Tom Wilson’s punk expressionist paintings fill City Screen café walls in fundraising show for Medical Aid for Palestinians

Forest Floor By Night, by Tom Wilson, on show at City Screen Picturehouse

YORK punk expressionist artist, designer, playwright, theatre director and tutor Tom Wilson is exhibiting his riots of colour at City Screen Picturehouse for the first time with sale proceeds going to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians).

Thirty-five works are on display in the café bar at the Coney Street cinema in York, priced at £175 to £700.

“My art looks like an explosion,” says Wilson, whose dynamic abstract art is influenced by Kandinsky, Max Earnst, Otto Dix, Outsider art, German Expressionism and Rayonism (Russian Expressionism).

“When my last exhibition was on at St Bede’s, in Blossom Street, last September, I got in touch with as many York artists as I could to network with them and to try and raise the awareness of my charity too, with sale proceeds being donated in aid of the Ukrainians now living in York who needed support,” says Tom.

Artist Tom Wilson standing by his exhibiition for Medical Aid For Palestinians in the City Screen Picturehouse café bar in York

“As part of my networking campaign, I went to see some of the art being shown at City Screen and spoke to the manager, Cath Sharp. We fixed a date for me to show my art there too, which was incredible.”

In the lead-up to this summer’s show, Tom attended as many exhibitions at City Screen as he could to garner ideas of how to present and promote his work. “When my time for showing arrived, I decided to donate the funds raised this time to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians),” he says.

“It’s a great cause, particularly right now. Harrowing and tragic and barbaric things are going on while the rest of the world looks the other way. It breaks my heart, it really does.”

For his City Screen debut, Tom had 300 bookmark-sized cards printed, along with two 6 by 27-inch banners. “I also decided to paint a banner to cover the central wall in the City Screen café bar, painting it in my own style to really try to grab people’s attention as they eat their couscous and toasted cheese wraps,” he says.

A new work byTom Wilson for his City Screen show

“I’m quite proud of it actually. Needs must and necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, or as Frank Zappa said!”

Tom had first started to paint 20 years, and after a long hiatus, he picked up the brushes once more when his younger brother, Stephen, died. “I’ve been painting for a while now and find it very cathartic and relaxing,” he says.

“I do believe very strongly that art in any form can have a transformative and spiritual power, the power to heal and cultivate emotional awareness, insights, and imbue self- esteem.

“I don’t have a studio, I paint at home, and as a result my kitchen is like a bomb site, but a productive bomb site. Now, as a way of clearing some of my artwork out of my house – I can’t move for paintings and junk – I thought it would be a positive gesture to hang some paintings in this wonderful space at City Screen and donate any monies to Medical Aid for Palestinians, having already held exhibitions for the Haiti Earthquake Disaster Fund and Ukrainians now living in York.”

Tom Wilson’s Art In Aid Of MAP exhibition banner

Tom has been networking latterly with “the fabulous fraternity of artists” a few doors along from City Screen at the Fabrication art shop in Coney Street. “That could well be my next project, showing my art there and making a documentary about this amazing franchise and amalgam of various and diverse artists, all supporting each other and rising from the pandemic like phoenixes from the fire,” he says.

“It’s a real community culture, which in fact has been going for over 12 years now. They have a branch in Leeds and this thriving one in York too.”

Tom is delighted with the response to his City Screen show, which features new works alongside “huge favourites”. “It’s getting lots of attention from other artists and also from cinema and theatregoers alike,” he says.

“It’s on for another few weeks and it would be great to see more and more people visit this warm, friendly and aesthetically pulsating venue.” 

To purchase any of his works, Tom can be contacted on 07570 020694 or by email at gingerorourke@hotmail.com.

York artist Tom Wilson, pictured when setting up his St Bede’s exhibition last year

Tom Wilson: the back story

ORIGINALLY from Salford, Greater Manchester, Tom has lived and worked in York for 16 years.

