Black’n’White the Zebra and Hiran Abeysekera (Pi) in Life Of Pi, bound for Leeds Grand Theatre from Wednesday. Picture: Johan Persson
DRAMAS, circus, musical theatre, rock’n’roll, sorrowful folk, one more pantomime and the return of forest concerts attract Charles Hutchinson’s attention.
Theatre event of the week: Life Of Pi, Leeds Grand Theatre, January 10 to 13; 2pm and 7pm, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; 7.30pm, Friday
WINNER of five Olivier Awards, not least Best Play, the West End spectacle Life Of Pi is heading north on its debut British tour with its combination of jaw-dropping visuals, magic and puppetry.
Adapted from Yann Martel’s 15 million-selling, 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning fantasy novel, Life Of Pi finds Pi stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive on this epic journey of endurance and hope. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or leedsheritagetheatres.com.
The poster for Meat Loaf By Candlelight at Grand Opera House, York
Tribute show of the week: Meat Loaf By Candlelight, Grand Opera House, York, January 12, 7.30pm
STARS of the original West End and international productions of Bat Out Of Hell will be accompanied by a rock band in a tribute to Texan rock-operatic singer and actor Meat Loaf “as you have never heard before”.
On the Meat Loaf menu will be I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That), Bat Out Of Hell, Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad, Dead Ringer For Love, You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through et al. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Cirque: Combining musical theatre bangers and circus skills at York Barbican
Move over PT Barnum and Hugh Jackman: Cirque: The Greatest Show, York Barbican, January 13, 2pm and 6pm
CIRQUE: The Greatest Show combines West End and Broadway musical theatre showstoppers with spectacular circus skills, ranging from aerialists and contortionists to thrilling feats of agility and flair.
West End performers join with mesmerising circus acts in the all-star cast for an enchanting variety show that vows to “charm and astonish in equal measure”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Peter Panto: The PQA York pantomime at the JoRo Theatre
Still time to squeeze in another pantomime: PQA York in Peter Panto, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, January 14, 7.30pm
PETER Panto, the high-flying PQA Pantomime, features the talented young performers of the Pauline Quirke Academy York’s Friday Academy.
Join Peter Pan as he flies off on a new adventure for one night only in a show featuring “stunning visuals, gorgeous music and barrel-loads of laughter on a swashbuckling journey to Neverland unlike any before”. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Showaddywaddy’s 50th anniversary tour, taking in Grand Opera House, York
Hey, rock and roll nostalgia: Showaddywaddy 50th Anniversary Tour, Grand Opera House, York, January 19, 7.30pm
FORMED in Leicester in 1973, Showaddywaddy like to call themselves “the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world”. Their 50th anniversary travels rock’n’roll on into 2024 with a line-up featuring only one original member, drummer Romeo Challenger, aged 73.
Dave Bartram, the singer on such hits as Hey Rock And Roll, Under The Moon Of Love, Three Steps To Heaven, When, Blue Moon and Pretty Little Angel Eyes, now manages the band, having performed his last gig in Ilkley in 2011. Andy Pelos takes lead vocals. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Angeline Morrison: Performing songs of sorrow at the NCEM, York
Leaping ahead: Angeline Morrison, National Centre for Early Music, York, February 29, 7.30pm
SEEKING to make the most of the extra day in this Leap Year? Why not discover why the Guardian picked Angeline Morrison’s The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs Of Black British Experience (Topic Records) as the number one folk album of 2022.
Birmingham-born, Cornwall-based folk singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Morrison explores traditional song with reverence, love and curiosity, a handmade sonic aesthetic and a feeling for the stories of ordinary human lives. York singer-songwriter Holly Taymar supports. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Paul French: Soon to play Major role in Separate Tables at York Theatre Royal Studio
Classic play of the season: York Settlement Community Players in Separate Tables, York Theatre Royal Studio, February 8 to 17, 7.45pm except Sunday and Monday, plus 2pm Saturday matinees
AFTER directing four Russian plays by Chekhov, Helen Wilson turns her attention to Separate Tables, two very English Terence Rattigan tales of love and loss, set in a shabby Bournemouth hotel in the 1950s.
Guests, both permanent and transient, sit on separate tables, a formality that underlines the loneliness of these characters in a play about class, secrets and repressed emotions. Chris Meadley, Paul French, Marie-Louise Feeley, Caroline Greenwood and Linda Fletcher lead the Settlement cast. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Bryan Adams: Canadian rocker will play Dalby Forest on June 21
Going down to the woods again at last: Forest Live concerts, Dalby Forest, near Pickering, June 21 and 22; gates open at 4pm
FOREST Live concerts are to return to Dalby Forest for the first time since Paul Weller and Jess Glynne’s shows in June 2019. Covid put paid to 2020, since when three more silent summers have passed in the woods, but the hiatus will come to an end after Forestry England’s announcement of two outdoor gigs for 2024.
Bryan Adams, forever associated with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You’s 16-week chart-topping run from the 1991 film soundtrack to the forest tale of Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, will play on June 21. Nile Rodgers & CHIC will be supported by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Deco on June 22. Ellis-Bextor previously guested at Erasure’s Dalby date in 2011. Box office: forestlive.com.
Nile Rodgers: Good times ahead at Dalby Forest on June 22 in the company of CHIC
In the line-up for Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios in the York Theatre Royal Studio next March: top row, Sarah Rumfitt, left, Kate Bramley, Connie Peel and Nicola Holliday; second row, Jules Risingham, Tempest Wisdom and Bailey Dowler; third row, Yixia Jiang, Jacob Ward and Claire Morley; bottom row, Paul Birch, Harri Marshall and Livy Potter
AFTER receiving more than four times as many applications as commissions available, York theatre company Next Door But One has assembled the next band of Yorkshire Trios – and a quartet – for March 2024.
“That many applicants is a sign of a few things,” says chief executive officer and artistic director Matt Harper-Hardcastle. “Just the sheer amount of talent that is within the local area; that there’s still a need after Covid for local creatives to be supported to get their own work out there, and hopefully that we as a company are seen as approachable and that people want to connect with us.”
Through a series of micro-commissions, York actors, writers and directors are being supported by NDB1 to produce original, short pieces of theatre that celebrate their individual skill and creativity.
“The brief is to create a five to 15-minute solo performance that in some way responds to the overall theme of ‘Top of the Hill’, so this is already resulting in stories of motherhood, grief, love, war and even Kate Bush!” says Matt.
“The writers are working on their second draft after receiving dramaturgical support from our team, and then rehearsals will begin in the early new year.”
The artists taking part will be Sarah Rumfitt, Kate Bramley, Connie Peel, Nicola Holliday, Jules Risingham, Tempest Wisdom, Bailey Dowler, Yixia Jiang, Jacob Ward, Claire Morley, Paul Birch, Harri Marshall and Livy Potter.
