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More Things To Do in York & beyond from Nov 11. Hutch’s List No. 46, from The Press

Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Cable Street pawnbroker and single mother Shylock in the 1936 East End with fascism on the rise. Picture: Mark Senior

POLITICAL dramas, a heap of big comedy names, a newly revived Eighties’ band and a belated American debut will keep Charles Hutchinson out and about.

Controversial play of the week: The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm, plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees

WATFORD Palace Theatre’s ground-breaking touring production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice has been adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an original idea by co-creator and actress Tracy-Ann Oberman.

As the tide of fascism swells in 1936, Oberman’s Shylock is a strong-willed single mother who runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts will soon march. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Ross Noble: Geordie surrealist in his natural habitat in Jibber Jabber Jamboree at Grand Opera House, York

Comedy at the treble at Grand Opera House, York: Dave Gorman, Monday, 7.30pm; Ross Noble, Wednesday, 8pm; Paul Smith, 7.30pm

DAVE Gorman’s Powerpoint To The People show aims to demonstrate that a powerpoint presentation need not involve a man in a grey suit standing behind a lectern and saying “next slide please”. Far more important things demand analysis, he urges.

Geordie surrealist Ross Noble returns to York on his 21st tour, Jibber Jabber Jamboree, for another journey into inspired, improvised nonsensical comedy with detours galore. Paul Smith’s Joker gig, full of audience interaction and everyday true stories, has sold out. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Fame Hasn’t Changed Me, by Susan Bower, from Kentmere House Gallery’s winter exhibition

Exhibition launch of the week: Not Black Friday But Colour Friday!, Kentmere House Gallery, Scarcroft Hill, York, until December 22

ORIGINAL art by more than 70 artists features in the Christmas exhibition at Kentmere House Gallery. “Among them is Jonathan Hooper, a Leeds painter deservedly becoming recognised, winning awards and now showing in London and at the Millenium Gallery in Sheffield,” says gallery owner and curator Ann Petherick.

“Then there’s Susan Bower, a Marmite painter – most love her, a few don’t! Look out for Andrew Morris’s delightful view of Knaresborough’s marketplace. We have new work arriving all the time.” Open any day, 11am to 5pm; ring 01904 656507 or 07801 810825 or take pot luck. 

Kirkgate, Leeds, by Jonathan Hooper, from Kentmere House Gallery’s winter show

Tribute show of the week: The Chicago Blues Brothers, Cruisin’ For A Bluesin’ Tour, Grand Opera House, York, November 12, 7.30pm

JOIN Jake and Elwood, The Sweet Soul Sisters and the amazing CBB Band for a hand-clapping, foot-stomping, hard-hitting night of soul, rhythm & blues, country and Motown. Expect exuberant spirit, irresistible energy and even a few surprises. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Raqhael Harte as Sophie Goodman, Mick Liversidge as Phil Goodman and Ian Giles as Ratko Ilich in Lumar Productions’ premiere of Sea Stones. Picture: Chris Mackins

Premiere of the week: Lumar Productions in Sea Stones, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

AFTER eight novels and a regular column in The York Press, Tim Murgatroyd has written his debut play, an emotional, suspenseful night of the soul when four people are brought together in a lonely house by the sea.

Two fathers. Two daughters. Each confronted with the consequences of the past as a high tide is turning and tests to their relationships are escalating. Tests that might cost them not only their dearest hopes and loves, but their very lives. “The truth can set you free. Or drown you,” says Murgatroyd. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Phil Grainger, left, and Alexander Flanagan Wright: Performing Orpheus at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb

Double act of the week: Wright & Grainger in Orpheus, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, Wednesday, 7pm to 9pm

ALEXANDER Flanagan Wright and Phil Grainger’s Greek myth adaptation in spoken word and song heads to Rise after Adelaide Fringe award-winning success in Australia and at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as back home at Stillington Mill.

Dave is turning 30. Eurydice is a tree nymph. Bruce Springsteen is on the karaoke. Cue a tale of dive bars, side streets, ancient gods and how far you would go for love. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk/rise.

Long time coming: Ben Folds will stride into the Grand Opera House for his overdue York debut on Thusday

Gig of the week: Ben Folds, What Matters Most Tour, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm

AT 57, North Carolina pianist, songwriter, author and podcast host Ben Folds plays his debut York show in support of What Matters Most, his first studio album since 2015.

At the only Yorkshire gig of his nine-date British and Irish tour, Folds will be combining his new material with songs from his 35-year career. Guitarist and singer Lau Noah, from Catalonia via New York, is the support act. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Snake Davis: Sax to the max at Pocklington Arts Centre

Jazz gig of the week: Snake Davis & Friends, Pocklington Arts Centre, Thursday, 8pm

JAZZ At PAC presents Snake Davis, saxophonist to the stars, from Paul McCartney, James Brown, Tina Turner and Eurythmics to Take That, Amy Winehouse, M-People and Lisa Stansfield.

First making his mark in York band Zoot & The Roots, Davis plays not only the saxophone family, but  flutes, whistles and an ancient Japanese wind instrument, the Shakuhachi, too. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

Haircut 100: Wearing their favourite shirts at York Barbican on Friday

Fantastic day to see: Haircut 100, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm

NICK Heyward’s short-lived Brit-funk band Haircut 100 are back together after more than 40 years, following up May’s Pelican West 40th anniversary shows in London and Oxford with the 15-date Haircut 100% Live tour that ends in York, their only Yorkshire location.

“We are coming back with a tour to beat all tours this autumn,” says Beckenham-born Heyward, now 62. “All the hits that you love [Favourite Shirts (Boys And Girls), Love Plus One, Fantastic Day et al] and new tracks that we are bursting to share with you.” The support act will be Brighton band of brothers Barbara. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The tour poster for Only Fools And Horses The Musical, bound for York next year

Lovely jubbly look-ahead: Only Fools And Horses The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 5 to 9 2024

DIRECT from a four-year sold-out West End run, Only Fools And Horses The Musical is heading to York in Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan’s show, based on John Sullivan’s record-breaking 1980s’ BBC comedy.

Directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, it features a script and original score by John’s son and Whitehouse, bringing Peckham rogues Del Boy, Rodney, Grandad, Cassandra, Raquel, Boycie, Marlene, Trigger, Denzil, Mickey Pearce, Mike the Barman and the Driscoll Brothers to the stage with wide-boy humour and 20 songs. Bonnet de douche! Box office: atgtickets.co.uk.

Sarah Millican: Fully booked run at York Barbican

Recommended but sold out already

THREE nights, three sell-outs for South Shields humorist Sarah Millican at York Barbican from November 14 to 16 on her Late Bloomer tour, where she discusses Sarah then and now, dinners and lady gardens at 8pm nightly. Come along, laugh at her, with her, beside her, reads the invitation.  

Zeus: Once the ancient Greek god of the sky, lightning, thunder, law and order; now a champion dog with a lead role in York Theatre Royal’s pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk

In Focus: Best dog in show: Zeus the collie collars role in Jack And The Beanstalk

YOUNG Kennel Club Crufts trophy winner Zeus has won a lead role in this winter’s pantomime at York Theatre Royal.

The six-year-old Border Collie, from York, will make his stage debut alongside EastEnders star Nina Wadia, returnee panto dame Robin Simpson and CBBC’s Raven star James Mackenzie in Jack And The Beanstalk from December 8 to January 7 2024.

A theatre spokesperson says: “Zeus’s amazing audition gave us all paws for thought. He’s a natural stage performer whose dogged determination to win the role was a real tail-wagging moment.”

