Shed Seven: Heading out on their 30th anniversary lap of honour. Picture: Barnaby Fairley
AS Shed Seven bring their 30th anniversary celebrations to a climax, Charles Hutchinson says “Let’s go” for a week of theatre, comedy, Christmas, film and musical highlights.
On the road again: Shed Seven, 30th Anniversary Tour, Hull City Hall, November 19 and Leeds O2 Academy, November 30
ON the back of topping the album charts for a second time in 2024 with Liquid Gold (after a Matter Of Time in January), York indie champs Shed Seven head out on their 30th Anniversary Tour.
The 23-date itinerary opened at Sheffield Octagon on Thursday night, with further Yorkshire gigs to follow at Victoria Theatre, Halifax, on November 18, Hull City Hall on November 19 and Leeds O2 Academy on November 30. Tickets update: the best advice is to head to shedseven.com to check for late availability.
Paddy Young: Headlining the Rye Humour bill at Helmsley Arts Centre. Picture: Lucas Smith
Variety night of the week: Rye Humour, Comedy vs Climate Change, Helmsley Arts Centre, tonight, 7.30pm
RYE Humour’s variety bill of up-and-coming comics will be headlined by Chortle Best Newcomer winner Paddy Young, a stand-up with Scarborough roots. The 2023 BBC New Comedy Awards finalist and Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer nominee has attracted 100 million views online for his sketches with Ed Night. His comedy special, filmed by American record label 800 Pound Gorilla Records, will be released shortly.
This gig has been developed in collaboration with the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership scheme, as part of a project that uses humour to explore environmental issues based around North Yorkshire’s rivers. Any questions about the evening, or accessibility, will be answered at events@comedyvsclimatechange.org.uk. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Lucy Beaumont: Off-beat stories, unusual anecdotes and bizarre journeys through modern-day womanhood at Grand Opera House, York
Hullarious gig of the week: Lucy Beaumont Live, Grand Opera House, York, tonight, 8pm
HULL humorist, BAFTA nominee and Taskmaster star Lucy Beaumont is determined to let loose and let slip on her rollercoaster world with off-beat stories, unusual anecdotes and bizarre journeys through modern-day womanhood.
From the co-host of the chart-topping podcast Perfect Brains with Sam Campbell and creator of Meet The Richardsons comes a look at life through the Lucy lens. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
York Christmas Market: Stalls galore
York Christmas Market, Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square, York, until December 22, 10am to 7pm; Yorkshire’s Winter Wonderland, York Designer Outlet, St Nicholas Avenue, York, until January 5, from 10am
YORK Christmas Market lines Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square with 75 chalets selling crafts, artisan products and seasonal food and drink. Four fifths of the traders come from Yorkshire, giving a showcase to local businesses. Look out for the vintage carousel in King’s Square too.
Yorkshire’s Winter Wonderland’s magical festivities at the York Designer Outlet combine an outdoor ice rink and funfair with Santa’s Grotto and Alpine café The Chalet.
Disney’s Frozen: Screening in aid of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre
Film event of the week: Fundraising Films, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Frozen (PG), tomorrow, 2.30pm; Love Actually, tomorrow, 7.30pm
THIS weekend’s fundraiser for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre opens with a special chance for all the family to see Elsa, Anna, Sven, Olaf et al in Disney’s Frozen adventure in Arendelle.
In the evening, Christmas romance is in the air in Love Actually (15), the timeless Richard Curtis comedy stuffed with interlocking love stories. Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Colin Firth and Liam Neeson lead the stellar cast. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk
Urbane spaceman: Garrett Millerick at Theatre@41, Monkgate
Angriest gig of the week: Garrett Millerick Needs More Space, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tomorrow, 8pm
IN Garrett Millerick Needs More Space, comedy’s “angriest optimist” returns for an honest and mostly historically accurate exploration of space travel as he examines his totally insignificant place in the universe and how little we actually know about anything.
Blending personal experiences with social commentary, while avoiding political partisanship in his hour-long show, Millerick – creator and star of the BBC sitcom series Do Gooders – looks to the stars to find solutions to our earthy complications. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Ivo Graham: Hoping to avoid banana skins at York Theatre Royal
Up to the task: Ivo Graham: Grand Design, York Theatre Royal, November 20, 7.30pm
WHAT (yoghurt and) banana skins await old Etonian and Oxford grad Ivo Graham next? No ball games, no blind alleys, no backstage printers this time, but one of the best stand-ups of his generation out to prove he’s “not just Taskmaster’s yardstick for failure”. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Adam Sowter: Playing Mr Poppy in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Nativity! The Musical at the Grand Opera House, York
Musical of the week: Pick Me Up Theatre in Nativity! The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 22 to 30, 7.30pm nightly, except November 25; 2.30pm, November 23, 24 and 30
PICK Me Up Theatre’s Nativity! The Musical returns to York after a smash-hit run two years ago, this time with director and choreographer Lesley Lettin’s cast featuring 48 children hand-picked from all over Yorkshire to play students from rival schools.
Adapted for the stage by Debbie Isitt from her films, the show follows St Bernadette’s Primary School teacher Mr Maddens (Alex Hogg) and his assistant, Mr Poppy(Adam Sowter) as they strive to mount a musical version of the Nativity, promising it will be adapted into a Hollywood movie in order to outdo rival school Oakmoor Prep. Look out for Alexandra Mather as Jennifer, Jonny Holbek as Mr Shakespeare, James Willstrop as the acid tongued Critic and Cracker the dog as Branwell. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Meet the new science of Historical Human Reconstruction or Postmortalism: the world premiere of the “living and speaking” Richard III at York Theatre Royal on Sunday
IMAGINE if you could see and hear King Richard III speaking his own words. Imagine experiencing him breathing, thinking and effectively being “brought back to life”’.
On Sunday, in a six-hour conference-style launch event at York Theatre Royal, state-of-the-art technology will reveal for the first time a moving, “living” face of the long-dead king enunciating in the tongue of his Plantagenet time. More Yorkshire than pucker, apparently.
What began for Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, voice teacher, vocal coach and project originator, more than a decade ago as an after-dinner entertainment to compare Shakespeare’s character with what we know of the real man, developed quickly into a research project.
The focus would be unique: to “explore the possibility of creating a literal voice for a long-dead historical figure”. Fast forward ten years to November 17 2024 when this international launch event will cover how the pieces of a complex puzzle came together using primary evidence.
This is the new science of Historical Human Reconstruction or Postmortalism, one that uses an avatar of the person, based on the reconstruction of their head, to provide an entirely new way to learn of the past. In this instance, we can understand more about the last Plantagenet king of England, who reigned from June 26 1483 to August 22 1485, while also paving the way for other historical avatars.
Sunday’s “reveal” comes against the background of the endless controversy surrounding this besmirched monarch, Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and the questions raised over his actions and personality: was he a good man or a murderous psychopath, the maligned, malignant Crookback of Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Richard the Third?
Now King Richard III will speak for himself after experts from across the United Kingdom and abroad joined in this pioneering collaboration. Some will share presentations during Sunday’s international launch event, booked into York Theatre Royal from 12 noon to 6pm, climaxing with the final “reveal” at 5.30pm.
Taking the rostrum along with Yvonne Morley-Chisholm will be the key collaborator, cranio-facial identification expert Professor Caroline Wilkinson and her Face Lab team, from Liverpool John Moores University, and Professor David Crystal OBE, linguist and specialist in Original Pronunciation.
Dr Bridget Foreman: York playwright and lecturer in playwriting at the University of York
Joining them will be playwright Dr Bridget Foreman, lecturer in playwriting at the University of York; Matthew Lewis, author, historian and History Hit podcaster; Philippa Langley MBE, author, historian and film producer, who led the search for Richard III’s remains under a Leicester car park, and actor Thomas Dennis, whose vocal performance and facial movements were chosen to animate the avatar made from King Richard III’s facial reconstruction.