“This version is really building on everything that we learned and achieved from the first time around,” says Next Door But One artistic director Matthew Harper-Hardcastle
They will be working towards a showcase of original performances at York Theatre Royal next March, with more details on performance dates and how to book tickets to be released in the new year.
NDB1’s inaugural 2021 showcase of Yorkshire Trios in the garden performance space of The Gillygate pub marked the first live show in York after the lifting of Covid restrictions.
“At the time, many local performing arts professionals were feeling disconnected from their artistry and were extremely anxious about the future of their careers,” recalls Matt.
“So we listened to their concerns and created a series of micro-commissions to form new collaborative trios of an actor, writer and director, from which original work could be produced.”
One 2021 creative described Yorkshire Trios as “a total lifeline; a lighthouse in a stormy sea”. “Since then, Next Door But One has supported a further 44 creatives with mentoring in such areas as job applications and funding bid writing,” says Matt.
Yixia Jiang: Writing Love Letters Before Dawn for Yorkshire Trios
“We’ve always wanted to be an approachable company where creatives can hang their hat. We really believe in investing in the York cultural ecology, so this new iteration of Yorkshire Trios sits alongside our professional development programme, Opening Doors, and our Company Coaching provision.
“That provision is giving quarterly business and peer mentoring to five arts-based companies, Thunk-It Theatre, Story Craft Theatre, Terpsichoring dance company, Moon Dust and CoCreate, each with a different focus and at different stages of their development.”
Looking forward to next March’s showcase, NDB1 associate director Kate Veysey says: “It was really encouraging and humbling to read people’s honest reflections on what Yorkshire Trios could do for them within the application process.
“Some who had never been able to showcase their work in their hometown, others who had faced challenges in creating a professional network or establishing their careers on their own terms, and others who really respected our work and wanted to align their practice with our values. We feel really confident in being able to offer solutions to these points through this project.”
Emerging writer Yixia Jiang’s play Love Letters Before Dawn will be performed by Claire Morley, directed by Jacob Ward. “Working with this group of amazing people in York gives me a chance to take a glance into the local theatre industry and help establish myself as a playwright here,” he says.
York actor Bailey Dowler will perform Jules Risingham’s Anorak under the direction of Tempest Wisdom. “I wanted to get involved with Yorkshire Trios because there’s a lot of local talent in York and this is a perfect opportunity to widen my creative circle,” says Bailey.
“I cannot wait to work so closely with a writer and director. It’s such a rarity to have a one-to-one experience in the rehearsal room and so I’m excited to collaborate together, creating beautiful theatre, fuelled with passion.
“Next Door But One has a fantastic support system and I’m looking forward to being mentored and learning more about the process of creating a play, from outside the eyes of an actor.”
Fellow actor Nicola Holliday will present Sarah Rumfitt’s Toast, directed by Kate Bramley, artistic director of Badapple Theatre Company, and Connie Peel. “Having heard from friends what an incredible and inclusive company NDB1 was to work with, I was eager for the opportunity and chuffed to bits to be cast in Yorkshire Trios,” says Nicola.
“As an autistic, full-time working parent, finding flexible inclusive work can be a challenge and being welcomed with open arms, kindness and understanding by the whole NDB1 team has been lovely.
Nicola Holliday: Performer for Sarah Rumfitt’s Toast
“Meeting my Yorkshire quartet, such a talented creative and passionate bunch of local folks, I cannot wait to see our piece grow and develop, to be really challenged as an actor and to make some more meaningful connections here in York.”
Writer Sarah Rumfitt says: “Yorkshire Trios has given me an opportunity to explore my own voice within writing, something I have had little time for since becoming a mum.
“Being a creative is incredibly rewarding but also at times lonely. After an initial meeting with NDB1 and the other trios, I already feel more connected and part of an exciting community of Yorkshire-based creatives.”
Co-director Kate Bramley adds: “I’m really delighted to be working with Next Door But One on a brand new short play and mentoring another young director to boot, which makes us a unique four-person ‘trio’! I’ll be very excited to get started in the New Year.”
The fourth Yorkshire Trio comprises writer Paul Birch, actor Livy Potter and director Harri Marshall, combining on Running Up That Hill, the Kate Bush one.
Now that all the Yorkshire Trios have been introduced to one another, they can start creating performances that “really reflect who they are”. “We’ve provided the stimuli of ‘Top of The Hill’,” says NDB1 creative engagement manager El Stannage. “Not only because it then provides an overall theme to the final performances, but also because it brings a bit of the NDB1 ethos into the process.
Writer Sarah Rumfitt: Toast pops up at Next Door But One’s Yorkshire Trios showcase
“As a team, we often talk about what it’s like for us at the ‘top of the hill’; what it looks like when we are at our best, and that’s really what we want to instil in our trios. We want to celebrate each of them and applaud the incredible talent in our area.”
Highlighting how the 2024 Yorkshire Trios will differ from 2021, Matt says: “This version is really building on everything that we learned and achieved from the first time around.
“We’ve scheduled our Opening Doors programme to run alongside Yorkshire Trios this year, so we can offer development workshops for all the actors, writers and directors. We’ve included additional mentoring or adapted roles to suit the desired outcomes of certain creatives.
“The showcase of work will be performed in the York Theatre Royal Studio so we’ll be able to include more aesthetic decisions. And finally, we’ve reduced the number of commissions this time around so that we can increase the commission sum so that it’s more reflective of the work and energy each creative puts into it.”
Matt is delighted that the chosen artists are so diverse in representing York’s arts community in 2024. “As a company we really lead with who we are, and as an LGBTQ+ and disability-led company, we call to others who want to do the same, or want to be in those same spaces,” he says.
“Then the more that happens, the more others see themselves represented in both the industry and on stage, which then calls to more people, and so the process continues. So, it was really important to us that we had a real diversity across our trios, both in terms of identity and also experiences/stages in their career.”
The 2024 Yorkshire Trios – and a quartet
Kate Bramley: Co-directing Sarah Rumfitt’s Toast
Toast by Sarah Rumfitt
Performed by Nicola Holliday and directed by Kate Bramley and Connie Peel
AFTER giving birth, the midwife brings you toast; simple, medium cut, white Hovis that’s done a quick dip in the toaster, barely browned, overly buttered but the best thing Becky’s ever tasted. If only she knew what was coming…she’d have asked for the full loaf. Following a year-long struggle with post-natal depression, Becky and her son set off on their first walk together; they are going to the top of the hill; a place Becky would often walk alone before becoming “Mum”.