Played in a rock’n’roll band for a few years in the 1980s. Studied drama and art at Dartington College of Arts and became a drama teacher after stints of acting. Continues to write and direct for film and theatre, staging his anarchic farce The Local Authority at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, in August 2021.

Spent more than 20 years living and working in London with individuals who struggled with drug and alcohol problems. His outreach and project work in the mental health field included rough sleepers, street drinkers and ex-prisoners.

Started painting 20 years ago, doing so obsessively for four years but then stopping. Re-started after the death of his younger brother, Stephen.

Likes Russian Rayonism, Surrealism, Outsider art and the work of Egon Schiele, Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Francis Bacon, Paul Cezanne, Gustave Dore, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Félicien Rops, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Richard Dadd and Robert Lenkiewicz.

Tom Wilson’s exhibition runs at City Screen Picturehouse, Coney Street, York, until July 29.

Opening Gambit, by Tom Wilson, from his City Screen exhibition

More Things To Do in York as Sovereign takes over King’s Manor. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 28 for 2023, from The Press, York

Sovereign actors Fergus Rattigan, left, and Sam Thorpe-Spinks, right, with playwright Mike Kenny

HENRY VIII and the murder of a York glazier take top spot in Charles Hutchinson’s pick of July highlights with outdoor cinema on its way too.

Community event of the month: York Theatre Royal in Sovereign, King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York, July 15 to 30

YORK Theatre Royal’s large-scale community production, York playwright Mike Kenny’s adaptation of C J Sansom’s Tudor-set murder mystery Sovereign, will be staged outdoors at King’s Manor, where part of the story takes place. Henry VIII even makes an appearance.

Two professional actors, Fergus Rattigan’s disabled lawyer Matthew Shardlake and Sam Thorpe-Spinks’ assistant Jack Barak, lead the 120-strong community company of actors, singers, musicians and backstage workers. Tickets update: sold out.

York artist Tom Wilson stands by his artworks in the City Screen Picturehouse cafe bar

Exhibition of the week: Tom Wilson, City Screen Picturehouse café bar, Coney Street, York, until July 29

YORK punk expressionist artist, designer, playwright, theatre director and tutor Tom Wilson is exhibiting his riots of colour at City Screen Picturehouse for the first time with sale proceeds going to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians). Thirty-five works are on display, priced at  £175 to £700.

“My art looks like an explosion,” says Wilson, whose dynamic abstract artwork is influenced by Kandinsky, Max Earnst, Otto Dix, Outsider art, German Expressionism and Rayonism (Russian Expressionism).

Industrial Revolution, one of Tom Wilson’s works on show at City Screen Picturehouse

Tribute show of the week: Steve Steinman’s Anything For Love, The Meat Loaf Story, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm

FOR more than 30 years, Nottingham’s Steve Steinman has toured the world with his tribute to the songs of Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf (real name Marvin Lee Aday). Now he presents his new production, showcasing 25 chunks of Meat Loaf and Steinman’s prime cuts.

Anything For Love combines Steve’s humour and a ten-piece band with such rock-operatic favourites as Bat Out Of Hell, Paradise By The Dashboard Light, Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, Dead Ringer For Love and Total Eclipse Of The Heart. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

The Sixteen: Marking 400th anniversary of the death of composer William Byrd in Sunday’s York Early Music Festival concert at York Minster

Don’t miss at York Early Music Festival: The Sixteen, York Minster, Sunday, 8pm

THE Sixteen’s 2023 Choral Pilgrimage is inspired by the influence of Renaissance composer William Byrd in an exploration of his life, works and pervading Roman Catholic faith. His legacy is marked by two new compositions by Dobrinka Tabakova, bringing his musical heritage into the modern day.

The premieres, Arise Lord Into Thy Rest and Turn Our Captivity, highlight Byrd’s influence of modern polyphony and showcase The Sixteen choir in a new light. Director Harry Christophers’ programme also features works by Van Wilder, de Monte, Clemens Non Papa and Byrd himself. Box office: 01904 658338 or tickets.ncem.co.uk.

