyramus & Thisbe Productions in Holmes And Watson: The Farewell Tour, York Theatre Royal Studio, September 23 and 24, 7.45pm
JULIAN Finnegan’s Sherlock Holmes and Dominic Goodwin’s Dr Watson team up in Stuart Fortey’s “utterly bonkers” two-man play, wherein the detective has prevailed on the doctor, landlady Mrs Hudson and Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard to join him in a farewell tour of the British Isles before he retires.
For the first time ever, they will re-enact one of Holmes’s most baffling unrecorded cases, The Case Of The Prime Minister, The Floozie And The Lummock Rock Lighthouse, an affair on whose outcome the security of Europe once hung by a thread. Will Professor James Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, make an appearance? Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Not before time: Suede announce their first York Barbican gig in a quarter of a century. Picture: Dean Chalkley
Gig announcement of the week: Suede, York Barbican, March 15 2023
SUEDE are to play York Barbican for the first time in 25 years on the closing night of their 2023 tour, in the wake of this week’s release of their ninth studio album, Autofiction, their first since 2018.
Next March’s tour will combine the London band’s classics, hits and selections from Autofiction, climaxing with their first Barbican appearance since April 23 1997. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk and ticketmaster.co.uk.
The poster for the York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair
Art event of the week: York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair, York Cemetery Chapel & Harriet Room, York, September 24 and 25, 10am to 5pm
INNOVATIVE printmaking can be discovered at York Cemetery Chapel, spanning etching, linocut, collagraph, monotype, screen print, solar plate and stencilling. Now in its fifth year, the York Printmakers Autumn Print Fair brings together a thriving, diverse group of enthusiastic artists who work independently but support and challenge each other by sharing opportunities, ideas and processes.
Hundreds of original prints will be on show and entry is free; prices range from £2 to £300. Some members run printmaking courses, so next weekend is a chance to find out more by chatting to the artists behind the prints.
York Printmakers’ member Russell Hughes printing in his “pop-up studio” in an empty office in York
York Printmakers: the background
EMILY Harvey started the group in 2015. “A new arrival in York contacted me via my website to ask if there was a printmakers’ group in the city, at that time the answer was ’no’,” she recalls.
“But I knew there were quite a few printmakers here, so I thought ‘why not?’. A few phone calls later, nine printmakers were sat round a table in the pub, and York Printmakers was born.”
The group now numbers about 50 from a wide range of printmaking backgrounds, from art students to professional artists who exhibit widely.
Emily loves the group’s “unconventional streak”. “We like to experiment with new methods and ideas,” she says. “Printing plates made from eggshells and prints developed using GPS tracking are just some of our recent adventures. Sharing these innovations helps to keep our work lively and relevant.”
York Printmakers’ member Jane Dignum in lino-printingmode
The group’s monthly meetings feature a sharing practice slot where printing problems and solutions are discussed. During the Covid lockdown, the group started a themed postcard-sized print challenge, the results being shared in Zoom meetings. Not only did this help the printmakers maintain their creativity, but it also produced some surprising and innovative results. Many of these small prints will be on display during the fair.
Group member Jo Ruth says: ‘One of the joys of being part of this group is the variety of experience among us. Some members are expert printmakers, others are just starting out, but we all have a lot to offer and to learn from each other.”
Members produce their work in their own spaces, some in purpose-built studios but many in far more humble surroundings, such as at their kitchen tables. Exhibitions and events showcase the group’s array of skills with printing processes that date back hundreds of years, through to those that push the boundaries of contemporary practice with innovation in laser-cut plates, digital elements and 3D techniques.
During the past year, work from the group has featured in events across the country, including the Rheged Centre in Penrith, The Inspired By…Gallery in Danby and Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.
Jessica Fostekew: Serving up comedy at The Crescent
HOW can the Burning Duck Comedy Club be in two places at once in York tonight?
Here’s how: York comedy promoter Al Greaves is staging both Jessica Fostekew: Wench at The Crescent community venue at 7.30pm and Lauren Pattison’s Edinburgh award-nominated It Is What It Is at Theatre@41, Monkgate, kicking off half an hour later at 8pm.
Co-presented with Little Wander, Fostekew’s Wench is “a show about sexy things (awkward), private things (oh no) and a woman trying to sit on the face of time to keep it still (hot, right?)”.
Fostekew has appeared on Live At The Apollo, QI and Harry Hill’s Clubnite on TV and BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz and The Now Show with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis on the wireless. She is the regular co-host of the Guilty Feminist podcast and is the host and creator of the Hoovering podcast too.
Lauren Pattison: Girl from the north country. Picture: Matt Crockett
Pattison heads to York tonight on the back of being nominated for Best Show in this summer’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards. After a lengthy period of watching the world unravel, she follows up 2019’s Hench show with It Is What It Is, but she is reluctant to say exactly what It Is What It Is is about.
Why? “Because, if the last year has taught me anything, it’s life can change fast…it is what it is,” she says. “Let’s just say sometimes you need to fall apart to rebuild into exactly who you were meant to be.”
Stand-up, writer and performer Pattison, who graduated from Northumbria University, Newcastle, with a First Class degree and First Class masters in Drama, has performed on Stand Up For Live Comedy (BBC), Comedy Central At The Comedy Store and Roast Battle and has supported Katherine Ryan on tour.
Doors open at 7pm for Fostekew; tickets are available from wegottickets.com and on the door. Tickets for Pattison: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk and on the door.