Livy Potter: Performing Paul Birch’s Running Up That Hill
Running Up That Hill by Paul Birch
Performed by Livy Potter and directed by Harri Marshall
ALEX is lost. Alex hates running but loves Kate Bush. They know all the facts about Kate Bush. Kate Bush drinks milk before recording and knows Lenny Henry. Alex is
running and Kate’s voice seems to help. Hill running is the worst and one (bastard) hill has them (almost) beat. This is the story of what Alex is running from and what they are running towards.
Prison is behind them as is their escape from a controlling relationship. Running up that hill is presently painful but it’s a different kind of pain from the past; besides, running up that hill might finally give Alex a clear view…
Harri Marshall: Directing Running Up That Hill
Love Letters Before Dawn by Yixia Jiang
Performed by Claire Morley and directed by Jacob Ward
A SOLDIER has been defending a battlefield from a hill for the past 100 days. Today he has given up on all chances to defend this place. All hopes seem lost.
However, the soldier keeps hold of his bravery and pride by remembering his fallen commander’s words: “We don’t persist because there is hope. It’s because of persisting, there shall be hope.”
Jacob Ward: Directing Yixia Jiang’s Love Letters Before Dawn
Anorak by Jules Risingham
Performed by Bailey Dowler and directed by Tempest Wisdom
THOMAS (no relation to The Tank Engine) loves trains. His whole life has been spent chasing trains, and always chasing after him was his partner, Charlie. Charlie did not like trains but loved Thomas. Thomas sits alone in his camping chair, on the top of his and Charlie’s favourite hill, looking down on the valley below, waiting for a train to pass that never seems to arrive.
With little to write about in his journal, he spends this time reflecting on his life with Charlie – and working out how to overcome his newfound grief. Thomas achieves a new understanding of grief, and how to keep living in the absence of our loved ones.
Laura Kaye Thomson, Ewan S Pires and Finn Kebbe in Concete Youth’s The Whispering Jungle. All photos: Charles Flint
THE Whispering Jungle, Concrete Youth’s new multi-sensory theatre production for young audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities, plays York Theatre Royal Studio on Thursday and Friday.
The 50-minute show was developed off the back of Concrete Youth’s pioneering ASMR Project, an international research project that brought together British, American and Singaporean academics, artists and professionals to explore for the very first time the impact of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) on people labelled with these disabilities.
What can humans do to make the world better for rainforest animals, ask Concrete Youth in The Whispering Jungle. Laura Kaye Thomson sets to work, brush in hand
The ASMR Project’s research findings from 750 people led to this stage production being developed by Hull company Concrete Youth in association with Mercury Theatre, Colchester, supported by Arts Council England, Hull City Council and Back To Ours.
Bringing together ASMR, sensory play and sensory puppets, the immersive The Whispering Jungle invites the audience to help the animals of the rainforest realise that home really is wherever you are with your family.
Ewan S Pires in a scene from The Whispering Jungle
In the story, the Turtle (Ewan S Pires), the Monkey (Finn Kebbe) and the Bird (Laura Kaye Thomson) have all lost their home after men in big, bright, yellow jackets chopped down all the trees.
Now the animals are forced to fend for themselves, make their own new homes and pick up the pieces of the mess left behind by humans. How will they cope on their own? What can humans do to make the world better for rainforest animals? And why is the Turtle so clumsy?
Hard hats at the ready for Ewan S Pires, left, Laura Kaye Thomson and Finn Kebbe
Discover the answers in performances at 11am and 1.30pm on both days. Tickets can be booked on 01904 623568or viaboxoffice@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Watch the tour trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M3EINUA1yg.
The Whispering Jungle was devised by the company with music, lyrics and musical direction by Frew, lyrics and direction by Belle Streeton, set design by Lu Herbert, sound design by Tom Smith, puppet design by Amy Nicholson and lighting design by Jessie Addinall. Daniel Smith is the creative producer and associate director.
Finn Kebbe playing the Monkey in Concrete Youth’s The Whispering Jungle
Anna Johnston as Cate in Next Door But One’s She Was Walking Home. Picture: James Drury
WHEN York community arts collective Next Door But One first took She Was Walking Home on tour in 2022, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had just released data on safety in different public settings.
One in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home or in a busy public place, and two out of three women aged 16 to 34 had experienced one form of harassment in the previous 12 months.
Now, as NDB1 take their revived testimonial-based performance to schools, colleges and universities throughout York and North Yorkshire, as well as to York Theatre Royal Studio tonight (5/10/2023), the need for more conversations around women’s safety and the role we all play in it has been strengthened by a report from the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
It reveals that more than half a million offences against women and girls were recorded in England and Wales between October 1 2021 and March 31 2022 and that violence against women and girls accounts for at least 15.8 per cent of all recorded crime.
Director Kate Veysey in rehearsal for Next Door But One’s She Was Walking Home. Picture: James Drury
First produced as an audio walk around York city centre in 2021, She Was Walking Home is a series of monologues created by writer Rachel Price from the testimonies of women living, working and studying in York.
“This project was initially called into action by the female creatives and participants we work with, who were all having more and more conversations around their own safety after a number of attacks and murders reported in the media,” says director Kate Veysey.
“With each stage of development, it has been the community that has guided us: the audio walk was created from 33 testimonies of local women; the 2022 tour was produced through feedback from listeners who wished to bring their friends, colleagues and social groups to engage in the conversation.
“The resounding message from that audience was the want from parents for their children to see this, for teachers wanting their schools to witness, and young women wanting their male peers to come with them. So that’s what we are doing.”
Emma Liversidge-Smith’s Joanne in She Was Walking Home. Picture: James Drury
People think of York as a safe place to be, says NDB1 creative engagement manager El Stannage, “but as a woman I can tell you it isn’t”. “We collected documentary information both written and conversational, keeping that door open for information for about a month, and it came streaming in,” she says.
“We had plenty to work with, then collected our own thoughts and commissioned Rachel to put those stories together as one tapestry, telling stories of women at different stages of life, their different experiences, whether harassment or abuse, focusing on the impact it’s had on their their lives, the ripples it’s had.
“For the latest tour, we’ve stayed with the original piece of theatre but kept abreast with what’s been happening, and we’ve kept in touch too with IDAS [Independent Domestic Abuse Services] and the Kyra Women’s Project, the York charity that helps women to make positive change in their lives.”
This autumn’s performances in schools, colleges and universities will not only inform students of the lived experience of women in their own communities, but also empower them to make the change now and see the benefits in their own futures; understanding the impact of their actions, ways in which they could intervene, question their own thinking or those of their peers.
Mandy Newby’s Jackie. Picture: James Drury
El says: “We’re really excited to be working with schools [age 14 upwards], colleges and universities this time, after the feedback we got from last year’s public performances that we needed to do that.
