Yotam Ottolenghi: Food for thought and thoughts for food at York Theatre Royal
TO complement this season’s York Food and Drink Festival, here was the Food and Think fiesta, more talk than fork.
Jerusalem, Simple and Flavour cookery book writer Yotam Ottolenghi, London restaurateur and delicatessen doyen and Middle Eastern recipe magician for the Guardian, would be in the hot seat rather than serving up hot action on the hob this evening. Unlike the comedy-infused combination of cooking and conversation in The Hairy Bikers’ live shows, for example.
Instead, legs as elongated as his Ottolenghi surname as he took to his chair, Israeli-born chef Yotam settled elegantly into answering a series of home-cooking and London-in-lockdown questions from Observer journalist and Yotam enthusiast Rachel Cooke with charm, warmth and a studious disposition, yet one flavoured with amusement and observant humour.
Hosted by Penguin Books, with signed copies of Ottolenghi Flavour to be collected in the foyer afterwards in a ticket and book deal, the Cooke and the cook show was more than a plug for that “flavour-forward, vegetable-based” book, and thankfully there was no such “flavour-forward” jargon in raconteur Ottolenghi’s responses.
He was quick to dispel the myth he was a vegetarian, or indeed vegan, for all his famed love of preserved lemons, although how he elevates fruit and vegetables is key to his cooking, along with his love of less-appreciated ingredients such as the tang of sumac.
He recalled his Jerusalem upbringing as the son of a chemistry professor and high school principal, enjoying shopping in food markets and tending to his mother’s herb garden, and later his literature studies, before heading to Europe, first Amsterdam and then London, ostensibly to study further, but the call of the kitchen took over.
Inevitably, the discussion turned to the pandemic, when everything stopped for tea and every other meal chez Ottolenghi. The downside of lockdown for Yotam was all the “terrifying” uncertainty brought on by the requirement to shut his restaurants and the decision to do likewise with his delis, but the upside was time spent in the kitchen at home, reaching, like so many, to the back of the store cupboard to feed his young sons, Max and Flynn.
He kept the dishes simple, with his children as his tasting panel. Fellow members of his Ottolenghi Test Kitchen “superteam” did likewise, and the collective results are now in print, published on September 30, as Shelf Love.
He poured out his enthusiasm for hummus as you should have it, as a meal in itself with pitta and chickpeas, rather than that magnolia of supermarket tubs. This is what his audience of pans people came for: the inside knowledge on how to improve and how to improvise dishes, how to make the most of long-neglected polenta and wholegrain rice. From back of the cupboard to back of the net.
Ottolenghi’s 75 minutes of culinary chat concluded with a Q and A, where we discovered his favourite herb and spice – coriander and cumin respectively – and we vowed to take his advice to always add freshly chopped tomatoes to the tinned variety.
Yotam and York had come together for one night, a dinner date of sorts, but you should not expect the flowering of a beautiful relationship. Ever the controlling perfectionist, he likes to be within an hour’s reach of all his restaurants, ruling out expansion beyond London, he said.
You will just have to reach for his books instead on an ever-expanding shelf.
Last chance saloon for the lovelorn in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell. Pictures: Johan Persson
New Adventures in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, York Theatre Royal’s Haunted Season, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
THE last and only time the now knighted doyen of dandy dance Matthew Bourne was at York Theatre Royal, he vowed in a post-show Q&A that he would return, when possible, with another mid-scale touring show.
York had to wait 30 years for that first visit by the Londoner in March 2017, but this week his company is back, and so is Bourne, who agreed at short notice last night to do another question-and-answer session after tonight’s show. Do stay, o’ lucky ticket holder, because his words are as engrossing as his storytelling dance theatre shows.
After all, not a word is said in the world premiere of The Midnight Bell, but there is evocative 1930s’ music aplenty – dancers miming in character to the oh-so English Al Bowlly at the triple, Elisabeth Welch and Leslie A. “Hutch” Hutchinson’s male interpretation of George and Ira Gershwin’s The Man I Love – to complement Terry Davies’s nightlife score and Paul Groothuis’s superb sound design, ear-piercing tinnitus screeching, rain dancing on the roof, et al.
What’s more, inspired by the novels of Gaslight playwright Patrick Hamilton, Bourne’s storytelling through dance is so expressive that he creates a narrative language in visual form, where you find yourself drawn to each character’s path as seamlessly as that story moves from beautifully framed scene to beautifully framed scene on yet another wondrous set design by CharlesHutchPress’s favourite designer, Lez Brotherston, down to the ever-changing skyline that matches the mood of the scene.
Paris Fitzpatrick as Bob and Bryony Wood as Jenny Maple in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell
Even the Magritte-style multitude of suspended window frames, the ever-populated bed and the pub bar move with the graceful swish of choreography, and there is wit too: a red telephone box is represented by only the Telephone neon sign and the top of the box; the phone itself is pulled discreetly from the jacket of waiter Bob (Paris Fitzpatrick).
As for Brotherston’s costume designs, there would surely be no Wintour of discontent from Dame Anna. Lines, contours, hats, correspondent brogues, here is such elegance to meet Bourne’s eloquence in sensuous movement.
Bizarrely, a notice by the box office carrying myriad warnings of what lay in store included the sight of underwear, to go with the tinnitus sound, flashing lights, haze, cigarettes (of the non-nicotine variety) and more besides involving strangulation. Bourne could be spotted removing it at the interval, unhappy with the wording.
Well, it made a change from all those Covid notices and “feel free to wear masks” requests that pretty much everybody seems to be feeling free to ignore in theatres.
As for being alarmed by exposure to “underwear”, where would that leave designers for dance companies galore, let alone pop ingenue videos?
Anyway, your reviewer digresses, dear reader. The Midnight Bell, set in the pub of that name, the surrounding bedsitland, rooms to rent, gated park, members-only club and cinema seats of London, is billed as a “dance exploration of intoxicated tales from darkest Soho, delving into the underbelly of early 1930s’ London life”.
Forbidden love: Liam Mower’s Albert and Andrew Monaghan’s Frank in Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell
Devised and directed by Bourne, he peoples the tavern with a lonely hearts’ club of drinkers and staff; troubled souls more at the unhappy hour, rather than happy hour, stage of intoxication.
All have a drink in one hand, slammed down on tables at the outset. All are looking for a refill as much of the heart as the glass, or at least some form of connection, but will they be sated or are they destined for the loneliness of the lovelorn?
What couplings will end up in that bed in cleverly overlapping storylines involving a young prostitute, Jenny (Bryony Wood), the waiter, the barmaid Ella (Bryony Harrison) and the oddball regular Mr Eccles (Reece Causton)?
