York Shakespeare Project Archives - Page 2 of 7

August 10, 2024August 23, 2024

More Things To Do in York and beyond, whether in a treehouse or headphones. Hutch’s List No. 33, from The Press

*Spreading her wings: Elle Wootton in The 13-Storey Treehouse at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: James D Morgan*

SHAKESPEARE sonnets, a treehouse with bowling alley and sea monster, The Magpies’ music festival and a thrilling children’s workshop will keep the summer diary busy, advises Charles Hutchinson.

Family show of the week: The 13-Storey Treehouse, Grand Opera House, York, today and tomorrow, 1pm and 5pm

ADAPTED by Richard Tulloch (The Book Of Everything, Bananas In Pyjamas), this one-hour play for children aged six to 12 brings Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s story to stage life with a seriously funny cast and a treehouse replete with a bowling alley, a secret underground laboratory, self-making beds and a marshmallow machine.

Expect magical moments of theatrical wizardry and a truckload of imagination from the cast of Elle Wootton, Edwin Beats and Ryan Dulieu when Andy and Terry forget to write their debut play. Where will they find flying cats, a mermaid, a sea monster, an invasion of monkeys and a giant gorilla? Find out this weekend. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Maurice Crichton’s Callum, the director, and Alexandra Logan’s Lily, the upstart actress, exchange words in the dress rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets in the Holy Trinity churchyard, in Goodramgate, York. Picture: John Saunders

Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, today to August 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm plus 4.30pm today and next Saturday

AUDIENCES are invited to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity, where they will meet the church’s most famous couple – Anne “Gentleman Jack” Lister and Ann Walker – while enjoying a complimentary drink.

Linked by Josie Campbell’s script, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets will be performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.

*Lincoln Lightfoot: Taking part in the York River Art Market today*

York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, today and tomorrow; August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm

ORGANISED by jewellery designer and York College art tutor Charlotte Dawson, York River Art Market sets out its stalls on the Dame Judi Dench Walk riverside for a ninth summer season. Up to 30 artists and makers per day will be exhibiting ceramics, jewellery, paintings, prints, photographs, clothing, candles, T-shirts, shaving products and more. Admission is free.

*Castle Howard: “Silence” is golden in the Boar Garden tonight when DJs fill revellers’ headphones with Nineties’ dancefloor nuggets*

Hush-hush event of the week: 90s’ Outdoor Silent Disco, Castle Howard, near Malton, today, 7pm to 10pm

CASTLE Howard’s Boar Garden plays host to some of Great Britain’s best 90s’ DJs, spinning pop, R&B and band favourites in a feel-good experience. Revellers can select from three different channels of music while wearing state-of-the-art LED headphones. sets. Valid photographic ID may be requested on entry to this strictly 18-plus event. Box office: eventbrite.co.uk/e/90s-silent-disco-at-castle-howard-tickets-846091200557.

*Artist Peter Hicks in his studio, working on his Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal commission*

Exhibition of the week: Peter Hicks, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, near Ripon

PETER Hicks’s summer exhibition, Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal – A Landscape Painter’s Perspective, is being extended to September 15. On show are works painted in response to the John and William Aislabie-designed landscapes at Fountains during Hicks’s 2023 residency.

Commissioned by the National Trust, the Yorkshire landscape artist’s paintings, studies and sketchbooks are on display in Fountains Mill. Hicks specialises in abstract landscapes with acrylic washes on canvas and board, making his own benches and brush handles and using humble, accessible materials. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/fountains-abbey-and-studley-royal-water-garden.

*The Magpies: Running their fourth music festival at Sutton Park, near York*

Festival of the week: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, today

RUN by transatlantic folk band The Magpies, The Magpies Festival is rooted in the trio’s native Yorkshire, where they first met. Now in its fourth year, the 2024 event will be headlined today by Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys at 10pm, preceded by Charm Of Finches, 12 noon, The Often Herd, 2pm, Jesca Hoop, 4pm, The Magpies, 6pm, and Nati (formerly known as Nati Dreddd), 8pm.

Today’s Brass Castle Stage line-up comprises Painted Sky, 1pm; Suntou Susso, 3pm; Northern Resonance, 5pm; Awkward Family Portraits, 7pm, and Marvara, 9pm. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets.

*The poster for the Three Day Thriller workshop for children at Helmsley Arts Centre*

Children’s activity of the week: The Three Day Thriller, Helmsley Arts Centre, August 12 to 14, 10am to 2pm. CANCELLED

BUCKLE up for this improvising and devising workshop for 11 to 16-year-olds, designed to look at different theatre and performance techniques to make a new story in the thriller genre. The focus will be on character, plot and staging to create excitement, mystery and suspense, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. At the end of day three, the work explored will be shared with family and friends. Places on the £75 workshop can be booked on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk.

*Robert Gammon: Playing at Dementia Friendly Tea Concert at St Chad’s Church, York*

Dementia Friendly Tea Concert: Robert Gammon, piano, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, August 15, 2.30pm

PIANIST Robert Gammon returns to St Chad’s to perform Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F sharp Minor from the Well Tempered Clavier Book 2, Schumann’s Kinderszenen and two Chopin Polonaises. As usual, 45 minutes of music will be followed by tea and homemade cakes in the church hall.

“This relaxed event is ideal for people who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert, so we do not mind if the audience wants to talk or move about,” says organiser Alison Gammon. Seating is unreserved; no admission charge, but donations are welcome.

*Elkie Brooks: Heading out on her Long Farewell Tour. Leeds and York await. Picture: Neil Kirk*

Gig announcement of the week: Elkie Brooks, Long Farewell Tour, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, September 12; York Barbican, April 11 2025

AFTER 64 years of performing live, the “British queen of blues”, Elkie Brooks, is to undertake her Long Farewell Tour, visiting Leeds and York among 24 dates.

The Salford singer, 79, will perform such hits as Pearl’s A Singer, Lilac Wine, Fool (If You Think It’s Over), Sunshine After The Rain, No More The Fool and Don’t Cry Out Loud in a career-spanning show of blues, rock and jazz numbers that will showcase material from her forthcoming 21st studio album for the first time. Box office: elkiebrooks.com/elkie-brooks-tour-dates-2024; leedsheritagetheatres.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk.

In Focus: North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 11 to 24

*North York Moors Chamber Music Festival curator Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson*

THE ground-breaking North York Moors Chamber Music Festival is returning for its 16th consecutive season after record audience figures last summer.

Running from August 11 to 24 with the title of Echos, the festival uses moorland churches and an acoustically treated venue in the grounds of Welburn Manor, attracting international artists, many of them committing to the entire fortnight by taking up residencies.

This summer, these musicians include violinist Alena Beava, Benjamin Baker and Charlotte Scott; pianists Vadym Kholodenko, Katya Apekisheva, Daniel Lebhardt and Leeds International Piano Competition prize-winner Ariel Lanyi; clarinettist Matthew Hunt and mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley, who originates from Yarm. The programme will feature a Young Artists Focus too.

The festival’s 14 afternoon and evening concerts will present music by Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Schumann, Elgar, Debussy and Mendelssohn, together with thrilling 20^th century classics.

Each concert will take the audience on a musical journey through the narrative of specific themes, in carefully curated, thought-provoking music that pushes the boundaries.

As well as Welburn Manor, concerts will take place at churches including St Michael’s, Coxwold; St Mary’s, Lastingham; St Hilda’s, Danby, and St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge.

Festival curator and cellist Jamie Walton says: “Expect to be stirred, thrilled and at times moved as we explore the phenomenon of influence, of cycles through the ages, musical shadows, and themes which echo the times. These concerts are intense for both the audiences and artists but often revelatory and transformative.