“The young people we get to work with in our participation programmes are bright, forward thinking and actively seeking ways to play a part in the growing world around them, so for us it just makes sense to bring this conversation to them, as they are the next generation to make change.
“But also, real change can only happen when the full community listen up and play their part too. That’s why we’re hosting public performances in the evenings at the same schools, colleges and universities, so that parents, carers, siblings, friends, teachers and other local residents can join in the same vital conversation.”
Through the autumn tour of this all-female production, performed by a cast of Fiona Baistow, Anna Johnson, Emma Liversidge-Smith and Mandy Newby, the mission will be to amplify the voices of York women, while also prompting conversations around where responsibility and accountability lies for their safety.
Fiona Baistow’s Millie in a scene from She Was Walking Home. Picture: James Drury
“Since the original walk, listened to by almost 800 people, there have been further attacks and murders of women, and still the rhetoric seems to be skewed towards rape alarms, trackers, self-defence classes and dress codes being the solution,” says NDB1 artistic director Matthew Harper-Hardcastle. “We needed to continue and challenge this conversation. The invitation is to come and watch but also to think.”
One audience feedback quote on NDB1’s website is particularly illuminating. “I like to think I’m aware of these issues and as a man have been ultra-conscious that just being on the same street can heighten anxiety,” it reads.
“This performance made me cry, but it’s such an important way to foster change, I left feeling that if more men could see and engage with it, we might just be able to smash that ‘block of granite’.”
Next Door But One’s She Was Walking Home is on tour until October 27 with student performances complemented by public performances at York High School, Malton School, York College, Scarborough TEC, York Theatre Royal Studio tonight at 7.45pm, University of York, October 20 at 7.45pm and York St John University, October 25 at 7.30pm. Box office details: www.nextdoorbutone.co.uk
From stand-up to sit-down: Mark Thomas devours the stage in England & Son. Picture: Alex Brenner
GROUCHY godfather of political comedy Mark Thomas is taking to the stage for the first time in a one-man show written by someone else, playwright Ed Edwards.
Warmed up for last month’s award-laden Edinburgh Fringe run in a work-in-progress performance at Selby Town Hall in July, England & Son returns to North Yorkshire tomorrow (22/9/2023) and on Saturday in the York Theatre Royal Studio.
Set when The Great Devouring comes home, Edwards’s play has emerged from characters Thomas knew in his childhood and from Edwards’s experience in prison in the early 1990s, when jailed for three years for drug offences. [Edwards would write the first of his five novels while inside].
Promising deep, dark laughs and deep, dark love, Thomas undertakes a kaleidoscopic odyssey where disaster capitalism, empire, Thatcherite politics, stolen youth and robbed wealth, domestic violence, addiction, hope and recovery merge into the simple tale of a working-class boy who just wants his dad to smile at him.
Serendipity brought the two polemicists together in 2018. “I came out of a performance of Ed’s play The Political History Of Smack And Crack at Edinburgh and turned to my mate and said, ‘that was amazing’. This voice behind me said, ‘I wrote that’!” recalls Mark.
“So we met up, got on like a house on fire and became mates, coming to gigs, talking till the early hours about politics, and we always said it would be great to work together.”
Two years ago, they made the commitment to crack on with it. “We used to talk about stories, his story, my story, and then we’d work on it. I’d remember half of it, then make up the rest, and then I didn’t see the finished script until the first day of rehearsals, but I knew he’d written a banger, an absolute stormer.”
So much so, England & Son has won a Scotsman Fringe First Award, Entertainment Now Best Theatre Award, Lustrum Award for Unforgettable Festival Shows and Holden Street Theatres’ Award for its run under the direction of Cressida Brown at The Roundabout, a theatre-in-the-round tent.
Now Londoner Mark, 60, is back on familiar territory, on the road, albeit in an unfamiliar setting. “I get to play characters, be the narrator and me, all of that, in a show that’s all about how you tell a story, where you will do the voices, little shrugs and mannerisms, with me charging around the stage and knowing you can’t take your foot off the pedal for a second,” he says.
“The thing about stand-up is you have to be in the moment, but there’s a massively structured script with this show, though we always call it jazz, because if you do the same show twice, you will fail, but that’s good because it makes each show special.
“If you put yourself on stage telling a story, you can’t coast, you can’t cruise, you have to put in 100 per cent, otherwise cancel the show,” says Mark Thomas. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
“I’ve got a great opportunity to go and do something I’ve never done before, and because I’d never done it before, I didn’t know what to expect – I’ve been doing stand-up for 37 years – and what’s brilliant is you see the impact and you want that every night.
“If you put yourself on stage telling a story, you can’t coast, you can’t cruise, you have to put in 100 per cent, otherwise cancel the show.”
Mark “wants people to be rent asunder in the desolation of the emotional wreckage” in England & Son. “I’ve always tried to do stuff that does more than make people laugh. Stand-up is in the moment, whereas theatre takes you into an emotional place and I’ve always dabbled in both, but now I’ve taken the reins off and it’s thrilling. I’ve loved it, but I got Covid at the end of the [Edinburgh] Fringe, so I was livid! I couldn’t wait to get back out there.”
Already Mark has “some ideas to get another play out there”, having so enjoyed working with Edwards. “The interesting thing with Ed is that he’s an addict, who got clean before going to jail, and I’ve had issues with alcohol, so we both recognise addiction. There’s something about being in a room with brutally honest people, which has been an influence on this show,” he says.
“Addicts and alcoholics are always telling their stories at meetings and consultations, and what we do in the comedy workshops I run with addicts is to turn it into something beautiful, making it into art.
“Because of my own issues, I’d ask them questions and say, ‘go and write something stupid that you did’, and then I’ll give them my list. It’s a meeting of people as equals.”
More of those workshops are on the way, along with Mark’s England & Son travels, rooted in the political philosophy that any nation that devours another will one day devour itself. “It’s Ed’s title and it’s about England’s relationships, about fathers and sons and families, the damage they can do to each other, but also the hope,” he says.
“As Studs Terkel’s book said, hope dies last, and there’s something with addiction where there can be a thin line between hope and illusion, and that’s why people keep going to those meetings that are profoundly honest.”
England And Son captures a basic human instinct too: “Every single one of us, from the moment we are born, we want the love of our parents,” says Mark. “We want their attention.”
Wanting attention? That applies to writers, performers, comedians too. Give England & Son yours. Five-star reviews demand it.
Mark Thomas in England & Son, York Theatre Royal Studio, September 22, 7.45pm; September 23, 2pm and 7.45pm.Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The artwork for Mark Thomas in Ed Edwards’s England & Son. Picture: Design By Greg
Ed Edwards: the back story
STARTED his creative career as a circus performer but stopped at the age when you start to think, “This is actually dangerous”. He now juggles a writing career, lecturing, making films and rearing two sons.
