The Highwayman cast of Lancastrian actor-musician Dylan Allcock, left, Yorkshire actress Jo Patmore, Emilio Encinoso-Gil, last seen in the John Godber Company’s Do I Love You?, and Godber Theatre Foundation member Matheea Ellerby. Picture: Ian Hodgson
JOHN Godber has written more than 70 plays, invariably reflecting present-day concerns, woes and joys with humour as dry as a Yorkshire stone wall.
The Highwayman, riding into York Theatre Royal Studio from Thursday to Saturday next week, is different. “It’s the first time I’ve gone back into history,” says writer-director John, now 68, introducing his theatrical adventure where “history has never felt so modern.”
Before any nay’sayer points out he co-wrote Moby Dick with fellow Yorkshire playwright Nick Lane, that one does not count as it was an adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel.
This one is all John’s own work, albeit with the heavy hand of history leaning on him. “The year is 1769, when Yorkshire’s population had exploded, the races at York were packed, the new theatre in Hull thriving, and the spa towns full,” says John.
“Yorkshire was the place to be; a region drunk on making money, social climbing, gambling and gin, but with wealth in abundance, the temptation was great.”
Cue The Highwayman, “an exciting and exhilarating romp through history, where history has never felt so modern, theft never more attractive”. “I’m so excited to be bringing The Highwayman to the York Theatre Royal,” says John. “I cannot think of a better city to stage a show about highwaymen, this play coming from the region where Turpin was caught and Nevison made his great leap.”
Why head back into history now, John? “OK, two things. Many things actually. Dick Turpin was arrested in the village I used to live in, North Ferriby, [after shooting his landlord’s cockerel and threatening to kill the landlord, allegedly in the Green Dragon pub in Welton], so there is that story.
“I’d always been sure that Dick Turpin was a good subject for an East Yorkshire tour. Secondly, John Nevison was most likely to have been the man who rode from York to London on Black Bess, and Nevison was from Pontefract, just down the road from where I was born in Upton, and one of the main storing points for his booty was in Wentbridge, two miles from where I was born. The great leap he made to get away from the rozzers was across an estuary near Pontefract.”
John continues the background story. “That’s only part of the reason. The other was Tate Wilkinson [who managed York Theatre Royal for 36 years in the 18th century] . As an actor, he used to tour the northern circuit of Wakefield, Barnsley, Hull, York, Doncaster and Leeds, like my plays do now, and he opened the Hull Old Theatre in Hull, in Lowgate, too,” he says.
“I met up with Dr David Wilmore, the world expert on Frank Matcham’s theatres, who lives in North Yorkshire, to talk about the Assizes, how people went to watch the races at York and the hangings too, and in the late 1780s, you’re talking of 100,000 people watching the public hangings.
“This was the levelling up of a different era, so I then started looking at the £22 billion black hole today and thought, ‘if you had no money, what might you be led to do?’, and that’s when all these factors came into my thinking that I’d like to write a play about highwayman, though my character is an invention…”
…“There’s something else you need to know. You know my interest in Brecht and The Threepenny Opera…and The Beggar’s Opera. That was written by John Gay and produced by John Ridge, who had worked with Tate Wilkinson in the early part of his career.”
Put all this together and you have the model for Godber’s highwayman John Swift and his partner Molly May. “She’s referenced in Thin Lizzy’s hit Whiskey In The Jar, which happens to be a song about highwaymen!” says John.
Writer-director John Godber
The Highwayman was sparked by a request from East Riding Theatre in Beverley. “I was approached by ERT to write a play to mark the theatre’s tenth birthday, and I thought, ‘why not do something quite different and relevant to the district?’,” John says.
“We opened at the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond [North Yorkshire], where Tate Wilkinson played in the 1790s. That theatre was set up by Samuel Butler, who is buried in St Mary’s churchyard in Beverley.”
History is piling on history in John’s production. “The Woodland Scene, the oldest existing piece of stage scenery in the world, is in the Georgian Theatre’s museum, so I asked if we could replicate it in The Highwayman as we’re setting the play in Georgian times,” says John.
The resulting play has this period setting but with modern dialogue. “The ‘temptation’ in the play’s story leads the highywayman John Swift to come back from fighting the war in France thinking, ‘how am I going to make a living?’, particularly in the rural north,” says John. “So we’re looking at ‘what would you do if you had nothin’ – and with all the wealth around him, there was a lot of thieving to be done.”
What happens in The Highwayman, John? “The narrative starts with the highwayman’s hanging, which is ‘not a great start to a play’ he says, so he takes us back to when he is about to be hanged. Did you know, many of these hangings were unsuccessful and people sometimes survived? Our highwayman survives and because he does so, he changes his outlook to longer rob and work the land instead, and work for Tate Wilkinson too,” he says.
“But things don’t go to plan as his wife, Molly May, likes to spend, so he he goes up the coast on a ship and comes back with lots of goblets but still not enough to satisfy Molly.”
His story arc takes in pirates, the Royal Navy and highwayman John being sentenced to death again, waiting in Newgate Prison to be hanged for a second time. In the meantime, Molly May progresses from a cottage industry, pressing flowers, to inventing scented candles and becoming extremely wealthy from the perfume business at Floris. Whereas he keeps on running out of luck, Molly May takes advantage of opportunistic entrepreneurship.
“It’s been great fun to research the play, finding things I wasn’t aware of, like when you were about to be hanged, you could request a song, though you had to pay for it” says John.
The play may have an historical setting but “it’s a parable for today, close to an allegory. It’s been fascinating to do because it’s very, very different from what I’ve done before, but people come up to me and day, ‘mate, it’s happening now’.”
Reflecting on the early months of the new Labour Government, John says: “I have always voted Labour but I think this might be the last time. I believe we have lost touch with what people who have nothing are feeling. Also, university student fees going up: what’s that going to do?
“I’m not a Trump fan, but what we’re seeing [in America] is a failing of liberal education and a failure to understand what people on the ground are feeling.”
Looking ahead, John’s daughter, Elizabeth, has arranged a John Godber Company tour next year of his hit Northern Soul play Do I Love You?, booked into York Theatre Royal for June 10 to 14 on its 22-week itinerary. For tickets, go to: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
John Godber Company presents The Highwayman, York Theatre Royal Studio, November 14 to 16, 7.45pm plus 2pm Friday and Saturday matinees, SOLD OUT. Box office for returns only: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Actress, assistant stage manager and University of York alumna Georgia May Firth
SINCE graduating from the University of York in 2023, actress Georgia May Firth has taken a circuitous route to her making professional debut in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of).
“I was a witch on the York Witches and History Walking Tour, a Victorian maid at the Sherlock Holmes Museum [in London], then very randomly I became a dog food salesman – and then this job came along through the grapevine,” she says, on her return to York for this week’s run at York Theatre Royal.
“I heard about this touring production and was originally applying to be an assistant stage manager, but I mentioned I happened to be an actor too and was originally hired to be a book-cover understudy to the cast as well as an ASM.
“But then ten days into rehearsal, Susie [Barrett] took over from Eleanor [Kane], becoming our Anne for this run of shows until Eleanor rejoins in the New Year.”
In turn, Georgia is now Susie’s understudy in a multi-role involvement that takes in not only servant Anne, but also Mary Bennet, Lydia Bennet and Mr Gardiner, and she is covering for Christine Steel’s role too as Clara, Jane Bennet, Lady Catherine de Burgh and George Wickham.
“We’ve been touring since the beginning of September – though it feels like it’s been years already! – but I’m yet to go on. So, hopefully in York, but also not hopefully, as I want everyone to be well,” says Georgia.