Then there’s the bespectacled lonely spinster Miss Roach (Michela Meazza); the pickpocket cad Ernest Ralph Gorse (Glenn Graham); the out-of-work actress Netta Longdon (Daisy May Kemp), and the schizophrenic, tinnitus-troubled George Harvey Bone (thickly bearded, heavy-suited Richard Winsor).
The forbidden The Man I Love storyline entwines West End chorus boy Albert (Liam Mower) with new customer Frank (Andrew Monaghan), taking risks in that repressed era, captured in the Bourne’s best, serpentine choreography of another extraordinary show.
He calls these stories of requited and more often unrequited love in restlessly on-edge London “bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption”. “Bitter comedies” is spot on, the humour being as dark as porter in this neon-lit world, but all life is here, sad, bad, mad, yet hopefully happy hereafter too, stamped with the exhilarating Bourne identity, panache and punch exercised in equal measure.
“Intoxicated tales from darkest Soho, delving into the underbelly of early 1930s’ London life”, as explored by Matthew Bourne
Bill Ward and Wendi Peters in a scene from The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, bound for York Theatre Royal next week
THE Headless Horseman is galloping apace towards York Theatre Royal for the Haunted Season.
Coronation Street alumni Wendi Peters and Bill Ward will lead the cast in Philip Meeks’s stage adaptation of Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, on tour in ever-spooky York from October 5 to 9, replete with illusions by Back To The Future Musical’s Filipe J Carvalho.
In Irving’s infamous story, Hallowmas celebrations are fast approaching, when the residents of Sleepy Hollow spin tall tales of legends and unsightly entities. Who can tell truth from nightmare, however?
Enter Ichabod Crane into an eerie world of secrets and unsettling tradition as he arrives in Sleepy Hollow to become the town teacher. While quickly finding friendship with the town patriarch and his spirited daughter, his presence is not wholly welcome.
Not all is as it seems, for Ichabod Crane harbours his own dark secret. He is not in Sleepy Hollow by chance. When disturbing events overwhelm the small town, he finds himself swept up in a dangerous mystery that leaves him doubting his own sanity.
Director Jake Smith says: “Sleepy Hollowis undoubtedly one of the greatest horror stories ever written and a tour de force to stage. The story has at its heart the power of nomadic storytelling and gathering round the campfire for a good story. It’s an important story for now as we look at conversations around the identity of nations, communities and humankind throughout the world.
“This production has allowed an incredible ensemble of actors to viscerally and inventively bring the Hollow to life. It’s a piece that shines on our actors’ athleticism, which is really exciting as we look to theatre returning. We look forward to transporting the audience through a quest of logic and illusion, creating fear and defying expectation.”
Wendi Peters in rehearsal at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, for her role as Mariette in The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, on tour at York Theatre Royal from next Tuesday
For Philip Meeks, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow follows the 2017 premiere of Murder Margaret And Me into York Theatre Royal, where earlier his play about the dying embers of a pantomime dame, Twinkle, Little Star, ran in the Studio in April 2008.
“I’m a huge horror fan; the history of Gothic, the history of horror; if I was going to do an MA, it would be on the horror medium,” says Philip, who shares an agent and indeed an imagination with director Jake Smith.
“The agent lives in a caravan in Marsden Grotto, next to Mam’s house in South Shields. There was a project I was working on where it looked like the director was going to drop out and I said, ‘what about Jake doing it?’, as I’d heard good things about him.
“Now, I like to think of us as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee! He’s got this great visual energy as a director and the work he’s done has all been fantastic.
“We think very much alike and sometimes it’s hard to know who’s the 50-year-old [Meeks] and who’s the 30-year-old [Smith]!”
Playwright Philip Meeks: “Chipping in from the corner in rehearsals”
Smith, who stayed with Meeks when he was holding auditions, has been drawn to horror previously, doing a “sort of Hound Of The Baskervilles before the current plethora of productions of that story”. “He does a lot of writing too, and we have the same sense of humour, laughing a lot even when we shouldn’t,” says Philip.
“As a result, I’ve been in rehearsals a lot, with me as the Richard Osman figure on Pointless, chipping in from the corner.”
What drew Meeks and Smith to The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow? “It’s a piece that’s not really been done a lot before, probably because it’s a short piece , but it’s a story that people turn to in times of existential fear,” says Philip.
“It’s not about blood and gore; it’s about people in society, exploring human nature, thinking, ‘My god, how would I cope?’.
“It came to the fore in the late 1970s/1980s when there was the last horror boom because of the fear of nuclear war and the apocalypse, and in 2021 what we’re afraid of is the breakdown of society. The most popular form now is folk horror, and Washington Irving’s story was the first example of that.
“America was not the home of horror but they certainly explored it there, and Washington Irving really did explore it, writing at a time when narrative fiction was quite new.
“He was a journalist and a factual writer who dabbled in fiction, but he wrote his factual pieces very buoyantly with a great prose style, and that’s why his writing captured the imagination, because it was very accessible.”
Bill Ward in the rehearsal room for The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow
Meeks’s play is a “true act of adaptation, taking these characters and the story into a different medium”. “The legend is told to scare off Ichabod Crane, and we’ve kept that but we’re telling the story with a contemporary twist.
“I wanted to put a heart into it, using the device of a confidante for Ichabod, so I’ve created Mariette, played by Wendi Peters.”
Philip is hugely influenced by Hammer Horror, “even though people think of those films as being schlocky, especially with the Dracula franchise at the end”. “The story I’ve chosen to tell has a lot of elements from Hammer Horror, aside from its themes of corruption or belief or lack of belief.
“Ichabod only believes in science and technology; the rest believe in god knows what. The future is ichabod thinking he is God, so there’s the dawn of scientology.
“But with a monster you must bring an element of heart and humanity to them, like with Frankenstein’s monster.”
The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow runs at York Theatre Royal from October 5 to 9, 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Unhappy hour at The Midnight Bell tavern? Oh, but the joys of a new Matthew Bourne show visiting York Theatre Royal
DANCE at the double, Jekyll & Hyde, a quartet of short plays, sax music and Late Music, a Manic Monday and a Taylor-made gig are Charles Hutchinson’s pick of the early autumn harvest of live shows.
Intoxicated tales from darkest Soho: Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, York Theatre Royal, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
CHOREOGRAPHER and storyteller in dance Matthew Bourne’s new show for New Adventures explores the underbelly of 1930s’ London life, where ordinary people emerge from cheap boarding houses nightly to pour out their passions hopes and dreams in the bars of fog-bound Soho and Fitzrovia.
Inside The Midnight Bell, one particularly lonely-hearts club gathers to play out lovelorn affairs of the heart; bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption.
Inspired by novelist Patrick Hamilton, Bourne’s dance theatre show will challenge and reveal the darker reaches of the human heart. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Hands down (by your sides) if you can’t wait for the return of Riverdance
The other dance event of the week: Riverdance: The New 25th Anniversary Show, York Barbican, tomorrow to Sunday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
TWENTY-FIVE years on, composer Bill Whelan has re-recorded his mesmerising soundtrack while producer Moya Doherty and director John McColgan have completely reimagined the Irish and international dance show with innovative and spectacular lighting, projection, stage and costume designs.