As well as exploring the true history of King Richard III, the event will feature discussions on a range of topics including Medieval History, Linguistics, Original (Historical) Pronunciation, Craniofacial Reconstruction, Forensic Psychology, Voice and Dialect, Historical Human Reconstruction, Postmortalism, CGI and Motion-Capture, among other specialisms.
Yvonne Morley-Chisholm said: “It’s been the greatest privilege to work with Professor Caroline Wilkinson. Her team at Face Lab are working towards animating the face of King Richard III from real-time motion capture.
“Professor Wilkinson’s work provides the physical nucleus while mine provides the vocal nucleus in this ‘world first’. This is the new science of Historical Human Reconstruction or Postmortalism, using an avatar of the real king based on the reconstruction of his head.
“I am also deeply honoured to be working with Professor David Crystal, who is the internationally recognised, leading expert in Original Pronunciation. He has created a reconstruction of the king’s pronunciation using personal letters and documents. The result is as close as anyone can get to King Richard III’s speech from the time in which he lived and reigned.
“I am grateful for the many others who have helped to shape each piece of the puzzle in this pioneering and unique collaboration. The project has achieved more than I ever dared to imagine it could.
“We are bringing a long dead king back to a kind of ‘life’. We are learning more about the real man in doing so. With state-of-the-art motion-capture technology, CGI animation and the like, I hope that – for those who find history a little dull – we are making it ‘cool’.”
Professor Caroline Wilkinson said: “Since we produced the facial reconstruction of Richard III in 2012, we have dreamt about bringing him alive, to see him move and speak his own words. With the help of advanced digital avatar technology and Yvonne’s voice team, we have been able to realise this dream.
“The result has exceeded our expectations and represents the most authentic and realistic portrait of this great king, based on all the evidence available.”
Philippa Langley MBE: Author, historian and film producer, who led the search for Richard III’s remains
Professor David Crystal said: “I think people will be surprised to hear a kind of speech that is a fascinating mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar. English pronunciation has changed a lot since the 15th century, but it’s still very intelligible to modern ears.”
Matthew Lewis said: “We live in an age experienced and digested through media. We’re surrounded by the images and voices of all kinds of people. Yet not so long ago, we have no images beyond portraiture, which often comes years after a person’s death. We have no recordings of their voices to hear them, and in an age before diaries were commonplace, little hope of piercing beyond public personas.
“The Voice For Richard Project is a stunning example of how science, technology and history can come together to help bridge the distance of time that separates us from those we have heard of but could never have heard.
“This is as close as we can get to being in the room in the 15th century when a king speaks. I can’t wait for the world to see the culmination of ten years of hard work and innovation.”
Philippa Langley MBE said: “To help bring Richard to life, research into his character focused on contemporary descriptions from his own lifetime. These included private letters and a diary. The results corresponded directly with similar public descriptions offering a probability bordering on certainty of his recognised character from his lifetime.
“The results, to be premiered in York, will be a technological, scientific and historic break-through in aiding our understanding of the past and this important historical figure.
“It’s been the most incredible honour to be part of this cross-platform research over its ten years and I would like to thank Yvonne Morley-Chisholm for inviting me to be a part of her team. The world premiere in York promises to be extraordinary.”
Tickets: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/a-voice-for-king-richard-iii/. Further information: avoiceforrichard.co.uk. Sunday’s event will be live-streamed too at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/a-voice-for-king-richard-iii-livestream/.
The 16th century portrait of Richard III, by an unknown artist, that went on show at the Yorkshire Museum, York, from July to October 2021 as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Coming Home project. Measuring 25 ins by 18ins, the artwork known as “the Red Portrait” was painted years after his death but is believed to be based on an original painted in Richard’s lifetime
Richard III: the (hunch)back story
BORN on October 2 1452, he grew up at Middleham Castle in the Yorkshire Dales. Visited York several times during his short reign as King of England from June 26 1483 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, aged 32.
Last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth was the penultimate battle in the Wars of the Roses and ushered in the Tudor dynasty. The last battle? The Battle of Stoke Field, June 16 1487.
His remains were discovered in 2012 under a car park in Leicester by University of Leicester Archaeological Services and Philippa Langley MBE, of the Richard III Society, through her original Looking For Richard Project.
Philippa’s search for the king’s grave was the subject of the award-winning TV documentary Richard III: The King In The Car Park. The remains were identified using scientific disciplines including DNA analysis and are now interred at Leicester Cathedral.
A Voice for Richard III international launch event schedule, York Theatre Royal, Sunday
12 noon to 1.30pm: First session: From the myths to the man, presented by Dr Bridget Foreman, Matthew Lewis and Philippa Langley. 1.30pm: Lunch break.
2.30pm to 4pm: Second session: The experts speak: Historical Human reconstruction, presented by Prof Caroline Wilkinson, Prof David Crystal and Yvonne Morley-Chisholm. 4pm: Break.
4.30pm to 6pm: Third session: Continuation and culmination: the reveal (5.30pm). Documentary excerpts from History Hit, followed by Yvonne Morley-Chisholm talking with Thomas Dennis, the actor chosen to be the face and voice of the king, leading to film of King Richard III’s face speaking his own words in his own pronunciation.
Gerard Savva: Leading the York Stage cast as Bobby in Company at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
LOOK out for Godber at the double, Sondheim sophistication, a ground-breaking Black pioneer and Hull humour in the week ahead, recommends Charles Hutchinson.
Musical of the week: York Stage in Company, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
ON Bobby’s 35th birthday, his friends all have one question on their mind. Why is he not married? Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s bold, sophisticated and insightful revolutionary musical comedy follows Bobby as he navigates the world of dating and being the third wheel to all of his now happily (and unhappily) married friends, exploring the pros and cons of settling down and leaving his single life behind.
Nik Briggs directs a York Stage cast featuring Gerard Savva as Bobby, Florence Poskitt, Julia Anne Smith, Alexandra Mather, Joanne Theaker, Dan Crawfurd-Porter and Jack Hooper, among others. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The poster for Lightning Seeds’ show at Scarborough Spa Grand Hall tonight
Pure and simply joyful every time: Lightning Seeds, Tomorrow’s Here Today, 35 Years Greatest Hits Tour, Scarborough Spa Grand Hall, tonight; The Welly, Hull, December 4; Leeds Beckett Students’ Union, December 6
TO mark their 35th anniversary, Liverpool singer, songwriter and producer Ian Broudie leads Lightning Seeds on their Tomorrow’s Here Today tour to accompany a new greatest hits album.
Here come Pure, The Life Of Riley, Change, Lucky You, Sense, All I Want, Sugar Coated Iceberg, You Showed Me, Emily Smiles, Three Lions et al and many more. Tonight doors open at 7pm; Casino play at 8pm, Lightning Seeds at 9pm. Box office: Scarborough, scarboroughspa.co.uk; Hull, giveitsomewelly.com; Leeds, leedsbeckettsu.co.uk.
Tom Gallagher, Annie Kirkman and Laura Jennifer Banks in a scene from John Godber’s revival of Perfect Pitch
Touring play of the week: John Godber Company in Perfect Pitch, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
WHEN teacher Matt (Frazer Hammill) borrows his parents’ caravan for a week on the Yorkshire coast with partner Rose (Annie Kirkman), they are expecting four days of hill running and total de-stressing. However, with a Tribfest taking place nearby, Grant (Tom Gallagher) and Steph’s (Laura Jennifer Banks) pop-up tent is an unwelcome addition to their perfect pitch.
The class divide and loo cassettes become an issue as writer-director John Godber reignites his unsettling 1998 state-of-the-nation comedy, set on an eroding coastline, as Matt and Rose are inducted into the world of caravanning and karaoke. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
The Highwayman cast of Dylan Allcock, left, Emilio Encinoso-Gil, Matheea Ellerby and Jo Patmore in John Godber’s new historical play. Picture: Ian Hodgson
New play of the week: John Godber Company in The Highwayman, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.45pm plus 2pm Friday and Saturday, sold out
AFTER more than 70 plays reflecting on modern life, John Godber goes back in history for the first time in The Highwayman. “It’s 1769 and Yorkshire’s population has exploded, the races at York are packed, the new theatre in Hull is thriving, and the Spa towns are full,” he says.