Virtually illiterate at the age of 11, Ed eventually managed to educate himself, go to university and become a professional writer. Today he is “only one-third illiterate”, he says.
He did three-and-a-half years in prison in the early 1990s for drugs offences, publishing his first novel while inside. He has five novels and a children’s book to his name and has worked for several continuing television dramas, including Holby City and the now defunct Brookside and The Bill, although he maintains that is not the reason they died.
He has written several original plays for BBC Radio 4 and made short films for Channel 4. He has turned to guerrilla film-making, directing short films and co-directing and producing the feature film Scrambled.
His plays include The Political History Of Smack And Crack and England And Son. He misses the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro and loves making jam and writing about himself in the third person.
Did you know?
MARK Thomas has done shows about visiting the West Bank, starting a comedy club in Jenin, espionage, lobbying Parliament, walking in the footsteps of the highest NHS officials, playing at the Royal Opera House, stopping arms deals and creating manifestos.
Devouring the stage: Mark Thomas in England & Son. Picture: Alex Banner
The artwork for Mark Thomas in England & Son. Picture: Design By Greg
“If you put yourself on stage telling a story, you can’t coast, you can’t cruise, you have to put in 100 per cent, otherwise cancel the show,” says Mark Thomas. Picture: Steve Ullathorne
Dawn French: Frank confessions of a comedian at York Barbican
FRENCH comedy, a very English murder thriller, state-of-the-nation politics and police procedures stir Charles Hutchinson into action for the week ahead.
Comedy gigs of the week: Dawn French Is A Huge Twat, York Barbican, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm
HER show is so named because, unfortunately, it is horribly accurate, says self-mocking comedian and actress Dawn French. “There have been far too many times I have made stupid mistakes or misunderstood something vital or jumped the gun in a spectacular display of twattery,” she explains.
“I thought I might tell some of these buttock-clenching embarrassing stories to give the audience a peek behind the scenes of my work life.” Tickets update: Limited availability at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Tonight, meanwhile, Sarah Millican plays a Work In Progress gig at Pocklington Arts Centre at 8pm. Sold out already alas.
A scene from Original Theatre Company’s touring production of Torben Betts’s new play, Murder In The Dark, starring Tom Chambers and Susie Blake. Picture: Pamela Raith
Thriller of the week: Original Theatre Company in Murder In The Dark, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
TOM Chambers and Susie Blake star in Torben Betts’s new ghost story chiller cum psychological thriller, set on New Year’s Eve, when a crash on a deserted road brings washed-up singer Danny Sierra and his dysfunctional family to an isolated holiday cottage in rural England.
From the moment they arrive, inexplicable events begin to occur…and then the lights go out, whereupon deeply buried secrets come to light. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Robin Simpson: Pantomime dame and storyteller, bringing Magic, Monsters and Mayhem to York tomorrow afternoon. Picture: Joel Rowbottom
Children’s show of the week: Magic, Monsters and Mayhem with Robin Simpson, Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, tomorrow, 4.30pm
YORK Theatre Royal pantomime dame Robin Simpson – he will be playing Dame Trott in Jack And The Beanstalk this winter – switches to storyteller mode to journey back to magic school on Sunday afternoon.
He will be telling stories of wonderful creatures, exciting adventures and “more magic than you can wave a wand” as he places the audience in charge of an interactive show ideal for Harry Potter fans. Suitable for Key Stage 2, but smaller siblings are welcome too, along with Potter-potty grown-ups. Box office: bluebirdbakery.co.uk.
Hannah Baker, left, Harvey Badger, Eddie Ahrens and Rachel Hammond in Mikron Theatre’s A Force To Be Reckoned With. Picture: Anthony Robling
Police spotted operating in the vicinity: Mikron Theatre in A Force To Be Reckoned With, Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, tomorrow, 4pm
IN Amanda Whittington’s new play for Marsden travelling players Mikron Theatre, fresh from police training school, WPC Iris Armstrong is ready for whatever the mean streets of a 1950s’ northern market town can throw at her.
Joining forces with fellow WPC Ruby Weston, they make an unlikely partnership, a two-woman department, called to any case involving women and children, from troublesome teens to fraudulent fortune tellers. Box office: 07974 867301 or 01904 466086, or in person from Pextons, Bishopthorpe Road, York.
Kathryn Williams and Polly Paulusma: Songwriters at the double at Pocklington Arts Centre
Songwriting bond of the week: Kathryn Williams & Polly Paulusma: The Big Sky Tour, Pocklington Arts Centre, Tuesday, 8pm
AS label buddies on One Little Independent Records, Kathryn Williams and Polly Paulusma met on a song-writing retreat. They wrote songs together and tutored courses at Arvon Foundation and as their friendship developed and strengthened, they supported each other over lockdown.
It seemed a foregone conclusion that they would tour together at some point. Finally, those Thelma and Louise dreams – hopefully without the killing or the cliff finale – come true on a month-long itinerary, playing solo sets and uniting for a few songs. Box office: pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Mike Skinner: The Streets’ composer-turned-filmmaker discusses his debut film in Q&A appearances at Everyman Leeds and Everyman York
Streets ahead: Mike Skinner’s film The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light and Q&A, Everyman Leeds, September 21, 8pm; Everyman York, September 25, 7pm
THE Streets’ Mike Skinner presents his debut feature film, the “neo-noir” clubland thriller The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, in an exclusive Q&A tour to Everyman cinemas.
Birmingham multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Skinner funded, wrote, directed, filmed, edited and scored his cinematic account of the seemingly mundane life of a DJ whose journey through London’s nightclubs turns into a tripped-out modern-day murder mystery. Each screening will be followed by a live question-and-answer session with Skinner, giving an insight into the music and story behind the film. Box office: thestreets.co.uk.
Mark Thomas: Comedian stars in Ed Edwards’s one-man play England And Son at York Theatre Royal Studio
Political drama of the week: Mark Thomas in England And Son, York Theatre Royal Studio, September 22, 7.45pm; September 23, 2pm and 7.45pm
POLITICAL comedian Mark Thomas stars in this one-man play, set when The Great Devouring comes home: the first he has performed not written by the polemicist himself but by playwright Ed Edwards.
Edinburgh Fringe award winner England And Son has emerged from characters Thomas knew in his childhood and from Edwards’s lived experience in jail. Promising deep, dark laughs and deep, dark love, Thomas undertakes a kaleidoscopic odyssey where disaster capitalism, Thatcherite politics and stolen wealth merge into the simple tale of a working-class boy who just wants his dad to smile at him. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Rowntree Park, by Jo Rodwell, one of 26 printmakers taking part in the York Printmakers Autumn Fair
Print deadline: York Printmakers Autumn Fair, York Cemetery Chapel and Harriet Room, September 23 and 24, 10am to 5pm
IN its sixth year, the York Printmakers Autumn Fair features work by 26 members, exhibiting and selling hand-printed original prints, including Russell Hughes, Rachel Holborow, Michelle Hughes, Harriette Rymer and Jo Rodwell.