The 25th Anniversary show catapults Riverdance into the 21st century and will “completely immerse you in the extraordinary and elemental power of its music and dance”. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Blackeyed Theatre in Nick Lane’s take on Jekyll & Hyde, on tour at Stephen Joseph Theatre
Play of the week outside York: Blackeyed Theatre in The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde , Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight until Saturday
NICK Lane’s adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde draws inspiration from his own journey. Injured by a car accident when he was 26 that permanently damaged his neck and back, he imagines Jekyll as a physically weakened man who discovers a cure for his ailments; a cure that also unearths the darkest corners of his psyche.
“I wondered, if someone offered me a potion that was guaranteed to make me feel the way I did before the accident, but with the side effect that I’d become ruthless and horrible – would I drink it?” ponders Lane.
Combining ensemble storytelling, physical theatre, movement and a new musical score by Tristan Parkes, Lane remains true to the spirit and themes of the original novella while adding a major female character, Eleanor. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Caught Short? No photos, so here is the poster artwork for RhymeNReason Put On Shorts, up and running at Theatre@41
Short run of the week: RhymeNReason Put On Shorts, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm
WHAT was Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with Jimmy Savile? Why did a Yorkshire pensioner try to smuggle a fruit cake through Australian customs? What really happened on day three in the Garden of Eden? How should a perfect murder end in a real cliff hanger?
Questions, questions, all these questions, will be answered in funny, thought-provoking short plays by Yorkshire writers David Allison, Steve Brennen, Lisa Holdsworth and Graham Rollason. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Sax Forte: Lunchtime concert at St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel
The good sax guide: Sax Forte, Friday Concerts, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York, tomorrow, 12.30m
YORK saxophone quartet Sax Forte – Chris Hayes, Keith Schooling, Jane Parkin and David Badcock – open York Unitarians’ new season of Friday Concerts with an afternoon programme of English and French music.
Introducing themselves, Sax Forte say: “Chris plays soprano sax because he likes showing off; Keith plays alto sax because he tries to keep up with Chris; Jane plays baritone because she’s got the strongest shoulders; David knows his place (with apologies to The Two Ronnies and John Cleese)!”
The saxophone was not invented until the mid-19th century, but Sax Forte will be playing earlier classical and baroque pieces, trad folk tunes and later 19th and 20th works for sax quartet.
Conductor Simon Wright: Bringing together York Guildhall Orchestra and Leeds Festival Chorus next month
Classic comeback: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, October 16, 7.30pm
YORK Guildhall Orchestra return to the concert stage on October 16 after the pandemic hiatus with a programme of operatic favourites, conducted by Simon Wright.
The York musicians will be joined by Leeds Festival Chorus and two soloists, soprano Jenny Stafford, and tenor Oliver Johnston, to perform overtures, arias and choruses by Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Rossini, Mozart, Puccini and Verdi. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Late Music…now: Gemini, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, Saturday, 7.30pm
YORK’S Late Music programme of contemporary music returns from pandemic lockdown with Gemini on Saturday night.
First performances will be given of Gemini’s commission of Sadie Harrison’s Fire In Song and Morag Galloway’s It’s Getting Hot In Here, complemented by Peter Maxwell Davies’s Economies Of Scale and works by York composer Steve Crowther and Philip Grange. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.
Reflection and reaction: Manic Street Preachers showcase new album Ultra Vivid Lament at York Barbican
Not just another Manic Monday: Manic Street Preachers, York Barbican, Monday, 8pm
WELSH rock band Manic Street Preachers play York on Monday, with a second Yorkshire gig at Leeds O2 Academy on October 7.
Their autumn itinerary is showcasing this month’s release of their 14th studio album, The Ultra Vivid Lament: “both reflection and reaction; a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky,” say the Manics. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
From Queen to Outsider: Roget Taylor in concert at York Barbican
The inside track on the outsider: Roger Taylor, Outsider Tour, York Barbican, Tuesday, 7pm
QUEEN drummer Roger Taylor plays York Barbican as the only Yorkshire show of this autumn’s Outsider tour in support of his new album of that name, out tomorrow.
“This is my modest tour,” he says. “I just want it to be lots of fun, very good musically, and I want everybody to enjoy it. I’m really looking forward to it. Will I be playing Queen songs too? Absolutely!” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Go wild in the country: The Shires look forward to returning yet again to the East Yorkshire market town of Pocklington next January
Gig announcement of the week outside York: The Shires, Pocklington Arts Centre, January 26 2022
THE Shires, Britain’s best-selling country music act, will bring their 2022 intimate acoustic tour to their regular haunt of Pocklington next January.
“Wembley Stadium, MEN Arena, Grand Ole Opry are all amazing, but Pocklington will always be a special place for us,” say Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes, who are working on their fifth album. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond…for a long time
Oh, and just one other thing….
BOND, James Bond. Yes, after all those false dawns in the accursed Covid lockdowns, the perpetually postponed final curtain for Daniel Craig’s 007 opens today when it really is time for No Time To Die to live or die at last. Shaken or stirred, thrilled or deflated, you decide.
The vampire strikes back: Comedy troupe Le Navet Bete in Dracula: The Bloody Truth at York Theatre Royal
DRACULA at the double, Bull’s delayed album party, a burgeoning Ripon singer-songwriter, a talent showcase, a festival for the over-fifties, a Geordie podcast couple and a quick-witted Aussie catch Charles Hutchinson’s attention.
Family friendly Dracula? Yes, really, in Le Navet Bete’s Dracula: The Bloody Truth, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow and Saturday, 7.30pm
KINGS of comedy Le Navet Bete link up with Exeter’s Northcott Theatre to sink their teeth into Dracula: The Bloody Truth, mixing slapstick and crafted comedy with a healthy dose of things going wrong.
Penned and directed by Peepolykus’s John Nicholson, this “family friendly show” journeys from the sinister Transylvanian mountains to the awkwardly charming Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby.
Esteemed Professor Abraham Van Helsing and his three idiotic actors will try frantically to expose the truth behind Bram Stoker’s notorious novel and warn audiences of the real dangers of vampires. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
What’s Mina Harker’s viewpoint? Find out in Imitating The Dog’s Dracula: The Untold Story at Leeds Playhouse
Like buses, no Dracula for ages, then two come along in quick succession: Imitating The Dog/Leeds Playhouse in Dracula: The Untold Story, Leeds Playhouse, tomorrow until October 9.
DIRECTED by Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, this chilling new reimagining of the classic gothic vampire tale is set in the 1960s and told from Mina Harker’s viewpoint.