“Everyone is flocking north. Yorkshire is the place to be; a region drunk on making money, social climbing, gambling and gin, but with wealth in abundance, the temptation is great.” Enter the highwayman, John Swift and his partner, Molly May. Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Paterson Joseph and Charles Ignatius Sancho: Storyteller and subject in Sancho & Me at York Theatre Royal
Story of the week: Paterson Joseph, Sancho & Me, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow, 7.30pm, with post-show discussion
CHARLES Ignatius Sancho, born on a slave ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1729, became a writer, composer, shopkeeper and respected man of letters in 18th century London – the first man of African heritage to vote in Britain.
Actor, author and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University Paterson Joseph tells his story, accompanied by co-creator and musical director Ben Park, built around his book The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho. Joseph explores ideas of belonging, language, education, slavery, commerce, violence, politics, music, love and where these themes intersect with his own story of growing up Black and British. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Irish band Adore: Headlining at The Crescent tomorrow. Picture: Fnatic
Indie gig of the week: Road Less Travelled presents Adore, Fuzz Lightyear and Tom Beer, The Crescent, York, tomorrow,7.30pm
RISING stars of the Irish music scene, Adore are a three-piece garage punk band from Galway, Donegal and Dublin, who refract surf, disco and pop through punk sensibilities, grounded in crunchy guitar, drum and bass.
Leeds four-piece Fuzz Lightyear, freshly signed to independent label Nice Swan Records, match the intensity of Idles and Gilla Band while applying wit and a lyrical openness to their songs. Bull frontman Tom Beer kicks off the triple bill with a solo set. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
New York Brass Band: Bringing New Orleans Mardi Gras jazz from old York to Milton Rooms, Malton
Jazz night of the week: Acorn Events presents New York Brass Band and The Ryedale Stray Notes, Milton Rooms, Malton, Friday, 7pm
NEW York Brass Band, from York, perform with a seven or eight-piece line-up of sax, tuba, trumpets, trombones, guitar and sousaphone in the New Orleans Mardi Gras jazz band tradition. Formed by James Lancaster in 2010, they are inspired by Rebirth Brass Band, Soul Rebels, Hot 8, Youngblood and Brassroots.
They have played at Glastonbury for the past eight festivals and at celebrity parties and weddings for Danny Jones, of McFly, Ellie Goulding, comedian Alex Brooker, Liam Gallagher and Jamie Oliver. Support act The Ryedale Stray Notes feature 25 talented young musicians “ready to raise the roof”. Proceeds go to Acorn Community Care to support vulnerable adults with physical and learning disabilities. Tickets: acornevents.org.uk or phone Ali on 07891 3889085.
Paddy Young: Topping the Rye Humour bill at Helmsley Arts Centre. Picture: Lucas Smith
Variety night of the week: Rye Humour, Comedy vs Climate Change, Helmsley Arts Centre, Saturday, 7.30pm
RYE Humour’s variety bill of up-and-coming comics will be headlined by Chortle Best Newcomer winner Paddy Young, a stand-up with Scarborough roots. The 2023 BBC New Comedy Awards finalist and Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer nominee has attracted 100 million views online for his sketches with Ed Night. His comedy special, filmed by American record label 800 Pound Gorilla Records, will be released shortly.
This gig has been developed in collaboration with the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership scheme, as part of a project that uses humour to explore environmental issues based around North Yorkshire’s rivers. Any questions about the evening, or accessibility, will be answered at events@comedyvsclimatechange.org.uk. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Lucy Beaumont: Off-beat stories, unusual anecdotes and bizarre journeys through modern-day womanhood at Grand Opera House, York
Comedy gig of the week: Lucy Beaumont Live, Grand Opera House, York, Saturday, 8pm
HULL humorist, BAFTA nominee and Taskmaster star Lucy Beaumont is determined to let loose and let slip on her rollercoaster world with off-beat stories, unusual anecdotes and bizarre journeys through modern-day womanhood.
From the co-host of the chart-topping podcast Perfect Brains with Sam Campbell and creator of Meet The Richardsons comes a look at life through the Lucy lens. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Paterson Joseph and Charles Ignatius Sancho: Storyteller and subject of Sancho & Me at York Theatre Royal
CHARLES Ignatius Sancho, born on a slave ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1729, became a writer, composer, shopkeeper and respected man of letters in 18th century London – the first man of African heritage to vote in Britain.
Paterson Joseph, actor, author and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, tells his story in Sancho & Me on Thursday night (14/11/2024) at York Theatre Royal, where he will be accompanied by co-creator and musical director Ben Park.
Built around his novel The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho, Joseph explores ideas of belonging, language, education, slavery, commerce, violence, politics, music, love and where these themes intersect with his own story of growing up Black and British, born to immigrant parents from St Lucia in Willesden Green, London in 1964.
“Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) had a most extraordinary life,” says Paterson. “Born of enslaved African parents, he rose to a position of great influence in British society. A polymath with a talent for music, his vote in 1774 and 1780 made him the first person of African descent to vote in a British Parliamentary election.
“I first came across Charles Ignatius Sancho in 1999. Until then I knew nothing of his story. Born and raised in London, by my mid-thirties I had no idea there were thousands of Black Britons in the UK long before the famous ‘Windrush Generation’ who arrived in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. I cannot overstate the powerful sense of belonging this knowledge brought me.
“My desire is to spread that sense of rootedness through spreading the word far and wide: Britain has always been a multi-ethnic country and Black people have been a major part of that story.”
Paterson found Sancho’s story in Gretchen Gerzina’s book, Black England, first published in 1995 with the subtitle Life Before Emancipation. “The second edition has just been printed [updated as Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History with a forward by Zadie Smith in 2022],” he says.
It’s a really seminal book, where I found all these people’s stories, including Septimius Severus, the Roman Emperor, who was from Libya and came to Britain in the 3rd century AD, setting up the Imperial court’s headquarters in York, where he died of gout [in 211AD].”
Paterson had been “writing secretly for many years” but Gerzina’s book prompted him to take up Sancho’s tale in a play. Until then the history of the Black experience had “always been a binary story of slavery”, he says. “I realised that Black history in England had been whitewashed, erased, sugar-coated, even suppressed.”
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance, his debut play as a writer, was first co-produced and performed at Oxford Playhouse in 2015, then twice toured the United States of America, including Kennedy Center in Washington and Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.
Paterson presented a revised version at Wilton’s Music Hall in London in 2018 (published by Bloomsbury) that climaxed with Sancho being given the right to vote.
Reflecting on the shifting sands of history, Paterson says: “The brilliant thing is that as history re-writes things, I say, ‘yes, we should do that with Black history because you wrote it very badly’.
“The questions is why would it take a curious person like me, whose origins are Afro-Caribbean, to get to the age of 35 to discover his origin story, when none of those stories had been told? Those who had the right to look at those archives and publish those stories didn’t care to do that – you see what you want to see.”
Believing that ‘this national amnesia can be overcome by having your story told”, Paterson decided he wanted to explore Sancho’s story further, whether as a full-scale play or in a novel. “But I never had any time to make it into more than a dream, but Covid changed that situation. I was filming Vigil [playing Commander Neil Ransome], when we had to stop, and when I knew we wouldn’t go back till August, I sat in my shed and wrote the novel,” he says.
The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho, his debut novel, was published in 2022, charting Sancho’s life through fictionalised diary entries, letters and commentary. Nominated for six literary awards, Paterson won the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize and Historical Writers Association Debut Novel Prize in 2023.