“I’m so eager, but the nice thing is that as assistant stage manager I get to watch the show every night, so I don’t feel too far removed.”
In Isobel McArthur’s audacious re-telling of a certain Jane Austen novel, the stakes could not be higher in the early 19th century game of high society match-making as men, money and microphones are fought over.
“To begin with, it’s such a well-known and well-loved story,” says Georgia. “Before I’d even seen the show, I was a massive fan of the book, and so I came to the play with a bit of scepticism as I thought, ‘I’m not sure I want to make fun of it’, but Isobel has such a sense of love and respect for Austen’s story from the beginning. So much heart has gone into the script.
“Absolute chaos” in Isobel McArthur’s Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of) after Jane Austen
“You can tell Isobel really loves the book, and there was a lot of discussion at the start of rehearsals about what we all thought of it, the love she shows for the characters, which has then built into the absolute chaos on stage that’s so much fun. The pace never drops. It’s a good two hours flat out but it feels like you’re only on there for half an hour!”
McArthur’s “party time” version of Pride And Prejudice is told by the servants, kitted out throughout in black work boots as they work flat out at each of the posh houses where high society passes the day fretting and frothing over match-making.
“It really lends itself to multi role-playing, with lots of quick costume changes – and those costumes are phenomenal,” says Georgia. “Not only are they so beautiful, but they also need to be able to whipped off and the next one thrown on. It’s chaos!”
Georgia has enjoyed working with writer Isobel in the director’s chair. “It was so special to have her in the rehearsal room with us, especially as she was in the original cast,” she says. “We’ve kept it like Isobel performed it, but she wasn’t precious about it being her play, instead treating it as a gift for us all to play with.
“It was a case of ‘what do you think your character would do now or be thinking now?’ It was such a lovely atmosphere to work in; Isobel was a lovely presence to have around and such an inspiration.
“This is my first professional job and some of the girls’ first touring job, and Isobel has made it so calm for us. For her to be there, making us all feel part of the same team, all on one level, all wanting to achieve the same things, has made for a wonderful show.”
Georgia studied theatre when attending Langwith College at the University of York, performing such roles as Athena in Athena, Teodoro in The Dog In The Manger and Martha in That Face. “I basically stayed with Drama Society productions [at the Drama Barn], rather doing shows with York companies, but I did do Stones On The River Bed at the Green Shoots festival at York Theatre Royal,” she recalls.
Originally from Frodsham, Georgia left York for London last year, and now returns this week. Will she finally break her professional stage duck on understudy duty on familiar ground? Wait and see.
Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
On song in Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of) at York Theatre Royal all this week. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic
THIS rollicking, risqué, irreverent romp through Pride And Prejudice is not to be confused with the work of Austentatious, “an entirely improvised comedy play in the style of Jane Austen” that changes with every performance and audience suggestion.
This is very definitely Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of), penned with waspish wit by Isobel McArthur “after Austen” to Olivier Award-winning success for Best Comedy.
McArthur, who also won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Emerging Talent, now directs the Newcastle Theatre Royal/David Pugh & Cunard touring production of her West End smash, and what a joyous society ball after society ball of delight it is.
In an Upstairs Downstairs world, McArthur has five cheeky servants, in their cleaning Marigolds and work boots, introducing Austen’s love story from the Downstairs perspective, as important to the retelling as the Witches in Macbeth or a Greek chorus in ancient Greek dramas but with oodles of offhand humour.
Susie Barrett, Emma Rose Creaner, Rhianna McGreevy, Naomi Preston Low and Christine Steel will each play multiple characters, from all the Bennets to the suitors, suitable or unsuitable, and the terrifying aunt in Lady Bracknell mode. Oh, and these Bennet sisters are doing it for themselves, all with differing accents, whether Scottish, Irish, Midlands or Yorkshire.
McArthur’s tone is at once faithful yet anarchic. Well, as faithful as the leaflet trailer would indicate: “It’s the 1800s. It’s party time. Let the ruthless match-making begin.” “Party time” is the perfect excuse to perform pop nuggets such as Will You Love Me Tomorrow, You’re So Vain and the closing Young Hearts Run Free in 19th century frocks and sometimes adapted lyrics pertinent to the character.
It can be like watching a talent show-fostered girl group or those oh-so competitive pop Queens in Six, the other all-female hit doing the touring rounds.
Equally, you could bring to mind Absolutely Fabulous, Derry Girls or Phoebe Waller Bridge’s audacious writing for Fleabag and Killing Eve, while the multi-role playing at breath-taking pace echoes the affectionate satire of the much-missed Lip Service or Patrick Barlow’s take on The 39 Steps.
This is not to draw comparison with those works. McArthur’s Pride And Prejudice is not sort of any of them. It is fabulous, funny, frank and filthy in its own right: you will cheer at Preston Low’s potty-mouthed Elizabeth Bennet – as feisty as Freya Parks’s Jo March in Little Women at the Theatre Royal last month – firing off an Eff Off with both barrels. How appropriate her servant role should be called Effie!
Emma Rose Creaner, an uncorked pocket dynamo from Cork, is a riot as Charles Bingley and even more so as his acerbic, spoilt sister Miss Bingley.
Rhianna McGreevy has a touch of the AbFabs as match-making Mrs Bennet, forever in need of a stiff drink, and her Fitzwilliam Darcy is even better, with the ever-so-gradual loosening of his stuffed shirt, the pricking of his insufferable pomposity, the tongue either tied or acidic. Go (Colin) Firth and multiply by ten, but then comes the climactic scene with Preston Low’s Elizabeth, the confession of love, so clumsy but sincere, beautifully delivered and yes, romantic too.
You will enjoy Barrett’s exasperated teenage Mary Bennet and especially Steel’s scene-stealing Lady Catherine de Burgh, the cue to unleash Chris de Burgh’s Lady In Red, a smart cultural reference typical of McArthur’s humour, matched by the nod to Firth’s notorious lake scene from the 1995 BBC mini-series.
Praise too for the comedy staging Jo Houben and Ana Ines Jabares-Pita’s flamboyant costumes and set design with its stairwell so suited to grand entrances and girl-group pop performances alike and the high-speed use of doors for surprise entries and exits. Without giving anything away, look out for the horse too.
For maximum pleasure, it does help to know Austen’s story – then again, who didn’t at Monday’s packed press night?! – but the raucous humour, the romance, the irreverence, has such brio, surely everyone will have a ball. Party time indeed, just perfect for these November nights.
Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Livy Potter as Katy, left, and Alice Rose Palmer, as mum Natalie, in Louise Beech’s How To Be Brave at Gilling East Village Hall and Helmsley Arts Centre
FROM a devilish yet dotty canine musical to comedians having their moment, a film festival to glowing ghosts, Charles Hutchinson spots plenty to light up dark days ahead.
Touring play of the week: Other Lives Productions in How To Be Brave, Gilling East Village Hall, tomorrow, 7.30pm, and Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
IN 1943, Merchant Seaman Colin Armitage’s cargo ship was torpedoed by an Italian Navy submarine in the South Atlantic. He scrambled aboard a life raft. Fifty days later, HMS Rapid rescued him.
Colin was the grandfather of How To Be Brave playwright Louise Beech. Sixty-four years after his ordeal, Louise’s daughter, Katy, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In order to distract her during insulin injections Louise began to tell the story of Colin’s bravery and determination to survive.
