Open Air Theatre

A spectacular opening concert starring two of the world's biggest opera stars, José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, with music by the Opera North Orchestra. Hosted by Brian Blessed and includes the acclaimed Huddersfield Choral Society. Not to be missed the gala will be one of only two concert dates in the UK for José Carreras this year.

A spectacular firework display will end the evening.

Book now! Call ticketline on 0844 888 9991 or on site at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre ticket office, Burniston Road, Scarborough, YO12 6PF (10am-6pm).

Tickets £55, £45 and £35, VIP waterside from £65

Sentamu Surprise

Scarborough Futurist Theatre Summer Shows Brochure arrived today and who will be appearing alongside the likes of Billy Pearce, the Chuckle Brothers, Ken Dodd, Chubby Brown, Basil Brush and the music of Abba, Joe Longthorne, Elvis, Queen, Jane McDonald and Robbie Williams ? Our own Archbishop in 'Sentamu by the Sea'.

Arcbishop Sentamu will lead this evening telling his extraordinary story. A retiring collection will be taken. "Any excess of income over expenditure will be donated to a current 'world emergency'. Tickets from the Futurist Box Office in person or send a self addressed stamped envelope. Max 2 per person. Groups contact box office. Admission by ticket only.

Men of the world

We are off to the theatre today!

Hull Truck Theatre presents

Men Of The World

Written by BAFTA Award winning John Godber

Join Stick, Frank and Happy Larry (two men and a woman!) as they embark on another coach journey down the Rhine Valley...these long suffering drivers have seen it all and done it all; so as they lead towards the Channel Tunnel with thirty old age pensioners in Paris, search for lost teeth in Koblenz and witness love affairs in Boppard....and after a four-day 'Umpah' party they make the long journey back.

Funny, sad and cinematic you'll be amazed as Stick, Frank and Happy Larry play many of the pensioners in a total evocation of a bus trip.

"This portrayal of the microcosmic world of coach travel, which purports to be filled with holiday 'fun' is utterly hilarious"
Manchester On Stage

"This is a touching and funny celebration of one of society's marginalized sectors"
Yorkshire Post

A Christmas Carol

Cynthia and friend braved the elements to get to the final performance at the SJT today and were handed a humbug each on leaving the theatre:

30 November - 9 January

The Stephen Joseph Theatre Company in

A Christmas Carol

By Charles Dickens
Adapted and directed by Chris Monks

'Bah! Humbug!'

Ebenezer Scrooge cares for nothing and nobody. His only love is money. Then, one Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by three ghostly spirits, and he begins a life changing journey of redemption.

Our specially adapted version of this classic and much-loved story will feature sixteen young performers drawn from across the Borough of Scarborough, working alongside a professional cast.

Dickens spent time in Malton, and based Scrooge's Counting House on a friend's offices in Chancery Lane. What if Scrooge grew up in Ryedale? Was the penny-pinching old miser a Yorkshire man after all?

Book Recommendation 3

(Leslie loan - friend of SJT - Ayckbourn enthusiast)

New Ayckbourn book exclusively at the SJT Shop

23 September 2009

Sight Unseen: The Unseen Ayckbourn Guide is a new book by Alan Ayckbourn’s archivist, Simon Murgatroyd. It looks at concepts and ideas for plays, unpublished and unproduced plays, alternative versions and titles, screenplay concepts, early writing and rarely seen Ayckbourn plays such as his very first play The Square Cat.

The book has more than 100 entries ranging from Alan’s first play written at school to his latest play My Wonderful Day, with practically every subject accompanied with quotes from Alan Ayckbourn as well as extracts from a number of the plays.

Although available on the internet, Sight Unseen is being sold exclusively offline at the Stephen Joseph Theatre Shop. It costs £7 with all proceeds from the book going towards the theatre

Sight Unseen

The Unseen Ayckbourn Guide

by Simon Murgatroyd

Format: Free download or paid for softcover edition (£4.00)

Pages: 120 pages

Click here for the Free Download or click here for details of the paid-for published edition

(Note: There is no difference in content between the free download or paid-for edition)

A preview of Sight Unseen can also be found at lulu.com here.