Unfolding on stage as a live graphic novel, Leeds company Imitating The Dog utilise cutting-edge digital technology to engage with the dark landscape of Bram Stoker’s original, injecting it with renewed energy and political insight.
Dracula: The Untold Story “flips the page on our fascination with the most enduring manifestation of evil in literature”. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
At last! Bull will hold their Covid-delayed album launch party at The Crescent tomorrow
Gig of the week in York: Bull, The Crescent, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
THIS show is York band Bull’s debut album launch gig, and no bull.
Didn’t Discover Effortless Living have the misfortune to be released in the very early days of Lockdown 1 on March 26 2020? Indeed so, but casting the pandemic hiatus to one side, it is never too late to celebrate a York band signing to a major label – EMI Records – and so here comes the long-awaited party for Tom Beer, Dan Lucas, Tom Gabbatiss and Kai West.
Cue the York-grown joys of Disco Living, Green, Bonzo Please, Loo Goo, Eugene and plenty more bangers beside.
Billie Marten: Singer-songwriter will play with a full band at Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Gig of the week outside York: Billie Marten, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, tomorrow , doors at 7.30pm
RIPON singer-songwriter Billie Marten promotes her third album, Flora Fauna, and new single Liquid Love on tour in Leeds with a full band-line-up.
Built on her minimalist acoustic folk foundations, the London-based Marten’s first album for Fiction Records is fostered around a strong backbone of bass and rhythm as she sheds past timidity in favour of greater urgency.
Flora Fauna’s songs mark a period of personal independence for Marten as she learned to nurture herself and break free from toxic relationships, and a big part of that transition was returning to nature. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
After last year’s competition, here comes the celebration of Yorkshire’s blossoming acts
Showcase of the week: Yorkshire’s Got Talent – Live!, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7pm
DANCE, comedy and a wide variety of music feature in this celebration of the best of Yorkshire’s young talent as judged by professionals and voted for by the public.
A thoroughly entertaining show bursting with joie de vivre is promised from these stars of the future in a fundraiser for the JoRo Theatre. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Chris and Rosie Ramsey: From hit podcast to York Barbican live show
Visiting Geordies of the week in York: Chris & Rosie Ramsey, Shagged. Married. Annoyed, York Barbican, Tuesday, 8pm
FOR the first time ever, loveable Geordie duo Chris and Rosie Ramsey are bringing their hit podcast live to York for one show only, moved from June 16 to September 28.
Apparently, the only way the Ramseys can have a conversation without being interrupted by a small child or ending up staring at their phones is by doing a podcast, drawing 18 million downloads.
Now, comedian and 2019 Strictly competitor Chris and Rosie discuss life, relationships, arguments, annoyances, parenting, growing up and everything in between in front of a live audience.
Learning opportunity: An IT workshop at the York 50+ Festival
Festival of the week: York 50+ Festival, Saturday until October 3
The York 50+ Festival presents more than 80 events in a “fine way to shake off the gloom of Covid and join in either in person or by sharing online with people from all over the country and abroad”.
This is the 16th annual festival organised by YOPA (York Older People’s Assembly) and a small team of volunteers, offering social events and open days, talks, walks, sport and active leisure, workshops, classes and “chatty benches”.
The full programme can be found at yorkassembly.org.uk/50-festival and copies are available in all York libraries, community centres and around the city centre, plus at the YOPA office at Spark: York and the Tourist Information Centre, Museum Street.
Tim Minchin’s back…and Tim Michin’s Back is back for the Back Encore Tour 2021 at York Barbican
Look who’s Back: Tim Michin, Back Encore Tour 2021, York Barbican, October 19, 7.30pm
TIM Minchin, Australian comedian, actor and composer, is back with a new set of dates for his Back show, taking in York Barbican.
Billed as “Old Songs, New Songs, F*** You Songs”, the set list draws on material from all corners of Minchin’s eclectic – and often iconoclastic – repertoire.
Back was first performed in Great Britain in 2019 on Minchin’s first tour over here in eight years. Last November, he released his debut solo album, Apart Together. Tickets for the Back Encore Tour 2021 show go on sale today at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Tonderai Munyevu at the microphone stand in Mugabe, My Dad & Me on the York Theatre Royal stage. Picture: Jane Hobson
Mugabe, My Dad & Me, English Touring Theatre & York Theatre Royal, at York Theatre Royal until Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
IT has been a long wait for Zimbabwean-born writer-performer Tonderai Munyevu to premiere Mugabe, My Dad & Me.
The English Touring Theatre & York Theatre Royal production has gone through two pandemic-imposed postponements, three workshops and a transfer into an audio dramatization for Audible.com.
The play had long been billed as a one-man show but the published text states the presence of an Mbira player is compulsory, and sure enough, after Tonderai’s introduction and back story, the Theatre Royal curtain rose on actor-musician Millie Chapanda, in sun-bright African dress, with the Zimbabwean Shona people’s instrument by her side.
Mugabe, My Dad & Me has been in a state of flux, moving from its planned Studio baptism to the main house, growing in length from 70 minutes to an over-long 90 minutes, and switching from the Theatre Royal’s Summer Of Love programme to The Haunted Season.
Tonderai Munyevu with mriba musician Millie Chapanda in Mugabe, My Dad & Me. In the background is a Union Flag dress, associated with Tonderai’s favourite Spice Girl, Gerri Halliwell
Which would he prefer? “I think ‘Haunted’. It sounds longer lasting. ‘The Summer Of Love’ sounds impermanent,” Tonderai said in his interview with CharlesHutchPress.
As it turns out, the play suits both: there is love, for his late father and the motherland he left with his mother for a new life in London at the age of 12; and there is sex, Soho nights and all.
There is a haunting presence too: the figure of President Robert Mugabe, the freedom fighter turned despot, a permanent representation of Zimbabwe in Tonderai’s life until the barnacle president resigned at 93 in 2017.
Tonderai set himself the writing task of working out his identity, who he is, why he longs for “home” yet wonders where he belongs, by constructing a memory play but one that does not stop in the past but informs the Tonderai of today, Tonderai at 39: a gay, Catholic, Zimbabwean writer and actor, who lives in London and will be marrying next year.
Tonderai Munyevu recalls experiencing snow for the first time in London in a scene from Mugabe, My Dad & Me. Picture: Jane Hobson
Taking to the stage in a white shirt, overlapping his blue jeans, microphone in hand as if for a stand-up comedy gig, he recalls being asked “Where are you from?”, as he poured a pint when working as a barman in one of those fallow times that actors grow accustomed to enduring.
It was this question that prompted him to look for answers in Mugabe, My Dad & Me. “I need to work things out, to understand – about my father, about Mugabe, about all these ghosts from the past,” he says in the prologue to Scene 2.