Emily Belcher’s Emily Webb and Frankie Bounds’ George Gibbs in rehearsal for Amerrycan Theatre’s Our Town

American play of the week: Amerrycan Theatre in Our Town, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

FOUNDER Bryan Bounds directs Yorkshire’s American company, Amerrycan Theatre, in the York premiere of “America’s greatest play”, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 study of mindfulness, mortality and brevity of life, Our Town.

“Wilder’s portrait of life, love and death set in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, a fictional New England town at the start of the 20th century, could happen just as easily in Pocklington,” says Bounds. Tracing the romance and marriage of Emily Webb (Emily Belcher) and George Gibbs (Frankie Bounds), Our Town reveals the hidden mysteries behind the smallest details of everyday life. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Amerrycan Theatre’s poster for the York premiere of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town

Outdoor film event of the week: City Screen Picturehouse presents Movies In The Moonlight, Museum Gardens, York, July 14 to 16, doors, 7.30pm; screenings at sundown, 9.15pm approx

CITY Screen Picturehouse heads outdoors for three films in three nights, kicking off on Friday with The Super Mario Bros Movie, wherein Brooklyn plumbers Mario (Chris Pratt) and brother Luigi (Charlie Day) are transported down a mysterious pipe and wander into a magical new world.

In Mamma Mia! The Movie, next Saturday, Greek island bride-to-be Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is set on finding out who her father is. In next Sunday’s film, Jaws, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss star as a police chief, marine scientist and grizzled fisherman set out to stop a gigantic great shark that has been menacing the island community of Amity. Box office: picturehouses.com/outdoor-cinema.

The Counterfeit Seventies: Heading to Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Pop nostalgia of the week: The Counterfeit Seventies, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, July 16, 7.30pm

IN the wake of The Counterfeit Sixties, here comes, you guessed it, The Counterfeit Seventies, the decade of glam rock, punk, new wave and everything in between. Revisit Slade, Sweet, T Rex, the Bay City Rollers and plenty more, aided by a light show, costumes of the period and archival footage of bands and events from the era. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Sarah-Louise Young in The Silent Treatment. Picture: Steve Ullathorne

Solo show of the week: Sarah-Louise Young in The Silent Treatment, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, July 16, 7pm

AFTER her celebrations of Kate Bush (An Evening Without…) and Julie Andrews (Julie Madly Deeply), writer-performer Sarah-Louise Young returns to Theatre@41 with the highly personal true story of a singer who loses her voice and embarks on an unexpected journey of self-revelation.

Warning: The show includes themes of trauma and sexual violence. As The Stage review put it, The Silent Treatment is a “a war cry and a message of resilience and hope to anyone who has faced abuse and been made to feel guilty about it”. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Punk artist Tom Wilson raises funds from painting sales to support Ukrainians in York

One of Tom Wilson’s paintings at St Bede’s that was sold, raising £500 for helping the people of Ukraine

YORK punk expressionist artist Tom Wilson has donated £500 to aid the people of Ukraine now living in York from last month’s exhibition at St Bede’s, Blossom Street, York.

“We managed to sell more than £800 worth of art over the two days, which reached my target of making a substantial donation,” he says. “Once I took out my overheads, I was able to provide £500 towards helping them get on their feet after they get their own accommodation.

“I was really pleased with the footfall too. We even had a visit from Rachael Maskell [York Central MP], which was a real boost for everyone’s morale.”

York artist Tom Wilson with York Central MP Rachael Maskell at St Bede’s

Prompted by his friends’ urges “to do something” with all the artwork filling his small York bungalow, artist, playwright, theatre director and tutor Tom held his first exhibition in ten years on September 14 and 15.

“At least if I sell one or two paintings, I’ll be able to find my way in and out of the kitchen without risking life and limb,” said Tom ahead of the show. “It’ll definitely help with clearing out my bungalow.

