Tag: York Theatre Royal

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Waiter, DJ, headphones, rules, games: could this be York’s perfect Valentine’s date?

Binaural Dinner Date: the alternative Valentine’s Day date, so alternative that the date will be on the day after Valentine’s Day

PAY attention hopeful singletons and curious couples seeking an alternative Valentine’s Day date with a difference.

York’s Taste of SLAP Saturday curators and directors Lydia Cottrell and Sophie Unwin are bringing immersive and digital performance innovators ZU-UK to York Theatre Royal this weekend to set up the post-Valentine Binaural Dinner Date.

On the traditional sporting match day of the week, matches of a different kind will be taking place in the Theatre Royal café at 3pm, 5pm and 7.45pm, when ZU-UK will be asking “audiences to swipe right and join them for an experiential dating experience”.

“Come with your own date, or we can find one for you,” they say, emphasising that booking is required as soon as possible on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person at the Theatre Royal box office.

What will happen on Saturday? “Using binaural sound, participants will be guided by a voice in their ears to ask each other questions, offer answers, and consider the dos and don’ts of what we say, and what we would like to say, to each other on a date,” say ZU-UK, a company with its art and its heart in both London and Brazil.

“What are we really thinking when we meet for the first time? How much are we prepared to confess? And are the questions we ask each other the questions that will help us find love?” 

Binaural Dinner Date is “part interactive performance, part dating agency” for individuals looking for love, or existing couples who simply want a “very different” dating encounter

It will take place at nine tables simultaneously, where the aforementioned voice in the ear of every participant will steer them through a “perfect” date. Wearing headphones, two participants per table will be hosted by a waiter/facilitator/DJ, complemented by “interactively mixed binaural audio” with suggestions and comments on dating “rules”, as well as games pushing social expectations and “acceptable” table-talk topics. 

Jorge Lopes Ramos, ZU-UK’s co-artistic director, says: “ZU-UK’s artistic work has never shied away from engaging with urgent, problematic and at times depressing aspects of the contemporary human condition.

“This is a time to question mainstream narratives and to consider our role in shaping communities and relationships between strangers. Dating seemed like a contemporary human ritual worth exploring.”

Formerly known as Zecora Ura and Para Active, ZU-UK is an independent theatre and digital arts company based in East London and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since 2001. Driven by an artistic partnership between Ramos and Persis Jadé Maravala, ZU-UK creates interactive experiences, using games, performance and technology, that can happen anywhere, whether on the phone, in the house, on a stage, in a shopping mall or a field. 

Binaural Dinner Date is the first instalment in ZU-UK’s ten-part series Decalogy of Loneliness. After ZU’s Hotel Medea in 2009 to 2012 and the interactive technology exhibition Humble Market in 2012 to 2014, they have been developing ten artworks as part of this project.

Since 2015, they have worked with Canadian research institute TAG (Technoculture, Arts and Games), using game-design to deepen ZU’s work with immersive, participatory and interactive performance. 

Over the next three years, ZU will develop the remaining parts of the Decalogy, focusing on the relationship between strangers in public and private spaces. The company also will  present two digital artworks using public phones, #RioFoneHackand How Mad Are You? , and a binaural prototype, Small Data Mining.

Suitable for age 16 plus, Binaural Dinner Date is part of SLAP organisers Lydia Cottrell and Sophie Unwin’s Taste Of SLAP, a day of food-themed shows under their Social Live Art Performance banner (although, if memory serves right, SLAP initially stood for Salacious Live Alternative Performance when the festival was first set up!).

Full details of Taste of SLAP can be found at slapyork.co.uk and a further preview will appear online at charleshutchpress.co.uk. Tickets for this weekend’s taster carry a “Pay What You Can” price tag.

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Gangland teens find voice in Pilot Theatre’s inner-city drama Crongton Knights

The Magnificent Six in Crongton Knights at York Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29. Pictures: Robert Day

YORK Theatre Royal resident company Pilot Theatre are following up last year’s powerful adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses with another topical collaboration.

Pilot have teamed up with Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre to present Emteaz Hussain’s new staging of Alex Wheatle’s award-winning young adult novel Crongton Knights.

Co-directed by Corey Campbell, artistic director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, and Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, the touring world premiere will play the Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29.

Wheatle’s story depicts how life is not easy on the Crongton Estate and for McKay and his mates what matters is keeping their heads down. When a friend finds herself in trouble, however, they set out on a mission that goes further than any of them imagined.

Crongton Knights will “take you on a night of madcap adventure as McKay and his friends, The Magnificent Six, encounter the dangers and triumphs of a mission gone awry”.

Esther Richardson: Crongton Knights co-director and Pilot Theatre artistic director

In this story of how lessons learned the hard way can bring you closer together, the pulse of the city will be brought to life on stage with a Conrad Murray soundscape of beatboxing and vocals laid down by the cast of Kate Donnachie; Zak Douglas; Simi Egbejumi-David; Nigar Yeva; Olisa Odele; Aimee Powell; Khai Shaw and Marcel White.

Wheatle, a writer born in London to Jamaican parents, says: “I’m very proud that Pilot Theatre are adapting my novel, Crongton Knights, for the stage. It’s a modern quest story where, on their journey, the young diverse lead characters have to confront debt, poverty, blackmail, loss, fear, the trauma of a flight from a foreign land and the omnipresent threat of gangland violence.

“The dialogue I created for this award-winning novel deserves a platform and I, for one, can’t wait to see the characters that have lived in my head for a number of years leap out of my mind and on to a stage near you.”

Co-director Esther Richardson says of the teen quest story: “For us, this play is a lens through which to explore the complexity of young people’s lives, open a platform for those concerns and show what they have to try to navigate fairly invisibly to other members of society. It’s the context in which they live that creates the problem, and these kids go under the radar.

“Alex is writing about how the world is stacked against teenagers; how young people have been thrown to the dogs; how they to negotiate this No Man’s Land they live in, when their places have been closed down; their spaces to express themselves.

On the wall: The Crongton Knights cast

“They have been victims of austerity – as have disabled people – so it’s no surprise that there’s been a rise in knife crime, with kids on the streets and no youth workers to go to, to talk about their feelings.”

Esther notes how they have no access to the arts either. “That’s why our job becomes very important, especially the work we do with theatres around the country, such as the Young and Talented theatre workshops, working with kids in inner-city London who otherwise would have no involvement in the arts,” she says.

“It’s a very heavily subsidised actor-training scheme for children aged five or six upwards, and cast members for plays like Crongton Knights can come through the scheme.”

Esther is concerned, however, by the cuts in arts funding and the potential negative impact of Brexit too. “Theatre is not seen as an opportunity to thrive in, especially in this post-Brexit landscape where it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she predicts.

“That’s why we will further shift into co-creating pieces, Pilot creating work with communities, Pilot co-creating with teens, which we do already do, but we can do it better and do it more.”

On yer bike: A tense scene in Crongton Knights

Significantly, Crongton Knights is the second of four co-productions between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre, the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, and York Theatre Royal, who last year formed – together with the Mercury Theatre in Colchester – a new new partnership to develop theatre for younger audiences.

From 2019-2022, the consortium will commission and co-produce an original mid-scale touring production each year that will play in all the consortium venues as well as touring nationally.  The consortium’s debut production, Noughts & Crosses, was seen by more than 30,000 people on tour with 40 per cent of the audience being aged under 20.

To reflect the diversity of the consortium partners and the universality of Crongton Knights’ theme, Esther says: “Although there’s an estate in London called Notre Dame, which features in the book and the play, we have very much created a fictionalised inner city in the play, as Corey and I felt we wanted regional as well as London voices in the cast.

“So, our inner-city world is neither London, nor Birmingham, nor Coventry; it’s everywhere from the perspective of teenagers.”

Pilot Theatre and partners present Crongton Knights, York Theatre Royal, February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly plus 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Age guidance: 11 plus; show contains strong language.

Copyright of The Press, York

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English Touring Opera to perform three operas in two days at York Theatre Royal

Hail Caesar: English Touring Opera are bringing Giulio Cesare to York Theatre Royal in early April. Picture: Oliver Rosser

ENGLISH Touring Opera will be performing in both the main house and Studio on their return to York Theatre Royal this spring.

Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte will be staged on April 3 and Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) on April 4, both at 7.30pm, in the bigger space; next door will be The Extraordinary Adventures Of You And Me, for young children, at 11am and 2pm on the Saturday.

Directed by Laura Attridge, conducted by Holly Mathieson and sung in English, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte is a story of young love and fidelity that combines glorious music and farcical comedy in his  third collaboration with librettist Da Ponte after The Marriage Of Figaro and Don Giovanni.

Giulio Cesare, Handel’s epic opera of passion and revenge, is built on “a treasure trove of great arias with immense dramatic intensity”, set in the wake of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Egypt as his uneasy alliance and romance with fabled Egyptian queen Cleopatra unfurls.

Sung in Italian with English surtitles, ETO’s touring show is an adapted revival of their 2017 production, led by artistic director James Conway and conductorJonathan Peter Kenny, who will lead the Old Street Band. Both ETO’s April 3 and 4 performances will be preceded by a 6.30pm pre-show talk.

The Extraordinary Adventures Of You And Me is the latest instalment of fun, engaging and interactive operas for children and young audiences, after Laika The Spacedog, Waxwings, Paradise Planet, Shackelton’s Cat and This Is My Bed.

The 11am and 2pm audiences will meet the hero, Mackenzie, as they prepare to travel through time and space.  On a school trip to a museum, Mackenzie discovers that a pencil case is full of magical worlds.  “Who knows who you will meet and where you will visit along the way, so take a deep breath and expect the unexpected” say ETO of a show created by composer Omar Shahryar and writer/director Ruth Mariner.

ETO’s performance is suitable for Key Stage 1 and SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) audiences. The story features five performers, including singers and players, an ingenious set, interactive songs and sound technology and is recommended for two to five-year-old children.

Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

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Hislop and Newman’s comedy A Bunch Of Amateurs to play York Theatre Royal

A Bunch Of Amateurs writers Ian Hislop, left, and Nick Newman

PRIVATE Eye editor and Have I Got News For You team captain Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s comedy A Bunch Of Amateurs will play York Theatre Royal from June 2 to 6.

What happens in this play? Keen to boost his flagging career, fading Hollywood action hero Jefferson Steele arrives in England to play King Lear in Stratford, only to find that he is not in the birthplace of Shakespeare, but in a sleepy Suffolk village.

Instead of starring alongside Sir Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench, the cast members are a bunch of amateurs trying to save their theatre from ruthless developers.

Jefferson’s monstrous ego, vanity and insecurity are tested to the limit by the enthusiastic am-dram thespians who share his spotlight. As acting worlds collide and Jefferson’s career implodes, he discovers some truths about himself and his inner Lear.

After tours of Hislop and Newman’s The Wipers Times and Trial By Laughter, Trademark Touring, Karl Sydow and Anthology Theatre, in association with The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, will be taking A Bunch Of Amateurs on the road from April 23 to July 4.

Hislop and Newman say: “Following successful national tours of The Wipers Times and Trial By Laughter, we are thrilled to be touring the very first play we wrote, A Bunch Of Amateurs:  a love letter to the world of amateur theatre and a celebration of the overweening absurdity of Hollywood stardom.”

A Bunch Of Amateurs will be directed by Robin Herford, whose production of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Ten Times Table for impresario Bill Kenwright’s Classic Comedy Theatre Company is running at the Grand Opera House, York, this week.

Herford is best known for directing The Woman In Black, the Stephen Mallatratt stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel that he commissioned in 1987 when artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre. The  Woman In Black has been running in the West End for 30 years, always directed by Herford, along with the regular tours.

Tickets for A Bunch Of Amateurs are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

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REVIEW: Seeing Stars, An Evening With Simon Armitage, York Theatre Royal, 4/2/2020

WITHOUT York Theatre Royal, Simon Armitage may never have become Poet Laureate.

Let the Huddersfield writer explain, as he did last night on the first of two fund-raising nights for the Theatre Royal’s community fund.

As a boy, Armitage’s first experience of poetry in performance – poetry in motion, as it were – was attending a double bill of fellow Yorkshiremen Ted Hughes and Tony Harrison at the York theatre.

Last night, he was on that stage himself, marking the tenth anniversary of Seeing Stars, his “very theatrical, very dramatic” book of dramatic monologues, allegories and absurdist tall tales.

Curated by Scarborough-born theatre director Nick Bagnall, who made the briefest of appearances at the start, the show combined Armitage, standing to one side, with four actors, beret-hatted Richard Bremmer, Charlotte Mills, Tom Kanji and Kacey Ainsworth.

Sometimes seated in a row, sometimes leaping to their feet, if the lines demanded it, they took their lead from the dry-witted, deadpan Armitage, who orchestrated the show’s rhythms from beneath his still boyish fringe at 56 with a stand-up’s sense of timing.

In a show of two halves, there was a sense of mischief and playfulness throughout, as well as more serious observations, even bleak horror, that the thespian quartet revelled in as much as Armitage.

So much so, at one point he cut across Ainsworth, not rudely, but because he could not resist the sudden urge to read out more of his favourite opening lines from the poems, such was his enjoyment of the audience response.

I say “poems”, but at the outset Armitage recalled how reviewers had been unsure of exactly what these works were. “Not poetry,” said one. “Crazy, slightly surreal,” was Armitage’s own description last night, as the likes of The English Astronaut and Last Day On Planet Earth spun their modern-day fairytale magic.

Behind Armitage and co was a large print of the book cover: a hybrid of a horse and a pooch that captured this storytelling fusion of prose and poems. Prosems, if you like. It is a perfect choice of image, like Armitage chooses his words so cannily.

There is another story here too. Proceeds will go to the Theatre Royal’s community work that facilitates bringing people to the theatre who would not otherwise be able to visit. Later this year too, there are plans to “embed” people with dementia in youth theatre sessions in a union of old and young. Fantastic idea.

Tickets are still available for tonight’s 7.30pm performance, when you can savour a night of surprises, satire and surrealism from a Yorkshireman with a darker vision than Alan Bennett crossed with Ripping Yarns. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Charles Hutchinson  

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These singing roles really are the pits…but in a good way. Gary Clarke’s Wasteland awaits at York Theatre Royal

A scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, heading for York Theatre Royal next month

THE search is on for singing pitmen to take part in Gary Clarke’s Wasteland, a new dance event at York Theatre Royal next month.

Four non-professional singers are being sought to join the cast for the 7.30pm performances on March 27 and 28.

Wasteland was created to mark the 25th anniversary of the demolition of Grimethorpe Colliery in South Yorkshire and 30 years since the rise of UK rave culture.

Now the Gary Clarke Company is seeking four singers aged over 40 with experience of singing in a group setting or community choir to play the roles of ex-coal miners.

No professional experience is necessary but applicants should have experience of learning songs from memory and singing in unison. The role will involve “some moving on and around the stage and interacting with other members of the company”.

Down the mines: Another scene from Gary Clarke’s Wasteland

Singers will be supported throughout the process by musical director Steven Roberts, assistant musical director Charlie Rhodes, choreographer and artistic director Gary Clarke and company associate Alistair Goldsmith, who will work with everyone’s individual needs and abilities. 

Each participant will receive a food and travel allowance to help cover the cost of rehearsals and performances. 

For any enquiries or to register interest, send an email to engagementgcc@gmail.com or call engagement manager Laura Barber on 07391 621966.

Neil Abdy, who grew up in the mining community of South Yorkshire and whose father was a miner, was one of the team of volunteers who took part in a special preview at Cast Doncaster in 2018. 

“Being given the opportunity to be part of this excellent work was unbelievable,” he says. “Everyone made us feel special and the friendship and camaraderie was excellent. I have a new spring in my step. If you have the opportunity to take part, definitely give it a go. It’s one of the best experiences you will ever have working with this wonderful team.”

Tickets for Gary Clarke’s Wasteland are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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A Green Knight and painter Pablo’s women take over Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow

What if the story of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight were to be retold by the woman at its heart ? Debbie Cannon does exactly that in Green Knight

STUDIO Disoveries, a week of new theatre chosen by the Visionari community programming group, continues tomorrow with a brace of shows at the York Theatre Royal Studio.

Writer and performer Debbie Cannon’s Green Knight, at 6.30pm, is a one-woman version of the medieval poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight.

The setting is Christmas at Camelot, where a monstrous green warrior issues an unwinnable challenge to Arthur’s finest knight, but what if the story were to be retold by the woman at its heart?

Flying Elephant’s premiere production, Picasso’s Women, delivers a unique look at Picasso’s life through the voices of his wives, mistresses and muses at 8.30pm.

One of three of Picasso’s Women at York Theatre Royal Studio tomorrow

Written by Brian McAvera, directed by Marcia Carr and performed by Judith Paris, Colette Redgrave and Lucy Hunt, it takes the form of three monologues featuring French model Fernande, Russian ballerina Olga and 17-year-old mistress Marie-Therese.

Originally produced for the National Theatre and BBC Radio 3, the women’s stories provide an insight into the influence these women had on Picasso’s life and art.

The full programme for Visionari’s second Studio Discoveries season can be found at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. The festival begins today (February 4) with Not Now Collective’s Pepper & Honey, a new play with live Croatian pepper biscuit-baking, at 11am and 2pm. Box office: 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person from the Theatre Royal box office.

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A word with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage before his York Theatre Royal shows

Power of the pen: Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

YORKSHIREMAN Simon Armitage performs in York tonight and tomorrow for the first time since being appointed Poet Laureate last May.

The 56-year-old Huddersfield poet is presenting Seeing Stars: An Evening With Simon Armitage at York Theatre Royal in two fundraising shows to support the theatre’s community work.

Confirmed to be joining Armitage for the 7.30pm shows are actors Kacey Ainsworth (best known for playing Little Mo in EastEnders), Richard Bremmer, Charlotte Mills and Tom Kanji.

Curated by Scarborough-born theatre director Nick Bagnall, Seeing Stars features readings from Armitage’s works inspired by Sir Gawain And The Green Knight and The Death Of King Arthur on the tenth anniversary of Seeing Stars, his “very dramatic, very theatrical” book of dramatic monologues, allegories and absurdist tall tales.

Nine months into his Poet Laureateship, how would Armitage, the first Professor of Poetry at Leeds University, define poetry? “I’ve always taken the view that poetry is not just one thing,” he says.

“There have been recent times when people think it’s just words in a book, but performance has always been important and that has come back into fashion and been re-imagined too with spoken-word slams. There is room for everybody creating the language.”

Armitage continues: “One of the roles of the Poet Laureate, as I see it, is to promote poetry and speak up for the arts.

” I know it can have a strange effect on people when you say you’re a poet,” says Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

“My feeling is, if you’re involved with the arts, you’re more comfortable with yourself and you bring that to the inner universe you exist in, even if it’s only being more comfortable about language and how you think.”

At a time of cutbacks in arts funding and schools putting science before the arts in the curriculum, Armitage says: “You stifle creativity at your peril because, if you don’t offer an outlet, if you antagonise, it will still find a way out.”

Where does Armitage see sitting poets sitting in the public’s perception in 2020? As minstrels? Prophets? Commentators? Outsiders? “I know it can have a strange effect on people when you say you’re a poet. Definitely there’s something of the outside, the alternative, about it,” he says.

“It’s been a ‘peculiar’, not ever a mainstream, artform but I think people have a soft spot in their heart for poetry, especially at moments in their life, happy or sad, whether reading it or even writing it in those moments, so I still don’t think it’s a remote artform.”

As for his aims in his ten-year tenure as Poet Laureate, Armitage says: “By the end of those ten years, I would like to have seen my projects come to fruition [such as the newly founded Laurel Prize for nature poems and the establishing of a National Centre for Poetry].

“I’d also like to be judged for my writing, either myself seeking to maintain standards, or writing in a communicative, engaging way, and my Poet Laureate poems have to satisfy me too.”

Seeing Stars: An Evening With Simon Armitage, York Theatre Royal, tonight and tomorrow, February 4 and 5, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

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Evolution, not revolution, heralds new age of pantomime at York Theatre Royal

New pantomime partnership: York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and executive director Tom Bird with Evolution Productions producer Paul Hendy,

THE new age of pantomime at York Theatre Royal will involve Evolution rather than revolution.

For the first panto of the post-Berwick Kaler era, the Theatre Royal is teaming up with award-winning pantomime producers Evolution to present Cinderella.

The show dates will be December 4 to January 10 2021, an earlier start and finish than the December 7 to January 25 run for Sleeping Beauty, Dame Berwick’s last pantomime as co-director and writer after a 41-year association with the Theatre Royal.

Cinderella will be directed by Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster, who directed Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2018 and Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge in the Theatre Royal main house last September, as well as children’s shows aplenty.

Juliet Forster, who will direct York Theatre Royal’s pantomime, Cinderella

The script will be written by Evolution co-founder and producer Paul Hendy in tandem with York-born comedy writer and podcaster David Reed, who has returned to his home city and will provide additional material.

The cast is yet to be announced but will not be a star vehicle, with variety acts and blossoming pantomime talent and a “York flavour” likely to be to the fore instead. The set designer, not confirmed yet, will be charged with creating magical transformations and glittering sets to complement the “stunning songs and side-splitting laughs”.

Formed in 2005 by Paul Hendy and Emily Wood, Evolution Productions present “bespoke pantomimes of epic spectacle and hilarity” for the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield; Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury; The Hawth Theatre, Crawley; Garrick Theatre, Lichfield; Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury; Alban Arena, St Albans; Octagon Theatre, Yeovil, and Grove Theatre, Dunstable, now joined in a co-producing partnership by York Theatre Royal.

Juliet Forster and Theatre Royal executive director Tom Bird were exhilarated by Evolution’s 2019-2020 pantomime for Sheffield Theatres, starring long-running dame Damian Williams in Cinderella at the Lyceum.

Paul Hendy’s script from that hit show will provide an early template for Reed to set to work on giving it a York branding, with Cinderella’s rags-to-riches story being switched to this historic city in a “new pantomime for everyone”.

Evolution producer Paul Hendy: co-writer of Cinderella at York Theatre Royal

Executive director Bird says: “We are over the moon to be creating a spectacular new pantomime for the people of York: one that’s tailor-made for the whole family, while honouring the pantomime traditions that our audiences love so much. 

“Our recipe includes two of the most exciting voices in our city, David Reed and Juliet Forster, together with Emily Wood and Paul Hendy, the finest makers of pantomime in the country – a fairytale combination.”

Bird continues: “This phenomenal team will give the York Theatre Royal pantomime a new lease of life with a fresh, family friendly, fun-filled approach to the story of Cinderella. It’s a pantomime for the new decade, set with pride in our amazing city.”

Evolution Productions has built a reputation for superior, bespoke pantomimes with the emphasis on high-quality production values, strong casting and funny scripts, twice winning Pantomime of the Year at the Great British Pantomime Awards.

Producer and writer Hendy says: “Emily and I are absolutely thrilled to be working with York Theatre Royal on this year’s pantomime. We are huge fans of the theatre and we’re looking forward to collaborating with Tom and his brilliant team to produce a wonderful, family-friendly pantomime with spectacular production values, a superbly talented cast, and a genuinely funny script.”

Ticket prices will remain the same as for 2019-2020. Family tickets and Sunday shows are being introduced, as well as schools and groups discounts so that “everyone can go to the ball”.

Theatre Royal members’ ten-day priority booking opened today; members’ five-day priority booking on February 8; 9am in person at the box office, 10am online and phone booking. General booking opens on February 13; same times as above. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Meanwhile, Berwick Kaler’s first pantomime at his new York home, the Grand Opera House, will be Dick Turpin Rides Again, with writer, director and revived dame Kaler being joined by regular cohorts Martin Barrass, David Leonard, Suzy Cooper and AJ Powell for Qdos Entertainment’s panto partnership with the Ambassador Theatre Group.

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Pepper & Honey show about home takes the biscuit as Visionari festival opens

Pepper & Honey: Not Now Collective’s play with live baking opens Visionari’s Studio Discoveries festival at the York Theatre Royal Studio

WHAT happens when the audience selects the shows? Find out at York Theatre Royal from tomorrow in the Studio Discoveries festival of theatre chosen by the Visionari community programming group.

The first of six picks in Visionari’s second season really takes the biscuit when Not Now Collective’s new play of love, loss, heritage and new beginnings, Pepper & Honey,is told through the baking of Croatian pepper biscuits.

Known as paprenjaci, they will be baked live in front of the 11am and 2pm audiences as the story of Ana’s preparations to start a new life in the UK unfolds. Babes-in-arms are welcome at the 11am and 2pm shows – and biscuits are included.

So, what is “home”, ask Not Now Collective. Now that the era of post-Brexit Britain is under way, that question has never been more pertinent, in this case for Ana, a young Croatian woman, as she settles in the UK.

Determined to make it home, she focuses on life in this new land, but she is haunted by the voice of her Grandma, calling for her to stay true to national identity and yearning for Ana to come home.  

Grandma bakes her traditional Croatian pepper biscuits – believed  to bring a loved one back home – but will this be enough to be reunited with her granddaughter? What is “home” to Ana now?

Written by a Croatian playwright and performed by a Croatian actor, Pepper & Honey is a poignant, subtle and timely play about the journey of change, cultural differences, trying not to feel like a foreigner in your adopted country, and the conflict between upholding the traditions of the “old country” and embracing those of the new.

As trailered earlier, Pepper & Honey will be “timed to perfection to deliver a perfect Croatian pepper biscuit, baked live with the help of the audience”. Tickets for all the Visionari Studio Discoveries plays are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. The price is £10 per show or £8 when two or more Studio Discoveries shows are booked.

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