Scenes in this resulting play alternate between the life raft and a house in Hull as York actors Jacob Ward and Livy Potter take the lead roles in Kate Veysey’s production. Box office: Gilling East, gillinjgeastevents@hotmail.co.uk; Helmsley, 01439 771700.
Man of The Moment: Ali Woods, playing York Barbican on his debut stand-up tour
Comedy men of The Moment: Mo Gilligan, In The Moment, York Barbican, tomorrow,8pm; Ali Woods, At The Moment, York Barbican, Friday, 8pm
THE moment has arrived for two comedy tour dates with similar show titles, first up the host of Channel 4’s The Lateish Show With Mo Gilligan, Londoner Mo Gilligan, on his In The Moment World Tour 2024.
The following night, half-English, half-Scottish comedian, podcaster and content creator Ali Woods plays York on his debut stand-up tour. At 30, this viral online sketch sensation has finally fallen in love with an amazing lady. “Come on an embarrassing and cathartic journey of teenage angst, relationship fails and learning how to live in the moment,” he says. Tickets update: available for both shows, whereas An Audience With Monty Don (November 11), Jamie Cullum (November 12), Sarah Millican: Late Bloomer (November 14) and Suzi Quatro ( November 15) have sold out already. Box office: yortkbarbican.co.uk.
Artist CJP with his work The Majestic Oak at Art Of Protest Gallery, York
Exhibition of the week: From Little Acorns Grow Mighty Hopes: An Exhibition of Hand-drawn Natural Wonders, Art of Protest Gallery, Walmgate, York, until November 16
ART Of Protest is the first gallery to show CJP’s work The Majesty Oak in an exhibition of original and rare limited-edition artwork. Look out for the Art Of Protest York Special Edition, only available to be ordered until November 16, featuring the River Ouse-dwelling Tansy Beetle, an elusive insect featured on a resplendent mural near York railway station.
“This is an amazing opportunity to own a truly unique celebration of British fauna with a very special York twist,” says gallery owner Craig Humble. “CJP will add a Tansy Beetle to each piece, along with the gold leafing of the branches.”
Very definitely Pride Of Prejudice * (*Sort Of), sending up Jane Austen affectionately in Isobel McArthur’s play at York Theatre Royal
Theatrical flourish of the week: Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
MEN, money and microphones will be fought over in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), the audacious retelling of a certain Jane Austen novel, where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance but it’s party time, so expect the all-female cast to deliver such emotionally turbulent pop gems as You’re So Vain and Young Hearts Run Free.
Writer Isobel McArthur directs this new production of her West End hit, Olivier Award winner for best comedy. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
In the driving seat: Kym Marsh’s Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians The Musical. Picture: Johan Persson
Dog show of the week: 101 Dalmatians The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7pm plus 2pm today, Thursday and Saturday matinees
KYM Marsh’s Cruella De Vil leads the cast for this musical tour of Dodie Smith’s canine caper 101 Dalmatians. Written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics) and Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris, the show is re-imagined from the 2022 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London.
When fashionista Cruella De Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, trouble lies ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of tail-wagging young pups in a story brought to stage life with puppetry, choreography, humorous songs and, yes, puppies. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
3 Missing 10 Hours, directed by Fanni Fazakas, showing in the Animation programme at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024
York festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, today to Sunday, and UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO, Guildhall, York, Thursday to Saturday
THE BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival returns for its 14th year under the direction of Cherie Federico, this time integrating the tenth anniversary of York’s designation as Great Britain’s only UNESCO City of Media Arts. Fifteen venues will play host to 300 film screenings in 12 genres, Virtual Realty and Gaming labs, plus 60 panels, workshops and discussions. For the full programme and tickets, head to asff.co.uk.
The UNESCO EXPO will showcase the region’s creative sector, working in film production, games development, VFX (visual effects), publishing and design, with the chance to try out new projects and speak to creatives. Entry to the Guildhall is free.
Ghosts After Dark: New nocturnal complement to the Ghosts In The Gardens installation in York Museum Gardens
Nocturnal event of the week: Ghosts After Dark, York Museums Gardens, tomorrow to Sunday, 6.30pm to 9.30pm; last entry, 8.30pm
YORK Museums Trust and the York BID present the inaugural Ghosts After Dark, showcasing York’s rich tapestry of historical figures with light, sound and storytellers for four nights only.
Ticketholders will have the exclusive chance to experience York Museum Gardens like never before, by choosing their own path to explore 46 ghostly sculptures, hidden around the gardens and lit dynamically against an atmospheric background of smoke and sound. Box office: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/ghosts-after-dark/.
Fishermen’s Friends: Playing York Barbican this week, then returning next October
Gig announcements of the week: Fisherman’s Friends, York Barbican, October 3 2025
IN celebration of performing sea shanties for more than 30 years across the world, Fisherman’s Friends will head out from the Cornish fishing village of Port Isaac to play a British tour split between 2025 and 2026.
York will come early, booked for night number two next October on a 32-date itinerary announced even before they have played their sold-out Barbican gig on Friday this week on their Rock The Boat tour, promoting fifth album All Aboard. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Skylights: York band headline York Barbican for the first time tonight
FROM Skylights to Ghosts After Dark, a fiesta of film to a musical dog show, Charles Hutchinson spots plenty to light up these November nights.
York gig of the week: Skylights, York Barbican, tonight, doors 7pm
ANTHEMIC York indie band Skylights play their biggest home-city gig to date this weekend with support from Serotones and Pennine Suite.
Guitarist Turnbull Smith says: ‘We’re absolutely over the moon to be headlining the Barbican. It’s always been a dream of ours to play here. So to headline will be the perfect way to finish a great year. Thanks to everyone for the support. It means the world and we’ll see you all there.” Box office update: Standing tickets still available at ticketmaster.co.uk.
Rob Rouse: Headlining Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, tonight
Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, Rob Rouse, Peter Brush, Faizan Shan and Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, tonight, 8pm
PEAK District comedian, television regular, Upstart Crow actor and self-help podcaster Rob Rouse, who trained as a geography teacher at the University of Sheffield, makes a rare York appearance with his hyperactive, loveable brand of comedy.
Harrogate Comedian of the Year 2012 Peter Brush combines a slight, bespectacled frame and scruffy hair with quirky one-liners and original material, delivered in an amusingly awkward fashion. Manchester comic Faizan Shah’s material makes light of growing up in an immigrant household with the mental health challenges it brings. Organiser Damion Larkin hosts as ever. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Artist CJP with his work The Majestic Oak at Art Of Protest Gallery, York
Exhibition of the week: From Little Acorns Grow Mighty Hopes: An Exhibition of Hand-drawn Natural Wonders, Art of Protest Gallery, Walmgate, York, until November 16
ART Of Protest is the first gallery to show CJP’s work The Majestic Oak in an exhibition of original and rare limited-edition artwork. Look out for the Art Of Protest York Special Edition, only available to be ordered until November 16, featuring the River Ouse-dwelling Tansy Beetle, an elusive insect featured on a resplendent mural near York railway station.
“This is an amazing opportunity to own a truly unique celebration of British fauna with a very special York twist,” says gallery owner Craig Humble. “CJP will add a Tansy Beetle to each piece, along with the gold leafing of the branches.”
Pride And Prejudice * (*Sort Of): Making merry mayhem with Jane Austen’s novel at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Mihaela Bodlovic
Theatrical high spirits of the week: Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), York Theatre Royal, November 4 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
MEN, money and microphones will be fought over in Pride And Prejudice* (*Sort Of), the audacious retelling of a certain Jane Austen novel, where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance but it’s party time, so expect the all-female cast to deliver such emotionally turbulent pop gems as Young Hearts Run Free, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and You’re So Vain.