Already Zeus is a winner on the canine stage with three Young Kennel Club Crufts trophies to his credit. Those closest to him say he is very agile and loves to play but has an “off switch”and likes to wind down too.

Pantomime director Juliet Forster was delighted to hear that Zeus is “very eager to please, playful and up for learning” as she will be training him for his acting debut.

Zeus loves cream cheese, squeezy cheese too, and sometimes has carrots for breakfast. He eats at the table and even has his own chair. His favourite toys are balls and he has a collection of soft toys.

Zeus enjoys rounding up horses but not, as you might expect from a Border Collie, rounding up sheep. He is, however, best friends with two sheep, Maisie Midnight Fluffington and Wallace.

Pull the udder one: Anna Soden goes solo as Dave the Cow in Jack And The Beanstalk

He is yet to meet cows but will have his first close encounter with the bovine world in the rehearsal room as one of his co-stars will be Dave the Cow.

Dave is a rare breed of pantomime cow. “You’d almost think Dave is human,” says York actor and musician Anna Soden, who will inhabit the role on her own, rather than the usual two people squeezed uncomfortably into a cow costume.

Writer Paul Hendy, director of York Theatre Royal’s producing partner Evolution Productions, says: “In 19 years of writing and producing pantomimes, we’ve never had a human cow before. We wanted to do something different and director Juliet Forster was very open to that. It makes more opportunities in the show for the cow. It’s a much bigger part than usual. Dave is very much one of the gang.

“Our company is called Evolution for a reason: we are constantly evolving. One of the reasons pantomime has survived for 150 years or more is that it changes. There has to be a formula but within that you have to be original.”

Evolution is producing three Jack And The Beanstalk pantomimes around the country this winter. York has Dave; the shows at The Grove, Dunstable (starring EastEnders’ Steve McFadden, by the way), and Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, will have a more traditional cow.

Meanwhile, the Theatre Royal’s legendary pantomime cow Patrica is heading for pastures new this Christmas with a role in Bridlington Spa Theatre’s pantomime, Beauty And The Beast.

Patricia’s career has taken in television appearances in The Crystal Maze with pantomime stalwart Christopher Biggins and Bargain Hunt, as well as starring in her own series of moo-vies on You Tube.

York Theatre Royal presents Jack And The Beanstalk, December 8 to January 7 2024. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Black Treacle Theatre in York premiere of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ***

Lara Stafford: Dying a death on stage…or not in White Rabbit, Red Rabbit on Wednesday

NO director. No rehearsal. No advance sight of the script. Only a brief list of instructions sent to the actor in a pdf by the producer 48 hours before the performance. Novel indeed.

“An actor’s nightmare,” suggested Black Treacle Theatre producer Jim Paterson, “but an audience’s dream.”That said, Maurice Crichton, Lara Stafford, Maggie Smales, Alan Park and today’s two performers, Sonia Di Lorenzo (matinee) and Sanna Jeppsson (evening), were intrigued to take on the one-off challenge of a 70-minute script, each for one solo performance, passing on the baton without a word to the next in line.

CharlesHutchPress had been expecting to see Maggie Smales on Thursday, but when he chanced upon Lara Stafford in Micklegate on Wednesday, after his plans to attend the Aesthetica Short Film Festival launch or Teenage Fanclub at Leeds Brudenell Social Club came to nought, the reviewer resolved to review her that night instead.

Both were in the dark about what would unfold. White Rabbit, Red Rabbit was written in 2011 by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, when he was forbidden to leave his native Iran, but the play was designed to travel the world in his place; words without end.

Enter Lara, to be handed an envelope by Jim Paterson. Let the journey into the unknown begin, and quickly it emerges that this will not be a solo performance, but an immersive one with plenty of audience involvement.

Both on stage and off, in the case of your reviewer, who ticked the box for having a notebook to hand, at the writer’s request, to take notes…and subsequently send him an email as evidence of the night’s performance.

Without giving too much away, the tone of the piece turns from jocular to darker, bleaker, graver, a gradual switch handled well by Stafford, whose performance elides from playful to no messing about, this is serious.

More experimental performance art than play, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit does not call on Stafford to develop a role, a character, but to be a mistress of ceremonies, a malleable conduit through which the script will pass in a series of tests.

Not only her comic skills come into play, but her prowess at orchestrating an audience, as she would do in her physics teaching career too.

Above all, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit testifies to the power of the unexpected in theatre, when actor and audience are equally surprised and on edge, each reliant on the other for what will happen next.

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, today at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Tickets are £10 full price and any ticket buyers for one performance can see another one for £5 (plus booking fee). Running time is approximately 70 minutes.

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No rehearsal, no director, no sight of the script in advance. Six actors, one per show, take on White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in York

Maurice Crichton: In the dark tonight, just as much as the audience for the hush-hush White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

AN actor’s nightmare will be an audience’s dream, promises producer Jim Paterson, when White Rabbit, Red Rabbit makes its York debut from tonight (7/11/2023) to Saturday at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

This groundbreaking play requires the actor to perform the script having never seen it before setting foot on stage.

Originally written in 2011 by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, who at the time was forbidden to leave his native Iran, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is a play designed to travel the world in his place. Whereupon the audience will join each different performer on a journey into the unknown.

Soleimanpour’s 70-minuite play has been performed all over the world by actors such as John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Sinead Cusack and Dominic West, all taking to the stage with no prior sighting of the script.

Now White Rabbit, Red Rabbit receives its York premiere at the hands of six actors, each performing the script for one performance only. “They will never have seen the script until I hand them an envelope to open as they enter the stage,” says Jim. “They are told almost nothing in preparation. There is no rehearsal or director.” 

Sanna Jeppsson: Saturday night performance

Given that the play relies on no-one knowing the plot, details cannot be shared in advance, and so audience and actor alike will be in the same position of not knowing what will happen, duly creating an “exciting and truly unpredictable show”.

“One of the best things about going to the theatre is that it’s a live experience where each performance is different and unpredictable,” says Jim. “Times that by 100 and you’ve got this play. Both the actor and the audience don’t know what’s going to happen from moment to moment, which I think will create a really exhilarating atmosphere.

“Each of our six actors is only performing the play once with no preparation – so each performance will be entirely unique for that audience. That’s why we’ve put on a ticket offer, so that you can come back to watch another actor perform it for half-price, and see what will be an entirely different take on the play.”

Jim adds: “A lot of us have had that dream where we’re suddenly in a theatre and are expected to go on stage in a play when we don’t know the lines or what we’re supposed to be doing. So, I’m massively grateful to these performers for agreeing to take the leap and make that scary dream a reality!”

First to step into the unknown tonight will be Maurice Crichton, stalwart of York Settlement Community Players and much else besides on the York theatre scene. “I think it’s going to be about the audience experiencing an actor being surprised by what they’re in, and – to an extent – vicariously experiencing those feelings themselves,” he says. “It excites me to see if I can relax enough to do the play justice!”

Alan Park: Friday man

Fresh from Settlement Players’ Government Inspector, Sonia Di Lorenzo will perform the Saturday matinee. “I’m looking forward to finding out what it’s about,” she says. “It sounds really intriguing from what I know of it – which is just the title! I’m excited to see how it unfolds and what it entails and where it’s all going to lead.”

Sanna Jeppsson will take on the Saturday night challenge. “It’s exciting and scary because I don’t know how I’m going to react in the moment: what my body’s going to feel like, what my pulse is going to be doing, what my breath is going to be doing – I just don’t know! But I’m very interested to find out,” she says.