Now he is taking Sancho & Me on the road. “Each show is ‘for one night only’ because it’s different every night,” he says. In the first half, he performs readings from the novel, interspersed with music; in the second, in the guise of Sancho, he answers audience questions about today as well as yesteryear. “So he’s like an avatar,” adds Paterson.
Composer Ben Park has worked with Paterson on his Sancho projects since Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance. “We’ve constructed this show together. I didn’t want people to get the idea it was the whole book on stage,” he says. Hence the music, the audience questions and Paterson weaving his own life story into the piece.
Away from Sancho & Me, Paterson has been working on his eighth film – he would like to do more cinema work – filming They Will Kill You with Patricia Arquette in Cape Town. “It’s due to come out in autumn 2025,” he says.
He has been enjoying his duties as Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University since being installed in May 2023. “Talking with students at the graduation ceremonies has been one of the most thrilling experiences of my life, seeing them come out of themselves into a new world,” he says.
“I’ve been trying to get students to see that going to university is not the Holy Grail, but it gives you the breathing space to see what you really want to do.”
Paterson Joseph, Me & Sancho, York Theatre Royal, November 14, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Did you know?
PATERSON Joseph has performed twice previously at York Theatre Royal: in play readings instigated by actor George Costigan, first of King Lear, starring Freddie Jones and Toby Jones; then Antony And Cleopatra with Niamh Cusack. “I have warm feelings for York,” says Paterson.
Brushing up on her art: Lindsey Tyson, one of the Wednesday Four exhibiting at Pyramid Gallery, York
FROM the Wednesday Four to the sold-out Barbican four, a Sondheim musical to John Godber making history, Charles Hutchinson puts the ‘yes’ into November’s calendar.
Last chance to see: The Wednesday Four, Pyramid Gallery, Stonegate, York, today and Monday, 10am to 5pm
THE Wednesday Four, a group of four artist friends who gather in Scarborough each week – busy schedules permitting – are exhibiting together for the first time in York.
Shirley Vauvelle (ceramic sculpture and paintings), Gillian Martin (paintings and prints), Katie Braida (ceramics) and Lindsey Tyson (paintings) have been meeting for three years but have known each other much longer.
Tarot: Performing sketches in nighties in Shuffle at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Picture: PBJ Management
Sketch show of the week: Tarot: Shuffle, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight, 8pm
“THEY (our parents, partners, children) say ‘sketch is dead’, but if it’s dead then where’s all our money going?” ask Tarot, a sketch troupe featuring members of Gein’s Family Giftshop and Goose, Adam Drake, Ed Easton and Kath Hughes.
What lies in store in Shuffle? “Joyously silly and uproariously live and in-the-room, we would call it ‘improv’ but we’ve got some self-respect: this is sketch in nighties. Come watch a new tour of big, daft and, above all, live comedy being conjured up in front of your very eyes.” Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Rise Up To Empower Women: Fundraiser for York charity IDAS at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York
Fundraiser of the week: Rise Up To Empower Women, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
YORK and Leeds performers come together to “raise the roof to end gender-based violence”, sharing inspiring and moving stories of female survivors of abuse in a night of musical theatre organised by Hannah Winbolt-Lewis. Proceeds will go to IDAS, the Blossom Street, York-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support charity, and to aid the recovery of Leanne Lucas, a survivor of July’s Southport stabbings.
Performing arts student Daisy Winbolt-Robertson
Performing arts students Kate Lohan, Daisy Winbolt-Robertson, Sara Belal, Rose Scott, Chloe Amelie Lightfoot, Erin Childs, Annie Dunbar, Jasmine Lowe, Declan Childs and Oliver Lawery will sing songs from shows that depict survivors’ stories: Heathers, Spring Awakening, Waitress, The Color Purple, SIX The Musical and the newly premiered SuperYou. Donations can be made via idas.co.uk. Box office: O1904 501935, josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk or bit.ly/RiseUpToEmpowerWomen.
Simon Brodkin: Ripping into celebrity culture, social media, the police, Putin, Prince Andrew and God in Screwed Up
Comedy gig of the week: Simon Brodkin, Screwed Up, Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow, 8pm
SIMON Brodkin, world-famous prankster, Lee Nelson creator and most-watched British stand-up comedian on TikTok, brings his outrageous stand-up show back to York.
In Screwed Up, Brodkin rips into celebrity culture, social media, the police, Putin, Prince Andrew and God. Nothing is off limits, from his own mental health and family to his five arrests and how he once found himself at an underground sex party. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Irish Christmas celebrations in song and dance in Fairytale Of New York
What? Christmas in old York already : Fairytale Of New York – The Ultimate Irish-Inspired Christmas Concert, Grand Opera House, York, November 11, 7.30pm
FROM the producers of Seven Drunken Nights – The Story Of The Dubliners comes a rich tapestry of Irish singers, musicians and dancers performing Driving Home For Christmas, Step Into Christmas, Oh Holy Night, Fairytale Of New York and Irish sing-along favourites The Galway Girl, The Irish Rover, Dirty Old Town and The Black Velvet Band. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Sarah Millican: “Lots of stuff about dinners and lady gardens” at York Barbican
Recommended but sold out alas: next week’s shows at York Barbican
BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don kicks off a particularly busy week at York Barbican when he shares his passion for gardens and the role they play in human inspiration and wellbeing on Monday night (7.30pm). Jazz pianist, songwriter and BBC Radio 2 presenter Jamie Cullum will be supported by Northampton pianist and singer Billy Lockett on Tuesday (doors 7pm).
On Thursday (8pm), in her Late Bloomer show, South Shields comedian Sarah Millican mulls over her transition from being quiet at school with not many friends and an inability to say boo to a goose to being loud with good friends and goose-booing outbursts aplenty, “plus lots of stuff about dinners and lady gardens,” she says. On Friday (doors 7pm), in her Rockin’ On show, queen of rock’n’roll Suzi Quatro rolls out Can The Can, Devil Gate Drive, Stumblin’ In, 48 Crash, The Wild One et al. “It’s my 60th year in the business and it still feels like I’ve just started,” she says.
The York Stage poster for their “new version” of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s American musical comedy Company
Musical of the week: York Stage in Company, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, November 13 to 16, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
ON Bobby’s 35th birthday, his friends all have one question on their mind. Why is he not married? Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s bold , sophisticated and insightful revolutionary musical comedy follows Bobby as he navigates the world of dating and being the third wheel to all of his now happily (and unhappily) married friends as he explores the pros and cons of settling down and leaving his single life behind.
Nik Briggs directs a York Stage cast featuring Gerard Savva as Bobby, Florence Poskitt, Julia Anne Smith, Alexandra Mather, Joanne Theaker, Dan Crawfurd-Porter and Jack Hooper, among others. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
The Highwayman cast of Dylan Allcock, left, Emilio Encinoso-Gil, Matheea Ellerby and Jo Patmore in John Godber’s new historical play. Picture: Ian Hodgson
New play of the week: John Godber Company in The Highwayman, York Theatre Royal Studio, November 14 to 16, 7.45pm plus 2pm Friday and Saturday, sold out
AFTER more than 70 plays reflecting on modern life, John Godber goes back in history for the first time in The Highwayman. “It’s 1769 and Yorkshire’s population has exploded, the races at York are packed, the new theatre in Hull is thriving, and the Spa towns are full,” he says.
“Everyone is flocking north. Yorkshire is the place to be; a region drunk on making money, social climbing, gambling and gin, but with wealth in abundance, the temptation is great.” Enter the highwayman, John Swift and his partner, Molly May. Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
In focus: Paterson Joseph, Sancho & Me, York Theatre Royal, November 14, 7.30pm, with post-show discussion
Paterson Joseph and Charles Ignatius Sancho: Storyteller and subject in Sancho & Me at York Theatre Royal
CHARLES Ignatius Sancho, born on a slave ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1729, became a writer, composer, shopkeeper and respected man of letters in 18th century London – the first man of African heritage to vote in Britain.