Writer Isobel McArthur directs this new production of her West End hit, Olivier Award winner for best comedy and Emerging Talent Award winner in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, now featuring University of York alumna Georgia Firth in the cast. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
On the spot: 101 Dalmatians The Musical takes up canine residence at the Grand Opera House from Tuesday. Picture: Johan Persson
Dog show of the week: 101 Dalmatians The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, November 5 to 9, 7pm plus 2pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
KYM Marsh’s Cruella De Vil leads the cast for this musical tour of Dodie Smith’s canine caper 101 Dalmatians. Written by Douglas Hodge (music and lyrics) and Johnny McKnight (book), from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris, the show is re-imagined from the 2022 production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London.
When fashionista Cruella De Vil plots to swipe all the Dalmatian puppies in town to create her fabulous new fur coat, trouble lies ahead for Pongo and Perdi and their litter of tail-wagging young pups in a story brought to stage life with puppetry, choreography, humorous songs and, yes, puppies. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
3 Missing 10 Hours, directed by Fanni Fazakas, showing in the Animation programme at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024
York festival of the week: Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York city centre, November 6 to 10, and UNESCO City of Media Arts EXPO, Guildhall, York, November 7 to 9
THE BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival returns for its 14th year under the direction of Cherie Federico, this time integrating the tenth anniversary of York’s designation as Great Britain’s only UNESCO City of Media Arts. Fifteen venues will play host to 300 film screenings in 12 genres, Virtual Realty and Gaming labs, plus 60 panels, workshops and discussions. For the full programme and tickets, head to asff.co.uk.
The UNESCO EXPO will showcase the region’s creative sector, working in film production, games development, VFX (visual effects), publishing and design, with the chance to try out new projects and speak to creatives. Entry to the Guildhall is free.
Ghosts After Dark: New nocturnal complement to the Ghosts In The Gardens installation in York Museum Gardens
Nocturnal event of the week: Ghosts After Dark, York Museums Gardens, November 7 to 10, 6.30pm to 9.30pm; last entry, 8.30pm
YORK Museums Trust and the York BID present the inaugural Ghosts After Dark, showcasing York’s rich tapestry of historical figures with light, sound and storytellers for four nights only.
Ticketholders will have the exclusive chance to experience York Museum Gardens like never before, by choosing their own path to explore 46 ghostly sculptures, hidden around the gardens and lit dynamically against an atmospheric background of smoke and sound. Box office: yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/ghosts-after-dark/.
Rag’n’Bone Man: Returning to Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer
Gig announcements of the week: TK Maxx presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, July 6, and Rag’n’Bone Man, July 11 2025
“I THINK I’ve got the best reggae band in the world,” says UB40 legend Ali Campbell, who last played Scarborough OAT in 2021. “They are all seasoned musicians, who have spent all their lives in professional bands, and I feel so confident with them.” Support acts will be Bitty McLean and Pato Banton.
Triple BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award winner Rag’n’Bone Man, alias Rory Graham, will follow up his 2023 Scarborough OAT show with a return next summer in the wake of his third album, What Do You Believe In? entering the charts at number three last Friday. His special guest will be Elles Bailey. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.
Show announcement of the year: Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, York Theatre Royal, April 14 to May 17 2025
Gary Oldman reflecting on his first steps in professional theatre in the York Theatre Royal dressing rooms on his March visit
OSCAR winner Gary Oldman will return to York Theatre Royal, where he began his career as a pantomime cat, to direct himself in Krapp’s Last Tape next spring: his first stage appearance since the late-1980s.
The April 14 to May 17 2025 production of Samuel Beckett’s one-act monodrama was set in motion when Slow Horses star Oldman paid a visit to the St Leonard’s Place theatre in March, when he met chief executive Paul Crewes.
“When Gary visited us at the beginning of the year, it was fascinating hearing him recount stories of his time as a young man, in his first professional role on the York Theatre Royal stage.,” says Paul.
“In that context when we started to explore ideas, we realised Krapp’s Last Tape was the perfect project. I am very happy that audiences will have this unique opportunity to see Gary Oldman return to our stage in this brand new production.”
Making plans: Actor and director Gary Oldman in discussion with York Theatre Royal chief executive Paul Crewes in the York Theatre Royal main house auditorium
Ticket prices start at £25, with priority booking for the York Theatre Royal Director’s Circle opening on November 6, YTR Members’ priority booking from November 11 and public booking on November 16, all from 1pm. To become a member and access priority booking, head to: https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/support-us/.
After graduating from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Londoner Oldman started out in the repertory ranks at York Theatre Royal in 1979 in such plays as Privates On Parade and She Stoops To Conquer and playing the Cat in Berwick Kaler’s third York pantomime, Dick Whittington, that Christmas.
Dame Berwick later told the Guardian in an interview in 2018: “Gary has gone on to become one of our greatest screen actors but I’m afraid he was a bit of a lightweight when it came to pantomime.
“He kept fainting inside the costume. On at least three occasions I had to turn to the audience and say, ‘Oh dear, boys and girls, I think the poor pussy cat has gone to sleep’!”
Gary Oldman as the Cat with dame Berwick Kaler, centre, in the 1979-1980 York Theatre Royal pantomime Dick Whittington. Picture: York Theatre Royal
Oldman, now 66, posted on Instagram: “My professional public acting debut was on stage at the York Theatre Royal. York, for me, is the completion of a cycle. It is the place ‘where it all began’. York, in a very real sense, for me, is coming home.
“The combination of York and Krapp’s Last Tape is all the more poignant because it is ‘a play about a man returning to his past of 30 years earlier’.”
After cutting his teeth in York, New Cross-born Oldman went on to act at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, the Royal Court, London, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He then swapped theatre for film with break-our roles as Sid Vicious in Sid And Nancy (1986), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1992) and Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
He later played Sirius Black in the Harry Potter film franchise and Commissioner Jim Gordon in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, won the 2018 Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and is now starring as obnoxious MI5 boss Jackson Lamb in the latest Apple+ series of British spy thriller Slow Horses.
Gary Oldman (third from the left in hat and glasses) in Privates On Parade at York Theatre Royal in 1979: one of his first professional performances after graduating from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, in Sidcup, Kent, with a BA in Acting. Picture: York Theatre Royal
Oldman has been considering going back to the stage for a long time. “I have never been far from the theatre and, in fact, have been discussing plays and my return to the theatre for nearly 30 years,” he posted.
What happens in Krapp’s Last Tape, Samuel Beckett at his most theatre of the absurd? Each year, on his birthday, Krapp records a new tape reflecting on the year gone by.
On his 69th birthday, Krapp, now a lonely man, is ready with a bottle of wine, a banana and his tape recorder. Listening back to a recording he made as a young man, Krapp must face the hopes of his past self.
The melancholic, tragicomic role was premiered in 1958 by Patrick Magee and has been played by the likes of Albert Finney, Harold Pinter, John Hurt, Stephen Rea and Kenneth Allan Taylor, the long-running Nottingham Playhouse pantomime dame, writer and director, at York Theatre Royal in 2009.
Gary Oldman’s Cat in the 1979-1980 York Theatre Royal pantomime Dick Whittington. Picture: York Theatre Royal
Samuel Beckett (1906 – 1989): the back story
IRISH writer, dramatist and poet, specialising in theatre of the absurd. Wrote in English and French. Principal works for the stage included Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape and Waiting For Godot. Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
Gary Oldman: Further screen appearances
TINKER, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Academy Award and BAFTA nominations); Mank (Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations); Oppenheimer; The Book Of Eli; Meantime; The Firm; Prick Up Your Ears; Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead; State Of Grace; Romeo Is Bleeding; True Romance; Leon/The Professional; The Fifth Element; Immortal Beloved and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, among many others.