Presented by York company Black Treacle Theatre, in association with Aurora Nova, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit will be performed by Maurice Crichton tonight; Lara Stafford tomorrow; Maggie Smales, Thursday; Theatgre@41 chair Alan Park, Friday; Sonia Di Lorenzo, Saturday matinee, and Sanna Jeppsson, Saturday night.

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 7 to 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk. Tickets are £10 full price and any ticket buyers for one performance can see another one for £5 (plus booking fee).

Did you know?

BLACK Treacle Theatre produced Nick Payne’s Constellations in March 2022 and Gary Owen’s Iphigenia In Splott in March 2023, both at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond for November 4 onwards. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 45 for 2023, from The Press

Tous Love Me, directed by Victor Claramunt, showing at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023

FIVE days of short films lead off a week long on Latin pop and school rock musicals, plus science and sticks, dance moves and festive designs, as Charles Hutchinson reports.

Festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, November 8 to 12

THE 13th edition of York’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival combines 300 films and 15 venues in a five-day showcase of worldwide independent film that champions emerging creative talent.

Guest programmes explore the climate crisis, Black British cinema and LGBTQ+ experiences. Look out too for the Aesthetica Games Lab, in celebration of video game culture, plus multiple masterclasses, networking sessions, kids’ workshops, AI workshops and the VR Lab’s selection of 360 (degree) and immersive film experiences. York residents can save 50 per cent each day with the York Days Discount. Full programme and tickets: asff.co.uk.

Shower After Swimming, linocut by Anita Klein, from the Comfort And Joy exhibition at Pyramid Gallery, York

Exhibition launch of the week: Comfort And Joy, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, November 4, 11am to 3pm, until mid-January 2024

PYRAMID Gallery’s Christmas show, Comfort And Joy, combines paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture and glass. Look out for needlepoint by Dinny Pocock, jewellery by Joy McMillan and sculpture by Paul Smith, Lynn Muir, Helen Martino, Peter Hayes, Eva Mileusnic, Gwen Vaughan, Fidelma Massey and Louise Connell, among others.

On show too will be paintings and original prints by Sarah Williams, Anita Klein, Lesley Birch, Eliza Southwood, Emma Whitelock, Trevor Price, Mychael Barratt and Hilke Macintyre, porcelain origami by Kate Buckley, plus glass by Keith Cummings, E&M Glass, Hannah Gibson, Tracey Knowles, Will Shakspeare, Morag Reekie, Jo Kenny and more besides. Attending today’s launch will be Smith, Birch, McMillan, Whitelock and Knowles.

York illustrator Elliot Harrison

Inspired event: York Artists & Designer Makers’ Annual Christmas Show, York Cemetery Chapel, Cemetery Road, York, November 4 and 5, 10am to 5pm

YORK artists and designers return to York Cemetery Chapel this weekend for their Inspired festive showcase. Adrienne French will be exhibiting paintings; Jo Bagshaw and Richard Whitelegg, jewellery; Elliot Harrison, illustrations; Catherine Boyne-Whitelegg, pottery; John Watts and Wilf Williams, furniture; Petra Bradley, textiles; Sally Clarke, prints, and Simon Palmour, photography.

Safia Bartley’s Filomina in Tutti Frutti and One Tenth Human’s The Lightbulb Princess at York Theatre Royal

Science show of the week: Tutti Frutti and One Tenth Human in The Lightbulb Princess, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 5, 2pm

LEEDS company Tutti Frutti Productions and Lancaster’s One Tenth Human team up for a magical, fun-filled 50-minute extravaganza for children aged four and upwards that explores the science behind electricity.

Kai’s sister Ray is determined that Mum will enjoy a perfect Christmas. It may be way too early, but already she has Kai and Ali hunting everywhere for decorations. When they find tree-top sparkly fairy Filomina, an unexpected adventure begins, one where they will need your help in a show full of electrifying storytelling and original songs. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Anton Du Beke: Chat and cha cha cha at York Theatre Royal

Song and dance of the week: An Evening With Anton Du Beke And Friends, York Theatre Royal, November 6, 7.30pm

STRICTLY Come Dancing legend and judge Anton Du Beke sashays into York with his live band, guest singer Lance Ellington and dancers for a fab-u-lous evening of song, dance and laughter. The ballroom king will be combining songs and dances that have inspired him with behind-the-scenes stories from his many years on Strictly. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

La Bamba! leaps into the air at Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith

New musical of the week: La Bamba!, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday and Saturday, 2.30pm

NOT to be confused with the 1987 film of the same name or Richie Valens’ teenage hit from 1958, La Bamba! is a new musical fiesta of passion, pride and Latin pop anthems starring Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev, The Wanted’s Siva Kaneswaran and rising star Inês Fernandez, choreographed by Strictly’s Graziano Di Prima.

Follow young Los Angeles dreamer Sofia as she takes her first steps toward stardom and witnesses the power of music to unite communities. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Stick Man: Freckle Productions head to York Theatre Royal with Julia Donaldson’s story

Children’s show of the week: Freckle Productions in Stick Man, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 4.30pm; Wednesday, 10.30am, 1.30pm and 4.30pm

WHAT begins as a morning jog becomes a misadventure for Stick Man: a dog wants to play Fetch, a swan builds a nest with him, and he even ends up atop a fire. How will Stick Man return to the family tree in time for Christmas?  

Adapting Julia Donaldson’s book, Freckle Productions combine puppetry, songs, live music and funky moves in the 55-minute performance. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Emma Dickinson and Jonny Holbek rehearsing with the York Light Youth ensemble for the York amateur premiere of School Of Rock

Are you ready to rock? York Light Youth in School Of Rock, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Wednesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee

YORK Light Youth’s tenth anniversary show is the York premiere of the technically and musically challenging musical School Of Rock, combining young performers aged ten to 17 and York Light Opera Company adults.

Based on the 2003 film, the storyline follows Jonny Holbek’s Dewey Finn, a failed wannabe rock star, who vows to turn his clueless prep school students into a rock band to enter Battle of the Bands. Along the way, Dewey finds romance, self-worth, a proper job, while initiating the children and their parents in the beauty of rock. Box office: josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Recommended but fully booked

QUEEN of British soul Beverley Knight’s York Barbican concert on Thursday has sold out, as has indie pop trio Scouting For Girls’ gig there the next night.  

In Focus: Gigs of the week: Teenage Fanclub on tour in Leeds and Sheffield with new album Nothing Lasts Forever in tow

Teenage Fanclub: Heading for Leeds and Sheffield on tour. Picture: Donald Milne

GLASGOW indie legends Teenage Fanclub follow up September’s release of 11th full-length studio album Nothing Lasts Forever with a 12-date November tour, taking in Yorkshire gigs in Leeds on Wednesday (sold out) and Sheffield on November 12

On songs looking for positives while faced with the grim realities of the 21st century, songwriters and guitarists Raymond McGinley and Norman Blake are joined by Francis Macdonald on drums, Dave McGowan on bass and Euros Childs on keyboards.

Light is a recurring theme, both as a metaphor for hope and as an ultimate destination further down the road. That said, although McGinley and Blake found themselves covering similar ground, it was pure coincidence.

McGinley says: “We never talk about what we’re going to do before we start making a record. We don’t plan much other than the nuts and bolts of where we’re going to record and when.

