I entered the 1990s as a dejected refugee from an alternative youth culture that I’d finally worked out wasn’t good for me. I ended the 1990s as a broadcast playwright with a full-time job and a mortgage, running a small writing-for-performance charity in my ‘spare’ time.
It was the decade I finally grew up. And growing up is never easy. (And never finished either.}
Calendar Girls is, from a newsletter marketing point of view, definitely the grown-up choice to lead with. To say the film, stage play and musical — and not to mention the original nudy calendar itself — were ‘wildly popular’ is an understatement. Calendar Girls was a 20-year-long phenomenon. It gave rise to a thousand imitators (some of them rather strange and distasteful) and legitimised the idea of older persons getting their kit off for charity.
Working as a conscientious drudge for the outsourced Guardian Guide in the 2010s I was stunned by how many amateur theatre groups were keen to join the party. Wikipedia confirms this impression: “The amateur rights were released from 1 September 2012 for 18 months only. By August 2012, 520 applications had been received and 322 licences granted.”
That’s a lot of quasi-respectable nudity. God knows what it says about the middle-class British psyche.
But here we are in 2023. The Apocalypse has happened and we’re having to live with it. Sad songs rule the downloads (Why Is Music Getting Sadder? by Ted Gioia is an excellent read) and grey rules the runway (Yes, You Need A Groutfit, The Times London, Sep 10, 2023). Is it any wonder that colourful 1990s nostalgia dominates at least two Yorkshire mainstages this week?
Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls: The Musical runs from Sep 19-23 at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield (£15-£55). It’s a starry Bill Kenwright touring production that travels to Leeds’ Grand Theatre (Nov 7-11) and Hull New Theatre (Nov 28-Dec 2) plus other dates nationwide.
And, as if to hammer the message home, the Take That musical Greatest Days is on at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford (Sep 18-23, £20.50-£55.50), Hull New Theatre (Oct 30-Nov 4) and Leeds Grand Theatre (Nov 21-25). Starring Loose Women favourite Jennifer Ellison, it is also written by Tim Firth who has cornered the market in 1990s feelgood nostalgia. And sometimes, when gloom rules and life is treating you badly, you need a bit of that.
What’s On Sep 16-22
Yet theatre is not just escapism, valuable though that can be at times. Theatre also has the power to interrogate. I’m fascinated by the troubling era we live in — times which can seem as if they have no historical precedent. And I’ve devoted a lot of reading to try and understand what’s happening, and why so many of the certainties upon which Western civilisation is based are unravelling so rapidly.
It seems I am not alone in this endeavour. Animikii Theatre’s The Kasper Hauser Experiment is based on the true, and puzzling, story of a semi-feral youth who appeared in the town square of Nuremberg in 1828. He claimed to have been held prisoner in a darkened cell for 17 years and was barely able to speak or walk.
The mystery made him a celebrity across Europe at the time, and the riddle of his short life has fascinated and intrigued people for centuries, inspiring books, films and music. Identity, conspiracy theories, difference and loneliness — along with reckless experiments on children and rapidly improving technology — are at the heart of his story, which is one for now. Theatre Deli, Sheffield, Sep 21 (£10 & £16) and Left Bank, Leeds, Sep 22.
And there are a clutch of interesting things on the lesser stages in York this weekend:
The volunteer-run Joseph Rowntree Theatre has Priscilla Queen Of The Disaster, a one-woman show full of belly laughs about the triumphs and trials of single-parenting. Sep 16, £13.50.
The theatre@41 Monkgate has Ikaria, a love story written by promising young playwright Phillipa Lawford and set against the backdrop of her student days when all that unaccustomed freedom was hard to handle. Sept 16, £10.
There are still tickets available for an outdoor performance of Robin Hood in Dean’s Park adjacent to York Minster. Summer touring company Three Inch Fools, with musical instruments in hand, promise not to take our country’s leading folk tale too seriously. Sep 16, £10 & £16.
Food for thought too, at the York Theatre Royal Studio at the end of the week. This is England & Son, a gritty one-man play written specifically for political comedian Mark Thomas (and BBC Radio Four national treasure) by award-winning playwright Ed Edwards (The Political History of Smack and Crack). You can tell what sort of play it is just by looking at the above image, so I won’t bother to explain.
I have a soft spot for Thomas, who has spent so many years handing out leaflets on the front line of unfashionable causes that it must be sincere. Been there, done that, and I’m still wondering what happened to the avocado costume… Sep 22 & 23, £10 & £17.
Elsewhere, not a bumper week but I must put in a good word for Lyngo Theatre’s Tom Thumb for the over-3s at the Square Chapel, Halifax. This is not a new show — Lyngo Theatre with CBeebies star Patrick Lynch have been doing the rounds for years — but it survives on merit. It’s an exquisite theatrical experience, and utterly at odds with the big, expensive, over-mechandised TV tie-ins that can pass for children’s theatre elsewhere. Sep 17, £10.50 & £12.50
And since we are approaching the 400th anniversary of the publication of the legendary First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays. Slung Low, now at their new home of Temple in Holbeck, Leeds, are getting their celebration in early. Expect mayhem as they’ve invited improv company The School Of Night to unearth one of his ‘lost’ plays. Sep 22, pay what you decide.
But the main event is, reasonably enough, at the new theatrical flagship at Prescot across the Pennines. (Shakespeare had plausible connections with Catholic hold-outs in northwest England, not so much with Yorkshire.) Shakespeare North will bring to life the story and the history behind the creation of the First Folio with Lauren Gunderson’s ‘The Book of Will’ next month (Oct 19-Nov 11, £3-£36) and a copy of the First Folio on loan from The British Library will be exhibited.
And to finish where we started -- on an upbeat note. I was tempted to dismiss Crimes On Centre Court at Wakefield Theatre Royal, Sep 20, £15-£22. “Lord Knows, the chair of The Whombledun International Invitational Tennis Tournament has died and his son, Hugh, is suspicious. The police won’t take the case so Hugh calls in Perry & Penny Pink, private investigators”… was as far as I got. But then I looked again. This ingenious parody of the type of theatrical murder mystery where the body count rises against a genteel backdrop of lawn tennis and strawberry cream teas, has been developed hilariously by New Old Friends Theatre from a successful podcast, and is hyper self-aware. You can also find it at Middlesbrough Theatre, Sep 21.
That’s it for this week, folks. Look out for my upcoming review of Raina Greifer’s Manic which should drop into your inboxes some time next week.
Liz x