Worked with directors Stephen Frears, Oliver Stone, Frances Ford Coppola, Luc Besson, Alfonso Curon, Chris Nolan, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher and Paulo Sorrentino.
Did you know?
IN 1995 Gary Oldman and producing partner Douglas Urbanski founded a production company, producing Oldman’s screenwriting and directorial debut, Nil By Mouth, winner of nine majot awards from 17 nominations.
Selected to open the main competition for the 1997 50th Anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, where Kathy Burke won Best Actress. The same year, Oldman won Channel Four Director’s Prize at Edinburgh International Film Festival, British Academy Award (shared with Douglas Urbanski) for Best Film and BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay.
In Focus:Other Lives Productions in How To Be Brave, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Sunday, 7.30pm, and on tour
Livy Potter as Katy, left, and Alice Rose Palmer as mum Natalie in Louise Beech’s How To Be Brave
ON March 19 1943, just after midnight, Merchant Seaman Colin Armitage’s cargo ship, the Lulworth Hill, was torpedoed by an Italian Navy submarine in the South Atlantic. He scrambled aboard a life raft. Fifty days later HMS Rapid rescued him.
Colin was the grandfather of How To Be Brave playwright Louise Beech. Sixty-four years after his ordeal, Louise’s daughter, Katy, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In order to distract her during insulin injections Louise began to tell the story of Colin’s bravery and determination to survive.
The story inspiring ten-year-old Katy to be brave in the face of her diabetes is a true one. She has said that Grandad Colin’s experience made her determined to carry on when she wanted to give up and die: “If Grandad Colin can survive an ordeal like that, I can do anything. I can do these injections,” she said. And she has never faltered.
Director Kate Veysey with Rose’s seagull Gilbert
“We hope that by presenting this story we can inspired audiences in the East Riding and beyond,” says director Kate Veysey, a familiar name from both York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre and Next Door But One productions.
Scenes alternate between the life raft and Katy’s house in Hull as York actors Jacob Ward and Livy Potter take the roles of Colin Armitage and Rose (Katy, given a pseudonym), joined by Lex Stephenson as carpenter Ken Cooke, on the raft, Alice Rose Palmer as Natalie (alias mum Louise) and Alison Shaw as nurse Shelley. Age guidance: ten upwards (the show contains moderate bad language). Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Lex Stephenson, as Ken Cooke, left, and Jacob Ward, as Colin Armitage, in Other Lives Productions’ How To Be Brave
Wonder-ful:Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny in Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner
WHAT was the last play to capture the forlorn yet defiantly hopeful schoolroom experience so expressively? Willy Russell’s musical Our Day Out, with its busload of bored teens, springs to mind; John Godber’s Teechers even more so, especially in its Leavers 22 revamp.
In a new class of its own is Ross Willis’s Wonder Boy, an exploration of the power of communication with the aid of creative captioning, wherein the electronic screen captures every last repeated letter of young Sonny’s “Stammer Horror” experience.
At the helm of Bristol Old Vic’s touring production is Sally Cookson, whose unforgettable National Theatre staging of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre lit up the Grand Opera House with such vitality, imagination and innovation in 2017 that it won that year’s Hutch Award for Stage Production of the Year in York.
What her reading of Wonder Boy shares with her Jane Eyre is its focus on a central character’s struggles in a world seemingly set against them, taking up residence inside the head of the outsider so completely that we feel we are in there too.
In this case, 12-year-old Sonny (Hilson Agbangbe) lives with a stammer that leaves him silent and sullen at school. Words, not ideas, hopes or flights of fancy, evade him except when in the company of his imaginary friend, the combative word warrior Captain Chatter (Ciaran O’Breen).
The omnipresent caption and video design, courtesy of Limbic Cinema’s Tom Newell, charts every uttering of Sonny, whether fluent when kept inside that troubled head or when in conversation with rebellious, trouble-magnet friend Roshi (Naia Elliott-Spence), report-obsessed new head teacher Miss Fish (Meg Matthews at Wednesday’s matinee/Jessica Murrain) or his Mum (Matthews/Murrain again) in flashback scenes that trace her downward spiral.
Sonny expresses himself in his comic-book drawings, but inevitably bullying will spoil that well of creativity and expression in this struggling, downtrodden secondary school.
When the insensitive Miss Fish decides to impose the role of the Guard in Hamlet on him in the school play, Sonny finds an ally in the shape of unconventional deputy head Wainwright (Eva Scott), Wonder Boy’s answer to Godber’s new drama teacher in Teechers, Geoff Nixon.
Wainwright likes Ryvita nibbles, paper planes and Star Wars models; Wainwright dislikes Miss Fish’s methods, manner and form-filling excesses. For all her love of teaching, she will be the next to join the stampede of exits stage left from the teaching profession.
Willis writes with an anger and vigour, a frustration too, to match former teacher Godber – and that of Sonny too, although the boy’s determination to deliver his lines brings tears to the eye.
Cookson’s witty and wise direction combines with Willis’s astute writing to bring out the playful, scabrous humour as much as the pathos in Wonder Boy, not least in not shying away from the frank, “very sweary” language that adds even more impact.
Agbangbe and Scott, in particular, are terrific, their scenes together being the most moving your reviewer has seen on a York stage this year. Top marks too for Katie Sykes’s set and costume design, Laila Diallo’s Kapow-style movement direction and Benji Bower’s incidental compositions.
Wonder Boy is wondrous theatre, a lesson to us all in the importance of listening and breaking down barriers. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Balancing act: M6 Theatre Company in Mike Kenny’s A Tiger’s Tale at Helmsley Arts Centre
A TIGER adventure and a boy with a stammer, two ghost stories and a pioneering DJ are in the spotlight in Charles Hutchinson’s entertainment tips for the week ahead.
Ryedale children’s show of the week: M6 Theatre Company, A Tiger’s Tale, Helmsley Arts Centre, today, 2.30pm
ROCHDALE company M6 Theatre presents York playwright Mike Kenny’s fantastical, riotous adventure A Tiger’s Tale, the extraordinary story of Fenella, the Holmfirth Tiger, in a high-spirited balancing act of circus, puppetry, live music and song.
From a circus train in South Africa, to a steamboat on the Atlantic Ocean and onward to West Yorkshire, the ramshackle travelling troupe of Titch, Ma and Pa relates the unbelievable true story of a family of acrobats and their adopted tiger cub. Suitable for ages four to 11. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny in Bristol Old Vic’s Wonder Boy, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Steve Tanner
Play of the week: Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday; evenings, 7.30pm, tonight and Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday
OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, told through the experiences of 12-year-old Sonny and his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.
Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power. When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, he discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Victoria Delaney as Mrs Morland and Tony Froud as Mr Morland in York Actors Collective’s production of J M Barrie’s Mary Rose at York Theatre Royal Studio. Picture: Clive Millard
Theatre Royal debut of the week: York Actors Collective in Mary Rose, York Theatre Royal Studio, tonight to Saturday, 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees
YORK Actors Collective make their York Theatre Royal debut with a revival of Peter Pan and Quality Street playwright J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, adapted and directed by Angie Millard.