“That thing about light was completely accidental; we didn’t realise that until we’d finished half the songs. The record feels reflective, and I think the more we do this thing, the more we become comfortable with going to that place of melancholy, feeling and expressing those feelings.”

Blake reflects: “These songs are definitely personal. You’re getting older, you’re going into the cupboard getting the black suit out more often. Thoughts of mortality and the idea of the light must have been playing on our minds a lot.

“The songs on the last record were influenced by the break-up of my marriage. It was cathartic to write those songs. These new songs are reflective of how I’m feeling now, coming out of that period.

“They’re fairly optimistic, there’s an acceptance of a situation and all of the experience that comes with that acceptance. When we write, it’s a reflection of our lives, which are pretty ordinary.

“We’re not extraordinary people, and normal people get older. There’s a lot to write about in the mundane. I love reading Raymond Carver. Very often there’s not a lot that happens in those stories, but they speak to lived experience.”

While the vocals and finishing touches on Nothing Lasts Forever were added at McGinley’s place in Glasgow, the music was recorded in an intense ten-day period in the bucolic Welsh countryside at Rockfield Studios, near Monmouth, in late August.

This environment led to a record full of soft breezes, wide skies, beauty and space. “We like to get something out of where we go, and you can definitely hear a stamp of Rockfield on the record,” says McGinley.

“We recorded our album Howdy there in the late ’90s. Prior to that, I’d been a bit reluctant to go as everyone seemed to record there, especially if you were signed to Creation, but I thought I’d go and have a look at the place. “

McGinley continues: “When I went down there, I loved the fact that there’s no memorabilia about anyone who’s ever been in the studio. The only visual musical reference is a picture of [pioneering space age record producer} Joe Meek on their office wall.

Teenage Fanclub’s artwork for their 11th studio album, Nothing Lasts Forever

“Anyway, over 20 years after our first visit, we decided to go back. When you’re there, it feels like your place. We’re really rubbish at trying to find words to describe how our music sounds, but maybe because we recorded in Rockfield in late summer, there’s something pastoral about the record.”

Blake, McGinley, Macdonald, McGowan and Childs arrived at the residential studio without a fixed plan. Their confidence and ease with working together meant the record came together quickly. 

McGinley says: “When we got offered ten days in Rockfield, we weren’t ready in our minds but then we just thought, ‘**** it’ and went for it. If you’re sitting around waiting for the stars to align, you can end up never doing anything. We turned up and worked our way through ideas, and came up with some while we were there.

“The song Foreign Land was born in the studio. If we hadn’t gone there at that point through happenstance, that song wouldn’t exist. We like to let things happen. As people, we find a deadline inspiring. We like to put ourselves on the spot and see what happens. We usually get away with it. This record is the cliche of the blank canvas, which thankfully we managed to fill.”

Blake adds: “We’ve all been playing together for such a long time. In the past, whoever had written the song would have been the director. ‘This is how I’m hearing the drums, if you could play the bass like this’…We don’t do that now.

“Raymond or myself would just bring in the idea and people would listen and play what works with it. We’d play for a couple of hours and that would be the arrangement. There’s a trust that comes from knowing each other such a long time, a kind of telepathy. Everyone knows where they fit in the puzzle.”

The seven-minute acoustic closing track, I Will Love You, looks to a point beyond the fury and polarisation of our modern discourse, to a time when “the bigots are gone/after they apologise/for all the harm that they’ve done”. 

McGinley says: “In many ways, us-and-them-ism has taken over the world. I Will Love You is looking for positivity but it’s being totally fatalistic at the same time. This s**t will exist forever, what are you going to do about it?

“I came up with the line ‘I will love you/until the flags are put down/and the exceptionalists are buried under the ground’ while I was playing the guitar. I started wondering what that was all about and where it might go. It’s looking for positives within a fatalistic, negative view of human nature.”

The full track listing is: Foreign Land; Tired Of Being Alone; I Left A Light On; See The Light; It’s Alright; Falling Into The Sun; Self-Sedation; Middle Of My Mind; Back To The Light and I Will Love You.

Teenage Fanclub play Leeds Brudenell Social Club, Wednesday, doors 7.30pm, sold out; Leadmill, Sheffield, November 12, 7.30pm. Support comes from Sweet Baboo. Box office for Sheffield: leadmill.co.uk.

Special screening: Zomblogalypse, South Bank Community Cinema, Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, November 17, 8pm

The poster for November 17’s screening of Milestone Films’ Zomblogalypse at South Bank Community Cinema

MANY Zomblogalypse cast and crew members will be in attendance to introduce the screening and discuss the York-made zombie comedy in a Q&A afterwards, following its release by Dark Rift Films, the York film company behind festival crowd-pleaser How To Kill Monsters.

Zomblogalypse co-director Miles Watts says: “We love screening Zomblog with an audience because it’s got that trashy late-night Rocky Horror vibe. Usually it’s a bit tough to watch your own films with a crowd of people because all you see is the mistakes.

“But Zomblog is a different beast because this year marks the 15th anniversary of the original web series that launched this whole thing, and we’ve always had an appreciative and supportive fanbase.”

The cast includes Watts and his Milestone Films co-directors Hannah Bungard and Tony Hipwell, as well as seasoned York actors Victoria Delaney, Andrina Carroll and Dinnerladies’ Andrew Dunn.

Look out for a flash sale of film merchandise including posters and blu-rays of the film, with details of special discounts on the Zomblogalypse Facebook page. Tickets cost £4 on the door from 7:30pm.

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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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REVIEW: York Settlement Community Players in Government Inspector, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Mike Hickman as the insufferable Mayor in Settlement Players’ Government Inspector. All pictures: Sarah Ford

GOVERNMENT Inspector is to be confused with The Government Inspector. As was A Government Inspector, Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s Russian malarkey for Northern Broadsides in 2012.

David Harrower’s take on Gogol’s 1836 political satire dates from a year earlier and was the choice of Alan Park, dynamic actor and even more dynamic Theatre@41 chair, when picked to direct Settlement Players’ autumn production in his first time back in the director’s seat in 15 years.

McAndrew shifted the council shenanigans from small-town 19th century Russia to the small-town Pennines. Harrower keeps the Russian locale but moves Gogol’s cautionary tale of bribes, backhanders, brown envelopes and bent practices to the crumbling Soviet days of the 1980s, although its digs at corporate cronyism and rotten eggs could be directed at any complacent, corrupt, smug local authority, any time, any place, anywhere.

Sonia Di Lorenzo’s Bobchinsky, left, Katie Leckey’s Dobchinsky, Paul Osborne’s School Superintendent and Mark Simmonds’s Head of Hospitals all suck up to Andrew Roberts’s Khlestakov in Government Inspector

Park’s design team of Richard Hampton and Stephen Palmer favour the greys and dour blocks of Russian Brutalism in a minimalist set of one chair and desk.

Faded Soviet Union graffiti is splattered on the walls of the traverse stage, drapes and beading put the red into Russia, while costume duo Judith Ireland and Grace Trapps have fun with Eighties’ shell-suits and track suits, braces, bright shirts, ghastly ties and clashing bold-checked jackets. All topped off by shoulder pads for the high fashions of the Mayor’s wife, Anna, (Alison Taylor) and daughter Maria (Pearl Mollison, returning to the boards after several years backstage stage-managing productions).

Park’s show may be of Shakesperean length – even the cast was conceding the first half was too long on the first night, as the clock ticked towards three hours – but it nevertheless moves at a fair old lick, led by Mike Hickman’s frenetic Mayor.