Actor, author and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University Paterson Joseph tells his story, accompanied by co-creator and musical director Ben Park, built around Joseph’s book The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho.
Joseph explores ideas of belonging, language, education, slavery, commerce, violence, politics, music, love and where these themes intersect with his own story of growing up Black and British
Joseph says: “Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) had a most extraordinary life. Born of enslaved African parents, he rose to a position of great influence in British society. A polymath with a talent for music, his vote in 1774 and 1780 made him the first person of African descent to vote in a British Parliamentary election.
“I first came across Charles Ignatius Sancho in 1999. Born and raised in London, by my mid-thirties I had no idea there were thousands of Black Britons in the UK long before the famous ‘Windrush Generation’ who arrived in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. I cannot overstate the powerful sense of belonging this knowledge brought me.
“My desire is to spread that sense of rootedness through spreading the word far and wide: Britain has always been a multi-ethnic country and Black people have been a major part of that story.”
The show incorporates Sancho’s compositions and original music by composer and musician Ben Park. In the words of Sancho: “Friendship is a plant of slow growth, and, like our English oak, spreads, is more majestically beautiful, and increases in shade, strength and riches, as it increases in years.”
Paterson Joseph: the back story
Born: Willesden, London on June 22 1964 to parents from St Lucia. Educated at Cardinal Hinsley RC High School. Worked briefly as catering assistant. Trained at Studio ’68 of Theatre Arts, London (South Kensington Library), from 1983 to 1985, later attending London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
Theatre roles: Oswald in King Lear, Dumaine in Love’s Labours Lost and Marquis de Mota in The Last Days Of Don Juan, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1990. Title role in Othello, Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2002. Lead roles in The Royal Hunt Of The Sun and The Emperor Jones, Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, London, 2006. Brutus, in Royal Shakespeare Company’s Julius Caesar, set in Africa, 2012. Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Old Vic Theatre, London, 2019 into 2020.
Undertook documentary project My Shakespeare, filmed for Channel 4 in 2004, directing version of Romeo & Juliet that used 20 young non-actors from deprived Harlesden area of London.
On television: Mark Grace in Casualty (1997–1998); Alan Johnson in Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show (2003–2015); Lyndon Jones in Green Wing (2004–2006); Greg Preston in Survivors (2008–2010); DI Wes Layton in Law And Order: UK (2013–2014); “Holy Wayne” Gilchrest in The Leftovers (2014–2015); DCI Mark Maxwell in Safe House (2015–2017); Connor Mason in Timeless (2016–2018); Home Secretary, then Prime Minister Kamal Hadley in Noughts + Crosses (2020-2022); Commander Neil Newsome in Vigil (2021); Samuel Wells in Boat Story (2023).
Films include: Benbay in In The Name Of The Father (1993); Keaty in The Beach (2000); Greenfingers (2001), Giroux in Æon Flux (2005), The Other Man (2009) and Arthur Slugworth in Wonka (2023).
His debut play as a writer, Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance, was first co-produced and performed at Oxford Playhouse in 2015, then twice toured United States of America, including Kennedy Center in Washington and Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. Performed by Joseph in London in 2018 at Wilton’s Music Hall; published by Bloomsbury.
Debut novel The Secret Diaries Of Charles Ignatius Sancho was published in 2022 by Dialogue Books in UK and Henry Holt in USA, charting Sancho’s life through fictionalised diary entries, letters and commentary. Nominated for six literary awards, winning Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize and Historical Writers Association Debut Novel Prize in 2023.
First book, Julius Caesar And Me: Exploring Shakespeare’s African Play, published by Bloomsbury.
Appointed Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University in 2022. Installed in May 2023.
Paterson Joseph, Me & Sancho, York Theatre Royal, November 14, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Suzi Quatro: Using this iconic image from her first photographic session with Gered Mankowitz in 1973 to promote her 60th anniversary tour. York Barbican awaits
SUZI Quatro is marking the 60th year of her reign as “the Queen of Rock’n’Roll” by embarking on a five-date autumn tour.
On November 15, Suzi, 74, plays York Barbican, her only Yorkshire show and the first on the tour to sell out.
“It’s my 60th year in the business, and it still feels like I’ve just started,” she said, when announcing the tour. “Devil Gate Drive, number one, 51 years ago. Are you ready now? Let’s do it one more time for Suzi.”
Sixty years? Yes, Michigan-born singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, actress, poet novelist and radio presenter Suzi started out in bands in Detroit, playing concerts and teen clubs with Ted Nugent, Bob Seger and others, having first played bongos with her father Art’s jazz trio when she was eight.
“I started a band at 14,” she recalls. “I was in ninth or tenth grade. We worked the whole summer, going to New York.
“I talked to my dad about not going back to high school. He was on the phone, saying ‘is there anything I can say to change your mind?’.He quietly put the phone down and that was clever. It gave me time to pause and think about it. I made my choice: I would be in music for life.”
In May 1964, her sister Patti formed the group The Pleasure Seekers with Suzi on bass, leading to their first single coming out on the Hideout Records label in 1965, when Suzi was 15, Patti, 17.
Further singles Never Thought You’d Leave Me and Light Of Love followed in 1966 and 1968 respectively.
In 1971, Suzi flew to England to work with songwriting hit factory Chinn and Chapman after producer Mickie Most saw her perform live at the East Town Ballroom when in Detroit to record Jeff Beck at Motown.
Suzi expected to be in the UK for three months, but stayed. “I go back to America a lot but I haven’t lived there since 1971,” she says. The story goes that she did not take even a coat with her when first leaving.
Significantly, Suzi has used an iconic image from her first photographic session with Gered Mankowitz in 1973 to promote her 60th anniversary tour. The definitive one in the leather jump suit, as memorable as Mankowitz’s portrait of a teenage Kate Bush.
“I’ll try to make a long story short,” says Suzi, explaining how that look was born. “We’d recorded Can The Can and Mike [Chapman] said, it’s going to be number one’. I said, ‘we need to discuss the image’. I said ‘leather’; he said ‘No’, but I got my way.
“Then he suggested a jump suit, and he was right. People thought of it as very sexy, though I didn’t realise that at the time.”
The poster for Suzi Quatro’s 60th anniversary Rockin’ On tour
At the photo session, Mankowitz said, ‘OK, give me that Suzi Quatro look’. “I gave ‘the look’, and that’s when the Suzi Quatro look was created. It was new,” she says.
“I have finally, at the age of 74, accepted it. I didn’t know it at the time. I was just being who I am. I didn’t think it was unusual. I’d played bass since I was 14 but Mike kept saying I was unique.”
Chapman’s prediction was right: Suzi topped the UK charts in 1973 with the 2.5 million-selling Can The Can and had further hits that year with 48 Crash, Daytona Demon and the chart-topping Devil Gate Drive.
More UK hits would follow with Too Big, The Wild One, Your Mamma Won’t Like Me, Tear Me Apart, If You Can’t Give Me Love, She’s In Love With You and Mama’s Boy, her last UK Top 40 entry in 1979, peaking at number 34.
Her native United States was slower to catch on. “There were a lot of things happening on the other side of the world that America didn’t get then, but I did start touring in America in ’74. Happy Days was the thing that catapulted me to success there: the number one TV show. Suddenly they discovered me.”
Suzi made her first of seven appearances on Happy Days, playing Leather Tuscadero, the little sister of Fonzie’s ex-girlfriend Pinky, in 1977. “I then had a number four hit in the American Billboard Hot 100 with Stumblin’ In [her duet with Smokie’s Chris Norman] in 1978,” she says. Ironically, the song reached no higher than number 41 in the UK.
She may live between her Essex manor house and her husband’s German house, but America continues to play its part in her career. “I was in Detroit in September recording with Alice Cooper for my next album. I haven’t got a title yet but it’s got 14 songs, writing with Alice, and I’ve covered MC5’s Kick Out The Jams out of respect,” says Suzi.