On display will be a variety of printmaking techniques, such as linocut, collagraphs, woodcut, screen printing, stencilling and etching. Artists will be on hand to discuss their working methods and to show the blocks, plates and tools they use.
Sir Alan Ayckbourn: The truth will out when he takes to the SJT stage tomorrow afternoon. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
In Focus:Theatre event of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s Truth Will Out, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tomorrow, 2.30pm
IN a rare stage appearance, Sir Alan Ayckbourn plays Jim in a rehearsed reading of his Covic-crocked 2020 SJT premiere Truth Will Out, joined by John Branwell, Frances Marshall and the cast of his 89th play, Constant Companions.
Truth Will Out is an up-to-the-minute satire on family, relationships, politics and the state of the nation, wherein everyone has secrets. Certainly former shop steward George, his right-wing MP daughter Janet, investigative journalist Peggy and senior civil servant Sefton do.
Enter a tech-savvy, chippy teenager with a mind of his own and time on his hands to bring their worlds tumbling down, and maybe everyone else’s along with them, in Ayckbourn’s own “virus” storyline, written before Coronavirus stopped play.
“It’s ‘the one that got away’, with most of the cast in place, and we even did a season launch,” says Sir Alan. “The play was one of my ‘What ifs’: what if a teenager invented a virus that brought the whole thing down. A ‘virus’ play, like Covid, with the virus escaping and the play ending in the dark, waiting till dawn.”
Racism, trade unionism and infidelity all play their part in Truth Will Out too. “It’s a melting pot of wrongdoings,” says Sir Alan. Tickets update: limited availability on 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.
On the ropes: Kate Whittaker’s Polly Stokes feels the force of Zee Williams’s Matilda Blackwellon the attack in The Sweet Science Of Bruising
York College & University Centre BA (Hons) Acting for Stage and Screen Graduating Students in The Sweet Science Of Bruising, York Theatre Royal Studio, July 20 and 21
TWO years of intense training have gone into this climactic graduating production by York College & University Centre’s first cohort of Acting for Stage and Screen BA students.
They deliver a knockout punch with Joy Wilkinson’s torrid 2018 drama The Sweet Science Of Bruising, an epic tale of passion, politics and pugilism set in the underground world of 19th-century women’s boxing.
Mirroring the rounds of a boxing bout in its dramatic rhythm, each scene is short and sharp, some dominated by jabs, others by body blows, some completed with a count to ten. Every step of the way, director James Harvey duly has his cast floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee.
Philippa Hickson’s Violet Hunter, left, with Shell Murphy’s Aunt George
Already, the students had staged a spring showcase for agents at the Theatre Royal, one of two industry partners in the course alongside Screen Yorkshire. An auditorium buzzing with energy greets them – CharlesHutchPress was ringside for the Friday performance – and ever louder cheers meet each scene’s denouement in the compact Studio, where the actors are within punching range.
These exultations peak in response to the retaliatory barrage of punches unleashed by Molly Shackshaft’s Anna Lamb on her vile creep of a gaslighting husband, Andrew Joseph-Hilyer’s anything-but-angelic Gabriel Lamb.
Liam Wilks’s Victorian-moustachioed “Professor” Charlie Sharp doubles as silver-tongued master of ceremonies at Islington’s Angel Amphitheatre – egging on the audience’s responses from round one – and twinkle-eyed, if thin-skinned, subversive boxing promoter with his roster of fledgling female talent.
Jim Carnall’s title-chasing boxer Paul Stokes with Liam Wilks’s boxing promoter “Professor” Charlie Sharp
Each protagonist has a reason for turning to boxing: Shackshaft’s young mother and charity crusader Anna Lamb has been pushed too far by her cheating, controlling, belittling, physically abusive husband; Philippa Hickson’s trainee doctor Violet Hunter has found her path to progression in the medical profession blocked by Jordan Benson’s insufferable Dr James Bell.
Zee Williams’s resourceful, Descartes-quoting Irish lady of the night and typesetter for The Times newspaper, Matilda Blackwell, craves a puncher’s chance of a fresh opportunity to make money; Kate Whitttaker’s hardy north easterner Polly Stokes is steeped in boxing from the bouts of her “brother” Paul (Jim Carnall), with preternatural punching power of her own. Her performance matches it in its impact.
Wilkinson’s script is combative and comedic, fiery and feminist, startling and exhilarating, a hit to the head, a punch to the gut. This is gloves-off theatre, fuelled by Wilkinson being drawn to “powerful women whose bodies contrast with ‘feminine ideals’ and force us to rethink what we’re capable of”: women such as Fay Weldon’s She-Devil, Alien’s Ellen Ripley and Terminator’s Sarah Connor.
Zee Williams’s prostitute Matilda Blackwell and Andrew Joseph-Hilyer’s callous client Gabriel Lamb
Reactions in the audience are all the stronger for Wilkinson’s play being refracted through our age of #MeToo, high-profile boxing champs such as Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor, Roe v Wade and a rising repression of women’s rights, whether in Afghanistan or the United States.
What a superb choice of play by programme leader Harvey, his decision made in part in response to the preponderance of woman in the 2021 intake. His cast responds with a champion performance.
In boxing parlance, did this Bruising encounter leave you reviewer seeing stars (in the making), courtesy of Kaitlin Howard’s fight direction? It would be unfair to pick out any performer over another, given the high quality all round. Instead, let’s hope to see them again as they join the professional ranks.
Alan Park’s playwright Henry and Alice May Melton’s actress Annie in York Settlement Community Players’ The Real Thing. All pictures: John Saunders
IS a play ever the real thing or just playing? What is love? What is art? What is truth? What is artifice? Can Tom Stoppard write good roles for women? Can you even trust this review? So many questions, and none of them will be answered conclusively.
He may be considered one of the greatest, smartest of British playwrights, knighted for his clever, clever dramas with their iridescent, intellectual language and adroit structures. But Tom Stoppard is not British by birth and nor is it his original name.
He was born Tomás Straüssler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, and was raised in Singapore and India, taking the name Stoppard from his stepfather before moving to England in the post-war aftermath. He quit school (Pocklington School, by the way), becoming a journalist…and you know what they say about journalists and their relationship with the truth.
Written in 1982, The Real Thing revels in confusion, confusion that becomes even greater at the finale, or does it? Trust me, it certainly considers the nature of honesty in a play full of dishonesty and infidelity, where you may well not be able to tell when it is being a play within a play or a play being re-written within the play within the play or just a play.