“Barrie uses dimensions of time to great effect,” she says. “His treatment of love, loss and unwavering hope draws in an audience and gives it universality. I’ve adapted the script to appeal to modern thinking but his themes are intact. The strange and ghostly atmosphere fits beautifully into our autumn slot, which includes Halloween and is a time for considering other worldliness.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Helmsley company Clap Trap Theatre in the ghost story The Room Upstairs at Helmsley Arts Centre
Haunted drama for Halloween week: Clap Trap Theatre in The Room Upstairs, Helmsley Arts Centre, Friday, 7.30pm
WHEN a young woman answers an advertisement for a trusted house-sitter, she arrives at a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere. It should be the perfect job but with one proviso. Please do not go into the room upstairs.
A mysterious cloaked figure narrates and commentates as two young people strive to unravel the long-held mystery of a haunted house in this new 55-minute black comedy by BAFTA-nominated television writer Tom Needham, performed by Cal Stockbridge, Florrie Stockbridge and Helmsley Arts Centre artistic director and Youth Theatre director Natasha Jones. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Skylights: York band headline York Barbican for the first time this weekend
York gig of the week: Skylights, York Barbican, Saturday, doors 7pm
ANTHEMIC York indie band Skylights play their biggest home-city gig to date this weekend with support from Serotones and Pennine Suite.
Guitarist Turnbull Smith says: ‘We’re absolutely over the moon to be headlining the Barbican. It’s always been a dream of ours to play here. So to headline will be the perfect way to finish a great year. Thanks to everyone for the support. It means the world and we’ll see you all there.” Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.
Rob Rouse: Headlining Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement. Picture: Andy Hollingworth
Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, Rob Rouse, Peter Brush, Faizan Shan and Damion Larkin, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Saturday, 8pm
PEAK District comedian, television regular, Upstart Crow actor and self-help podcaster Rob Rouse, who trained as a geography teacher at the University of Sheffield, makes a rare York appearance with his hyperactive, loveable brand of comedy.
Harrogate Comedian of the Year 2012 Peter Brush combines a slight, bespectacled frame and scruffy hair with quirky one-liners and original material, delivered in an amusingly awkward fashion. Manchester comic Faizan Shah’s material makes light of growing up in an immigrant household with the mental health challenges it brings. Organiser Damion Larkin hosts as ever. Box office: 01904 612940 or lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Andy Kershaw: “Two-hour explosion of irresistible tropical dance music” at Milton Rooms, Malton
Declaring war on musical mediocrity: Andy Kershaw’s African, Caribbean & Latin Dance Night, Milton Rooms, Malton, November 8, 8pm
ANDY Kershaw, DJ pioneer, evangelist and Old Grey Whistle Test presenter, has brought global music to British audiences over more than three decades of programmes on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 3. His obsession with finding new music has resulted in a 7.5 ton record collection garnered from visits to 97 countries in pursuit of new and exciting sounds.
His one-man war on musical mediocrity promises a two-hour explosion of irresistible tropical dance music. Folk-infused York buskers and party, pub and festival covers’ band Hyde Family Jam support. Box office: 01653 692240 or themiltonrooms.com.
Rag’n’Bone Man: Returning to Scarborough Open Air Theatre next summer
Gig announcements of the week: TK Maxx presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, July 6, and Rag’n’Bone Man, July 11 2025
“I THINK I’ve got the best reggae band in the world,” says UB40 legend Ali Campbell, who last played Scarborough OAT in 2021. “They are all seasoned musicians, who have spent all their lives in professional bands, and I feel so confident with them.” Support acts will be Bitty McLean and Pato Banton.
Triple BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award winner Rag’n’Bone Man, alias Rory Graham, will follow up his 2023 Scarborough OAT show with a return next summer in the wake of his third album, What Do You Believe In? entering the charts at number three last Friday. His special guest will be Elles Bailey. Tickets for both shows go on sale at 9am on Friday at ticketmaster.co.uk.
OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, on tour at York Theatre Royal from tonight to Saturday.
Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as 12-year-old Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power, with the aid of his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.
When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, Sonny discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks.
Here Sally discusses the wonders of Wonder Boy.
How did your production of Wonder Boy come to fruition?
“I was invited to a new writing festival at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School pre-pandemic in which Ross Willis’s play was presented. It jumped out at me as a piece of unique writing, and I was attracted to the way Ross combined an absurd world with the very real. It made me laugh and cry.
“I contacted him and went to see his production of Wolfie at Theatre 503 [in Battersea, London], which I loved. Tom Morris [the then artistic director of Bristol Old Vic] agreed to programme Wonder Boy the following year at Bristol Old Vic but that got postponed because of Covid.
“Ross and I got to know each other during the pandemic via delightful phone calls where we’d just talk about anything and everything. Chatting with Ross is like being in one of his plays. Wonder Boy finally got performed in 2022, a couple of years later than intended, but by which time we’d had a chance to dream up ideas together about the show.
Hilson Agbangbe as Sonny in Bristol Old Vic’s Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner
In the play, Ross Willis writes movingly about the frustrations that can come with having a stammer. How did you bring that into the structure of the show?
“This is at the heart of the piece. Ross calls it the great inner operatic pain that comes not being able to be seen or express yourself. It was essential that we found a way of bringing all elements of the production together to illustrate and highlight Sonny’s plight.
“Music is especially important in helping with this and Benji Bower’s composition manages to get right inside the character’s head. But casting an actor who is able to portray the character’s trauma is key.
“Understanding what causes Sonny to behave in the way he does and identify every moment of his thought process is vital. Some of Sonny’s darkest moments happen when there is no text, so being able to identify how his pain manifests physically is important too.
“Ross has written it into the structure of the show, those big absurd moments when Shakespeare comes to life to torment Sonny or when vowels and letters attack him are all moments that tap into his inner operatic pain.”
How is creative captioning used in the show?
“The play is about what happens when a person communicates differently and the challenges they face when fluent speech is the expected societal norm. It felt entirely natural to include creative captions as part of the overall design of the show to tap into the major theme of communication.
“Creative captioning involves incorporating the entire text into the world of the play. We don’t just display the words on a small digital strip positioned either to the left or right of the stage; we ensure that all the words spoken are visually central to the piece.
Designed by Tom Newell, the creative captions provide another creative layer and are not only an access tool for deaf, deafened or hard of hearing people but an important part of the imaginative world created in the play.”
Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny with his imaginary friend, Ciaran O’Breen’s Captain Chatter. Picture: Steve Tanner
Wonder Boy deals with mental health issues, such as suicide. Can theatre do that particularly well?
“My experience is that theatre is a wonderful place to interrogate the stuff that frightens us as humans. And to ask those questions safely in a rehearsal room, and to share that with an audience is what theatre does best.
“In Wonder Boy the protagonist Sonny experiences complicated feelings of guilt, shame, grief and anger as a result of his mother’s death by suicide. A lot of plays written for young people shy away from themes such as this, but Ross approaches the subject with honesty and integrity. He understands what young people endure and gives voice to their suffering in an imaginative way.
“Theatre is a space to gather together to explore human behaviour, and hopefully come away with a bit more understanding of why we do the things we do.”
Wonder Boy is a play for young people – and very “sweary” too. Discuss…
“Oh, we had so many discussions about the ‘sweariness’. It has taken us around and about and back to where we started, which is why we’ve changed very little of it. Ross is quite right – most young people swear a lot. It has become part of the way they communicate.
Some adults get quite upset about the amount of swearing in the show; no young people do. And the play really is for teenagers. Getting teenagers into the theatre is very difficult, and I think Ross has absolutely found a way of engaging them – by telling a beautiful and important story and using an extreme version of the language they identify with.