“I need to wrestle with where I stand in it all. With who I am today. This isn’t going to be an easy or straightforward story to tell,” he forewarns. It won’t all make sense, as much to him as to us, he cautions, but he turns out to be a highly coherent storyteller, shining a light on the chaos, chance and contradictions of life.
Set and costume designer Nicolai Hart-Hansen conjures memories and ghosts of Tonderai’s past by hanging row upon row of clothes above his head, a constant presence that is lowered or raised, depending on the scene.
Tonderai Munyevu and Millie Chapanda beneath the rows of clothes denoting people and stories from Tonderai’s past. Picture: Jane Hobson
The garments represent Tonderai, his mother, his father and Mugabe through the years, as well as uncles, aunts, his first lover, and Bob Marley at his famous Zimbabwe concert (although apparently Mugabe wanted Cliff Richard, considering Jamaican reggae icon Marley to be “too crude”).
Those clothes weigh heavy on the unfolding drama, like Banquo or the ghost of Hamlet’s father, but they rule out the need for any other means of evoking people or place, Tonderai’s words sufficing on their own.
The only “prop” is a chair for Millie Chapanda, as she changes position on the stage to suit the focus of each scene, under the concise yet poetic direction of Theatre Royal associate John R Wilkinson.
As the title suggests, Tonderai weaves together the impact of his father and Mugabe, the “father” of his homeland, and is unsparingly frank in his appraisal of both.
His father, a bright and good looking “everyman”, was a womaniser, a wife-beater, a drinker, who died in desperate circumstances, as impoverished as the “bread basket of Africa” became in the later years of Mugabe’s presidency.
Tonderai Munyevu in “conversation” with the ghost of President Robert Mugabe at the climax to Mugabe, My Dad & Me. Picture: Jane Hobson
His father had worked at an accountancy firm, until a dispute with a white colleague ended with him punching him. Told he would not be fired if he apologised, he declined to do so, losing his job, setting a spiral of decline in motion.
Piece by piece, Tonderai puts the jigsaw together to explain his father’s incendiary character, recalling how belatedly he learned of the trauma that had shaped him.
As for Mugabe, in the climax to the play, Tonderai confronts the late President, by now represented in full regalia, as to why he turned from revolution to tyranny, failing those who had been promised a fruitful farming future after guerrilla service in the name of freedom and ending colonial rule.
Encountering the personable, forthright Tonderai over these 90 confessional, conversationalist minutes, this son of the Zimbabwean diaspora has his heart in his still-troubled southern African homeland, its culture and heritage, and yet he appreciates the freedoms brought to him by London life. Does that leave him in a no man’s land or a place of opportunity? Both, but roll on next year’s wedding, he will say.
One frustration in this male-dominated story: we learn next to nothing of his mother, but maybe Millie, her mriba and her calming presence can be read as testament to her influence. After all, Millie, not Tonderai, has the last word.
Review by Charles Hutchinson
Millie Chapanda and her mriba in Mugabe, My Dad & Me. Picture: Jane Hobson
Big news! York artist Freya Horsley, right, and gallery co-director Ails McGee with Freya’s paintings Turning Tide and Liquid Light at According To McGee, York
BIG paintings, a night market, thrillers at the double, cookery chat, an anniversary celebration, a long-awaited Scottish return and a brace of comedians are the diverse focus of Charles Hutchinson’s attention.
Exhibition of the week: Freya Horsley, Contemporary Seascapes, According To McGee, York, running until October 11
ACCORDING To McGee is playing host to the biggest paintings the Tower Street gallery has ever exhibited: Liquid Light and Turning Tide, two mixed-media works on canvas by Freya Horsley.
The York artist is displaying a new series of seascape paintings depicting the Cornish, Scottish and north east coastlines.
“Her art makes you look twice because it has a calming quality and, like a good sunrise, it makes you go ‘wow!’,” says co-director Greg McGee.
York Creatives Night Market: Debut night of arts, crafts, music, food and drink at Shambles Market tomorrow
York Creatives Night Market, Shambles Market, York, tomorrow, 7pm to 10.30pm
POSTPONED at short notice on August 20, the debut York Creatives Night Market goes ahead tomorrow in a chance to browse art and products by independent traders.
Street food, drinks and music all evening are on the menu too for this free event, open to all.
The Rusty Pegs: Tenth anniversary concert at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Celebrating ten years on: The Rusty Pegs, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Saturday, 8pm
TEN years ago, York country band The Rusty Pegs formed, drawn from volunteers at the Monkgate theatre, who were asked to perform their debut gig there at a Raising The Roof fundraiser.
To mark a decade of making music together, the Pegs have decided to come full circle by performing an anniversary gig in the same place where it all started, this time launching the autumn season. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
No mistaking Justin Currie: Del Amitri return with Fatal Mistakes album for first York gig since 2002
Long time coming: Del Amitri, York Barbican, Saturday, 7.45pm
DEL Amitri follow up the May 28 release of their seventh studio album, Fatal Mistakes, with a return to York Barbican after a 19-year hiatus.
Justin Currie’s Glaswegian band last played there in May 2002, the year they released their last album, Can You Do Me Good?.
“It’s been nearly 20 years since we toured with a new album, lord knows what took us so long,” says Currie. “The prospect of sprinkling our set with a few choices from Fatal Mistakes fills us with the sort of excitement that, for some men of our age, might call for light medication. We think the adrenaline will see us through.” Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
No smoke without ire: Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss blows his top at York Barbican
Comedy gig of the week: Daniel Sloss: Hubris, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm
SUNDAY’S gig is third time lucky for Scotsman Daniel Sloss, whose October 3 2020 and May 8 2021 visits were ruled out by the accursed Covid.
Sloss, 30, has sold out six New York solo off-Broadway seasons, appeared on American television’s Conan show ten times and toured to more than 50 countries. Now, at last, comes his new show, with special guest Kai Humphries.
Look out for Sloss’s book, Everyone You Hate Is Going To Die (And Other Comforting Thoughts On Family, Friends, Sex, Love, And More Things That Ruin Your Life), from October 12. For tickets for Sunday, go to: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
What’s cooking? Cookbook writer Yotam Ottolenghi finds flavour at York Theatre Royal on Tuesday
Flavour of the month: Yotam Ottolenghi, A Life In Flavour, York Theatre Royal, Tuesday, 7.30pm
CHEF, restaurateur and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi reflects on A Life In Flavour, provides cooking inspiration and signs copies of his “flavour-forward, vegetable-based” cookbook, Ottolenghi Flavour, after the show on Tuesday.
West Jerusalem-born Ottolenghi will be discussing the tastes, ingredients and flavours that excite him and how he has created a career from cooking.