Charlotte (Victoria Delaney) has a word with errant husband Henry (Alan Park) in The Real Thing
Stoppard’s protagonist is a playwright, Henry (Alan Park, performing on a Theatre Royal stage for the first time since playing Jack in Pilot Theatre’s Lord Of The Flies 19 years ago).
He is married to Charlotte (Victoria Delaney), an actress, who is playing an actress, also called Charlotte as it happens, opposite Max (Mike Hickman) in Henry’s new play. Charlotte reckons he never writes her a decent role (an in-joke from Stoppard about his own writing).
Max in the play within a play is being played by an actor also called Max (Hickman), who is married to an actress, Annie (Alice May Melton).
Soon Henry and Annie are shacking up; dischuffed Charlotte and free-spirited daughter Debbie (Hannah Waring) moving on. Into the story come Billie (Rebecca Harrison), a lesbian young actress with a thing for Annie, and Brodie (Livy Potter), a troubled young writer whose frank and frankly badly written play is taken up by Annie. At least, I think that is what you are watching.
Alice May Melton’s Annie and Rebecca Harrison’s Billie in The Real Thing
For sure, two years pass between Act and Act II, because the programme note says so, but Oxford School of Theatre graduate, professional actor and former Theatre Royal youth theatre fledgling Jacob Ward revels in the deliberate complexities in his first full-length production as director.
Betwixt scenes, actors move three door frames into different configurations – on Richard Hampton’s open-plan set design – that may or may not signify what is real and what isn’t.
A multitude of doors traditionally denotes we are in the presence of a theatrical farce, but here it is more a case of moving the goalposts or rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as the grip on reality sinks.
Park’s playwright Henry has the best lines (of course he does!), and what he says carries the greatest weight as effectively Stoppard’s voice on stage in this heavily autobiographical drama.
Mike Hickman’s Max
What is reality, what is merely appearance, applies to the relationships within the play, where fronts keep being put up and lies told.
Ironically, such is the language he uses, Stoppard’s characters are often not wholly believable, being conduits for his own cleverness or point-making, but the greater truth here is a writer’s struggle to express love in his writing: the gap between Henry’s feelings for Annie and putting them on the page.
Amid the obfuscation of a multi-storey of levels on stage, Stoppard’s grasp of the complications of love is the one real thing in this Tony Award-winning romantic comedy that is more romantic in spirit than action.
Whatever the truth within, Ward’s cast is the real deal, Park a powerhouse of opinion and conviction, Melton full of intrigue and resolve, mysterious and elusive too; Delaney delightfully forthright; the rest wholly committed to spinning plates ever faster.
York Settlement Community Players present Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal Studio, 7.30pm nightly until Saturday, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office
Jacob Ward directing a rehearsal for York Settlement Community Players’ production of The Real Thing. All pictures: Ben Lindley
YORK Settlement Community Players return to York Theatre Royal’s Studio this Eastertide with Tom Stoppard’s typically smart and unsettling comedy drama The Real Thing.
Premiered in 1982 by the Pocklington School alumnus, this beguiling play of surprises and erudite wit follows Henry – possibly the sharpest playwright of his generation – who is married to actress Charlotte. Into the story Stoppard weaves a second couple, Max and wife Annie.
Henry, meanwhile, has written a play about a couple, who happen to be called Max and Charlotte – just to muddy the water – whose marriage is on the brink of collapse.
Soon they will discover that sometimes life imitates art in Stoppard’s world of actors and writers, wherein his exploration of love and infidelity is designed to make audiences question: “What is the real thing?”
Alan Park’s Henry and Alice May Melton’s Annie rehearsing a scene from The Real Thing
Directing the Settlement Players for the first time, professional actor Jacob Ward says: “I’m very excited for an audience to interact with our modern-day version of this play. Its subject seems simple but, as we see through the eyes of various characters, we realise its complexity, and enjoy having our views on love and relationships broadened.
“The writing is nothing short of genius – it really is. Even after 20-plus times of reading, I’m still finding impossible connections and meaning. It’s a joy to direct and will be a thrill to watch: hilarious, heart-warming and thought-provoking all in one. We have a brilliant cast of actors to take you on the journey and a truly dedicated production team to bring the play to life.”
Ward’s cast will be led by Alan Park, chair of Theatre@41, Monkgate, as Henry and Alice May Melton, a stand-out in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s December 2022 production of A Nativity of York, playing Annie.
Victoria Delaney quickly follows up her turn as Kath in York Actors Collective’s debut production of Joe Orton’s farce Entertaining Mr Sloane with her role as Charlotte. Mike Hickman will be Max, Rebecca Harrison, Billy, and Hannah Waring, Debbie. Settlement chair – and Ward’s partner to boot – Livy Potter has taken over the part of Brodie at short notice, only weeks after starring in Gary Owen’s one-woman drama Iphigenia In Splott.
Seeing the funny side: Victoria Delaney’s Charlotte in The Real Thing
“I’d been in The Real Inspector Hound in 2006, directed by Laura Attridge, the opera director, who now lives in York, by the way,” says Jacob, recalling his first experience of performing in a Stoppard play in his Newcastle University days where he also co-directed new writing pieces and did likewise on scratch nights for Northern Stage and Alphabetti Theatre.
“I went to see The Real Thing with my dad, when I was at university. I was at a loose end that day and it just happened to be on at the Old Vic. We both really enjoyed it, but I remember having no idea of what happened in the play as it’s designed in every way to confuse the audience!
“So, when Settlement put out a call to direct this season’s production, I thought, ‘here’s an opportunity to do the play that confused the hell out of me, to see if I could make any more sense of it for the audience!”
Reading the script, Jacob realised “it’s not meant to be anything but confusing”. “Stoppard says it’s like a magic trick,” he says. “As a director, I’m thinking, ‘well, why has he made it so difficult?’, but that’s the point. You have all these characters reading something different into the same situation, mainly relating to their relationships.”
Stepping in: Livy Potter is taking over the role of Brodie in The Real Thing
How has Jacob responded to the intricacies and layers of Stoppard’s script? “His writing has a uniqueness because so few writers are so good that every single stage direction, every piece of grammar, really matters.
“They’ve all been thought out so well that you know when you’ve hit the right note, as it’s intricately designed to perfection, so that ultimately it only works one way in my head – which is always a brilliant Stoppard way.
“Working with the cast, we have to keep playing with it, delving into it, to make sense of it, until suddenly it takes on a greater meaning when all the pieces fit together. Everyone in the cast has enjoyed doing the play because you get these Aha! Moments.”