Competitive mother and daughter: Alison Taylor’s Anna, the Mayor’s wife, in a power-dressing clash with Pearl Mollison’s Maria

The running time could have been shortened by not inserting a town band to perform deadpan dollops of Eighties’ hits, but that would have taken away from one of the primary joys of Park’s perky production, led by musical director Jim Paterson’s Buster Keaton-faced interjections and sometimes silent bewilderment.

Patterson has his moment in the sunshine too when called on to read the lines of a serf, book in hand, humorously growing into the role the more confident he becomes, in the tradition of a chorus line conversion to a principal.

His keep-it-simple keyboards and quickfire hop on to guitar are joined by Adam Sowter’s deliberately cheesy Eighties’ flourishes on keys, Matt Pattison’s guitar and Florence Poskitt’s accordion. Pattison and Poskitt’s interval rendition of Islands In The Stream is a particular delight, stripped of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s big-haired country romanticism.

A note of concern: Adam Sowter’s Police Superintendent, left, and Mark Simmonds’s Head of Hospitals discover the latest revelation from Matt Pattison’s Postmaster’s habit of opening mail

Patterson, Pattison and Poskitt are part of a cast that puts the emphasis on the ensemble, on comedy teamwork, but with room for individual flair and double-act tomfoolery to shine too.

Hickman is on a hot streak after his mysterious, cunning Captain Philip Lombard’s in Pick Me Up Theatre’s And Then There Were None last month, and here his corrupt character goes from over-confident to nervous wreck, as unloved as Malvolio.

November’s Movember campaign to cultivate moustaches to raise awareness of men’s health issues may still be around the corner, but Park’s coterie of men have done so already, from Hickman and Patterson to Mark Simmonds’s Head of Hospitals, Sowter’s biscuit-dipping, tea-drinking Police Superintendent and Paul Osborne’s School Superintendent, who receives a standing ovation after a piece of flustered comic invention involving choking on a cigar in the form of a kazoo.

Shopkeepers at the treble: Alexandra Mather, left, Adam Sowter and Florence Poskitt

Matt Pattison’s full-of-wonder/snooping Postmaster and Paul French’s lackey Osip were already fully bearded as their programme mugshots reveal.

In Shakespeare master-and-servant tradition, French’s Osip is doing the bidding for Andrew Roberts’s Khlestakov, the “government inspector” of Gogol’s play, or so all the town assumes when sent into a panic by news of his imminent arrival. 

Roberts, with his moustache from a matinee-idol cigarette card and Terry-Thomas air, is a dapper chancer, with comic timing and humorous physicality that revels in his ascension to the lead role.

Judging the moment: Maggie Smales’s Judge in Government Inspector

Spot-on casting all round by Park, from Taylor’s vainglorious Anna and Mollison’s preening Maria, to Maggie Smales’s corruptible Judge, Poskitt’s quick switches from gormless Shopkeeper to Mishka and Alexandra Mather’s trio of wide-eyed cameos.

Forever arguing with each other’s account of what’s happening, landowners Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky receive the clowning treatment from Irish-accented University of York theatre MA student Katie Leckey in her Settlement debut and Sonia Di Lorenzo in her Settlement return after a seven-year hiatus. These shell-suit shockers are one of many reasons to inspect Government Inspector, sent from Russia with gloves off.

Performances are at 7.30pm tonight (27/10/2023); 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Aghast again: Musical director Jim Patterson in Government Inspector
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From Russia with gloves off as Settlement Players run riot in Government Inspector

Director Alan Park, back row, right, and his ensemble cast for Government Inspector at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: John Saunders

THEATRE@41 chair and actor Alan Park is in the director’s seat for the first time in 15 years, steering the York Settlement Community Players through the Russian political quagmire of Government Inspector.

David Harrower’s adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s satirical exposé of hypocrisy and corruption in high places will run from tomorrow at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, where Park’s ensemble cast of eccentrics will undertake a fun, chaotic journey through 1980s’ Soviet Russia in a plot rooted in a simple case of mistaken identity.

“Communism is collapsing, it’s every man, woman and dog for themselves. What could possibly go wrong?” asks Alan, as the bureaucrats of a small Russian town are sent into a panic by news of the government inspector’s imminent arrival.

Harrower’s version premiered at the Warwick Arts Centre in May 2011 and transferred to the Young Vic, London, later that year. Now it provides “the perfect platform” for Settlement Players’ 14-strong ensemble.

”Directing this production came out of me having performed Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing with Settlement at the Theatre Royal Studio in February,” says Alan.

“I enjoyed the acting company, the production team and the whole creative process so much that when the call-out came for a director this autumn, I was keen to do a play with lots of actors.

“There are some incredibly talented actors in York, and I wanted to do something that would bring the best out of them as an ensemble, playing loads of parts, and I needed a play that would facilitate that.”

Gogol’s Government Inspector was suggested to him, and once he came across Harrower’s adaptation, it was the perfect fit. “David’s version is fun, it’s fast-moving; the dialogue zips along, and it really lends itself to these 14 actors, who have created the community of this Russian town, where they are all out for their own interests only…and then discover the government inspector is coming to town,” says Alan.

He last directed a play in his professional acting days in London, where he ran workshops and oversaw youth productions. “I’ve been looking to do something for a while, but there has never been the window of opportunity, as I have a full-time job as well as running Theatre@41 and performing in plays.” He is a father too. “My kids look at me and wonder who I am!” he says.

He has revelled in directing Harrower’s script. “I looked at a few adaptations as I wanted to find a good translation, and this one stood out. Julian Barratt, from The Mighty Boosh, was in the Young Vic production, and this was the script that I couldn’t put down. It told the plot really well and suited what I wanted to do.”

Going flat out: York Settlement Community Players’ cast members in rehearsal for this week’s riotous production of Government Inspector. Director Alan Park looks on, left. Picture: John Saunders

Settlement Players’ staging of Government Inspector comes against the backdrop of Putin’s stultifying dictatorship and warmongering. “We can’t get away from it being a Russian play! It’s a great satire on Russia, and there’s never been a better time to poke fun at what Russia still appears to stand for.

“Harrower has set it in the late-1980s, when everything was crumbling in Russia, and if we’re making any comment on Russia, it is that the whole thing is ridiculous. There’s no way anyone would think that the Russian way is the best way forward.”

Rather than attempting Russian accents, Alan has encouraged his cast members to use their own accents. “I was inspired to do that by the Chernobyl TV series,” he says.

In choosing that cast, Alan was keen to avoid holding auditions with three faces staring out from behind a desk. “Instead we had workshops, playing games, and went from there,” he says.

“There will be familiar actors, but not necessarily in familiar roles, like Andrew Roberts, who’s not done big roles before, playing Khlestakov [the inspector’s role]. Mike Hickman, who was in The Real Thing, is a fabulously instinctive performer, who just gets it straightway, and he’s perfect for the Mayor, who’s losing his grip on everything and gradually losing control.

“He’s also a massive fan of Tony Hancock, who appeared in The Government Inspector in 1958, and so he’s delighted to be doing this play.”

Adam Sowter and Florence Poskett, from the York musical comedy duo Fladam, have amusing cameo roles as the Police Superintendent and Mishka respectively, while University of York drama student Katie Leckey will bring her physical comedy skills to Dobchinsky and Pearl Mollison steps out from the wings to play the Mayor’s daughter after several years of stage managing shows.

Musical director Jim Paterson will lead a live band, made up of cast members, such as Matt Pattison on guitar, Sowter on keyboards and Poskitt on accordion, through a liberal dose of Eighties’ rock ballads.