A scene from Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy
This show illustrates the impact of art, and theatre in particular, on young people, especially those who experiencing difficulties. Are you passionate about this?
“Yes. That’s what helped me. I hated school. I was really miserable. And my mum sent me to the local youth theatre. That’s where my journey into the arts started. And it’s where I suddenly felt valued, and where I had a voice, so I feel very strongly about it.
And now more than ever – with a curriculum starved of the arts (hopefully this will soon change) – theatre is essential in engaging young people’s imaginations and allowing them space to dream and think big.”
What can theatre give to a young person who is struggling to be heard or to find a voice?
“So many things. It’s not just about encouraging young people to work in the arts. By joining a youth theatre, being part of an audience regularly, partaking in drama, it can make you feel more connected, less alone.
“It can inspire your imagination, make you think bigger, think differently; it can encourage empathy by helping you understand why other people behave like they do. It can tap into your own artistic talents, and help you find things out about yourself that you never knew you had. It can also just be a good laugh. The list is endless.”
Bristol Old Vic presents Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, tonight until Saturday; evenings, 7.30pm, tonight, tomorrow and Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 / yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Flashback
Nadia Clifford as Jane Eyre in the National Theatre’s Jane Eyre, directed by Sally Cookson
IN the 2017 Hutch Awards, Sally Cookson’s National Theatre staging of Jane Eyre, performed on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, won Stage Production of the Year in York made outside York.
“YOU will not see a better theatre show in York this year, and you won’t have seen a better theatre show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time”. So The York Press review stated in May that year.
How true that proved to be. Cookson’s devised production of vivid, vital imagination brought Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre back to Yorkshire with breathtaking results.
The Whitby Rebels cast on a boat trip in Scarborough’s South Bay: from left, Keith Bartlett, Duncan MacInnes, Jacky Naylor, Jacqueline King, Louise Mai Newberry and Kieran Foster. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
FROM a motley crew all at sea to Eighties’ pop and rock stars, a beehive buzz of a campaigning American teen to a boy with a stammer, Charles Hutchinson’s week promises both adventure and misadventure.
World premiere of the week: The Whitby Rebels, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 2, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
IN Whitby Harbour, in the summer of 1991, something extraordinary happened. A humble pleasure boat set sail for the Arctic crewed by misfits, pensioners and the vicar for Egton and Grosmont, North Yorkshire.
This motley crew was assembled by Captain Jack Lammiman to complete a daring mission: to erect a plaque honouring Whitby whaling Captain William Scoresby senior on a volcanic island hundreds of miles north of Iceland. Bea Roberts’s new play tells their true story, boat on stage et al. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Ayana Beatrice Poblete and Reggie Challenger in Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Songs For A New World
Song cycle of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions presents: Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, today, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
ON the heels of last week’s The Last Five Years, Black Sheep Theatre perform another Jason Robert Brown work, 1995’s Songs For A New World.
Defying conventional musical theatre formats, Brown and original director Daisy Prince say the non-linear show is “neither musical play nor revue”, but exists as a “very theatrical song cycle” that explores such universal themes as hope, faith, love and loss in its emotionally charged songs. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/blacksheeptheatreproductions/.
While & Matthews: Playing Hunmanby on closing night of 30th anniversary tour
Folk gig of the week: While & Matthews, Hunmanby Village Hall, near Filey, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE 30th anniversary tour of the longest-lasting female folk duo, singer-songwriters Chris While and Julie Matthews, concludes this weekend at Hunmanby Village Hall, where they sold out two years ago. Together they have played more than 2,500 gigs, appeared on 100 albums, written hundreds of original songs and reached millions of people around the world.
Chris (vocals, guitar, banjo, dulcimer and percussion) and Julie (vocals, piano, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki) released their 13th studio album, Days Like These, on Fat Cat Records last month. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.
Arthur Smith: Grumpy old man of comedy at Helmsley Arts Centre
Comedy turn of the week: An Audience With Arthur Smith, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm
COMPERE, playwright, panellist, performer and Edinburgh Fringe stalwart Arthur Smith worked previously as a road sweeper, dustman, market researcher and teacher. He even advertised chicken burgers in supermarkets dressed as a fox.
A career in stand-up comedy was the only one that could follow a build-up like that, he decided, since when he has appeared on quiz shows and Loose Ends, been a regular Grumpy Old Man and Countdown wordsmith and presented BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and Radio 2’s The Smith Lectures. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Chrissie Hynde: Fronting The Pretenders at a sold-out York Barbican on Thursday
What an Eighties’ week at York Barbican: The Cult, Tuesday, sold out; Adam Ant, AntMusic 2024, Wednesday, limited ticket availability; The Pretenders, Thursday, sold out
THE Cult’s 8424: 40th Anniversary Tour brings Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy’s band to York with their pioneering fusion of post-punk, hard rock, and experimentalism. Pop icon Adam Ant performs his chart-topping hits and personal favourites in his AntMusic 2024 show on his return to the Barbican.
Chrissie Hynde leads The Pretenders in York, one of three additions to their extended 2024 tour, combining new tracks with classics such as Brass In Pocket and Back On The Chain Gang. Last year they released their 12th studio album, Relentless. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Katie Brice’s Tracy Turnblad and Neil Hurst’s Edna Turnblad in Hairspray The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York
Musical of the week: Hairspray, Grand Opera House, York, October 28 to November 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday and Saturday matinees
BASED on cult filmmaker John Waters’ 1988 American movie, Hairspray The Musical follows the progress of heroine Tracy Turnblad, with her big hair, big heart and big dreams to dance her way on to national television and into the heart of teen idol Link Larkin.
When Tracy (Katie Brice/Scarborough actress Alexandra Emerson-Kirby in her professional debut) becomes a local star, she uses her newfound fame to fight for liberation, tolerance, and interracial unity in Baltimore. Look out for Yorkshireman Neil Hurst as Tracy’s mum, Edna, and Strictly Come Dancing’s Joanne Clifton as villainous Velma Von Tussle. Box office: atgtickets.com/York.
Ciaran O’Breen as Captain Chatter and Hilson Agbangbe as Sonny in Wonder Boy, on tour at York Theatre Royal
Children’s story of the week: Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, October 29 to November 2; evenings, 7.30pm, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, next Saturday
OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, told through the experiences of 12-year-old Sonny and his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.
Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power. When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, he discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Victoria Delaney and Tony Froud in J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, next week’s production by York Actors Collective. Picture: Clive Millard
Theatre Royal debut of the week: York Actors Collective in Mary Rose, York Theatre Royal Studio, October 30 to November 2, 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and 2pm Saturday matinees
YORK Actors Collective make their York Theatre Royal debut with a revival of Peter Pan and Quality Street playwright J M Barrie’s Mary Rose, adapted and directed by Angie Millard.
“Barrie uses dimensions of time to great effect,” she says. “His treatment of love, loss and unwavering hope draws in an audience and gives it universality. I’ve adapted the script to appeal to modern thinking but his themes are intact. The strange and ghostly atmosphere fits beautifully into our autumn slot, which includes Halloween and is a time for considering other worldliness.” Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
The Whitby Rebels cast on a boat trip in Scarborough’s South Bay: from left, Keith Bartlett, Duncan MacInnes, Jacky Naylor, Jacqueline King, Louise Mai Newberry and Kieran Foster
A NAUTICAL Yorkshire drama, a scene-stealing Shakespearean dog, a long-lasting folk duo and a “bit of rough” comedian spark Charles Hutchinson’s interest for the week ahead.