“The next night Alice asked me to do School’s Out with him, on bass, which I’d never done before and had to learn real quick to play to 12,500 people at Pine Knob [Music Theatre], just outside Detroit. I was just grinning from ear to ear.
“I’ve known him since I was 15 years old. I did the Welcome To My Nightmare Tour with him in 1975 in America, and it really was a nightmare tour, though I loved it! It was a long tour, doing a couple of flights a day sometimes.”
As well as selling more than 55 million records – she featured in the UK charts for 101 weeks between 1973 and 1980 – Suzi has branched out into acting, writing novels and poetry, broadcasting, making her documentary film Suzi Q and presenting her autobiography Unzipped live in a one-woman show.
Suzi has been a ground-breaker. “Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, they all said , ‘none of us would have done what we did without Suzi Quatro’, which made me cry, as I didn’t realise what I’d done, but I can now accept it,” she says.
“It had to fall on someone like me because I didn’t know I was doing it, and if I had known, it would have looked manufactured. That’s why I’m still here because whatever you see, it’s real.
“It’s funny. When I’ve done big shows with other acts, you end up talking in the bar and usually the conversation gets round to me and how different I was. ‘But did it look like I was I was just being me,’ I asked, and they said ‘yes’.”
York pantomime dame Berwick Kaler: Suzi Quatro wrote a song for her best friend, The Queen Mother Of Rock’n’Roll
She describes herself as “really stubborn”, giving the example of make-up artists asking if they could make her “bushy” eyebrows smaller. “I said, ‘you can enhance them, but don’t change them, this is me’.”
In 2019, Liam Firmager directed the documentary Suzi Q. “I said yes as I’d always wanted to do one. When we met, he said, ‘I’m not a fan, but I like your music’. I said ‘OK, but why do you want to do a documentary about me?’,” Suzi recalls.
Firmager said he had been fascinated by her. ”I knew that as a ‘non-fan’, you’re going to get the truth, even the ‘cringe’ moments, and he did stick to that,” says Suzi.
“It’s great documentary. There’s nothing I didn’t know, but it brought it to the fore that I’m very family orientated, very soft inside. There’s little Suzi from Detroit and there’s Suzi Quatro, who strides out on stage.”
Suzi says she has a sharp tongue when she is pushed. “Don’t mess with me. I’m a deep thinker.”
How does she feel she has been treated in a male-dominated industry that has had its stories of women being exploited? “Absolutely fine, because I demand that,” says Suzi. “It’s all about my attitude. I’m from Detroit. I’ve got a quick mind. I’ve got a quick mouth. If you touch me inappropriately, you will have a soprano voice.
“My father brought me up to have balls and my mother’s teaching, as a strict Catholic girl, gave me my morals. There’s an invisible line [not to be crossed], but I can play the softer side too.”
What is her advice to women in the business? “You can be tough but don’t lose your femininity,” she says.
Next Friday’s show will be a two-hour set with an interval. “I’ll be taking you on a journey through my life, with a song from every album, two from the album I did with K T Tunstall [2023’s Face To Face], an eight-minute bass solo – it’s not boring! – and some clips on the screen.”
The Wild One will rock on, she vows. “I will retire when I go on stage, shake my ass, and there is silence,” she says. “I’ve always been the same and I will always be the same. I’ve never coasted and I never will.”
Looking forward to playing to a sold-out York audience, Suzi says: “My overall feeling is that I am grateful and I am so happy that people want to see me. I take it very seriously.”
Performing in York brings back memories of working with Berwick Kaler, the legendary, newly retired pantomime dame. “We worked together for about a year in Annie Get Your Gun. We’ve been friends ever since. He was the best man at my second wedding [to German concert promoter Rainer Haas]. He’s my best friend.
“He once asked me to write a song for the panto – I’ve been to his shows many times – and wrote The Queen Mother Of Rock’n’Roll for him.”
The Highwayman cast of Lancastrian actor-musician Dylan Allcock, left, Yorkshire actress Jo Patmore, Emilio Encinoso-Gil, last seen in the John Godber Company’s Do I Love You?, and Godber Theatre Foundation member Matheea Ellerby. Picture: Ian Hodgson
JOHN Godber has written more than 70 plays, invariably reflecting present-day concerns, woes and joys with humour as dry as a Yorkshire stone wall.
The Highwayman, riding into York Theatre Royal Studio from Thursday to Saturday next week, is different. “It’s the first time I’ve gone back into history,” says writer-director John, now 68, introducing his theatrical adventure where “history has never felt so modern.”
Before any nay’sayer points out he co-wrote Moby Dick with fellow Yorkshire playwright Nick Lane, that one does not count as it was an adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel.
This one is all John’s own work, albeit with the heavy hand of history leaning on him. “The year is 1769, when Yorkshire’s population had exploded, the races at York were packed, the new theatre in Hull thriving, and the spa towns full,” says John.
“Yorkshire was the place to be; a region drunk on making money, social climbing, gambling and gin, but with wealth in abundance, the temptation was great.”
Cue The Highwayman, “an exciting and exhilarating romp through history, where history has never felt so modern, theft never more attractive”. “I’m so excited to be bringing The Highwayman to the York Theatre Royal,” says John. “I cannot think of a better city to stage a show about highwaymen, this play coming from the region where Turpin was caught and Nevison made his great leap.”
Why head back into history now, John? “OK, two things. Many things actually. Dick Turpin was arrested in the village I used to live in, North Ferriby, [after shooting his landlord’s cockerel and threatening to kill the landlord, allegedly in the Green Dragon pub in Welton], so there is that story.
“I’d always been sure that Dick Turpin was a good subject for an East Yorkshire tour. Secondly, John Nevison was most likely to have been the man who rode from York to London on Black Bess, and Nevison was from Pontefract, just down the road from where I was born in Upton, and one of the main storing points for his booty was in Wentbridge, two miles from where I was born. The great leap he made to get away from the rozzers was across an estuary near Pontefract.”
John continues the background story. “That’s only part of the reason. The other was Tate Wilkinson [who managed York Theatre Royal for 36 years in the 18th century] . As an actor, he used to tour the northern circuit of Wakefield, Barnsley, Hull, York, Doncaster and Leeds, like my plays do now, and he opened the Hull Old Theatre in Hull, in Lowgate, too,” he says.
“I met up with Dr David Wilmore, the world expert on Frank Matcham’s theatres, who lives in North Yorkshire, to talk about the Assizes, how people went to watch the races at York and the hangings too, and in the late 1780s, you’re talking of 100,000 people watching the public hangings.
“This was the levelling up of a different era, so I then started looking at the £22 billion black hole today and thought, ‘if you had no money, what might you be led to do?’, and that’s when all these factors came into my thinking that I’d like to write a play about highwayman, though my character is an invention…”
…“There’s something else you need to know. You know my interest in Brecht and The Threepenny Opera…and The Beggar’s Opera. That was written by John Gay and produced by John Ridge, who had worked with Tate Wilkinson in the early part of his career.”
Put all this together and you have the model for Godber’s highwayman John Swift and his partner Molly May. “She’s referenced in Thin Lizzy’s hit Whiskey In The Jar, which happens to be a song about highwaymen!” says John.
Writer-director John Godber
The Highwayman was sparked by a request from East Riding Theatre in Beverley. “I was approached by ERT to write a play to mark the theatre’s tenth birthday, and I thought, ‘why not do something quite different and relevant to the district?’,” John says.
“We opened at the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond [North Yorkshire], where Tate Wilkinson played in the 1790s. That theatre was set up by Samuel Butler, who is buried in St Mary’s churchyard in Beverley.”
History is piling on history in John’s production. “The Woodland Scene, the oldest existing piece of stage scenery in the world, is in the Georgian Theatre’s museum, so I asked if we could replicate it in The Highwayman as we’re setting the play in Georgian times,” says John.