What is real in The Real Thing, Jacob? “There are many real things that he’s talking about, in general and specific terms: love, relationships and sex as part of love,” he says.
Alan Park’s Henry and Hannah Waring’s Debbie in the rehearsal room
“He’s also looking at how people put on facades; what’s real and what’s a front; what’s real writing, what isn’t; what’s real art, what isn’t.
“Then ‘class’ feeds into it too, how someone who’s not been educated to a certain level can live a full life but not articulate it, whereas someone else can articulate but may not know as much about life as they think they do.
“We don’t get answers with Stoppard, but lots of viewpoints to go away and discuss. I love how this play has a reason to exist and that reason is to talk about it afterwards.”
York Settlement Community Players in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, York Theatre Royal, April 5, 6 and 11 to 15, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm April 15 matinee. No performances from April 7 to 10. Post-show Q&A session on April 12. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
What is Jacob Ward directing next?
Director and actor Jacob Ward
JACOB Ward is directing a script-in-hand reading of Old Stan, aka A Fool Fooled, by Marin Držić , “the Croatian Shakespeare”, at the York International Shakespeare Festival next month.
The performance of the 1551 comedy’s first ever translation into English will take place in the Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, Humanities Research Centre, University of York on April 27 at 6pm, preceded by an introduction to the work of the greatest Slavic Renaissance playwright at 5pm.
In Old Stan, an old peasant is fooled by tales of false fairies whose magic supposedly restores youth. Držić’s delicious, sparkly play, written entirely in verse, was commissioned for a wedding feast of a Ragusan nobleman, and he joked that nobody could marry without him in Dubrovnik, his home city.
Translated for the first time in 471 years by Filip Krenus – again entirely in verse – the comedy follows Stan’s misadventures that we might associate with Bottom or even Falstaff in riotous proof of Držić’s uncanny kinship with Shakespeare.
Držić devotees will be travelling over from Dubrovnik to attend the performance. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk.
Did you know?
JACOB Ward played the god Tyr in York Theatre Royal’s community production of Maureen Lennon’s The Coppergate Woman last August.
In York Shakespeare Project’s final production of its first full cycle of Shakespeare plays, he took the role of suitor Ferdinand in The Tempest on tour last September.
Jacob Ward’s Ferdinand and Effie Warboys’ Miranda in York Shakespeare Project’s The Tempest. Picture: John Saunders
Writer-performer Rob Ward explores consent, coercion and grooming within the gay male community in The MP, Aunty Mandy And Me
THE MP, Aunty Mandy And Me’s bittersweet tale of political campaigns, sexual consent and steam trains plays out at York Theatre Royal Studio on Saturday night.
Written and performed by Manchester-based Rob Ward, who brought Gypsy Queen’s unconventional love story between two fighters to the Studio in 2019, this 2022 Edinburgh Fringe show relates the story of young gay Dom, who craves being an #instagay #influencer.
The problem is, no-one likes his posts, he cannot find a bloke who shares his love of steam trains and he lives with his MDMA-popping, Simply Red-loving mum in the small, sleepy northern village, where he grew up, five miles from the nearest gay.
“He’d love a fabulous life with the A-Gays in a swanky city-centre apartment, but his crippling social anxiety prevents this from being a reality. It’s all a bit of an effort,” says Rob.
“Then, one day, a chance encounter with his local MP, Peter Edwards, leads to a job, turning everything upside down, but in pursuit of the life he thinks he wants, just how much does Dom have to give up?
“There are many more conversations to be had,” says Rob Ward as he turns the spotlight on gay grooming
The MP, Aunty Mandy & Me – the “Aunty Mandy” refers to Dom’s mum’s MDMA habit – explores consent, coercion and grooming within the gay male community through Ward’s combination of jagged humour and contemporary social commentary.
Rob’s play should have been touring in 2020, but the pandemic put paid to that after only two performances at Curve, Leicester. Yet the 2022 summer run in Edinburgh and autumn tour could not be better timed. “At one point this year, there were 56 MPs facing allegations of sexual misconduct, and when there are 650 MPs, that’s a high proportion,” says Rob.
“The play started as a reflection of personal experiences. I saw a play by a friend of mine, Tom Ratcliffe, called Velvet [about a young actor with a #metoo-style story to tell], and I had a conversation with him about how this behaviour [of coercion] can manifest itself, and I drew on that for my play.
“It’s that very careful planning, almost plotting, that takes place where the abuser gets you in a situation where you’re vulnerable or feel in need of them and then they move on.”
Rob’s research involved reading articles to learn of people’s experiences and having conversations with Duncan Craig OBE, the chief executive officer of Survivors, a Manchester charity for male survivors of sexual abuse.
Rob Ward on the stage set for The MP, Aunty Mandy And Me
“The roots of the play probably go back to the #metoo movement in 2017, listening to those stories, thinking about those power dynamics, and then realising that there probably wasn’t a male gay voice being heard in that movement, though of course it was quite right that the focus was on women with #metoo.
“But then you start hearing about theatre and film directors exploiting gay men, and I started talking with other gay men about how this happens within their community.”
Rob felt driven to highlight how such coercive abuse can prevail. “It’s an issue in society, where we’re coming to terms with it, but there are many more conversations to be had. I thought, ‘let’s open it out beyond the world of theatre’, and as I’m interested in politics, I decided I’d look at gay grooming in that world.
“Frequently, the power imbalance is a key part of it; what you face when you first step on to the gay scene, who you meet.”
Rob does not write with a didactic or polemical tone. “I try to avoid that,” he says. “I’m much more keen on asking questions and seeing what answers the audiences come up with. I prefer to steer clear of polemic. Instead, I like people to say, ‘oh, I hadn’t thought about that before’.
Rob Ward in his publicity picture for “the play about a Labour MP with a fetish”
“It’s essentially an exploration of ideas, rather than coming down on one side or the other, and hopefully people will then want to reflect on it and look into it further.”
Rob writes of the social-media world of the #instagay #influencer in his play. “I’m not a social influencer on Instagram, but it’s important that theatre addresses these issues and keeps our voices being heard in the wider community. As increasingly right-wing governments start to form, you have to be wary that liberties that have been fought for, for so long, can be taken away very quickly.”
After 17 Pleasance Dome performances at the Edinburgh Fringe,” trying it out, seeing what works, what needs working on, like a comedian testing gags, or being in a laboratory”, Rob is on tour, taking in both York and Harrogate in October.
“It’s been going down really well,” he says of an 80-minute eye-opener quickly becoming known as “the play about a Labour MP with a fetish”.
Emmerson & Ward Productions and Curve, Leicester present Rob Ward in The MP, Auntie Mandy And Me, York Theatre Royal Studio, Saturday (October 1), 7.45pm; Harrogate Theatre Studio, October 20, 8pm. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk
