Yorkshire Theatre Newsletter: What's On This Week (Jul 16-22)
Freedom Day... an anticlimax? Plus distance running in York, scandal sheets in Harrogate, a round-up of children's shows and the cautionary tale of a multi-coloured monkey...
A couple of days ago, Kwame Amoah Mensah from ITV News dropped me an email to ask if I would chat about the next stage of theatre’s reopening on July 19th.
This set me aflutter, wondering what I could possibly add to the thoughts of someone like, say, Henry Filloux-Bennett, artistic director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield; or a practitioner like choreographer Lucy Hind at Slung Low.
Then I realised I did have something to offer: overview. I’m across a lot of venues, a lot of different types of theatre, and I have been for a long time.
Which set me to wondering: what would I tell ITV News about the mood of Yorkshire theatre now?
The answer, I think, is wary. There’s more stuff on - every week my ‘long list’ of shows to include in the Newsletter becomes more robust. The larger producing houses are all open in some fashion, even if they’re throwing their resources into open air or online options, but only the megaliths have chanced a big, indoor, summer, musical show.
I’m not sensing the same level of excitement as I was in May, and in my experience the mood amongst socially distanced audiences is — wounded, chastened, darker. Maybe even a bit guilty, as though theatre in these difficult times is a pleasure which must be enjoyed discreetly. As Pete Toon of Mikron Theatre observed to me, actors are playing to traumatised people. We’ve all been shaken up by this, and we bring our experiences into the auditorium with us.
The most visible carnage is amongst smaller venues. Ilkley Playhouse has reopened, and so has Bingley Little Theatre, but swathes remain closed at least until Autumn. And the response of the (often Council-run) receiving houses has been disappointing — which reinforces my existing prejudice that unless a theatre produces some work in-house, and has its own ecology of makers, it’s soulless.
The good news — and I started this Newsletter to be positive — is that even small companies have been ingenious in response to lockdown, experimenting with interactivity (Riptide), Zoom dramas (Knaive) or streaming (LipService, Leeds Community Arts Network). And there’s already some post-pandemic work coming through which explores what it was like to be an aspiring theatre-maker during the time of Covid (House Lights Up, Theatre Royal Wakefield, Jul 28).
What’s On This Week (Jul 16-22)
Last chance for A Little Night Music at Leeds Playhouse and The Park Keeper in Rowntree Park (York). They both finish on Jul 17.
Laura Wade’s Home, I’m Darling continues at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough until Aug 14, and Hull Truck’s Romeo & Juliet is at Stage@TheDock to Aug 7.
Please see previous Newsletters for details of these shows.
Looking ahead, there’s Dan Bye and Boff Whalley sharing their love for distance running in These Hills Are Ours at York Theatre Royal. Jul 16, £15 & £10, see last week’s newsletter for details.
A day later, at the same venue, the Korean Festival takes to the stage with a showcase of traditional and contemporary music and dance. Fascinating! Jul 17, £5
Middle Child’s We Used To Be Closer Than This, a musical celebration of human touch, is on at Queen’s Gardens in Hull. Jul 16-18, pay what you can
And Star Choice this week is poet Luke Wright’s The Ballad Seller at Coldbath Brewery in Harrogate. In Georgian times, before papers, broadcasts or the internet, ballad sellers would hawk their doggerel on street corners for a penny. Scandalous affairs, grisly crimes, and colourful characters were brought to life in rhyming verse. This solo performance sees the best (worst?) of them re-written for the modern ear. Jul 20, £12, book via Harrogate Theatres.
Turning to the rugrats, those exquisite little handmade shows for children, often with Arts Council subsidised ticket prices, are sadly thin on the ground. But the more commerical offerings, many of which have been touring reliably for years, are up and running. Zog is at St George’s Hall in Bradford. It’s adapted from the book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, and has songs by Joe Stilgoe. Jul 16 & 17, £16.50. In The Night Garden Live is at Leeds Playhouse. Jul 21 & 22, £15 & £19. And Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain Part Five is being premiered at Bridlington Spa ahead of a West End run. Jul 22-25, £14 & £17.
Then there’s The Rascally Diner at The Holbeck in Leeds. This children’s show has been created by Irish company LAStheatre from Ireland, and I hold Irish theatre in very high esteem. Why British theatre-makers don’t pay more attention to it baffles me. Jul 17, pay what you can
News And Resources
If you’re not abreast of the Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey episode, it’s worth Googling. Apparently, someone at Redbridge Libraries in London thought a terrifying man in a giant, multicoloured monkey costume brandishing an enormous fake penis and invitingly splayed buttocks was a good way to encourage kids to read.
At a time when innocence is under threat — not just from online content but, according to liberal philosopher James Lindsay, from ‘queer theorists’ who regard it as the foundation of oppressive cis-normative discourse… zzzz….we’ve been here before….the 1970s infiltration of radical politics by the Paedophile Information Exchange — this was a blatant safeguarding lapse.
But now, I’m pleased to say, Mandinga Arts have issued a grovelling apology.
I won’t laugh… I shouldn’t laugh… Oh no, I laughed. But someone at Redbridge Libraries needs to be fired.
Moving rapidly on, Opera North have two pieces of news. The first is that they’re seeking emerging female conductors for an intensive 10-week training scheme to redress the ‘gender balance’ in classical music. It’s open to all candidates who ‘identify as female’ (oh dear, why are people so cowardly?) but let’s hope a biological woman actually gets on the team. Closing date: Aug 9
And secondly, their 2019 co-production with Phoenix Arts — Haitian-born choreographer Jeanguy Saintus’s radical take on Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring — is to be hosted on the OperaVision platform from Jul 23. It’s a fresh interpretation which draws on the Haitian religious practice of voodoo for inspiration. Free.
Booking Now:
And finally, recent subscribers may not be aware that this newsletter is partly funded by a friend of mine, an Afro-American man who made his fortune in the Californian tech industry. We met in the Noughties when he was ‘defending the free world’ at Menwith Hill RAF base. (Yes, I do have mixed feelings about this.)
Born in Tennessee, he spent his late teens dodging extreme gang violence in South Central Los Angeles whilst he tried to establish himself in a career. A Republican, he has very little time for BLM, thinking it madness to reinforce stereotypes of black victimhood when you could be teaching ghetto kids about the most reliable paths to black achievement. And he supports the police.
I have always considered the Civil Rights movement and its sublime associated soundtrack a story of black achievement. Yes, I hate ‘woke’ — when it’s some ignorent, little middle-class student whining on about micro-aggressions and trying to cancel me for WrongThink. But a talented Afro-American artist like Apphia Campbell engaging seriously with black history? That’s another thing entirely. I may, or may not, agree with it — but I’m certainly looking forward to seeing it, if I can. Woke at Hull Truck, Jul 24, £16 & £6.
That’s all for this week, folks. My apologies that this Newsletter is a bit shorter than usual but I’ve an important meeting this evening. It’s about the mooted closure of our local GP branch surgery, which has coincided with the destruction of our bus service to create a gaping gap in provision for the vulnerable of the village, who will now find it much more difficult to access primary healthcare. I must prepare for it carefully.
Liz x