“I got a new shed but filled that up within a day; I was going to try to use it as studio but that never came off! Instead, I just use whatever space I’ve got, the kitchen mainly, but it’s not ideal. Unless you’re moving work on, there’s no point doing new work as it just clutters the place up.”

Tom Wilson’s artgwork on show at St Bede’s

His dynamic abstract artwork is influenced by Kandinsky, Max Earnst, Otto Dix, Outsider art, German Expressionism and Rayonism (Russian Expressionism). “Rayonism was like a punk movement, breaking away, to try to paint ‘rays of light’, and I took my ideas from their freedom from convention,” says Tom.

“There’s a lot of happy accidents with my stuff. Some of it is manipulated experiments, like putting paint on one canvas, then putting another canvas on top of that and then pulling them apart like layers of skin.

“Sometimes it’s about ‘unlearning’ something that you loved or remembered in a painting and just going for it.”

Sold! Another Tom Wilson artwork that raised funds to support Ukrainian people in York

Tom makes a surprising assertion: “I can’t paint! My art looks like an explosion. I’ll be honest, I think I’m a chancer, not a natural-born painter. I can’t even draw. I’ll draw a dog and it looks like a dinosaur…an angry dog!” he says.

“But it’s important to have that freedom. Art isn’t a competition; it’s the way you articulate something. That’s the essence of creativity. Painting is like a voyage of discovery for me.

“Maybe other artists start with a painting they loved, maybe a seascape, but I’ll start without a plan. I’ll start with a mood, then make a shape, maybe a curve, and start following it, like jazz musicians improvising. It’s about the vibe, just as it is with jazz.

“My artwork looks like an explosion,” says Tom Wilson

“Again, rather like music, I can do ten paintings to arrive at the one I want, so those ten paintings are like a rehearsal to get to where I need to be. You don’t show people the departure point; you show them the arrival.”

He makes a further comparison with the jazz world. “Ask Ornette Coleman or Thelonious Monk what they’re going to play, and they’d say, ‘I don’t know’ and then start playing. It’s the same with one of my paintings,” says Tom.

“On top of that, I think it’s about expressing an anarchic humour, like John Lennon, Salvador Dali, Picasso. What happens is you go into an inner-child mentality, almost like writing with the opposite hand, and you find an area to explore and then the adult takes over to say, ‘right, we’ll take it this final point’.”

Punk expressionist Tom Wilson empties kitchen for first exhibition in ten years. Sale proceeds will go to the people of Ukraine

“My art looks like an explosion,” says York artist Tom Wilson

PROMPTED by his friends’ urges  “to do something” with all that artwork filling his small York bungalow, Tom Wilson is to hold his first exhibition in ten years in aid of the people of Ukraine.

From 10.30am to 6.30pm tomorrow (15/9/2022) and Friday, myriad riots of colour by artist, playwright, theatre director and tutor Tom will be on display and for sale at St Bede’s, 21 Blossom Street, York, with free admission.

“I wish to thank the very kind and supportive staff at St Bede’s Pastoral Centre and the Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre,” says Tom. “They’ve been so accommodating. Just wonderful!

“There’ll be food and drinks available for all the visitors we’re expecting, and for those who’ll be disappointed they can’t make the exhibition, there’s still an opportunity to browse the work and purchase paintings online at https://north.art/directory/artist/tom-wilson/.”

In the frame: York artist Tom Wilson with two of his artworks

Originally from Salford, polymath Tom has lived in York for more than 16 years and started painting in 1996 after the loss of a good friend to cancer while living in Roehampton.

“I found it a comforting therapy and a kind of a healing activity,” says Tom, who has held three previous shows, the last one taking place in 2012 at the Friends’ Meeting House, in Friargate, to raise funds for the Haiti Earthquake Foundation.

“Starting to paint helped me to process losing this friend, who died very quickly, at only 50 years old. I did this painting, The Night Form, which was like an apparition, or typically what a kid would think of. Adults can think of things that are scary, but children’s minds go to places where there’s no structure, it’s just endless, so their experience is darker.

“But once you articulate something, get it on to a page or a canvas, it becomes less terrifying. More manageable. That’s how I felt.”

Embroiled, by Tom Wilson

Linking his painting past to his present, The Night Form will be on show at St Bede’s among the newer works.

“After living in London for more than 20 years, York gives me incredible peace of mind,” he says. Peace of mind that leads to Tom’s artistic expression both as an artist and playwright, as witnessed in August last year when council chaos and Covid clashed in his timely anarchic farce The Local Authority, presented by the Naloxone Theatre Ensemble at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.

He is delighted to be mounting his first exhibition in a decade. “At least if I sell one or two paintings, I’ll be able to find my way in and out of the kitchen without risking life and limb,” says Tom, who is disabled and lives alone with his cat, Pendle. “I’m hoping to sell enough to make a difference by sending proceeds to support the people of Ukraine.

“It’ll definitely help with clearing out my bungalow. I got a new shed but filled that up within a day; I was going to try to use it as studio but that never came off! So I just use whatever space I’ve got, the kitchen mainly, but it’s not ideal. Unless you’re moving work on, there’s no point doing new work as it just clutters the place up.”

The poster for Tom Wilson’s anarchic farce, The Local Authority, premiered at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, in August 2021

His dynamic abstract artwork is influenced by Kandinsky, Max Earnst, Otto Dix, Outsider art, German Expressionism and Rayonism (Russian Expressionism). “Rayonism was like a punk movement, breaking away, to try to paint ‘rays of light’, and I took my ideas from their freedom from convention.

“However, it’s also important to find your own voice and your own style,” he says, after being excited and motivated by seeing multiple visceral and dramatic pieces of art.

“I tend to use lots or orange and green in my work, and I think it’s all about the volume, not as in ‘amount’, but as in ‘turning up the amp’, like Jimi Hendrix did with his guitar, so the volume goes up.”

To achieve that Hendrix hum in his art, Tom favours painting on black boards, applying orange, Irish green and turquoise, mystical colours that “conjure up a feeling of vibrations”.

“There’s a lot of happy accidents with my stuff,” says Tom Wilson

“I’ve been using Sennelier crayons, oil crayons rather than wax ones, that are very soft, almost like lipstick, and not easy to work with. Picasso first commissioned them; they were made just for him, when he was struggling to find exactly what he wanted.

“A studio said to him, ‘you tell us what you want, we’ll make it for you’, and if it was good enough for Pablo Picasso, then it’ll do for me!”

Describing his artistic style, Tom says: “There’s a lot of happy accidents with my stuff. Some of it is manipulated experiments, like putting paint on one canvas, then putting another canvas on top of that and then pulling them apart like layers of skin.

“Sometimes it’s about ‘unlearning’ something that you loved or remembered in a painting and just going for it.”

“It’s all about the volume, not as in ‘amount’, but as in ‘turning up the amp’, like Jimi Hendrix did with his guitar,” says Tom Wilson of his painting style

In a moment of sudden candour, Tom says: “I can’t paint! My art looks like an explosion. I’ll be honest, I think I’m a chancer, not a natural-born painter. I can’t even draw. I’ll draw a dog and it looks like a dinosaur…an angry dog!

“But it’s important to have that freedom. Art isn’t a competition; it’s the way you articulate something. That’s the essence of creativity.

“Painting is like a voyage of discovery for me. Maybe other artists start with a painting they loved, maybe a seascape, but I’ll start without a plan. I’ll start with a mood, then make a shape, maybe a curve, and start following it, like jazz musicians improvising. It’s about the vibe, just as it is with jazz.

“Again, rather like music, I can do ten paintings to arrive at the one I want, so those ten paintings are like a rehearsal to get to where I need to be. You don’t show people the departure point; you show them the arrival.”