The resulting play has this period setting but with modern dialogue. “The ‘temptation’ in the play’s story leads the highywayman John Swift to come back from fighting the war in France thinking, ‘how am I going to make a living?’, particularly in the rural north,” says John. “So we’re looking at ‘what would you do if you had nothin’ – and with all the wealth around him, there was a lot of thieving to be done.”
What happens in The Highwayman, John? “The narrative starts with the highwayman’s hanging, which is ‘not a great start to a play’ he says, so he takes us back to when he is about to be hanged. Did you know, many of these hangings were unsuccessful and people sometimes survived? Our highwayman survives and because he does so, he changes his outlook to longer rob and work the land instead, and work for Tate Wilkinson too,” he says.
“But things don’t go to plan as his wife, Molly May, likes to spend, so he he goes up the coast on a ship and comes back with lots of goblets but still not enough to satisfy Molly.”
His story arc takes in pirates, the Royal Navy and highwayman John being sentenced to death again, waiting in Newgate Prison to be hanged for a second time. In the meantime, Molly May progresses from a cottage industry, pressing flowers, to inventing scented candles and becoming extremely wealthy from the perfume business at Floris. Whereas he keeps on running out of luck, Molly May takes advantage of opportunistic entrepreneurship.
“It’s been great fun to research the play, finding things I wasn’t aware of, like when you were about to be hanged, you could request a song, though you had to pay for it” says John.
The play may have an historical setting but “it’s a parable for today, close to an allegory. It’s been fascinating to do because it’s very, very different from what I’ve done before, but people come up to me and day, ‘mate, it’s happening now’.”
Reflecting on the early months of the new Labour Government, John says: “I have always voted Labour but I think this might be the last time. I believe we have lost touch with what people who have nothing are feeling. Also, university student fees going up: what’s that going to do?
“I’m not a Trump fan, but what we’re seeing [in America] is a failing of liberal education and a failure to understand what people on the ground are feeling.”
Looking ahead, John’s daughter, Elizabeth, has arranged a John Godber Company tour next year of his hit Northern Soul play Do I Love You?, booked into York Theatre Royal for June 10 to 14 on its 22-week itinerary. For tickets, go to: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
John Godber Company presents The Highwayman, York Theatre Royal Studio, November 14 to 16, 7.45pm plus 2pm Friday and Saturday matinees, SOLD OUT. Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Actress, assistant stage manager and University of York alumna Georgia May Firth
SINCE graduating from the University of York in 2023, actress Georgia May Firth has taken a circuitous route to her making professional debut in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of).
“I was a witch on the York Witches and History Walking Tour, a Victorian maid at the Sherlock Holmes Museum [in London], then very randomly I became a dog food salesman – and then this job came along through the grapevine,” she says, on her return to York for this week’s run at York Theatre Royal.
“I heard about this touring production and was originally applying to be an assistant stage manager, but I mentioned I happened to be an actor too and was originally hired to be a book-cover understudy to the cast as well as an ASM.
“But then ten days into rehearsal, Susie [Barrett] took over from Eleanor [Kane], becoming our Anne for this run of shows until Eleanor rejoins in the New Year.”
In turn, Georgia is now Susie’s understudy in a multi-role involvement that takes in not only servant Anne, but also Mary Bennet, Lydia Bennet and Mr Gardiner, and she is covering for Christine Steel’s role too as Clara, Jane Bennet, Lady Catherine de Burgh and George Wickham.
“We’ve been touring since the beginning of September – though it feels like it’s been years already! – but I’m yet to go on. So, hopefully in York, but also not hopefully, as I want everyone to be well,” says Georgia.
“I’m so eager, but the nice thing is that as assistant stage manager I get to watch the show every night, so I don’t feel too far removed.”
In Isobel McArthur’s audacious re-telling of a certain Jane Austen novel, the stakes could not be higher in the early 19th century game of high society match-making as men, money and microphones are fought over.
“To begin with, it’s such a well-known and well-loved story,” says Georgia. “Before I’d even seen the show, I was a massive fan of the book, and so I came to the play with a bit of scepticism as I thought, ‘I’m not sure I want to make fun of it’, but Isobel has such a sense of love and respect for Austen’s story from the beginning. So much heart has gone into the script.
“Absolute chaos” in Isobel McArthur’s Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of) after Jane Austen
“You can tell Isobel really loves the book, and there was a lot of discussion at the start of rehearsals about what we all thought of it, the love she shows for the characters, which has then built into the absolute chaos on stage that’s so much fun. The pace never drops. It’s a good two hours flat out but it feels like you’re only on there for half an hour!”
McArthur’s “party time” version of Pride And Prejudice is told by the servants, kitted out throughout in black work boots as they work flat out at each of the posh houses where high society passes the day fretting and frothing over match-making.
“It really lends itself to multi role-playing, with lots of quick costume changes – and those costumes are phenomenal,” says Georgia. “Not only are they so beautiful, but they also need to be able to whipped off and the next one thrown on. It’s chaos!”
Georgia has enjoyed working with writer Isobel in the director’s chair. “It was so special to have her in the rehearsal room with us, especially as she was in the original cast,” she says. “We’ve kept it like Isobel performed it, but she wasn’t precious about it being her play, instead treating it as a gift for us all to play with.
“It was a case of ‘what do you think your character would do now or be thinking now?’ It was such a lovely atmosphere to work in; Isobel was a lovely presence to have around and such an inspiration.
“This is my first professional job and some of the girls’ first touring job, and Isobel has made it so calm for us. For her to be there, making us all feel part of the same team, all on one level, all wanting to achieve the same things, has made for a wonderful show.”
Georgia studied theatre when attending Langwith College at the University of York, performing such roles as Athena in Athena, Teodoro in The Dog In The Manger and Martha in That Face. “I basically stayed with Drama Society productions [at the Drama Barn], rather doing shows with York companies, but I did do Stones On The River Bed at the Green Shoots festival at York Theatre Royal,” she recalls.
Originally from Frodsham, Georgia left York for London last year, and now returns this week. Will she finally break her professional stage duck on understudy duty on familiar ground? Wait and see.
Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
On song in Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of) at York Theatre Royal all this week. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic
THIS rollicking, risqué, irreverent romp through Pride And Prejudice is not to be confused with the work of Austentatious, “an entirely improvised comedy play in the style of Jane Austen” that changes with every performance and audience suggestion.
This is very definitely Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of), penned with waspish wit by Isobel McArthur “after Austen” to Olivier Award-winning success for Best Comedy.
McArthur, who also won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Emerging Talent, now directs the Newcastle Theatre Royal/David Pugh & Cunard touring production of her West End smash, and what a joyous society ball after society ball of delight it is.
In an Upstairs Downstairs world, McArthur has five cheeky servants, in their cleaning Marigolds and work boots, introducing Austen’s love story from the Downstairs perspective, as important to the retelling as the Witches in Macbeth or a Greek chorus in ancient Greek dramas but with oodles of offhand humour.
Susie Barrett, Emma Rose Creaner, Rhianna McGreevy, Naomi Preston Low and Christine Steel will each play multiple characters, from all the Bennets to the suitors, suitable or unsuitable, and the terrifying aunt in Lady Bracknell mode. Oh, and these Bennet sisters are doing it for themselves, all with differing accents, whether Scottish, Irish, Midlands or Yorkshire.
McArthur’s tone is at once faithful yet anarchic. Well, as faithful as the leaflet trailer would indicate: “It’s the 1800s. It’s party time. Let the ruthless match-making begin.” “Party time” is the perfect excuse to perform pop nuggets such as Will You Love Me Tomorrow, You’re So Vain and the closing Young Hearts Run Free in 19th century frocks and sometimes adapted lyrics pertinent to the character.
It can be like watching a talent show-fostered girl group or those oh-so competitive pop Queens in Six, the other all-female hit doing the touring rounds.
Equally, you could bring to mind Absolutely Fabulous, Derry Girls or Phoebe Waller Bridge’s audacious writing for Fleabag and Killing Eve, while the multi-role playing at breath-taking pace echoes the affectionate satire of the much-missed Lip Service or Patrick Barlow’s take on The 39 Steps.