Judith Ireland’s costume designs, all Eighties’ tracksuits, suits and shoulder pads, will complement a Brutalist set of grey blocks and faded Russian graffiti.

“My main aim is that the production should be actor led, and I’m always keen for a set to let the actors do what they want,” says Alan. “That’s why there’ll just be the blocks, and slogans on every wall, with Russian propaganda to represent the decaying town.”

York Settlement Community Players in Government Inspector, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow (24/10/2023) to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

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More Things To Do in York and beyond when you’re not only here for the beer. Hutch’s List No. 43, from The Press

Velma Celli: Vocal drag entertainment with chutzpah and cheek at Yorktoberfest, York Racecourse

BAVARIAN revelry and riotous Russian politics, Frankenstein in wartime and jazz era Joni, comedy and charity nights entice Charles Hutchinson to do battle with Storm Babet.

Festival of the week: Jamboree Entertainment presents Yorktoberfest, Clocktower Enclosure, York Racecourse, Knavesmire Road, York, today, 1pm to 5pm; Friday, 7pm to 11pm; next Saturday, 1pm to 5pm and 7pm to 11pm

YORKTOBEFEST returns for a third autumn season of beer, bratwurst, bumper cars and all things Bavarian in a giant marquee. Look out for the Bavarian Strollers, with their thigh-slapping oompah tunes and disco classics, and York’s international drag diva Velma Celli with her stellar singing and saucy humour.  

Dancing is encouraged, as is the wearing of Lederhosen, Dirndls or any other fancy dress, with nightly competitions and prizes for the best dressed. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/yorktoberfest.

Steve Cassidy: Playing hits spanning six decades at St Peter’s School tonight

Fundraiser of the week: York Rotary presents A Song For Everyone, Memorial Hall, St Peter’s School, Clifton, York, tonight; doors 7pm, concert 7.30pm to 10.15pm

YORK singer and guitarist Steve Cassidy and his band are joined by guest vocalist Heather Findlay to perform a “huge range of popular hits covering six decades”. Expect rock, ballads and country music. Proceeds from this fundraising concert will go to St Leonard’s Hospice and York Rotary Charity Fund. Box office: yorkrotary.co.uk/a-song-for-everyone or on the door.

Heather Findlay: Guest vocalist at A Song For Everyone. Picture: Adam Kennedy

Spooks at Spark: Halloween Makers’ Market, Spark:York, Piccadilly, York, today, 12 noon to 4pm

THE Halloween edition of Spark:York’s Makers’ Market features “spooktacularly” handcrafted work by independent makers. Taking part will be Wistoragic Designs, Enthralled Yet, Gem Belle, A Forest of Shadows, Kim’s Clay Jewellery and the Mimi Shop by Amelia. Entry is free.

Hejira: Celebrating the jazz days of Joni Mitchell at the NCEM

Jazz gig of the week: Hejira: Celebrating Joni Mitchell, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow, 6.30pm 

JAZZ seven-piece Hejira honour the works of Canadian-American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter Joni Mitchell, mostly from the late 1970s, in particular Mingus from her “jazz period” and the live album Shadows And Light, recorded in 1979 with a Jazz All Stars line-up featuring saxophonist Michael Brecker and guitarist Pat Metheny.

Hejira is fronted by Hattie Whitehead, who – in her own way – has assimilated the poise, power and beauty of Joni’s vocals and plays guitar with Joni’s stylistic mannerisms. Joining her will be Pete Oxley, guitar; Ollie Weston, saxophones; Chris Eldred, piano and keyboards; Dave Jones, electric basses; Rick Finlay, drums, and Marc Cecil, percussion. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Go Your Own Way: The Rumours are true, they are playing Fleetwood Mac songs at the Grand Opera House tomorrow

Tribute show of the week: Go Your Own Way – The Fleetwood Mac Legacy, Grand Opera House, tomorrow, 7.30pm

GO Your Own Way celebrates the Fleetwood Mac era of Rumours and that 1977 line-up of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood in this new tribute show. Dreams, Don’t Stop Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Everywhere, Little Lies and Big Love all feature. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Jonny Best: Piano accompaniment to Monday’s screenings of The Great Train Robbery and The General. Picture: Chris Payne

Film screening of the week: Northern Silents Film Festival presents The Great Train Robbery (1903) and The General (1926), National Centre for Early Music, York, Monday, 7.30pm

NORTHERN Silents artistic director and pianist Jonny Best brings musical commentary to a pair of silent cinema’s most famous railway chase films.

The 12-minute escapade The Great Train Robbery still packs a punch after 120 years, while Buster Keaton’s greatest achievement, the 80-minute The General, is both a brlliantly staged American Civil War epic and a comedy-thriller packed with visual humour, daring stunts and dramatic tension.

Keaton plays railroad engineer Johnny Gray, whose beloved locomotive, The General, is stolen by Yankees, stirring him to strive to get it back against the odds. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

Eleanor McLoughlin as Victoria Frankenstein and Cameron Robertson as The Creature in Tilted Wig’s Frankenstein, on tour at York Theatre Royal

One for the Halloween season: Tilted Wig in Frankenstein, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday; 7.30pm October 24 and 26 to 28; 2pm, October 25 and 26; 2.30pm, October 28

TILTED Wig’s Frankenstein is an electrifying reimagining of Mary Shelley’s Gothic 19th century horror story, now set in 1943. While Europe tears itself apart, two women hide from their past at what feels like the very end of the world. One of them has a terrifying story to tell. 

Adapted and directed by Sean Aydon, this new thriller explores the very fabric of what makes us human and the ultimate cost of chasing “perfection” with a cast featuring Eleanor McLoughlin as Doctor Victoria Frankenstein, Basienka Blake as Captain/Richter and Cameron Robertson as The Creature. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Burning Duck Comedy Club welcomes Tom Lawrinson, Erin Tett and Mandy McCarthy to Spark:York

Comedy bill of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Tom Lawrinson & Friends, Spark:York, Piccadilly, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm

AFTER Tom Lawrinson and Eryn Tett starred in Burning Duck’s inaugural Spark Comedy Fringe, promoter Al Greaves has invited them back to spark more laughs.

Absurdist alternative comedian Tett opens the show; Lawrinson, who made his Edinburgh Fringe debut with Hubba Hubba, is the headline act. In between come two shorter spots (wait and see who those “friends” will be), with guest host MC Mandy McCarthy holding everything together. Box office: burningduckcomedy.com.

Comedian Helen Bauer: Girl’s talk at The Crescent and Hyde Park Book Club

A word or two on women: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Helen Bauer: Grand Supreme Darling Princess, The Crescent, York, Thursday, 7.30pm; Hyde Park Book Club, Headingley, Leeds, Friday, 8pm

HELEN Bauer, Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nominee, Late Night Mash star and Trusty Dogs podcaster, heads to York and Leeds with a show about the women in her life, from her mother to her best friend and that one girl who was mean in 2008. Oh, and Disney princesses, obviously. Box office: York, wegottickets.com/event/581816; Leeds, wegottickets.com/event/581817.

One dalmatian, 100 more are on their way to the Grand Opera House in a new musical in November 2024. Picture: Oliver Rosser, Feast Creative

Spotted in the distance: 101 Dalmatians The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 5 to 9 2024, not 2023

A NEW musical tour of Dodie Smith’s canine caper 101 Dalmatians will arrive in York next autumn.  Written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics) and Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris, the show is reimagined from the 2022 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London. The cast and creative team are yet to be announced.