Expect “unique insights into how flavour is dialled up and why it works, from basic pairings fundamental to taste, to cooking methods that elevate ingredients to great heights”. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Dane Baptiste: Comedian with a chip on his shoulder at Burning Duck Comedy Club
The other comedy gig of the week: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Dane Baptiste: The Chocolate Chip, The Crescent, York, September 23, 7.30pm
IN his own words, Dane Baptiste is now a “grown ass black man, too old to be concerned with chicken or trainers, too young to be considered a peer of Trevor McDonald”.
Has he got a chip on his shoulder? “Yes. A chocolate one,” says Baptiste, a south east London stand-up who once worked in media sales.
Noted for his boldly provocative material, he hosts the podcasts Dane Baptiste Questions Everything and Quotas Full. Box office: thecrescentyork.com/events.
The Rowntree Players’ poster for next week’s production of Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web
Web of the week: Rowntree Players in Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, September 23 to 25, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
DIPLOMAT’S wife Clarissa is adept at spinning tales of adventure, but when a murder takes place in her drawing room, she finds live drama much harder to cope with in Rowntree Players’ autumn return, directed by Howard Ella.
Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband arrives with an important politician, she enlists the help of her guests.
In a conscious parody of the detective thriller, Christie’s Spider’s Web delivers suspense and humour in equal measure in an intricate plot of murder, police detection, hidden doorways and secret drawers. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
In the chair: Just Some Theatre in rehearsal for The Killer Question, heading to Theatre@41, Monkgate, York
Mystery of the week ahead: Just Some Theatre in The Killer Question, Theatre@41 Monkgate, York, September 25, 7.30pm
THE Silence Of The Lambs meets Last Of The Summer Wine in Dave Payne’s dark comedy thriller The Killer Question, marking the York debut of Manchester company Just Some Theatre.
Did The Chair game show champion Walter Crump’s obsession with death ultimately lead to his own? Inspector Black believes so, and now Crump’s dopey widow, Margaret, finds herself accused of her husband’s murder.
Faced by more than one deadly twist in the tale, can Inspector Black solve the mystery? Will Margaret be home in time for Countryfile? Just as important, which actor – Peter Stone, Jake Urry or Jordan Moore – will play which character? The audience decides. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Tonderai Munyevu: Zimbabwean-born performer and writer, premiering his new play, Mugabe, My Dad And Me, at York Theatre Royal from tonight’s first preview
ZIMBAMWEAN writer-performer Tonderai Munyevu’s new one-man show, Mugabe, My Dad & Me, appears in York Theatre Royal’s brochures for both the Summer Of Love and The Haunted Season.
“Which one suits it best, Tonderai?”, he is asked, when shown both. He smiles, then decides: “I think ‘Haunted’. It sounds longer lasting. ‘The Summer Of Love’ sounds impermanent.”
Tonderai is sitting by the first-floor bar at the Theatre Royal, ahead of his long-promised, pandemic-delayed world premiere opening tonight (9/9/2021), directed by Theatre Royal associate artist John R Wilkinson.
“I did a job in Bristol, then one week off, and we were going into rehearsals when everything stopped,” he says. “It’s just been postponed and postponed but I’m glad that John and the Theatre Royal have stuck with it.”
Mugabe, My Dad & Me, running until September 18 in the main house, charts the rise and fall of one of the most controversial politicians of the 20th century through the personal story of Tonderai’s Zimbabwean family and his relationship with his father, against the backdrop of the abiding legacy of British colonisation.
“Around the time when Robert Mugabe was deposed as president in 2017, I just felt like I needed to be back there,” he recalls. “At that point, I hadn’t been there for a few years, not for safety, but more for work and family. I found it was triggering a reaction in me, thinking, ‘I’m going to be in England, and not part of this amazing turnaround’, when I want to experience it’.”
Initially, Tonderai pondered doing a play based solely on freedom fighter-turned despot Mugabe’s speeches from 1962 to 2017, or “potentially to 2018, when he did that final press conference that was so telling”. “But then I thought, when I looked at my father’s story, being born in subjugated Rhodesia, I should tell that story too,” he says.
“I just knew my father’s basic story; I knew he was my dad; he drank too much; he womanised; he was fantastic, such fun, but he was a wife beater too. He lost his job as an accountant – I was about 11; he was in his 40s – and life just changed for him at that point.
The poster for Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad & Me, premiering at York Theatre Royal
“Just as Mugabe’s speeches changed from calling for equality and England knighting him to the speeches of the 1990s and his fall-out with [international development secretary] Clare Short and ‘Prime Minister] Tony Blair, going against the Lancaster Agreement, over how land was to be dealt with and how people would be compensated. That fall-out led to an impoverishment of Zimbabwe that was unparalleled.”
Based in London, Tonderai set to writing Mugabe, My Dad And Me. “I knew if I made it too political, we’d lose the sense of a story being told, but if we could see it through a family’s eyes, with the story of my father dying in an impoverished state, after I left for England with my mother when I was 12, that would work better,” he says.
“The story of Zimbabwe is the story of Mugabe and the story of my father’s generation, but also the story of my generation, who have moved away from home and are grappling with who they are, when you’re asked, ‘Where do you belong?’, and you know you are technically part of that culture but you’re not there anymore, so where do you belong?”
A quarter of Zimbabweans left southern Africa in the big exodus around 2003. “That happened once the economy tanked, the white farmers left and the land was not being cultivated. It started a very tragic downward turn,” says Tonderai.
What about his father losing his job? How come? “The issue involved my father and another accountant at work having a dispute. They said my father wouldn’t be fired if he offered an apology, but he felt hard done by and so he didn’t apologise.” Instead, he left the company.
“My mother and I then left [for London] before it got really bad for him, and I would keep in touch with letters, but not really knowing how things were for him. But then, when I went back, I learnt what really happened, with my uncle being killed when he was only 17 by white Rhodesians who had paraded his body as a warning to those who were guerrilla-fighting in the fields for freedom,” says Tonderai.
“My family was never offered the land that was promised to freedom fights, so Mugabe didn’t deliver on that promise. There’s no-one with moral authority in this story as you can’t defend Mugabe, but equally Blair had a superficiality about him.”
Learning more of his father and his family’s back story led Tonderai to feel more sympathetic towards him. “Though my mother says, ‘No, whatever happens in your life, it doesn’t justify you being a wife-beating, womanising drinker’.”
“Until I wrote this play, there were things that I’d never written about; things that were holding me hostage,” says Tonderai
As for Tonderai’s own sense of identity as an African, Catholic, gay artist, he says: “It had always been connected with Mugabe’s long, long life, like his contemporaries, The Queen and Prince Philip. Now I had to grapple with the President no longer being on pictures everywhere, but also that joy that now we have a democracy, we can protest on the street.
“I started looking at things, about where I wanted to be, and I wanted to understand myself, and part of that was understanding my father. If you’re an artist, you’re an emotionally and intellectually mature person, and I want to investigate that.”