“I start with a mood, then make a shape, maybe a curve, and start following it, like jazz musicians improvising,” says Tom Wilson

He makes a further comparison with the jazz world. “Ask Ornette Coleman or Thelonious Monk what they’re going to play, and they’d say, ‘I don’t know’ and then start playing. It’s the same with one of my paintings,” says Tom.

“On top of that, I think it’s about expressing an anarchic humour, like John Lennon, Salvador Dali, Picasso.

“What happens is you go into an inner-child mentality, almost like writing with the opposite hand, and you find an area to explore and then the adult takes over to say, ‘right, we’ll take it this final point’.”

Tom loves applying boldness in his work; he can go four days without painting then suddenly have a flurry of six in two days, rampant with all those orange and green outbursts, and even applying Tippex, but not to correct faults! “No, it’s because it’s always ultra-white, almost like false teeth, whereas white paint can go grey,” he clarifies.

A profusion of orange, green and turquoise bursts out of a Tom Wilson artwork

The challenge with each painting is “knowing when to stop, that cut-off point”. “That’s one of those lessons I’m still learning. Don’t keep going back to it. Don’t be the ‘Tinker Man’, like Claudio Ranieri!” says Tom.

As for size, in the absence of a studio, in the confines of his kitchen, he tends to use A3 or A4. “But I’d love to be like Rothko, lobbing paint around a big studio!”

In the meantime, Tom’s rather more compact jazzy paintings at St Bede’s will be priced from £60 to £400. “But for those who can’t afford some of the artwork, there’s an alternative way to support the plight of the people in the Ukraine, by buying one of the T-shirts on sale,” he says. “They feature images of my art and very fine they look too.”

The banner for Tom Wilson’s exhibition at St Bede’s, York

REVIEW: The Local Authority, Naloxone Theatre Ensemble, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight until Saturday

David Taylor as Richard Carrol, left, Emma Turner as Tucker, Stewart Mathers as Dan Lucas and Karen Nadin as Tinger in a rehearsal scene from The Local Authority

LET York writer-director Tom Wilson introduce The Local Authority, his new anarchic farce framed around a chaotic, fractious local council emergency budget meeting.

“It’s very much a black comedy about embezzlement, chaotic, dysfunctional individuals and families and a community trying to come to grips with the burgeoning Covid pandemic,” he says. “The play has a lot of adult themes, such as drug taking and alcoholism, zany sex workers, high-level council corruption, irrational budget and public amenity cuts, disintegrating relationships and canines in nappies.”

City Of York Council’s financial conduct may be making the headlines this week, but we’ll leave that for another day, another play.

That said, Salford lad Wilson has his own experience of working for the local authority, as a drug and alcohol education advisor. “I thought I was being paid to take theatre around schools, but I ended up training the staff, the police, local colleges, universities,” he recalls. “It got very complex, and in the end, I did what writers do. I left.”

He also did what writers do: he kept writing, and now comes The Local Authority, his fifth play in 25 years, not a revenge play as such, but one where the inner Joe Orton is at work, sending up the failings of those charged with power.

Wilson has had to spend time in hospital, facing “death or amputation”, with the need to “get this gunge out”, ending up in the Covid ward to boot. He was in and out three times.

Metaphorically, The Local Authority is another way of “getting the gunge out”, Wilson having written “nonsense poetry and prose to get through the day” and make sense of the pandemic pandemonium and his ailing health.

The result is a messy play about messed-up times, fevered and fever-browed, erratic in performance and devil-may-care in spirit, a “pantomime on acid” by the end of its shorter second act.

Catching it on dress-rehearsal night meant there were bumps in the road, but like potholes, they may well still be there tomorrow and the week after, for that matter, if the play were still running.