When fashionista Cruella de Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, trouble lies ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of tail-wagging young pups. Smith’s story will be brought to stage life with puppetry, choreography, humorous songs and, yes, puppies. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

In Focus: Political drama of the week: York Settlement Community Players in Government Inspector

Director Alan Park, back row, right, and his Settlement Players cast for Government Inspector at Theatre@41, Monkgate. Picture: John Saunders

IN his first time in the director’s seat for 15 years, Theatre@41 chair and actor Alan Park directs the Settlement Players in David Harrower’s adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s Russian satirical exposé of hypocrisy and corruption in high places, prompted by a simple case of mistaken identity.

Park’s ensemble cast of eccentrics will undertake a fun, chaotic journey through 1980s’ Soviet Russia. “Communism is collapsing, it’s every man, woman and dog for themselves. What could possibly go wrong?” he asks, as the bureaucrats of a small Russian town are sent into a panic by news of the government inspector’s imminent arrival.

Harrower’s version premiered at the Warwick Arts Centre in May 2011 and transferred to the Young Vic, London, later that year. Now it provides “the perfect platform for Settlement Players’ hugely talented ensemble”, led by Mike Hickman as the town’s Major.

Andrew Roberts plays Khlestakov, accompanied by Paul French as his long-suffering servant, Osip. YSCP regulars combine with newcomers in Park’s company of Alison Taylor as the Major’s wife; Pearl Mollison, the Major’s daughter; Katie Leckey, Dobchinsky; Sonia Di Lorenzo, Bobchinksy; Maggie Smales, the Judge; Matt Pattison, Postmaster; Mark Simmonds, Head of Hospitals; Paul Osborne, School Superintendent; Adam Sowter, Police Superintendent; Florence Poskitt, Mishka, and Alexandra Mather, Dr Gibner.

Jim Paterson will lead a live band, made up of cast members, such as Pattison and Sowter, to help transport next week’s audiences to a 1980s’ provincial Soviet town full of eccentric personalities. Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

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REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in Edward II, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

The power of love and the love of power: James Lee’s Gaveston, left, entwined with Jack Downey’s Edward II in York Shakespeare Project’s Edward II. All pictures: John Saunders

BE warned. Expect to be splashed by water if you sit in the front row, comes the polite advice on arrival at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

Welcome to the new age of York Shakespeare Project, splashing around in works by Shakespeare’s rivals as a key part of phase two over the next 25 years. Rival number one: the ill-fated Christopher “Kit” Marlowe.

We are used to the spillage of blood as the bodies pile up in Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies, but water? Jack Downey’s Edward II will end up bedraggled, buckets of water poured over his head, containing autumnal leaves too, in a child’s paddling pool: a fate almost as ignominious as his fabled “lamentable” death by red polka hot.

That exit awaits his malevolent executioner: Thomas Jennings, back on crop-haired hitman duty again as Lightborn after his cutthroat cameos, camera in hand, in April’s Richard III. Stereotyping maybe, but again he takes the scene-stealing honours.

Lipstick, power and paint: Emma Scott’s Young Mortimer making plans and leaving messages in Edward II

Not only water is splashed about in director-designer Tom Straszewski’s Edward II. So is gold, chucked across the back wall like a Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art explosion; splattered on Edward II’s trousers and across his forehead; emerging from his back pocket in the colour of his handkerchief.

In paper and ribbon, gold is wrapped around a heap of presents that Edward will bestow, along with titles, as freely and as ill-deserved as those winners of the Boris Johnson lottery, otherwise known as the 2022 Prime Minister’s Resignation Honours list.

Always touched by your presents, dear, but all that glisters is not gold for Downey’s Edward II, although he puts up a better fight than the weak king of earlier incarnations.

Straszewki, or Strasz as he likes to be known for short, introduces his bravura production from the end-on stage with a mischievous look in his eye, directing YSP for the third time with flinty humour, dollops of drag culture. fresh faces aplenty, and serious points to make about cancel culture, identity (Young Edward/Princess Edie), sexuality and social mobility (or immobility).

“Like Marlowe himself, we wanted to focus less on historical accuracy or psychological realism, and instead as a fantasia of power and love. This is a fearful England,” mused the director.

A woman scorned: Danae Artega Hernandez’s Queen Isabel, ready to turn tables on wanderlust husband Edward in Tom Straszewski’s bravura production of Edward II

Not only the power of love, but the love of power, craving it, attaining it, keeping it, losing it, or even not wanting it in the case of Edward’s young daughter Princess Edie (Effie Warboys), who treats the crown like a poisoned chalice.

We first encounter Miss Warboys seated at a table, in front of a dressing-room mirror, being filmed on a screen that carries the text for the benefit of deaf audience members. Playing Edward and Queen Isabel’s daughter, she is flicking idly through fashion magazines, cutting out pictures of the glitterati, silently watching from the shadows, “desperate to mend her broken family and nation”…or “bring them to heel”, as Strasz adds in his notes.

This is indeed the essence of a dysfunctional family. Edward has his irons in another fire, obsessed with Piers Gaveston (James Lee), his jumped-up, preening, exiled lover who so angers the court (James Tyler’s overwrought Lancaster, York tour guide Alan Sharp’s Warwick, Harry Summers’ Mortimer Senior) and the clergy (Stuart Lindsay’s Bishop) alike.

And above all, Queen Isabel (Danae Artega Hernandez, in her first full-scale role since playing the Angel Gabriel in high school days), who duly takes her own lover. Ever glummer, despite the glamour, divorce and plans to bring down Edward will inevitably follow.

Director Tom Straszewski: “Striving for something glorious”

There is no place for a quiet life here, much as Princess Edie might initially crave one, and safety may be sought but is never found. Social climbing is all the rage, whether Lee’s flash-harry, Beatle-booted Gaveston, Emma Scott’s outstanding Mortimer Junior or Adam Kadow’s foppish Spenser, beneath a bird’s nest of peroxide Johnson hair.

Strasz wanted to wanted to “treat Edward II as a queer play, not just in terms of the love between Edward and Gaveston, but as something that challenges what it means to be powerful”. He does exactly that, and successfully too, as power proves to be as slippery as soap.

“Underneath all that [shimmering gold] are ordinary people, striving for something glorious,” he argues. He has found it with this modern-day reading of Edward II that gives both the play and YSP new life.

Lee, Scott and Downey are the new generation of bold YSP leads, and there is much else to enjoy here, especially the use of make-up as a source of power; the lipstick slashes across the throat to signify imminent exits stage left, and the music: serenades and a power ballad, and each of Edward’s lovers crooning The Ink Spots’ I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire. Maybe not, but Strasz does.

Performances: 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm, 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Party time in York Shakespeare Project’s Edward II
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York Shakespeare Project unwraps fantasia of love and power in Marlowe’s Edward II

Alan Sharp’s Warwick, James Tyler’s Lancaster, James Lee’s Gaveston, Emma Scott’s Young Mortimer and Cassi Roberts’s Kent at work on York Shakespeare Project’s Edward II. Picture: John Saunders

AT the heart of phase two of York Shakespeare Project over the next 25 years is the mission to stage not only all of Shakespeare’s plays, but also the finest works of his contemporaries.

The Bard’s first rival in focus will be playwright, poet and translator Christopher “Kit”  Marlowe, writer of The Tragicall History of Dr Faustus; Tamburlaine The Great; Dido, Queen Of Carthage; Edward II; The Massacre At Paris and The Jew Of Malta.