“There’s a palpable sense of common purpose and feeling between all those who are there participating in the experience, either on stage or as a listener. It’s a profoundly reassuring experience, and one which we all cherish.”

Tickets for individual concerts cost £15;free for under-30s. A season ticket for all 14 costs £150. To book, email bookings@northyorkmoorsfestival.com, call 07722 038990 or visit northyorkmoorsfestival.com

Who will be playing at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival

*Violinist Alena Baeva performing at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival in 2023. Picture: Matthew Johnson*

Violin: Alena Baeva; Benjamin Baker; Marike Kruup; Emma Parker; Victoria Sayles; Charlotte Scott; Bridget O’Donnell and Simmy Singh

Viola: Meghan Cassidy; Simone van der Giessen; Max Mandel; David Shaw

Cello: Rebecca Gilliver; Tim Posner; Jamie Walton and Deni Teo

Double bass: Misha Mullov-Abbado

Piano: Katya Apekisheva; Vadym Kholodenko; Joseph Havlat; Ariel Lanyi; Daniel Lebhardt

Clarinet: Matthew Hunt

Flute: Thomas Hancox and Silvija Scerbaviciute

Mezzo soprano: Anna Huntley

Plus: The Paddington Trio

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: the programme

*Charlotte Scott: Returning to North York Moors Chamber Music Festival in 2024. Picture: Matthew Johnson*

August 11, 2pm, Passing Themes, Marquee, Welburn: Corelli – Violin sonata in D minor op 5 no 12 (‘La Folia’); Rachmaninoff – Variations on a Theme of Corelli op 42*; Dvořák – Piano trio no 4 in E minor op 90 (‘Dumky’)

August 12, 7pm, Tales From The Stage, Marquee, Welburn: Stravinsky – The Soldier’s Tale Suite; Poulenc – Sonata for violin and piano*; Debussy – Bilitis for flute and piano; Poulenc – L’Invitation au Chateau; Stravinsky – Divertimento (The Fairy’s Kiss Suite)

August 13, 2pm, Enlightenment, St Michael’s, Coxwold: Beethoven – String trio op 9 no 1 in G major; Weber – Clarinet quintet in B-flat major op 34

August 14, 7pm, Echoes and Embers, Marquee, Welburn: Dutilleux – Sonatine Myths; Simpson – Eleven Echoes of Autumn*; Szymanowski – Myths op 30; Simpson – An Essay of Love

August 15, 2pm, Landscape and Memory, St Mary’s, Lastingham : Dowland – Lachrymae Antiquae; Purcell – Chacony in G minor (arr. Britten); Adès – O Albion; Adès – Alchymia

August 16, 7pm, Towards The Edge, Marquee, Welburn: Shostakovich, Piano trio no 2 in E minor op 67*; Zarębski – Piano quintet; Liszt – La lugubre gondola II; Shostakovich – Piano trio no 2 in E minor op 67*; Zarębski – Piano quintet in G minor op 34

August 17, 7pm, Vienna!, Marquee, Welburn: Mozart – Sonata for violin and piano no 21 in E minor K304; Webern – Langsamer Satz; Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony no 1 op 9 (arr. Webern)*; Berg – Adagio for violin, clarinet and piano Schubert – Fantasy in C major for violin and piano D934

*Pianist Daniel Lebhardt: A regular player at North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. Picture: Matthew Johnson*

August 18, 2pm, Heading East, St Hilda’s, Danby: Kodály – Intermezzo for string trio; Dohnányi – Serenade in C for string trio op; Kodály – Duo sonata for violin and cello op 7

August 19, 7pm, Songs For The Earth, Marquee, Welburn: string quartet & double-bass

August 20, 7pm, La Belle Époque, Marquee, Welburn: Debussy – Violin sonata in G minor; Fauré – La Bonne Chanson op 61*; Chausson – Chanson perpétuelle op 37; Chausson – Concert for violin, piano and string quartet op 21

August 21, 7pm, A Wartime Story, Marquee, Welburn: Elgar – Sonata for violin and piano in E minor op 82*; Prokofiev – (War) Sonata for piano no 8 in b-flat major op 84; Ravel – Piano trio in A minor

August 22, 2pm, Jubilation, St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge: Brahms – String quintet no 2 in G major op 111; Mendelssohn – String octet in E flat major op 20

August 23, 7pm, Ghosts Of History, Marquee, Welburn: Beethoven – Piano trio op 70 no 1 in D major (‘Ghost’); Saariaho – Light and Matter; Matteis – Fantasia for violin in A minor*; Elgar – Piano quintet in A minor op 84

August 24, 2pm, A New Dawn, Marquee, Welburn; Schumann – Gesänge der Frühe op 133; Schubert – Adagio e Rondo Concertante D487*; Schumann – Piano quartet in E flat major op 47

* Interval follows

*The North York Moors Chamber Music Festival stage at last summer’s event in the Welburn Abbey marquee. Picture: Matthew Johnson*

More Things To Do in York and beyond “poo power” from August 17 onwards. Here’s Hutch’s List No 34, from The Press, York

DON’T poo-poo Ada Grey’s exhibition for children at Nunnington Hall, advises Charles Hutchinson, as he picks cultural highlights for the weeks ahead.

Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, August 17 at 4.30pm, 6pm and 7.30pm

Linked by Josie Campbell’s script and theatrical characters, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets is performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.

*Mopping up: Marie-Louise Feeley’s Doreen and Helen Wilson’s Maureen, the church-cleaning double act in York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets. Picture: John Saunders*

York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm

YORK River Art Market sets out its stalls on the Dame Judi Dench Walk riverside for its third weekend this summer, featuring up to 30 artists and makers per day. Among today’s stallholders will be Bejojo Art, Jillie Lazenby, Woody’s Creations, Emily Littler, Happy Pot Mama, Magdalena Biernacka, Kissed Frog, I’ve Been Creative, Matt Lightfoot Photography, Inky Print Designs and Wood Wyrm.

Popping up tomorrow will be Urban Infill Store, Wild Orange Tree, Jo O’Cuinneagan, Rock and Twig Studio, David Lobley Photography, The Littlest Falcon, Feather Isle, Fei’s Crochet, Painter Merv, Stairwell Books, Ounce Of Style and plenty more. Look out for York singer-songwriter Heather Findlay on busking duty tomorrow. Admission is free.

*Heather Findlay: Busking at August 17’s York River Art Market. Picture: Adam Kennedy*

Exhibition of the week: Ada Grey, Splat! Patter! Plop!, Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near York, until September 8

DIVE into a world where the “hilarity of poo” takes centre stage in this “unique children’s illustration exhibition like no other” by Ada Grey, creator of such picture books as Poo In The Zoo, Island Of Dinosaur Poo and Super Pooper Road Race.

Noted for the vibrant colours, lively characters and comical twists of her children’s tales, for the first time Grey is showcasing illustrations of such beloved characters as Bob McGrew and Hector Gloop in iconic moments from her favourite stories. Children have the chance to immerse themselves in Ada’s books, draw inspiration to create their own characters and proudly display their creations in the Poop-a-Doodle gallery. Grey will drop in on August 20 to run workshops for children from 11am to 4pm. Tickets and workshop bookings: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/nunnington-hall/exhibitions.

*Poo power: Illustrator and author Ada Grey’s exhibition at Nunnington Hall*

Dance show of the week: Michael Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance, York Barbican, August 20 to 25, 7.45pm, plus Saturday matinee at 2.30pm

IN the words of Lord Of The Dance impresario Michael Flatley: “Our 2024 tour promises to be an extraordinary journey that will take audiences to the next level once again.