A devotee of theatre of the absurd, Tom Wilson does not deal in clean-cut, awfully nice, middle-class drama: he prefers the nitty-gritty, the earthy, the punk, the warts, the boils, the gunge and all. It isn’t pretty and it is often foul-mouthed, in the way that Shameless is, but it is also “tongue in cheek, never serious” in a chance to “laugh at our oppressor and reclaim our smiles and freedom”.

What’s the story? Ruder and wilder than the infamous Handforth Parish Council meeting that went viral when we all needed a laugh in Lockdown 1, at its epicentre is Karen Nadin’s Lesley Carrol.

Hosting the aforementioned council emergency budget meeting on Zoom, as the Jackie Weaver of the piece, she is firm at first but gradually worse for wear, as council officers make ever more draconian, yet worryingly feasible, suggestions for £300,000 cuts that would not be out of place in a George Orwell dystopian futurist novel.

What’s novel? For the first act, the cast members are lined up on tables with tablets or laptops but also appear on Zoom, the defining motif of Covid times, on the screen behind them.

The Zoom feed is live and unpredictable, occasionally freezing and not always showing who is speaking but often focused on Rowan Naylor-Mayers’ wannabe soap actor Neil, or Kate Hargrave’s hippy Christine Nunn with her psychedelic Zoom background, or Joel Cambell’s Paul Engers, who has chosen to be pictured in front of a palm-treed paradise.

The first act is too long, not least because the actors are largely static in their seats, except when Wilson has them step out front to deliver their proposed cuts, to add to the sense of absurdity.

He plays his ace in introducing the oil in the ointment, the slick council job executioner Dan Lucas (Stewart Mathers), to deliver his black-cap verdicts on who stays and who goes, as the climax of the  first hour.

Post-interval, The Local Authority becomes a more conventional, quicker-moving farce in Orton style in a swish flat. Corruption, cocaine, sex workers (Nadin’s Tinger and Emma Turner’s Tucker, in a deadpan scene-stealing cameo), the council bigwig (David Taylor’s Richard Carrol) and a policeman (Martin Handsley) are thrown into the maelstrom that envelops the potty-mouthed Lucas and his dippy acolyte Neil.

More spit than polish, more whack-a-mole than guacamole, The Local Authority is a tour de farce that goes off the rails, applies a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel, and is often blunt rather than sharp, but as ugly agit-prop theatre for 2021, it hits home hard.

Wilson also coins one of the best phrases for this age of pandemic deaths and ecological recklessness. “Nature has lost its temper,” bemoans the plastered Lesley. How right she is.  

Naloxone Theatre Ensemble presents Tom Wilson’s premiere of The Local Authority, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 5 to 7, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

Council chaos and Covid clash in Tom Wilson’s timely anarchic farce The Local Authority at Joseph Rowntree Theatre

David Taylor as Richard Carol, left, Emma Turner as Tucker, Stewart Mathers as Dan Lucas and choreographer Karen Nadin as Tinger in a rehearsal scene from The Local Authority

YORK writer-director Tom Wilson’s new anarchic farce of council chaos and Covid, The Local Authority, will be premiered at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, from August 5 to 7.

“Written some 12 months ago, the play is basically about a local council emergency budget meeting,” says Tom. “It’s very much a black comedy about embezzlement, chaotic dysfunctional individuals and families and a community trying to come to grips with the madness of the pandemic that engulfed us all – and still does – for well over a year.

“Look out for lots of adult themes, such as drug taking and alcoholism, zany sex workers, high-level council corruption, irrational budget and public amenity cuts, disintegrating relationships and canines in nappies.

“Hopefully it will offer people a chance to purge themselves of the intensity that this virus has forced on us all. I’m hoping it will give folk the opportunity to laugh their way out of the doldrums, laughing at their oppressor as they reclaim their smiles and freedom.”

Tom had written one play, set to be premiered at the JoRo until Covic intervened, and then turned all his thoughts instead to creating a rip-roaring comedy for our times in the tradition of Joe Orton. Cue The Local Authority.

Joel Campbell as Paul Hymen in The Local Authority

In a nutshell, what starts off as a local council emergency budget-cutting meeting on Zoom rapidly descends into an unstructured free-for-all and a chaotic mêlée.

“Eventually, it breaks out into a physical space on stage too,” says Tom. “The story is woven around manager Lesley Carol’s secretive drinking problem and very public fall from grace, and the play gradually reveals most of the participants’ warts and private thoughts.

“After lurid revelations and catastrophic arguments, stories of embezzlement and financial corruption, historic accusations and shocking recriminations, it eventually offers hope for the future and redemption.”

The disintegrating council meeting serves to highlight the confusion and problems faced in the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic, says Tom. “It shows the damaging misinformation and the scapegoating that was apparent within some circles, and how some parts of the UK had a different attitude and alternative ways they were prepared to try to quell the burgeoning nightmare that was engulfing all of us,” he highlights.

“There are the failed experiments and the inappropriate language that was levelled in some quarters.” 

Rowan Naylor-Mayers as Neil Planter, left, and Stewart Mathers as Dan Lucas in rehearsal for Tom Wilson’s The Local Authority

This story is pertinent, suggests Tom, because “we can all so easily forget how reluctant some of us were to believe what was actually happening and comply and do the right thing in order to help and support each other”.

“We forget how selfish and paranoid we can and have been around all this mayhem,” he says. “No-one wanted it, but it not only touched our lives, it pretty much brought our lives and societies to a standstill. Although some of the statements are preposterous and some of the characters are petulant and immature in The Local Authority, isn’t that what we all experienced at different times during this hideous hayride?

“We should all want to remember how this pandemic took a stranglehold of us and how we thought in the beginning: ‘If I ignore it then it will go away. It won’t affect me; it will only affect the others’.”

Tom reflects on his own experiences. “I know I thought that way, until it touched those around me, until it took some around me, and finally until I was in hospital myself having an operation and I inadvertently caught it,” he says.

“While lying in bed one night, after being despatched to the Covid ward, not being able to sleep through sheer fear, I saw people being discreetly inserted into body bags and removed. The next morning their bed and belongings had all mysteriously disappeared, as if by magic. There was no trace that they ever existed at all.”

Looking ahead, Tom predicts: “Once this is all over and the hordes and the masses return to their decadent revelry with much gusto, I’m sure a lot of the darkness and intensity will be minimised and eventually put on the back burners and forgotten. 

Kate Hargrave as Christine Nunn during rehearsals for Naloxone Theatre Ensemble’s premiere of The Local Authority

“Let’s hope that tongue-in-cheek, light-and-shade plays like The Local Authority serve to remind us of our folly and our good fortune to still be here to tell the bleak tale and to offer hope to the despairing.”

Rehearsals have been going well, despite the Covid curse of two cast members having had to self-isolate “due to the pandemic not having a sense of humour” and a late change of casting for the role of Lesley Carol. “But we will be ready on the night,” says Tom. “Tickets are selling, steady away, and we’re all getting mighty excited, like horses in the stalls on Derby Day. A splendiferous time is ‘subject to terms and conditions’ for all!”

Summing up his wishes for the impact of The Local Authority, Tom says: “Sincerely, I hope it will serve as a beacon to highlight the ways in which, for better or worse, society has been irrevocably altered, even scared and left wounded.

“Among the many deeds of goodness and ill carried out in the name of virtue, folly or profit, we are all seeking practical and logistical solutions for a ‘new’, more caring and thoughtful society, engendering universal hope for our shared future.”

Naloxone Theatre Ensemble presents Tom Wilson’s premiere of The Local Authority, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 5 to 7, 7.30pm and 2.3p0pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk

Did you know?

THE Local Authority will feature music from Tom Wilson’s old band, Scratchings No Gravy, plus songs by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, The Edgar Broughton Band, Earl Bostic, Ry Cooder and Hound Dog Taylor.

Copyright of The Press, York