Nothing is simple in his assessment. “The colonisers were ostensibly a negative force in that land, but in some ways positive too, just as Mugabe was an icon of liberation but then tainted by his later actions, and my father was an amazing man, but he was violent too,” says Tonderai.
“In Africa, we have been colonised, but we have colonised ourselves too…some people think Zimbabwe is worse now [post-Mugabe]. I think it’s a very journey to having the opportunity for young people to have the choice of what happens in that country because Zimbabwe is still locked into that thing of ‘What war did you fight in? Why do you, as a young person, have the right to say what Zimbabwe should be?’.
“It does feel like we have to wait for a while to see what the future path will be for Zimbabwe. We have a military hold on religion. You feel despondency because you have hope, just like in South Africa, with Nelson Mandela’s presidency, so when we start looking at African culture, maybe it will be more attuned to Marxism, Socialism for sure, but not democracy as it stands now.
“What I have to do humbly in this story is to show how complex it is and to say there are no easy solutions.”
Tonderai ponders: “Is it more helpful to say that humans have always done it – subjugating people – but we don’t have to define ourselves now by the same standards, when we solve our problems by focusing on our resources, on education, to be fully human, without racism.
“Rather than having to be respected by a white person, or a white person having to admit that they did wrong, instead our priority is our children and our sense of worth that is not defined by subjugation or being considered lesser by another race.
“We move forward. The broader thing that has humbled me in doing Mugabe, My Dad & Me is I could write something where everything feels it’s about race, but instead in this play I’m writing about my culture, the complexities of that legacy and now not defining myself as a migrant in Britain. No-one is ever just a ‘migrant’.”
Tonderai Munyevu, right, in Leeds company Eclipse Theatre’s Black Men Walking, on tour at York Theatre Royal in 2019
Tonderai, who last took to the Theatre Royal stage in Eclipse Theatre’s touring production of Testament’s Black Men Walking in September 2019, turns to discussing the “Me” in Mugabe, My Dad & Me. “There’s a point in this play when I say ‘I’m a gay man, I’ve just got engaged and I’m getting married next year’, and though there’s a necessity to say it, I’m a free man and I’m incredibly privileged to be supported,” he says.
“I think my father always liked me because I was confident, erudite, intelligent, fun, and for my father in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, he loved that about me, and I loved that about him. My parents were both bright people and I loved that about them.
“My father said, in the last conversation we ever had, ‘I know I don’t have to ask you if you have a wife’. My feeling is, I think he knew I was gay, rather than him saying I was too young to marry!”
Writing Mugabe, My Dad & Me has proved cathartic for Tonderai. “Yes, things have been resolved by writing it. I think I know who I am now because of writing it; I’m definitely a writer because, until I wrote this play, there were things that I’d never written about; things that were holding me hostage,” he says.
“I never had a straight answer about Zimbabwe, but to have the confidence to be able to talk to a white farmer, Ben, about his life there was important to me. He knew everything by the book and had a very clear argument as to what he thought.
“When I was doing my preparation for this play, I would say, ‘hey, I’m writing this play and I’d like a white man’s perspective on Zimbabwe’, and to have a conversation with such clarity about being Zimbabwean was fantastic. We’re friends now.
“Ironically, he stayed in Zimbabwe, unlike me, and his rhythms of life are dovetailed with the rhythms of nature.”
The pandemic lockdowns have held back the premiere of Mugabe, My Dad & Me, but that has worked to Tonderai’s advantage. “Originally, it was going to be in the Studio, but I’ve always wanted to be on the main stage with a piece like this because I believe it can hold the main stage and I can hold the main stage, and I’m really excited to be performing it on that stage,” he says.
Summing up his one-man show about three men, Tonderai says: “This play is not a raking-up of the past; it’s a play about the present. One of the things that the pandemic has made us realise is that a leader can **** up a country, and sometimes in Europe, we don’t realise how dangerous it is to put people in this position, taking you in a dangerous direction.”
Cue Mugabe, My Dad And Me, premiering from tonight in English Touring Theatre and York Theatre Royal’s co-production in York. For tickets: 01904 623568 or online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Copyright of The Press, York
“I’ve always wanted to be on the main stage with a piece like this because I believe it can hold the main stage,” says Tonderai Munyevu, as he sits on the York Theatre Royal stage
The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon: Compilation album and greatest hits tour in 2022. Picture: Kevin Westerberg
THE Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon will play York Barbican on April 30 next spring in his first York concert since May 2011.
That bygone night, the Irish chamber-pop leprechaun performed at York Minster, but the “divine” in The Divine Comedy was not the reason he could be found in northern Europe’s largest Gothic cathedral.
The Dean and Chapter had agreed to allow Tribeca Arts impresario Ben Pugh to run a series of rock/world concerts in the Minster, and if Hannon let slip a couple of X-rated words – one to describe Minster arsonist Jonathan Martin, the other in a lyric – the wrath from above did not befall him. He looked up heavenwards only when sipping red wine from a glass, mouthing “sorry” playfully.
His return to York next spring will follow the February 4 2022 release of Charmed Life – The Best Of The Divine Comedy, marking the completion of the Northern Irish singer, songwriter, musical score composer and cricket enthusiast’s third decade as a recording artist.
This 24-track, career-spanning compilation of hit singles and fan favourites, compiled by Hannon and remastered at Abbey Road Studios, London, takes in such eloquent, often mischievously humoured landmarks as National Express, Something For The Weekend, Songs Of Love, Our Mutual Friend, A Lady Of A Certain Age, To The Rescue and Norman And Norma, complemented by the new composition The Best Mistakes.
“I’ve been luckier than most,” reflects 50-year-old Hannon. “I get to sing songs to people for a living and they almost always applaud. So, when asked what to call this collection I thought of Charmed Life. I like the song and it rather sums up how I feel about my life.”
The career retrospective will be available as a 24-track standard double CD; on double heavyweight black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve; on limited-edition double heavyweight colour vinyl in a gatefold sleeve and as a limited-edition triple CD edition, bolstered a “Super Extra Bonus Album” of new and unreleased recordings.
Discussing the bonus disc, Hannon says: “It felt right to celebrate 30 of The Divine Comedy. I can’t give you an overview of these songs. They’re a crazy mixed-up bunch. Some are strangely seasonal, some relate to what we’ve all been going through recently, some are just nuts. Enjoy!”
The poster for The Divine Comedy’s April and May 2022 tour
Hannon signed his first record deal at 20 in1990, subsequently releasing 12 albums and performing hundreds of shows. He will add to that tally with 19 British and Irish dates next April and May, when he will play a second Yorkshire show at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax, on May 13.
“I am so looking forward to playing live again,” says Hannon. “The last couple of years have been a reminder of how much it means to me personally. It really is my favourite thing. And it seems fitting that we’ll be coming back with a greatest hits set. You know, in case everyone’s forgotten who I am and what we do!”
Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday (10/9/2021) at yorkbarbican.co.uk and victoriatheatre.co.uk.
Track listing for Charmed Life:
Charmed Life; National Express; Norman And Norma; Something For The Weekend; Songs Of Love; The Best Mistakes; At The Indie Disco; Bad Ambassador; A Lady Of A Certain Age; Becoming More Like Alfie; Come Home Billy Bird; Have You Ever Been In Love; Our Mutual Friend; Generation Sex; How Can You Leave Me On My Own; Perfect Lovesong; Your Daddy’s Car; You’ll Never Work In This Town Again; Absent Friends; Everybody Knows (Except You); The Certainty Of Chance; Sunrise; To The Rescue; Tonight We Fly.
Track listing for Bonus deluxe 3CD/deluxe digital disc:
I’ll Take What I Can Get; Don’t Make Me Go Outside; Who Do You Think You Are; The Adventurous Type; When When When; Home For The Holidays; Te Amo España; Perfect Lovesong 2021; Simple Pleasures; Those Pesky Kids.
Did you know?
THE last time Neil Hannon’s compositions were heard on a York stage was in the Theatre Royal’s August 2019 production of Swallows And Amazons, a play with music that affirmed Hannon as a songwriter always ripe for musical theatre in the Flanders & Swann and Stiles & Drewe mode, with even a pinch of Sondheim salt and Randy Newman pepper.
Alex Wingfield (front) with Hanna Khogali, Laura Soper and William Pennington in Swallows And Amazons, featuring music by Neil Hannon, at York Theatre Royal in August 2019. Picture: Anthony Robling
“You could say, I’m a bit of an old hand! I actually first did The Woman In Black when I was 14,” says Antony Eden, who has returned to the role of The Actor. Picture: Tristram Kenton
AFTER 547 days, the Grand Opera House, York, will step out of the darkness and into The Woman In Black from September 13.
Robert Goodale will play lawyer Arthur Kipps opposite Antony Eden as The Actor in PW Productions’ latest tour of Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s ghost story.
Neither is a stranger to performing the torrid tale of an elderly lawyer obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of a “Woman in Black” for 50 years now.
“That is true,” says Antony. “You could say, I’m a bit of an old hand! I actually first did it when I was 14 after I saw it in the West End. I was already acting, and we wrote to PW Productions , director Robin Herford and Susan Hill to ask if we could put it on in the school theatre at Winchester.”
The answer was affirmative. “James Orr was my co-star…and in fact he came to see me in the show in Cambridge this summer with his son. I’d played The Actor when I was 14, and when we met up afterwards, I said, ‘I’m still playing the same part I was at 14, so I haven’t progressed much’!”
Robert Goodale as Arthur Kipps and Antony Eden as The Actor in The Woman In Black, haunting the Grand Opera House, York, from September 13 to 18. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Antony first performed in Robert Herford’s West End production in 2010, followed by a couple of tours, visiting York Theatre Royal in February 2013, a return to the West End in 2016 and a tour of Asia and Singapore. Now both he and The Woman In Black are back on the road again.
Such is his perennial association with PW Productions’ production that he has become associate director Of The Woman In Black. “I’ve worked with Robert Goodale before because, when he and Danny Easton were doing the last tour, part of my job was to go and see them every six weeks or so,” he says.
That tour spooked out York Theatre Royal in November 2019, but after the lockdown hiatus, Easton has gone west. “He decided not to come back into the tour. He does a running podcast now,” says Antony.
And so, while Danny keeps on running, Antony has resumed the role of The Actor from June 21 at Cambridge Arts Theatre, once more under the direction of the ubiquitous Herford, who directed the premiere of Mallatratt’s splendidly theatrical stage adaptation when it began life as a bonus Christmas show at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 1987 in novelist Susan Hill’s hometown of Scarborough.
Gripping moment: Antony Eden as The Actor with Julian Forsyth as Arthur Kipps at York Theatre Royal in February 2013
“We started working together for The Woman In Black and have done many things together since,” says Antony. “I think we have a shared philosophy of theatre, rooted in that Stephen Joseph Theatre, Alan Ayckbourn, Robin Herford mould. I love that small-scale way of making theatre.
“I’ve been a theatre fan since I was nine and I have to say that The Woman In Black is my favourite play. This piece is all about the audience, just as it is for Alan Ayckbourn, who sees the writing as only part of the process: the blueprint for the performance.”
Antony had the joy of performing in writer-director Ayckbourn’s company for the SJT premiere of A Brief History Of Women and revival of Taking Steps in summer 2018. “I was doing a tour of Relatively Speaking with Liza Goddard and Robert Powell that Alan came to see, and then did Kay Mellor’s A Passionate Woman with Liza and Russell Dixon, one of Alan’s regulars, at Cheltenham,” he recalls.
“When it then came to working with Alan, I’d already got a fair way along that path, as I was in that mindset from working with Robin and I’m naturally inclined to that style of theatre.
Antony Eden as Anthony Spates, Frances Marshall as Lady Caroline Kirkbridge, left, and Louise Shuttleworth as Mrs Reginald ffluke in Alan Ayckbourn’s A Brief History Of Women. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
“Alan would apply the philosophy of painting to setting scenes, with the most details for the central character and then the others would fill in the background. My favourite piece of advice from him was: ‘Do as little as you can and then do even less’.”
“Less is more” applies equally to The Woman In Black, where a cast of only two must do everything and yet Mallatratt’s play and Herford’s direction are rich in detail, drawing in the audience hook by hook.
“You really feel they are connected: the performers and the audience,” says Antony. “This play is a drama, a mystery, a whodunit, even a comedy at times; there’s so much to it and it plays to theatre’s strengths.
“To me, what’s important and fun about theatre is that it’s all about empathy the actors have for each other and the audience, and likewise the audience have for the actors. That’s what makes it special. This circle of empathy is what theatre specialises in; there’s no other artform like it for empathy.”
“I’ve been a theatre fan since I was nine and I have to say that The Woman In Black is my favourite play,” says Antony Eden, right. Picture: Tristram Kenton
Antony had been playing Ron in Harry Potter And The Cursed Child in the West End when Covid shutdown theatres, with 12 weeks still to go on his contract at the Palace Theatre.
“It’s a totally different experience from doing A Woman In Black. You have a staff director re-creating John Tiffany’s original direction, whereas Robin Herford is still directing The Woman In Black, and that’s why actors really want to do it because it’s a different partnership each time, two actors, one script, that’s all.
“Harry Potter And The Cursed Child is 50 actors, a script, pyrotechnics, special effects. It’s filmic in its scope, and that’s different from the theatricality that The Woman In Black is all about.
“I’ve done this play more than 1,000 times now and I’ve never once got bored with it.”
The Woman In Black, Grand Opera House, York, September 13 to 18, 7.30pm; 2.30pm, Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