“In 2024, this extraordinary experience for fans will feature new staging, fresh choreography, new costumes, cutting-edge technology, and special effects lighting. It’s a celebration of a lifetime of standing ovations and we aim to leave the audience spellbound.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Lord Of The Dance: “Aiming to leave the audience spellbound” at York Barbican*

York gig of the week: Please Please You & Brudenell presents Lanterns On The Lake, The Crescent, York, August 23, 7.30pm

FORMED on Tyneside in 2007, Lanterns On The Lake combine dreamy, melancholic indie rock with beautiful layers of texture and celestial melodies. Led by singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde, the 2020 Mercury Prize nominees have supplied soundtrack music to Conversations With Friends, Uncanny, Made In Chelsea, Skins and the video game Life Is Strange and recorded an orchestral live album with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Their latest album, June 2023’s Versions Of Us, is full of existential meditations, “examining life’s possibilities, facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies”. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events/lanterns-on-the-lake.

*Lanterns On The Lake’s Hazel Wilde, Paul Gregory, Bob Allan and Angela Chan: Playing The Crescent on their return to York*

Another slice of MeatLoaf: MeatLoud – Bat Out Of Hades, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 24, 7.30pm

FOUNDED in 2015, this powerhouse tribute to MeatLoaf and songwriter Jim Steinman is fronted by vocalist Andy Plimmer, who is joined Sally Rivers to take on the guise of Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion and Cher. The second half features a complete performance of the classic 1977 album Bat Out Of Hell. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

*MeatLoud: Paying tribute to MeatLoaf and Jim Steinman at Joseph Rowntree Theatre*

New season opener: Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, Selby Town Hall, September 4, 7.30pm

SELBY Town Hall kicks off its autumn season with the debut visit of Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, purveyors of bluegrass and rockabilly from Saskatchewan, Canada.

Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones enthuses: “I absolutely love these guys. It’s probably the show I’m most looking forward to in the second half of the year. At just 21 years old, Jake is terrifyingly talented. He and the band – dressed in authentic 1950s’ suits – make the most fantastically fun, upbeat, toe-tapping music, already gracing the main stages of festivals across North America.” Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk.

*Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys: Making debut appearance at Selby Town Hall next month*

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

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

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

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

“Think The Great Gatsby meets Sinatra At The Sands meets Back To The Future”: Postmodern Jukebox, Moonlight & Magic World Tour, York Barbican, May 7 2025

RETRO musical collective Postmodern Jukebox have announced the 34-date UK & Australia/New Zealand leg of next year’s Moonlight & Magic World Tour that includes a return to York Barbican.

“If we’ve learned anything from ten years of touring the world, it’s that great music has the ability to transcend time and space in a way that is best described as ‘magic,” says Postmodern Jukebox creator and show director Scott Bradlee, whose parallel musical universe reimagines pop hits in 1920s’ jazz, swing, doo-wop and Motown settings. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

*Postmodern Jukebox: Retro musical collective head back to past triumphs at York Barbican*

August 8, 2024August 9, 2024

York Shakespeare Project invites you to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, as Summer Sonnets return

*Josie Campbell: Writer of the script to accompany Shakespeare’s sonnets in York Shakespeare Project’s outdoor show at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York*

YORK Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets return to the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York, from tomorrow to August 17.

“After attracting a record audience of more than 600 people to the show last year in the Bar Convent gardens, we are delighted again to be offering a taste of Shakespeare that is both entertaining and accessible,” says YSP chair Tony Froud, who is directing for a second year. “It’s a lovely event for both the Shakespeare enthusiast and those new to Shakespeare.”

Holy Trinity last hosted YSP’s Sit-Down Sonnets in September 2020, under social distancing restrictions during the Covid pandemic.

“This year we plan to take full advantage of such a beautiful setting with all its historic associations,” says Tony. “The church has been incredibly welcoming, in keeping with being used for various theatrical and cultural events and for location filming too.

*York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Summer Sonnets at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate*

“Many people will know the church as the site of the blessing of the relationship of Anne ‘Gentleman Jack’ Lister and Ann Walker [at Easter 1834], and we are building this year’s show around that famous event” [now marked by a York Civic Trust rainbow plaque with the wording “took sacrament here to seal her union”).

The Summer Sonnets show has been scripted by Josie Campbell, who performed the role of one of Macbeth’s witches for YSP on the Rose Theatre’s Shakespeare Wagon in 2019 at the Eye of York.

Sharing her time between Ampleforth and Dubai, Josie is a professional actor/director and co-founder of Little Britches Theatre Company. In 2021 she toured Yorkshire with a pop-up production of Shakespeare’s Will, a one-woman show about Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife.

“Josie had never been to Holy Trinity but did her research and was immediately captivated by the idea of using Anne Lister and Ann Walker’s story as the starting point,” says Tony. “A lot of the language she uses, she found in Anne Lister’s diary, which adds authenticity.”

*York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Helen Wilson in rehearsal for Summer Sonnets. Picture: John Saunders*

For Summer Sonnets, Josie has come up with an entertaining plot, taking full advantage of the church’s setting and rich history. “I have thoroughly enjoyed writing a Sonnets show, featuring Anne Lister, one of Yorkshire’s most uncompromising and resilient women”, she says.

For the Summer Sonnets, audiences are “invited to a secret wedding in Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, in the heart of York”, where they will “meet the church’s most famous couple while enjoying a complimentary drink, but as they witness the happy event, they may start to wonder: is everything quite what it seems?”

“As ever, the show will feature a wide variety of colourful characters, each speaking in everyday English until they shift into their 14 lines of verse from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to reveal the heart of their story,” says Tony, who is keeping the exact nature of those characters under wraps until the opening evening.

“It’s a lovely experience. You can sip your complimentary drink on a summer’s evening in a delightful setting. Very often, the characters slip into a sonnet and the audience hardly notices that the language has become Shakespearean. And you should look forward to a surprise or two!”

*Summer Sonnets director Tony Froud. Picture: John Saunders*

2024 marks the tenth anniversary of YSP’s first show built around Shakespeare’s sonnets in the form of 2014’s Sonnet Walks, wherein groups of audience members met assorted characters as they walked through the streets of York.

“Sadly, I never saw the Walks, but there’s an advantage in having a single setting where characters can meet, start a story and then reappear to complete it,” says Josie.

Tony adds: “Part of the joy of the piece is that Josie has come to the Shakespeare sonnet format, having never seen our sonnets shows before, whereas all our previous writers have had the theatrical equivalent of muscle memory.

Summer Sonnets debutant sonneteer Liam Godrey: Reuniting with writer Josie Campbell after he played Macbeth in York Shakespeare Project’s wagon play at Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2019, when Josie “threw herself wholeheartedly” into her role as one of the witches. Picture: John Saunders

“She came to it with fresh eyes, and the full credit I would give her is that she has been extraordinarily generous and open with her script and has allowed me as director and the cast to develop their character to suit the sonnet format.

“All the cast have to find a way to allow their character to discover their Shakespeare sonnet as a natural part of their progression.”

Tony’s cast is a blend of actors new to the YSP Sonnets, Marie-Louise Feeley, Liam Godfrey, Halina Jaroszewska, Alexandra Logan, Grace Scott and Effie Warboys, and seasoned sonneteers Maurice Crichton, Emily Hansen, Sally Mitcham, Helen Wilson and Tony Froud himself.

*Alexandra Logan: Newcomer in the Summer Sonnets ranks in rehearsal in the Holy Trinity churchyard. Picture: John Saunders*

“Our YSP casts for The Taming Of The Shrew and Edward II have demonstrated a greater variety of casting, and that has continued with Summer Sonnets,” says Tony, who has held rehearsals over the past six weeks. “We seem to be casting our net more widely, attracting a wider set of actors.

“That said, YSP has always tried to do that because we’ve aways had a policy of selecting a different director for each production and we operate an open casting policy.”

Writer Josie Campbell suggested the sonnets to be performed by each character. “The vast majority were chosen by her, though as part of the development of the script, two of the cast asked to use another for their character,” says Tony.

*Grace Scott: Taking part in York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets for the first time*. *Picture: John Saunders*

“My experience is that there’s always a collective sense of appreciation among the audience when they recognise a familiar sonnet, but we also try each year to include some new sonnets from Shakespeare’s collection.”

Reflecting on the tenth anniversary of YSP’s Sonnets seasons, Tony says: “I understand it was a very different animal when it began, starting as Sonnets Walks around the city, where each actor would develop their character and then choose their sonnet.

“But now we’ve hit on a format with a single venue and we have the opportunity for a writer and director to develop the characters, the dramatisation and the narrative arc and that prescribes the choice of sonnets rather more.”

York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, August 9 to 17, 6pm and 7.30pm nightly, except August 12, plus 4.30pm on August 10 and 17. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.

The York Civic Trust rainbow plaque at the entrance to Holy Trinity Church, Gooramgate, to mark the sacrament of the union of Anne “Gentleman Jack” Lister and Ann Walker that inspired the theme for York Skakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets

Did you know?

YORK Shakespeare Project will perform all three parts of Shakespeare’s Henry VI history plays, condensed into one play, at next April’s York International Shakespeare Festival, under the direction of Irwin Appel, American professor of drama and theatre studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

August 8, 2024August 22, 2024

What’s On in Ryedale, York & beyond, from treehouse magic to churchyard sonnets. Hutch’s List No. 28, from Gazette & Herald

*Elle Wootton in The 13-Storey Treehouse at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: James D Morgan*

SHAKESPEARE sonnets, a treehouse with bowling alley and sea monster, The Magpies’ music festival and a thrilling children’s workshop will keep the summer diary busy, advises Charles Hutchinson.

Family show of the week: The 13-Storey Treehouse, Grand Opera House, York, today(8/8/2024) to Sunday, 1pm and 5pm

Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, Friday to August 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm plus 4.30pm on both Saturdays

Linked by Josie Campbell’s script, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets are performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.

*The poster for Safe Suburban Home Records’ August ’24 Roadshow at The Crescent, York*

York gig of the week: Safe Suburban Home Records presents August ’24 Roadshow, Cowgirl, Teenage Tom Petties and Oort Clod, The Crescent, York, Friday, 7.30pm

SAFE Suburban Home Records will be in party mood at The Crescent, celebrating Friday’s release of York garage rock quartet Cowgirl’s new album, Cut Offs. Built around chief songwriters Danny Trew Barton and Sam Coates, they wrap melodies in walls of wailing guitar fuzz.

Teenage Tom Petties deliver transatlantic slacker rock with just the right amount of slop, fuzz and melody; Manchester’s mask-wearing Oort Clod promise post-punk, garage rock and jangly indie. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.

*Fountains By Water, by Peter Hicks, on show at Fountains Abbey. Picture: Joe Cornish*

Exhibition of the week: Peter Hicks, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, near Ripon

THIS summer’s run of Peter Hicks’s exhibition, Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal – A Landscape Painter’s Perspective, is being extended to September 15. On show are works painted in response to the John and William Aislabie-designed landscapes at Fountains during Hicks’s residency in 2023.

Commissioned by the National Trust, the Yorkshire landscape artist’s paintings, studies and sketchbooks are on display in Fountains Mill. Hicks specialises in abstract landscapes with acrylic washes on canvas and board, making his own benches and brush handles and using humble and accessible materials, such as old margarine pots for mixing his paints. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/fountains-abbey-and-studley-royal-water-garden.

*Actress, vocalist and accordion player Natalia Tena fronts Molotov Jukebox at The Magpies Festival, backed by Balkan fiddle, Latin trumpet and a pounding rhythm section, on Friday*

Festival of the week: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, near York, Friday and Saturday

RUN by transatlantic folk band The Magpies, The Magpies Festival is rooted in the trio’s native Yorkshire, where they first met. Now in its fourth year, the 2024 event will be headlined on Friday on the main stage by bi-lingual six-piece Molotov Jukebox at 10pm, preceded by Chris While & Julie Matthews, 6pm, and Jim Moray, 8pm.

Friday’s Brass Castle Stage bill features Em Risley, 5pm; Taff Rapids Stringband, 7pm; The Turbans, 9pm, and Easingwold musician Gary Stewart’s Graceland, 11pm.

Saturday’s main stage bill will be topped by Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys at 10pm, preceded by Charm Of Finches, 12 noon, The Often Herd, 2pm, Jesca Hoop, 4pm, The Magpies, 6pm, and Nati (formerly known as Nati Dreddd), 8pm. Saturday’s Brass Castle Stage line-up comprises Painted Sky, 1pm; Suntou Susso, 3pm; Northern Resonance, 5pm; Awkward Family Portraits, 7pm, and Marvara, 9pm. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets.

Children’s activity of the week: The Three Day Thriller, Helmsley Arts Centre, August 12 to 14, 10am to 2pm. CANCELLED

Dementia Friendly Tea Concert: Robert Gammon, piano, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, August 15, 2.30pm

*The gang is back: Martin Stephenson performs with his fellow Daintees stalwarts at Milton Rooms, Malton, this autumn*

Gig announcement of the week: Martin Stephenson & The Daintees, Milton Rooms, Malton, October 13, 8pm

MARTIN Stephenson’s focus will be on You Belong To Blue, the February 2023 album that saw original Daintees’ members Gary Dunn, Anthony Dunn and Charlie Smith, plus a selection of special guests, joining up with the Durham-born singer-songwriter once again.

His Malton set will feature Daintees and Stephenson solo favourites stretching back to his 1986 debut Boat To Bolivia as he dips into country, folk, jazz, blues, skiffle and reggae. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

What’s On in Ryedale, York and beyond, from August 14 onwards. Here’s Hutch’s List No. 29, from Gazette & Herald

*Tony Froud’s Reverend Ebenezer Goode in York Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets. Picture: John Saunders*

DON’T poo-poo Ada Grey’s exhibition for children at Nunnington Hall, advises Charles Hutchinson, as he picks cultural highlights for the weeks ahead.

Wedding invitation of the week: York Shakespeare Project, Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, until August 17, 6pm and 7.30pm plus 4.30pm Saturday

Linked by Josie Campbell’s script, York Shakespeare Project’s tenth anniversary selection of Shakespeare sonnets is performed in character by Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley; Liam Godfrey; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska; Alexandra Logan; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott; Effie Warboys; Helen Wilson and director Tony Froud. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/.

*Heather Findlay: Busking at Sunday’s York River Art Market. Picture: Adam Kennedy*

York’s answer to the Left Bank in Paris: York River Art Market, August 17 and 18, 10am to 5pm

YORK River Art Market sets out its stalls on the Dame Judi Dench Walk riverside for its third weekend this summer, featuring up to 30 artists and makers per day. Among Saturday’s stallholders will be Bejojo Art, Jillie Lazenby, Woody’s Creations, Emily Littler, Happy Pot Mama, Magdalena Biernacka, Kissed Frog, I’ve Been Creative, Matt Lightfoot Photography, Inky Print Designs and Wood Wyrm.

Popping up on Sunday will be Urban Infill Store, Wild Orange Tree, Jo O’Cuinneagan, Rock and Twig Studio, David Lobley Photography, The Littlest Falcon, Feather Isle, Fei’s Crochet, Painter Merv, Stairwell Books, Ounce Of Style and plenty more. Look out for York singer-songwriter Heather Findlay on busking duty on Sunday. Admission is free.

*Bedern Hall: Playing host to SconeFest from August 14 to 16*

Festival of the week: SconeFest, Bedern Hall, Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, York, August 14 to 16, 11am to 3pm

BEDERN Hall, York’s 14th-century dining hall, hosts the city’s second annual SconeFest, promising a new mystery flavour every day, with the chance to win an afternoon tea for two at the hall if your guess is correct. In addition, the menu will include beloved flavours such as cheese, fruit and lavender.

Director Roger Lee says: “We’re honoured to have Bernadette – famed for her Christmas Pudding scones – baking for us, and we can’t wait for everyone to experience her incredible scones.” No need to book; visitors are welcome at any time throughout the day. Takeaway scones and hot drinks will be available.

Exhibition of the week: Ada Grey, Splat! Patter! Plop!, Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, until September 8

Another slice of MeatLoaf: MeatLoud – Bat Out Of Hades, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 24, 7.30pm

New season opener: Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, Selby Town Hall, September 4, 7.30pm

SELBY Town Hall kicks off its autumn season with the debut visit of Jake Vaadeland & The Sturgeon River Boys, purveyors of bluegrass and rockabilly from Saskatchewan, Canada.

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

Gig announcement of the week: Elkie Brooks, Long Farewell Tour, Leeds City Varieties Music Hall, September 12; York Barbican, April 11 2025

AFTER 64 years of performing live, the “British queen of blues”, Elkie Brooks, is to undertake her Long Farewell Tour, visiting Leeds and York among 24 dates.

July 29, 2024August 7, 2024

York Shakespeare Project invites you to a secret wedding at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, as Summer Sonnets return

*York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Summer Sonnets at Holy Trinity Church*

YORK Shakespeare Project’s Summer Sonnets return to the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York from August 9 to 17.

Holy Trinity last hosted YSP’s Sit-Down Sonnets in September 2020, under social distancing restrictions during the Covid pandemic.

“This year we plan to take full advantage of the historic and beautiful setting”, says Tony. “Many people will know the church as the site of the blessing of the relationship of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Ann Walker [at Easter 1834] and we are building this year’s show around that famous event” [now marked by a York Civic Trust rainbow plaque with the wording “took sacrament here to seal her union”).

The Summer Sonnets show has been scripted by Josie Campbell, who performed for YSP on the Rose Theatre’s Shakespeare Wagon in 2019 at the Eye of York.

Sharing her time between Yorkshire and Dubai, Josie is a professional actor/director and co-founder of Little Britches Theatre Company. In 2021 she toured Yorkshire with a pop-up production of Shakespeare’s Will, a one woman show about Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife.

For Summer Sonnets, Josie has come up with an entertaining plot, taking full advantage of the church’s setting and rich history. “I have thoroughly enjoyed writing a Sonnets show, which includes Anne Lister, one of Yorkshire’s most uncompromising and resilient women”, she says.

Audiences are “invited to a secret wedding in Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, in the heart of York”, where they will “meet the church’s most famous couple while enjoying a complimentary drink. As they witness the happy event, they may start to wonder: is everything quite what it seems?”

*Debutant York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Grace Scott in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders*

“As ever, the show features a wide variety of colourful characters, each speaking in everyday English until they shift into their 14 lines of verse from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets to reveal the heart of their story,” says Tony.

*Liam Godfrey: Making his Summer Sonnets debut. Picture: John Saunders*

“Sadly, I never saw the Walks, but there’s an advantage in having a single setting where characters can meet, start a story and then reappear to complete it,” says Josie.

Tony’s cast is a blend of actors new* to the YSP Sonnets and seasoned sonneteers: Maurice Crichton; Marie-Louise Feeley*; Liam Godfrey*; Emily Hansen; Halina Jaroszewska*; Alexandra Logan*; Sally Mitcham; Grace Scott*; Effie Warboys*; Helen Wilson and Tony Froud himself.

York Shakespeare Project in Summer Sonnets, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, August 9 to 17, except August 12, 6pm and 7.30pm, plus 4.30pm on August 10 and 17. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/summer-sonnets/. Tickets: £10; £5, age 14 to 17; two under-14s per adult. The price includes a free drink.

*Regular York Shakespeare Project sonneteer Helen Wilson in rehearsal. Picture: John Saunders*

June 12, 2024June 12, 2024

Tempest Wisdom appointed director of York Shakespeare Project’s autumn production The Two Gentlemen Of Verona

*Tempest Wisdom: Writer, director, performer and teaching artist*

TEMPEST Wisdom, York theatre-maker and educator, will direct York Shakespeare Project’s autumn production of The Two Gentlemen Of Verona at Theatre@41, 41 Monkgate, York.

Chair Tony Froud says: “Tempest [they/them] emerged from a strong field of applicants to direct the play. Their imagination, infectious enthusiasm and love of Shakespeare won the day. I cannot wait to see their production.”

Since moving to York in 2021, Tempest has made their mark with their work for York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre and as assistant director for York Theatre Royal and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s New Plays Festival, as well as in numerous stage appearances.

This year, they directed Jules Risingham’s Anorak in Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios at York Theatre Royal Studio and appeared in Shakespeare Speakeasy at Theatre@41 and Wittenberg Revisited, as part of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival.

Look out too for Tempest as the writer, producer and MC of Bard At The Bar, the bi-monthly “Shakespeare karaoke” readings at the Micklegate Social bar.

“I have exciting plans for the production, set in a Victorian music hall,” says Tempest. “I’m looking for a diverse and multi-talented ensemble of lively actors to bring Shakespeare’s comedy to life for a contemporary audience.”

Auditions for the October 23-26 production will be held at Southlands Methodist Church, in Bishopthorpe Road, on June 19 and 20 with callbacks on June 23. For further information and details of how to apply, contact Tempest via https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hVNoRWLyKhVQQfEcBn-hv-r0WfWj4mT0/view

Tempest Wisdom (they/them): the back story

Writer, director, performer and freelance teaching artist.

Originally hails from United States of America, where they wrote, directed, performed and taught for several years. Received Bachelor’s degree in theatre and performance studies from University of Chicago in 2018.

Relocated to York in 2021 to pursue Masters in theatre-making. Now here to stay!

Specialises in clown, mask and comedy work, with majority of training stemming from Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte.

April 27, 2024May 7, 2024

More Things To Do in York and beyond the paranormal before 2:22 in the morning. Hutch’s List No. 18, from The Press

*Vera Chok and Jay McGuiness in a scene from 2:22 – A Ghost Story, haunting the Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday*

JUST a normal week? No, paranormal, more like, as a ghost story pumps up the spooks. Fear not, a Led Zeppelin legend, country-town teen days, a hope-filled musical and dances of love, loss and legacy are Charles Hutchinson’s picks too.

New ghost to haunt “Europe’s most haunted city”: 2:22 – A Ghost Story, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm fright-nightly; 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday; 3.30pm, Friday

JENNY believes her new London home is haunted, hearing a disturbance every night at the same time, but husband Sam isn’t having any of it. They argue with their first dinner guests, old friend Lauren and new partner Ben.

Belief and scepticism clash, but something feels strange and frightening, and that something is drawing closer, so they decide to stay up… until 2:22 in the morning… and then they’ll know in The Battersea Poltergeist podcaster Danny Robins’s paranormal thriller, wherein secrets emerge and ghosts may, or may not, appear. Fiona Wade, George Rainsford and Vera Chok join The Wanted singer Jay McGuiness in Matthew Dunster & Isabel Marr’s cast. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

*Robert Plant’s Saving Grace: Playing Harrogate Royal Hall on Tuesday*

Gig of the week outside York: Robert Plant’s Saving Grace, Harrogate Royal Hall, Tuesday, 8pm

ERSTWHILE Led Zeppelin singer and lyricist Robert Plant, now 75, leads the folk, Americana and blues co-operative Saving Grace, featuring Suzi Dian (vocals), Oli Jefferson (percussion), Tony Kelsey (mandolin, baritone, acoustic guitar, and Matt Worley (banjo, acoustic/baritone guitars, cuatro), on their 15-date Never Ending Spring itinerary. South Carolina singer-songwriter Taylor McCall supports. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk.

*Country matters: Henry Madd’s Henry and Marc Benga’s Jake in Land Of Lost Content at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York*

Touring play of the week: Henry Madd’s Land Of Lost Content, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm

NIC Connaughton, the Pleasance’s head of theatre, directs Land Of Lost Content, Henry Madd’s autobiographical insight into friendship, adolescence, forgiveness and life not going to plan in an empowering coming-of-age story about the trials of growing up in a small country town and its ongoing effects on two estranged mates.

Henry (Madd) and Jake (Marc Benga) were bored friends who grew up in Ludlow, where friendships were forged in failed adventures, bad habits and damp raves as they stumbled through teenage days looking for something to do. Then Henry moved away. Now he is back, needing to face up to the memories and the people he left behind. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Come From Away: Award-winning musical of hope, humanity and unity on tour at Leeds Grand Theatre*

Musical of the week: Come From Away, Leeds Grand Theatre, Tuesday to May 11, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees

IRENE Sankoff and David Hein’s four-time Olivier Award-winning musical tells the remarkable true story of 6,579 air passengers from around the world being grounded in Canada in the wake of 9/11. Whereupon the small Newfoundland community of Gander invites these ‘come from aways’ into their lives with open hearts.

As spirited locals and global passengers come together to forge friendships, we meet first female American Airlines captain, the quick-thinking town mayor, the mother of a New York firefighter and the eager local news reporter in a celebration of hope, humanity and unity. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.

*Claire Morley: Directing York Shakespeare Project in Sunday’s rehearsed reading of John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed. Picture: S R Taylor Photography*

Battle of the sexes, round two: York Shakespeare Project in The Tamer Tamed, Creative Arts Centre Auditorium, York St John University, tomorrow (28/4/2024), 5pm

YORK Shakespeare Project complements this week’s run of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew at Theatre@41, Monkgate, with a rehearsed reading of John Fletcher’s Jacobean riposte to the Bard’s most controversial comedy, directed by Claire Morley.

In Fletcher’s sequel, the widowed Petruchio has a new wife and a new challenge as he discovers that he is not the only one who can do the taming. Fletcher borrows characters from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and a key plot device from Ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes’s Lysistrata for his exploration of marriage and relationships. Box office: parrabbola.co.uk or yorkshakes.co.uk.

*The poster for Alexander O’Neal’s farewell tour, Time To Say Goodbye, bound for York Barbican on May 3*

Farewell tour of the Week: Alexander O’Neal, Time To Say Goodbye, York Barbican, May 3, 7.30pm

AFTER nearly five decades, Mississippi soul singer Alexander O’Neal is hitting the road one final time at 70 on his Time to Say Goodbye: Farewell World Tour, accompanied by his nine-piece band.

O’Neal will be undertaking a journey through his career with the aid of never-before-seen-photos, testimonies and tributes, all set to the tune of such hits as Criticize, Fake and If You Were Here Tonight. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk

*Phoenix Dance Theatre in Dane Hurst’s Requiem, part of the Belonging: Loss. Legacy. Love programme at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Drew Forsyth*

Dance show of the week: Phoenix Dance Theatre in Belonging: Loss. Legacy. Love, York Theatre Royal, May 3, 7.30pm; May 4, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

YORK Theatre Royal is the final venue on Leeds company Phoenix Dance Theatre’s first British tour since 2022 with a visceral triple bill of works by international dance makers Dane Hurst, Miguel Altunaga and Phoenix artistic director Marcus Jarrell Willis.

Belonging: Loss. Legacy. Love opens with South African choreographer and former Phoenix artistic director Hurst’s reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem in response to pandemic-induced grief. Two world premieres follow: Afro-Cuban choreographer Altunaga’s first Phoenix commission, the daring Cloudburst, and Texas-born Jarrell Willis’s Terms Of Agreement. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*The Cult: Marking 40th anniversary with the 8424 tour this autumn. Picture: Jackie Middleton*

Gig announcement of the week: The Cult, The 8424 Tour, York Barbican, October 29

SINGER Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy mark the 40th anniversary of The Cult, the Bradford band noted for their pioneering mix of post-punk, hard rock and melodramatic experimentalism, by heading out on The 8424 Tour.

Once dubbed “shamanic Goths”, Astbury and Duffy will perform songs from The Cult’s 11-album discography, from 1984’s Dreamtime to 2022’s Under The Midnight Sun, in a set sure to feature She Sells Sanctuary, Rain, Love Removal Machine, Wild Flower and Lil’ Devil. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.

April 26, 2024April 26, 2024

REVIEW: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, ends tomorrow ****

Nick Patrick Jones’s Hortensio, left, Stuart Green’s Grumio, Mark Simmonds’s Vincentio, Sam Jackson’s Lucentio, hidden, Mark Payton’s Gremio, back, Rosy Rowley’s Baptista Minola, front, Kirsty Farrow’s Bianca, Joy Warner’s Merchant/Widow and Flo Poskitt’s Katherine in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew. Picture: David Kessel

TWENTY one years have passed since York Shakespeare Project first staged The Taming Of The Shrew as its second ever production.

Staging Shakespeare’s “most controversial” comedy has become even more awkward in that time. The term “Gaslighting” is in common parlance; the #MeToo movement has found its voice; misogyny and sexism are a minefield of social media debate, Andrew Tate et al.

In 2003, Paul Toy, YSP’s director for Shrew, talked of the “welcome gains of feminism leaving it as less of a comedy, more of a problem play”. In 2009, Mooted Theatre’s Mark France saw the 1592 play’s sexual politics as “a gradual meeting of minds” in a war of words between Kate and Petruchio where both subvert the roles that society has determined for them. He coined the term “casual cruelty” to encapsulate the ploys of deception conducted by Tranio, Lucentio and Hortensio.

In 2003, Toy reversed the usual gender casting of the lovers and their servants, with Alice Borthwick, a tall Scot with a pageboy haircut, playing Petruchio in strapping manner opposite John Sharpe’s Katherina with his/her pale commedia dell’arte face and rouge lips. “There is now no pretence that what you see is `real’,” he said. “Hopefully, the play can be seen as less of a treatise and more of a game”.

Now, Maggie Smales, whose all-female version of Henry V in 2015 lingers in the memory, returns to the YSP director’s chair for ‘Shrew’, assisted by Claire Morley [her Henry , from that production].

Smales had played a serving wench in a South Yorkshire For Youth production of ‘Shrew’ in the mid-Sixties in Rotherham and Bianca in 1972 on her Bretton Hall drama course, now recalling them as “exemplifying the hypocrisy of a time that seemed to be offering the opportunity of gender equality without any real shift in attitudes”.

“We thought we were shaping a new world order with altered values,” she laments. “But there’s still quite a lot to be done about gender equality”.

*Florence Poskitt’s Katherine in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew*

No better time to start than now with this bracing production of ‘Shrew’, astutely edited by Smales and Morley. In their hands, ‘Shrew’ remains a combustible, hot and bothered drama that does not shy away from the “inherent misogyny” and gaslighting abuse in Petruchio’s regime of sleep deprivation and starvation rations for Katherine.

Crucially, however, Florence Poskitt’s feminist Katherine has the last say, not so much a shrewish shrew as shrewd in determining her path, rather than “melting” to Petruchio’s taming techniques after their calamitous nuptials.

Smales has set Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes/war of words in 1970, when the sun was setting on the Summer of Love and Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch, a landmark statement in the feminist movement.

More precisely, Smales’s ‘Shrew’ opens in 1960 with a reimagined induction/prologue (replacing the Christopher Sly one), the cast exchanging presents beside the Christmas tree. The players then find themselves transported into a 1970 world wherein they experience and perform the play.

Judith Ireland’s costumes, from her own collection apparently, evoke that psychedelic age of flares, scarves, long hair, dark glasses and headbands, matched with the hits of Hendrix, The Who and Credence Clearwater Revival.

Ah, the whiff of nostalgia, the look, the sounds, setting up the boisterous fun and games that play out in the hands of Lara Stafford’s Tranio and Sam Jackson’s Lucentio, swapping clothes, genders and roles, and the deluded sparring of Nick Patrick Jones’s Hortensio and Mark Payton’s Gremio (in professional actor turned Shakespeare teacher Payton’s ‘first proper acting experience for almost 20 years’ – and what a joyful return he makes).

Stuart Green’s Grumio, with his guitar and shades, adds to the rock concert vibe, along with Joy Warner in her roadie cameo, while Rosy Rowley and Poskitt both perform a song, Rowley in the rowdy spirit of a Janis Joplin; Poskitt, in white, in a quiet solo spotlight in Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’.

*Jim Paterson’s Petruchio*. *Picture: David Kessel*

Rowley is playing Baptista Minola, traditionally Katherine and Bianca’s father, but here turned into their mother: a significant change that alters the male-dominated dynamic. A decision typical of Smales’s good judgement that always marks out her direction.

The “Taming” remains a battle waged between the needs of individual freedom and the demands of social conformity that decree that Katherine should be wed and that Petruchio seeks to apply in his unconventional way.

Poskitt, who took on her role with only a week to learn her lines and another to join the last week of rehearsals, is known for her wide-eyed comedy chops and singing, but there is much more lurking inside that comes out here (as it did in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None). Wild, scolding-tongued, as those around her decry, her subversive Katherine is ultimately more than a match to Petruchio’s prodding. Not so much a woman ‘tamed’ at the end as one establishing her own rights.

Paterson’s Petruchio pulls off the balancing act of being a rock music-loving, preening popinjay but humorous too for all his outrageous behaviour. Rik Mayall, Rupert Everett, that brand of English humour.

Maggie Smales has conquered Shakespeare’s problem play, no problem. This ‘Shrew’ is funny, furious, feminist, with an eye to the future too, as peace, love and equality are secured at last.

Performances at 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow, as part of York International Shakespeare Festival. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

April 26, 2024May 1, 2024

Let the battle of the sexes resume as York Shakespeare Project gives rehearsed reading of Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed

*York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Sunday’s rehearsed reading of John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed*

YORK Shakespeare Project is complementing this week’s run of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew with a one-off performance of John Fletcher’s sequel, The Tamer Tamed, at the Creative Arts Centre Auditorium, York St John University, on Sunday at 5pm.

Fletcher’s rarely staged Jacobean riposte to William Shakespeare’s most controversial “problem play” will be presented in a rehearsed reading on the closing day of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival.

YSP chair Tony Froud explains: “We are very happy to borrow an idea from Gregory Doran, who staged both plays in tandem, using the same cast, in his productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2003. Fletcher’s play is a deliberate and very entertaining response to Shakespeare’s original.”

*Director Claire Morley in rehearsals. Picture: S R Taylor Photography*

Written in 1611, 20 years after Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, The Tamer Tamed (or The Woman’s Prize) gives an insight into changing attitudes to women and marriage in the Jacobean period.

YSP’s rehearsed reading is being directed by Claire Morley, assistant director to Maggie Smales on The Taming Of The Shrew, whose run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, ends tomorrow night. Many of the same cast will undertake Sunday’s reading, joined by familiar YSP faces Andrew Isherwood, Effie Warboys and Sally Mitcham.

“We’re enormously grateful to members of our very talented cast for committing to perform a second play, but the actors couldn’t resist the challenge of exploring Fletcher’s fascinating take on Shakespeare,” says Claire. “Luckily they don’t have to learn any more lines, as this will be a script-in-hand reading.”

*Claire Morley, front row, second from right , in the role of Henry V in York Shakespeare Project’s Heny V in 2015*

Claire is no stranger to York Shakespeare Project, having appeared in several of its productions, most notably playing the title role in Maggie Smales’s all-female Henry V in 2015. “It’s a joy to be working with Maggie again and we’re very lucky to have such a fabulous cast,” she adds.

In Fletcher’s sequel, the widowed Petruchio has a new wife and a new challenge as he discovers that he is not the only one who can do the taming. Fletcher borrows characters from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and a key plot device from Ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes’s Lysistrata. “The result is a richly entertaining exploration of marriage and relationships in another battle of the sexes,” says Tony.

The cast comprises: Rosy Rowley as Maria; Effie Warboys, Livia; Kirsty Farrow, Bianca; Andrew Isherwood, Petruchio; Mark Simmonds, Petronius; Mark Payton, Gremio and Peter; Sam Jackson, Rowland; Nick Patrick Jones, Hortensio; Sally Mitcham, Tranio, and Stuart Green, Grumio.

Tickets are on sale at parrabbola.co.uk or yorkshakes.co.uk.

April 22, 2024April 22, 2024

How Florence Poskitt stepped in to play Kate in Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes The Taming Of The Shrew for YSP

*Florence Poskitt: Taking on principal role of Kate*

WHEN University of York student Chesca Downes had to pull out of playing Kate in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew, up stepped Florece Poskitt at short notice.

The York actor-musician and member of musical comedy duo Fladam had only a fortnight to learn and rehearse Shakespeare’s problem play for this week’s run at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from tomorrow to Saturday.

YSP chair Tony Froud says: “We’re delighted to welcome someone as talented as Flo into the cast and thank her for stepping into the role after Chesca had to withdraw for personal reasons.”

“We are very sorry to lose Chesca, but entirely understand her decision to leave the production,” adds director Maggie Smales.

Florence is a familiar face to York theatregoers, latterly appearing at Theatre@41 as Vera Claythorne in Pick Me Up Theatre’s staging of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Mishka and a gormless Shopkeeper in York Settlement Community Players’ Government Inspector last autumn.

*York Shakespeare Project’s psychedelic poster for The Taming Of The Shrew*

Now she is reuniting with Maggie Smales, who first directed Florence in November 2019 in Andrew Bovell’s apocalyptic play When The Rain Stops Falling, again at Theatre@41.

“I was due to have a couple of weeks off after doing my own stuff with Fladam for the past two months, going down to the Greenwich Theatre in London with our Green Fingers show, and then suddenly I got a call from Maggie to say, ‘Can you do this role, Flo?’, and she’s one of those people you just can’t say ‘No’ to!” says Florence.

“So the second I got back, I threw myself into playing Kate. She’s one of those roles that are such a treat to get to play – though ideally with more rehearsal time! I had just a week’s notice to get it learnt before joining the last week of rehearsals.

“With Shakespeare you can’t just make it work like you can with a modern text; it’s not just knowing your own lines; you’ve got know the feed lines; you have to be able to cue in other actors; you’ve got to become familiar with the blocking.”

Last Thursday night was the first full run, leading to the tech rehearsal on Sunday and dress rehearsal tonight (22/4/2024). “Everyone has been very welcoming, especially Rosy Rowley, who plays Kate’s mum [Baptista Minola] and Jim Paterson, who’s brilliant as Petruchio, as well as doing the music for the show. The chat-up scene up scene with Kate is so funny, it’s been difficult not to laugh in rehearsals.”

*Maggie Smales: Directing York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew*

As the multi-coloured psychedelic poster proclaims, Smales is setting Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes in 1970 in her first YSP production since her all-female Henry V in 2015.

The Sixties have shaken off the post-World War Two blues; the baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing; the world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Surely, “The Times They Are a’Changin’” and the old order is dead. Or is it, asks Smales.

“As a play it’s not designed for a modern audience. Petruchio can be seen as a kind of abuser, and what Maggie and co-director Claire Morley have done with Kate’s monologue is to find a way around the awkwardness of her saying she can do whatever she wants now she is tamed,” says Florence.

“In this version, the ‘shrew’ [Kate] is a normal person and everyone else is abnormal, and you see what she has to go through and how these gaslighters can get to anybody.

“You don’t have to change the text. You have to change the meaning, and Maggie and Claire have been very clever at doing that. There’s very much a stereotype of what a ‘shrewish woman’ would be. We’ve decided that she fits the shrewish stereotype in wanting to fit in, but she doesn’t want to be wed. That leads to her being isolated for not being understood.”

*Fladam’s Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter*

The 1970 setting has led to a more open attitude. “Kate gets her comic moments, so does Petruchio because he’s so ridiculous. Once he was perceived as heroic, definitely not so now, but even though his behaviour is not right, Jim’s Petruchio is still endearing,” says Florence.

“I also gathered from Maggie that she chose 1970 as it was then that women started to be working women rather than housewives – and that connects with Kate not wanting a husband and wanting to be just herself.”

Playing Kate will be Florence’s first Shakespeare work since doing a training project at Newcastle Theatre Royal, performing snippets from Much Ado About Nothing in the role of Beatrice in 2021.

“The last time I worked with York Shakespeare Project I did the costumes for The Winter’s Tale and that’s when I first met Maggie, who was playing Paulina. “I’m really grateful for the opportunity. I did originally audition for Kate, but I would have been too busy with Fladam, but now it’s worked out well, even if I wish I’d had more time,” says Florence.

“I love doing comedy and musical theatre, but it’s lovely to do something different, to break the mould, to prove I can do more than Victoria Wood – though I would say I do play Kate quite like a Last Of The Summer Wine character. She’s quite grumpy!”

York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, York International Shakespeare Festival, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk

April 18, 2024April 19, 2024

More Things To Do in Ryedale, York and beyond “the carriage ride of your life”. Hutch’s List No. 11, from Gazette & Herald

*Katherine Lea: Making her Hotbuckle Productions debut in Pride & Prejudice*

BUCKLE up for Austen’s sister act, Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes and Sheridan’s scandalous comedy of manners, plus music, art and poetry in the library, baroque and blues concerts and tragic opera, advises Charles Hutchinson.

Ryedale play of the week: Hotbuckle Productions in Pride & Prejudice, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm

IN artistic director Adrian Preater’s humorous, multi role-playing adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Hotbuckle Productions enter the world of the Bennets.

From headstrong Elizabeth to proud Mr Darcy, rich characterisations abound as five sisters deal with marriage, morality and misconceptions. “Hotbuckle up for the carriage ride of your life” with Joanna Purslow, Tomas Mason and company newcomer Katherine Lea. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.

*Patricia Qua: Ceramicist and graphic designer taking part in York Open Studios for the first time in Hempland Drive, York*

Art around every corner: York Open Studios, Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 5pm

AS many as 156 artists and makers who live or work within a ten-mile radius of York will be welcoming visitors to 106 workspaces to show and sell their art, ranging from ceramics, collage, digital, illustration, jewellery and mixed media to painting, print, photography, sculpture, textiles, glass and wood. Among them will be 31 new participants. Full details and a map can be found at yorkopenstudios.co.uk. Look out for booklets around the city too.

*Keeping an eye on things: English Touring Opera in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut at York Theatre Royal*

Opera of the week: English Touring Opera in Manon Lescaut, York Theatre Royal, Friday, 7.30pm

ENGLISH Touring Opera returns to York in Jude Christian radical production of Giacomo Puccini’s heartbreaking Manon Lescaut, for which she brings incisive direction to her sharp, poetic new translation.

Puccini’s 1892 breakthrough hit presents a devastating depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms and the rigid double standards imposed on her by society. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*London Obbligato Collective: Opening the York Baroque+ Day at the NCEM*

Classical concert of the week: London Obbligato Collective, York Baroque+ Day, National Centre for Early Music, York Saturday, 12 noon

FORMED by Masumi Yamamoto, the new London Obbligato Collective focuses on “accompanied harpsichord sonatas”, where the harpsichord is given the solo role within the trio sonata texture, highlighting and enriching the colours and nuances of the instrument.

Next Saturday’s programme includes 18th century music by Felice Giardini, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.

*Lydea Perkins, as Lady Teazle, and Joseph Marcell, as Sir Peter Teazle, in Tilted Wig’s The School For Scandal. Picture: Anthony Robling*

Touring play of the week: Tilted Wig, Malvern Theatres and Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, present The School For Scandal, York Theatre Royal, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 7.30pm Saturday matinees

JOSEPH Marcell, fondly remembered as Geoffrey the butler in the American comedy series Fresh Prince of Bel Air, stars in Seán Aydon’s new production of Richard B Sheridan’s comedy of manners The School For Scandal, where gossip never goes out of fashion.

Marcell plays Sir Peter Teazle, who believes his young wife is sleeping with someone else. Not true, but she is starting to think that if her husband believes it, she should give it a go. After all, if you are going to cause a scandal, you may as well enjoy it. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

*Florence Poskitt: Stepping in to play Kate in York Shakespeare Project’s The Taming Of The Shrew*

Seventies’ Shakespeare play of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 23 to 27, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday

IN a late change of cast, actor-musician Florence Poskitt, from the York musical comedy duo Fladam, is taking over the principal role of Kate in Maggie Smales’s production of Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, now set in 1970.

A psychedelic world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality, but Kate was born to be wild and wants a voice of her own. The times they are a’changin’ and the old order is dead…or is it? Let battle commence. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

*Redfish Blues Band: Returning to Milton Rooms, Malton*

Blues gig of the week: Redfish Blues Band, Ryedale Blues Club, Milton Rooms, Malton, April 25, 8pm

NOMINATED for Blues Band of the Year and Blues Album of the Year in the UK 2024 Blues Awards, Redfish Blues Band return to Malton with Christian Sharpe on vocals and guitar, Steve McGuckin on Hammond, Rod Mackay on bass and Steve Gibson on drums.

As witnessed on their Together Is Better album and Soho Rising (Girls, Girls, Girls) single, they play a delicious, bubbling gumbo of blues, soul, gospel and funk in live performances defined by energy and restraint. Box office: 01653 696240 or themiltonrooms.com.

*Kai West’s poster for Bull’s Live At The Library day on May 19, based on the Cluedo board game design*

Gig announcement of the week: Bull present Live At The Library, York Explore Library & Archive, Library Square, York, May 19, from 12 noon

YORK Explore and Please Please You team up with York band Bull for a day of music, art and poetry to celebrate Explore York’s tenth birthday and raise funds for York’s libraries. The climax will be a 6.30pm to 10pm gig by Bull, Marnie Glum, Rowan and performance poet Stu Freestone (tickets, tickettailor.com/events/exploreyorklibrariesandarchives/1216274).

Free activities include open mic-style performances run by Bull frontman Tom Beer in the Marriott Room from midday, featuring Gabbie Lord, Maggie, Gilles, She Choir, Filipe, Old Time Rags, Eve Thomas & Co and more, plus art workshops for all ages hosted by Izzy Williamson (lino printing, 1pm) and Bull bassist and illustrator Kai West (T-shirt design and screen printing, 12 noon to 2pm) in the Garden Room, with donations welcome.