World premiere of the week: The Whitby Rebels, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 2, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees
IN Whitby Harbour, in the summer of 1991, something extraordinary happened. A humble pleasure boat set sail for the Arctic crewed by misfits, pensioners and the vicar for Egton and Grosmont, North Yorkshire.
This motley crew was assembled by Captain Jack Lammiman to complete a daring mission: to erect a plaque honouring Whitby whaling Captain William Scoresby senior on a volcanic island hundreds of miles north of Iceland. Bea Roberts’s new play tells their true story, boat on stage et al. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Nick Patrick Jones’s Proteus, left, and Mark Payton’s Duke of Milan in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s The Two Gentlemen Of Verona. Picture: John Saunders
Comedyplay of the week: York Shakespeare Project in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
‘TWO Gents’: possibly Shakespeare’s first play and definitely the only one with a part for a dog. But can the newly employed performers at Monkgate Music Hall pull off their production?
Under-rehearsed knife throwers, strongmen, musicians and comedians must pool their skills in Tempest Wisdom’s dazzling take on this rarely performed comedy, delivered by York Shakespeare Project. “Book now for the event of the 19th century!” says Tempest. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
York musical actress Rachel Higgs in the poster for Black Sheep Theatre Productions’ Songs For A New World
Unconventional musical of the week: Black Sheep Theatre Productions presents: Songs For A New World, National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, tomorrow to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
ON the heels of last week’s debut NCEM collaboration with fellow York company Wharfemede Productions, The Last Five Years, Black Sheep Theatre perform another Jason Robert Brown work, 1995’s Songs For A New World.
Defying conventional musical theatre formats, Brown and original director Daisy Prince say the non-linear show is “neither musical play nor revue”, but exists as a “very theatrical song cycle” that explores such universal themes as hope, faith, love and loss in its emotionally charged songs. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/blacksheeptheatreproductions/.
Our Star Theatre Company cast members outside York Minster on October 15, when the Ledbury company staged Death(s) At Sea at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. On Friday they will be in Pickering
Sea, sailors and seriously bad acting: Our Star Theatre Company in Death(s) At Sea, Kirk Theatre, Pickering, Friday, 7.30pm
A SMALL theatre company is performing its new murder mystery Death At Sea, but despite the cast’s best efforts, everything goes wrong in the telling of a thriller set on a small ship carrying only five passengers and its captain.
When one passenger, Mr Inus, is found dead, the others speculate and turn on each other until the real murderer is caught…but that isn’t how this play (within a play) goes! Props fail, the set falls down, actors get drunk and suffer concussion, and conversations in the wings reveal too much. Can they make it to the end before one of them really kills someone? Find out in Eleanor Catherine Smart’s nautical drama on Friday. Box office: 01751474833or kirktheatre.co.uk.
Company Wayne McGregor in Autobiography, on tour at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Andrej Uspenski
Dance show of the week: Company Wayne McGregor, Autobiography, V102 and V103, York Theatre Royal, Friday and Saturday, 7.30pm
GENETIC code, AI and choreography merge in a Wayne McGregor work that reimagines and remakes itself anew for every performance. Layering choreographic imprints over personal memoir and in dialogue with a specially created algorithm that hijacks McGregor’s DNA data,Autobiography “upends the traditional nature of dance-making as artificial intelligence and instinct converge in creative authorship”.
Now, AISOMA, a new AI tool developed with Google Arts and Culture – “utilising machine-learning trained on hundreds of hours of McGregor’s choreographic archive – overwrites initial configurations to present fresh movement options to the performers, injecting unfamiliar and often startling content into the choreographic ecosystem”. “Life, writing itself anew,” explains McGregor. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
While & Matthews: Playing Hunmanby on closing night of 30th anniversary tour
Folk gig of the week: While & Matthews, Hunmanby Village Hall, near Filey, Sunday, 7.30pm
THE 30th anniversary tour of the longest-lasting female folk duo, singer-songwriters Chris While and Julie Matthews, concludes this weekend at Hunmanby Village Hall, where they sold out two years ago. Together they have played more than 2,500 gigs, appeared on 100 albums, written hundreds of original songs and reached millions of people around the world.
Chris (vocals, guitar, banjo, dulcimer and percussion) and Julie (vocals, piano, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki) released their 13th studio album, Days Like These, on Fat Cat Records last month. Once again they cover a wide range of topics and the full spectrum of human emotions on 12 tracks. Box office: ticketsource.co.uk.
Arthur Smith: Grumpy old man of comedy at Helmsley Arts Centre
Comedy turn of the week: An Audience With Arthur Smith, Helmsley Arts Centre, Sunday, 7.30pm
COMPERE, playwright, panellist, performer and Edinburgh Fringe stalwart Arthur Smith worked previously as a road sweeper, dustman, market researcher and teacher. He even advertised chicken burgers in supermarkets dressed as a fox.
A career in stand-up comedy was the only one that could follow a build-up like that, he decided, since when he has appeared on quiz shows and Loose Ends, been a regular Grumpy Old Man and Countdown wordsmith and presented BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and Radio 2’s The Smith Lectures. He describes himself as Radio 4’s “bit of rough”. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk.
Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience: Returning to Milton Rooms, Malton
Blues gig of the week: Ryedale Blues Club, Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience, Milton Rooms, Malton, October 31, 8pm
SINGER Pat Fulgoni returns to Ryedale Blues Club with his band of Jacob Beckwith on guitar, Rory Wells on bass, Sam Bolt on keys and Zebedee Sylvester on drums.
Expect soaring soulful vocals over vibey guitar and piano-orientated blues in a set originals complemented by renditions of Ray Charles, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson. Box office: 01653 692240 or themiltonrooms.com.
In Focus: The English Civil War comes to Nunnington Hall this half-term
Nunnington Hall: Recalling the English Civil War over the autumn half-term. Picture: Andrew Davies
VISITORS to Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley, can dive back in history to the time of the English Civil War throughout the autumn half-term.
From Saturday, October 26 to Friday, November 1, you can train up to become a soldier, with family games such as archery and hobby-horse races, or become a spy for the Royalist side by cracking the secret message in a code breaker trail.
For one weekend only, on November 2 and 3, the grounds of the National Trust property will be turned into an English Civil War encampment by the United Kingdom’s longest-running re-enactment society, The Sealed Knot.
Families will be invited to try on armour, chat to costumed re-enactors and watch show-stopping musket drills happening throughout the day.
Inside the house, children can enjoy playing with the shadow puppet theatre and the Civil War-themed crafts.
Sarah Nolan, visitor experience officer at Nunnington Hall, says: “We’re delighted to bring the UK’s oldest, and Europe’s biggest, re-enactment society to Nunnington and allow our visitors to experience history at its most immersive.
The Sealed Knot: Taking part in the English Civil War activities at Nunnington Hall. Picture: Levitt Parkes
“There’s a fantastic link between Nunnington Hall and the English Civil War, as it’s where Roundhead soldiers lived during the siege of nearby Helmsley Castle, 380 years ago!
“We’ve put together a host of children’s activities to choose from, offering a fun day out for all the family.”
In addition, Nunnington Hall is decorated for autumn and a range of seasonal treats is available in the tearoom.
Normal admission applies for access to the house, gardens and all activities; entry is free for National Trust members and under fives.
Nunnington Hall is open every day until Sunday, November 3, from 10.30am to 5pm, with last entry at 4.15pm. Normal admission applies with free admission for National Trust members and under fives.
For more information or to plan a visit, go to: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nunnington-hall,