This is not to draw comparison with those works. McArthur’s Pride And Prejudice is not sort of any of them. It is fabulous, funny, frank and filthy in its own right: you will cheer at Preston Low’s potty-mouthed Elizabeth Bennet – as feisty as Freya Parks’s Jo March in Little Women at the Theatre Royal last month – firing off an Eff Off with both barrels. How appropriate her servant role should be called Effie!
Emma Rose Creaner, an uncorked pocket dynamo from Cork, is a riot as Charles Bingley and even more so as his acerbic, spoilt sister Miss Bingley.
Rhianna McGreevy has a touch of the AbFabs as match-making Mrs Bennet, forever in need of a stiff drink, and her Fitzwilliam Darcy is even better, with the ever-so-gradual loosening of his stuffed shirt, the pricking of his insufferable pomposity, the tongue either tied or acidic. Go (Colin) Firth and multiply by ten, but then comes the climactic scene with Preston Low’s Elizabeth, the confession of love, so clumsy but sincere, beautifully delivered and yes, romantic too.
You will enjoy Barrett’s exasperated teenage Mary Bennet and especially Steel’s scene-stealing Lady Catherine de Burgh, the cue to unleash Chris de Burgh’s Lady In Red, a smart cultural reference typical of McArthur’s humour, matched by the nod to Firth’s notorious lake scene from the 1995 BBC mini-series.
Praise too for the comedy staging Jo Houben and Ana Ines Jabares-Pita’s flamboyant costumes and set design with its stairwell so suited to grand entrances and girl-group pop performances alike and the high-speed use of doors for surprise entries and exits. Without giving anything away, look out for the horse too.
For maximum pleasure, it does help to know Austen’s story – then again, who didn’t at Monday’s packed press night?! – but the raucous humour, the romance, the irreverence, has such brio, surely everyone will have a ball. Party time indeed, just perfect for these November nights.
Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Livy Potter as Katy, left, and Alice Rose Palmer, as mum Natalie, in Louise Beech’s How To Be Brave at Gilling East Village Hall and Helmsley Arts Centre
FROM a devilish yet dotty canine musical to comedians having their moment, a film festival to glowing ghosts, Charles Hutchinson spots plenty to light up dark days ahead.
Touring play of the week: Other Lives Productions in How To Be Brave, Gilling East Village Hall, tomorrow, 7.30pm, and Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
IN 1943, Merchant Seaman Colin Armitage’s cargo ship was torpedoed by an Italian Navy submarine in the South Atlantic. He scrambled aboard a life raft. Fifty days later, HMS Rapid rescued him.
Colin was the grandfather of How To Be Brave playwright Louise Beech. Sixty-four years after his ordeal, Louise’s daughter, Katy, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In order to distract her during insulin injections Louise began to tell the story of Colin’s bravery and determination to survive.
Scenes in this resulting play alternate between the life raft and a house in Hull as York actors Jacob Ward and Livy Potter take the lead roles in Kate Veysey’s production. Box office: Gilling East, gillinjgeastevents@hotmail.co.uk; Helmsley, 01439 771700.
Man of The Moment: Ali Woods, playing York Barbican on his debut stand-up tour
Comedy men of The Moment: Mo Gilligan, In The Moment, York Barbican, tomorrow,8pm; Ali Woods, At The Moment, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
THE moment has arrived for two comedy tour dates with similar show titles, first up the host of Channel 4’s The Lateish Show With Mo Gilligan, Londoner Mo Gilligan, on his In The Moment World Tour 2024.
The following night, half-English, half-Scottish comedian, podcaster and content creator Ali Woods plays York on his debut stand-up tour. At 30, this viral online sketch sensation has finally fallen in love with an amazing lady. “Come on an embarrassing and cathartic journey of teenage angst, relationship fails and learning how to live in the moment,” he says. Tickets update: available for both shows, whereas An Audience With Monty Don (November 11), Jamie Cullum (November 12), Sarah Millican: Late Bloomer (November 14) and Suzi Quatro ( November 15) have sold out already. Box office: yortkbarbican.co.uk.
Artist CJP with his work The Majestic Oak at Art Of Protest Gallery, York
Exhibition of the week: From Little Acorns Grow Mighty Hopes: An Exhibition of Hand-drawn Natural Wonders, Art of Protest Gallery, Walmgate, York, until November 16
ART Of Protest is the first gallery to show CJP’s work The Majesty Oak in an exhibition of original and rare limited-edition artwork. Look out for the Art Of Protest York Special Edition, only available to be ordered until November 16, featuring the River Ouse-dwelling Tansy Beetle, an elusive insect featured on a resplendent mural near York railway station.
“This is an amazing opportunity to own a truly unique celebration of British fauna with a very special York twist,” says gallery owner Craig Humble. “CJP will add a Tansy Beetle to each piece, along with the gold leafing of the branches.”
Very definitely Pride Of Prejudice * (*Sort Of), sending up Jane Austen affectionately in Isobel McArthur’s play at York Theatre Royal
Theatrical flourish of the week: Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
MEN, money and microphones will be fought over in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), the audacious retelling of a certain Jane Austen novel, where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance but it’s party time, so expect the all-female cast to deliver such emotionally turbulent pop gems as You’re So Vain and Young Hearts Run Free.
Writer Isobel McArthur directs this new production of her West End hit, Olivier Award winner for best comedy. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
In the driving seat: Kym Marsh’s Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians The Musical. Picture: Johan Persson
Dog show of the week: 101 Dalmatians The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm today, Thursday and Saturday matinees
KYM Marsh’s Cruella De Vil leads the cast for this musical tour of Dodie Smith’s canine caper 101 Dalmatians. Written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics) and Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris, the show is re-imagined from the 2022 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London.
When fashionista Cruella De Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, trouble lies ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of tail-wagging young pups in a story brought to stage life with puppetry, choreography, humorous songs and, yes, puppies. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
3 Missing 10 Hours, directed by Fanni Fazakas, showing in the Animation programme at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024
York festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, today to Sunday, and UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO, Guildhall, York, Thursday to Saturday
THE BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival returns for its 14th year under the direction of Cherie Federico, this time integrating the tenth anniversary of York’s designation as Great Britain’s only UNESCO City of Media Arts. Fifteen venues will play host to 300 film screenings in 12 genres, Virtual Realty and Gaming labs, plus 60 panels, workshops and discussions. For the full programme and tickets, head to asff.co.uk.
The UNESCO EXPO will showcase the region’s creative sector, working in film production, games development, VFX (visual effects), publishing and design, with the chance to try out new projects and speak to creatives. Entry to the Guildhall is free.
Ghosts After Dark: New nocturnal complement to the Ghosts In The Gardens installation in York Museum Gardens
Nocturnal event of the week: Ghosts After Dark, York Museums Gardens, tomorrow to Sunday, 6.30pm to 9.30pm; last entry, 8.30pm
YORK Museums Trust and the York BID present the inaugural Ghosts After Dark, showcasing York’s rich tapestry of historical figures with light, sound and storytellers for four nights only.
Ticketholders will have the exclusive chance to experience York Museum Gardens like never before, by choosing their own path to explore 46 ghostly sculptures, hidden around the gardens and lit dynamically against an atmospheric background of smoke and sound. Box office: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/ghosts-after-dark/.
Fishermen’s Friends: Playing York Barbican this week, then returning next October
Gig announcements of the week: Fisherman’s Friends, York Barbican, October 3 2025
IN celebration of performing sea shanties for more than 30 years across the world, Fisherman’s Friends will head out from the Cornish fishing village of Port Isaac to play a British tour split between 2025 and 2026.
York will come early, booked for night number two next October on a 32-date itinerary announced even before they have played their sold-out Barbican gig on Friday this week on their Rock The Boat tour, promoting fifth album All Aboard. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