York Shakespeare Project (YSP) will stage his intimate historical tragedy Edward II (a.k.a. The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England) under the direction of Tom “Strasz” Straszewski at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from October 17 to 21 at 7.30pm plus a 2.30pm Saturday matinee.

Edward II is king at last. Determined to shower his loved ones with gifts, he summons his exiled lover, Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall. In the face of a king, court and country intoxicated by their passions, the Queen takes her own lover, whereupon the nation is torn apart in a merciless divorce. Their child watches from the shadows, desperate to mend this broken family and nation or bring them to heel.

“Like Marlowe himself, we wanted to focus less on historical accuracy or psychological realism, and instead as a fantasia of power and love. This is a fearful England,” says the director.

Tom Straszewski: director of York Shakespeare Project’s Edward II

Here Tom Straszewski discusses kings and queens, sexuality and social mobility, drag and cancel culture with CharlesHutchPress

What attracted you to directing Marlowe’s Edward II, Strasz?

 “I’d just come off the back of directing Lincoln and York’s Mystery Plays and was looking for the next challenge. Edward II came at the perfect moment – something more intimate, but still engaging with a community cast and their own ideas for the play. 

“YSP were good enough to trust me with their first non-Shakespeare play. I knew I wanted to treat it as a queer play, not just in terms of the love between Edward and Gaveston, but as something that challenges what it means to be powerful.”

How will you bring contemporary resonance to this age-old story of the struggle for love and power? 

“The historical Edward II has tended to be portrayed as a weak king. He lost to the Scots, he wasn’t interested in taking over more land in France, there was a Europe-wide famine…but it’s been horribly tied to debate over his sexuality.

Cassi Roberts, back left, as Kent, Emma Scott as Young Mortimer, James Lee as Gaveston, Thomas Jennings as Lightborn, Stuart Lindsay as the Bishop, Emily Hansen as Pembroke and Alan Sharp as Warwick in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Edward II. Picture: John Saunders

“The cast were generally wary of judging Edward by medieval standards. Did we really want to judge him for failing to conquer other countries? What we found was a king whose downfall isn’t in rejecting his love for Gaveston or failing to make war, but failure to keep his community safe. 

“What’s resonated with many of us is the dramatic increase in transphobia over the last few years.  Because of that, we’ve framed power and love as two ways of finding safety. For the nobles, having power lets them keep their loved ones safe. Edward protects Gaveston because he loves him, because it’s the right thing to do – whatever the cost.”

How did you bring drag into your considerations on how to present Edward II?

“It draws on the glamour of royalty. Drag queens, drag kings, it’s about finding something powerful in how you present yourself to the world. So we call our production a fantasia. A work of the imagination, of imagery and visions, rather than pure plot.

“Originally it meant ‘to shine’, and that’s something we’ve engrained in the play: a world of shining gold and dripping pearls, and the seductive shimmer of power and passion. Underneath all that are ordinary people, striving for something glorious.” 

Cassi Roberts as Kent, left, and Emma Scott as Young Mortimer. Picture: John Saunders

What drew you to casting YSP Jack Downey, James Lee and Danae Arteaga Hernandez in the principal roles of Edward II, Gaveston and Queen Isabel?
“When we first auditioned, we were looking for an ensemble who could all work together. We didn’t know who might be in each part, as long as they brought curiosity and bravery. As we got into the guts of the play, it became clear that James and Jack played off each other.

“There’s something of the current monarch in Jack’s portrayal – torn between his real love on one side, and the rejected wife on the other. James’s Gaveston allows Edward to be gentle, to shrug – for a moment – the weight of kingship off his shoulders.

“Danae has been a real revelation as Queen Isabel, particularly paired with Emma Scott’s Young Mortimer. She’s constantly described as weeping or mourning, but Danae’s found the power behind that.

“I’m also delighted that familiar faces have returned, often bringing something surprising, something I hadn’t seen them do before. Emily Hansen’s found a steely core in Pembroke’s moderation. Harry Summers’ Elder Mortimer gives a wonderfully tender paean to love between men, behind his desire to bash some heads in.”

James Lee’s Gaveston, left, and Jack Downey’s Edward II



How does Jack Downey interpret Edward II?
“Jack’s Edward uses weakness as a weapon. He threatens to give his crown away, knowing nobody wants the responsibility. He’ll lie down in the middle of the stage and see if people will really dare to brutalise him. And they back down! He wins!

“Then he starts playing the game on the other’s terms: starts wars, executes his prisoners, abandons his friends for his own safety. That’s when it falls apart. “And what Emma Scott has brought to Young Mortimer is a noble who recognises this, responds to it – she doesn’t rant and bully people, but tries to lead them along with a smile (and the threat of her knife behind it).”

How are today’s issues of cancel culture, celebrity and social mobility woven into your Edward II?

 “If our play is a fantasia, we looked at other forms of power and display than the monarchy – and celebrity is chief among them. How we present ourselves and who lies behind it are often different. For Gaveston, he’s met the right people, helped out his friends, risen above his poor background.

 Stuart Lindsay as the Bishop, left, Charlie Barrs as Maltravers and Thomas Jennings as Lightborn. Picture: John Saunders

“Gaveston’s enemies don’t see it that way. His crime is not loving the king, but getting rich off it, and they don’t see what he’s done to deserve it. They’ve suffered to keep their people safe. He hasn’t.

“Gaveston and Edward fail to control the narrative, and so they lose their supporters, their fans I guess! The play constantly references the medieval wheel of fortune: if you rise, you must fall. And we can see how quickly someone can rise and fall today.” 

What will the set and costume design be? 

“All the actors have brought their own designs to the mix, based on their understanding of the characters. Expect to see a little Hollywood glamour, mirrored vanities, gold and pearls. Makeup as a source of power. Underneath it, the decay of the fall.”

York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Edward II

Where will music fit into your production?
“Music comes out in moments of power and desire. Serenades to the king, a power number gearing up for war, a bit of techno. We’ve drawn on what suits the moment. Each of Edward’s lovers sing to him. For example, The Ink Spots’ I Don’t Want to Set The World On Fire: its refrain of ‘Believe me’ is key to it all.”

And finally, Strasz, how do you “rate” his rival Marlowe by comparison with Shakespeare? 

“You don’t! You shouldn’t! They were collaborators; they almost certainly worked on Henry VI together; there are phrases and situations that they share. Maybe Shakespeare’s later works have a certain tenderness that Marlowe’s early plays lack, but then Shakespeare had decades of experience beyond Marlowe’s death.

“Marlowe’s not interested in broad comedy, although his insults are witty. But I think he’s willing to let his lead characters let loose at the world. Shakespeare’s characters enjoy the rise to power. Marlowe’s better at the fall.” 

Tickets are available at tickets.41monkgate.co.uk or by emailing the box office at boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.

Tony Froud: Chair of York Shakespeare Project

Only One Question for: York Shakespeare Project chair Tony Froud

Why will York Shakespeare Project feature works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries in its second cycle of productions?

“AS we embarked on phase two, we wanted to stretch ourselves afresh, in a way matching the great ambition of the original project’s aim (to do all the plays in 20 years). Producing all of Shakespeare’s plays again is a mighty task in itself and will offer new challenges in presenting the texts in new ways for different times. 

“But we were mindful that Shakespeare did not exist in a vacuum.  Many of his contemporaries were great playwrights in their own right, and there are so many exciting Elizabethan and Jacobean plays that we want to share over the next 25 years.”