Entries discussed include Alan Ayckbourn's work on:

> Unpublished canon plays such as The Square Cat, Love After All, Dad's Tale, Christmas V Mastermind, Standing Room Only, The Sparrow, Jeeves, Making Tracks & Virtual Reality.

> Unacknowledged, unproduced and unpublished plays such as Bedside Manners, Board Game,The Party Game, Relative Values, The Season.

> Early alternative versions of Absurd Person Singular, A Chorus Of Disapproval, FlatSpin,Henceforward..., The Jollies & Life & Beth.

> Screenplays and TV concepts such as the movie Cluedo, Bedroom Farce spin-off Ernest & Delia, Hark At Barker & Mind Over Murder.

> Alternative titles such as Am I Famous Yet, I To I, Meeting Like This, Sight Unseen, The Silver Collection, Take It Or Leave It & Taken For Granted & Winnie's Wonderful Day.

> The 'Grey' plays - produced but never published and now withdrawn.

> Concepts for various unwritten plays.

> Previously unacknowledged ephemera such as Cinderella's Star Night, The Ghost Of 'Enry Albert, Scarborough's Millennium attraction and a West End version of The Wizard Of Oz.

> Early writing during his school and teenage years

> Also includes a definitive & up-to-date official play list, a guide to who's who and all entries are fully referenced.

And more...

The entries are discussed in historical context and include quotes by Alan Ayckbourn himself as well as rarely, if ever, seen extracts from many of the plays.

Book Recommendation 2

(Leslie loan - Scarborough born author - 'Woman in Black' seen at West End theatre)

Reviewed by Sarah Vine of The Times

In a world full of gruesome, graphic and all too often sadistic literary violence, Susan Hill's old-fashioned ghost story is a welcome reminder of the more noble origins of the horror genre.

Like her earlier novel, The Woman in Black, it harks back to a time when terror was as much a product of the reader's imagination, expertly planted there by the author, as it was spelt out on the page. In cinematic terms, it is The Shining versus Saw III; Don't Look Now v I Know What You Did Last Summer; The Omen v Scream. It has class, it has style and it has pedigree.

In many respects The Man in the Picture owes a considerable debt to the father of the fireside chiller, M.R. James, probably best known for his 1925 collection A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories.

James was a master of understated horror and dramatic tension. The fear and foreboding in his stories is palpable, the doom-laden action no less exciting for being so darn obvious. That sense of inviting disaster which characterises some of the greatest Gothic horror — why must the hero venture into the cellar when he knows it contains a foul fiend; why does the heroine leave her window open when she knows a “vampyre” is on the loose? — is ever present in his work. Yet his protagonists, and the reader, are glued to a narrative that is devilishly, hypnotically elegant.

James had certain themes, and they are present in The Man in the Picture. Here is the eminent academic, nearing the end of his life, living out his days in comfortable penury. Here is the naive pupil, in awe of his mentor's intellect but unaware of the true depths of the dark secret that he harbours. Here is the bright promise of happiness, a romantic idyll, doomed to destruction.

At the centre of everything is a supernatural black hole, an object of extreme malevolence (in this case, a painting) that, while not necessarily intrinsically terrifying, is tenaciously successful in its evil purpose. And there is no happy ending, no redemption — the only escape for its unfortunate victims is the grave, or worse.

But The Man in the Picture is no mere carbon copy. It has real, defining qualities of its own. Hill brings her unique take to a somewhat careworn framework and produces a tale brimming with excitement, mystery and vitality.

Her language is crisp, concise and elegant, and, although she makes concessions to a more old-fashioned style, she does so knowingly and with verve. The story unfolds at a thriller's pace, and the setting is reassuringly contemporary.

Thanks to this, Hill can lure the modern reader in with a sense of the brightly familiar. Not until it is too late – both for the hero and for the hooked reader – does the realisation dawn that everything, even a plate of piping hot buttered crumpets, has been contaminated by an intangible, insatiable evil. In the capable hands of Hill, the Gothic novel, that venerable but undeniably pensionable genre, finds a new lease of life.

The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
Profile, £9.99; 160pp

How the other half loves

(Visiting the theatre this afternoon)

The Stephen Joseph Theatre Company in

How The Other Half Loves

Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn

You tell one little tiny lie and where does it land you?

Fiona and Bob started it all but had no idea it would lead to Bob’s wife Theresa springing into misguided, well meaning, action and to Fiona’s husband Frank getting hold of entirely the wrong end of the stick. All of which would turn William and Mary’s conventional lives upside down so that neither of them would ever be quite the same again.

And they all lived, better people, more or less happily ever after – though none the wiser.

Alan Ayckbourn’s classic farce returns to Scarborough in this new, rare in-the-round production by the author, his first since its premiere 40 years ago.

“Alan Ayckbourn must be the most ingenious writer of situation comedy of our day”
Financial Times

“The techniques are fresh, the lines are funny and the situations constantly surprising. It is an immediate smash hit.”
International Herald Tribune

Synopsis

How The Other Half Loves has a single set, which represents two separate but over-lapping living rooms. One is a smart room with reproduction period furniture (the Fosters’ home); the other more contemporary and shabby (The Phillips’ home). Action takes place in both houses simultaneously allowing the playwright to play with both stage space and time during the course of the play. Alan Ayckbourn firmly believes for the play to work it has to be set as a period piece in the autumn of 1969.

How The Other Half Loves concerns three couples: Frank and Fiona Foster; Bob and Teresa Phillips; William and Mary Featherstone. Frank employs both Bob and William and is considering promoting the latter. Bob is having an affair with Frank’s wife Fiona and is in constant conflict with his own wife, Teresa. She feels Bob is neglecting her while she raises their baby and is suspicious of his actions and phantom phone-calls made to the house. When he returns late, she confronts him about his actions and he lies that he has been comforting work associate William, who believes his wife Mary is having an affair.
Frank and Fiona’s relationship is in stark contrast to the torrid emotions of Bob and Teresa’s. They share a polite, distant and evasive relationship and when Frank asks Fiona where she has also been, she says she has been comforting Mary - who she barely knows - who apparently believes William is having an affair. Of course, William and Mary are innocent parties and neither of the adulterers realise they have both implicated the Featherstones in their alibis. Both parties swear their partners to secrecy - particularly as both couples are entertaining the Featherstones on successive nights.
The second scene concerns the dinner parties, both performed simultaneously (William and Mary sit on swivelling seats so as to ‘move’ from one party to the other). At the Fosters, the Featherstones are treated to a polite and banal evening with William desperately trying to impress Frank in the hope of a promotion. At the Phillips, the couple attempt to be a calming influence on Bob and Teresa’s fiery relationship, but are dragged into a destructive and very physical argument. Of course, all the Featherstones’ efforts are doomed to failure anyway as members of both parties suspect both William and Mary of sexual indiscretions. At the climax of the disastrous evenings, William is accidentally doused with soup thrown by Teresa at Bob and finds himself sitting beneath a leak from the Fosters’ upstairs toilet.
In Act Two, Bob and Teresa are on the verge of splitting up. Mary comes round to try and help and to get away from William, as a result meeting Bob. Teresa has meanwhile gone to the Fosters and realises Bob has been having an affair with Fiona. She returns home. Frank calls Bob’s house, but the phone is picked up by Mary. Frank presumes Bob and Mary are having an affair. He tells William this, who goes round to confront Bob - who by then has patched things up with Teresa. William arrives and attacks Bob with a monkey wrench only to be knocked out by Teresa.
With matters totally confused, largely due to Frank’s clumsy interventions, he summons everyone to his house to clear the air - although he still believes Bob’s affair is with Mary. He soon realises his mistake and when the truth emerges, William is forced to apologise to Mary - or as close as he can come to an apology. Mary forgives him in a simple but devastating critique of her husband and their marriage. Bob and Teresa settle their differences and reach an understanding of sorts. After the couples have left, Fiona admits to Frank she has had a casual fling but manages not to reveal with whom. Frank forgives her at the mention of a reconciliation dinner.
As the play ends, Frank suddenly realises he may know who Fiona was having an affair with. He rings Bob, only for Teresa to pick up the phone. She immediately believes he is the phantom caller and a confused Frank agrees to meet Teresa privately to discuss his problems and frustrations….

Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2007

Pirates of Penzance

(first theatre benefit from recent birthday gift)

The Stephen Joseph Theatre Company in

The Pirates of Penzance

By W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
Adapted and directed by Chris Monks

Frederic is loyal, young and free from his apprenticeship to a hopeless, blundering band of pirates. When he falls for Mabel, daughter of a Major General, this and the abandoning of his pirate ways causes distress to the Pirate King and his lovelorn nursery maid, Ruth. Frederic is cajoled, threatened and tricked by the pirates and with the help of a pathetic posse of policemen, chaos ensues with hilarious consequences.

Cutlasses are exchanged for guns as pirates scowl behind dark glasses and rule the waves like a Mafia of the high seas. This is classic Gilbert and Sullivan with a Reservoir Dogs twist.

“It’s Gilbert and Sullivan but not as we know it – and it’s all the better for that”
The Daily Mail

“… fresh and funny, the adaptation highly imaginative”
The Daily Telegraph

After Ayckbourn: Chris Monks takes the reigns at Scarborough

He's done a cricketing Mikado and once set Figaro in a gym. Now Chris Monks has got his hands on Alan Ayckbourn's theatre. He tells Alfred Hickling what he's planning.

• The Guardian, Thursday 30 April 2009

At the end of the 1990s, Chris Monks, a writer, composer and former van driver, was asked to direct a drama school production of The Mikado on a budget so tight it didn't even extend to Japanese costumes. So Monks simply rescored the piece and set it on a cricket pitch. "I'm a keen cricketer," he says. "I realised I couldn't have Samurai armour. But I knew I could get hold of some batsmen's togs on the cheap."

Monks's Mikado was so successful, he was invited to remount it professionally at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme. It led to a series of radical, operatic makeovers that included Carmen as a check-out girl, the Marriage of Figaro set in a gym, and HMS Pinafore transplanted to a fast-food restaurant; one character attempted suicide by diving into a deep fat fryer.

Now Monks, 54, is making another radical move - taking over from Alan Ayckbourn as artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre. When Ayckbourn announced his departure, it was far from certain who would fill the void. The company has only had two directors since 1955, when Stephen Joseph established the country's first in-the-round auditorium in a spare room above the Scarborough public library. It seemed unlikely that there were many writer/directors out there who shared Ayckbourn's passion for basing their careers in a small repertory theatre on the north-east coast.

But Monks, who has been writing, composing and directing for 30 years, couldn't be happier with his first permanent job. "It has always been my ambition to run a theatre, but it had to be the right one," says Monks, who was attracted by the venue's intimacy. "I wouldn't want to run the National. I wouldn't even want to run the West Yorkshire Playhouse. This theatre is the perfect size for me."

Although he may not have the highest profile, Monks is well qualified, having extensive experience of the country's principal in-the-round auditoria, including the Royal Exchange in Manchester and the Orange Tree in Richmond. He comes to Scarborough having been associate director at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Like his predecessor, Monks is a theatrical all-rounder who learned on the job. Originally from Sheffield, he trained as a musician and was hired by the Royal Exchange as a van driver before graduating to in-house composer. His big break came when he wrote the music for Trafford Tanzi, Claire Luckham's play about a female wrestler, which became a hit in the 1980s, starring Toyah Willcox in London and Debbie Harry on Broadway.

The test-match Mikado was Monks's first foray as a director. His mini-operas may be irreverent, but they show a deep knowledge and respect for their original sources. In some cases, they even improve on them. The mystic plot of The Magic Flute made sense as an X-Files alien abduction scenario, while Don Giovanni's inexplicable escapes were explained by casting him as a theatrical illusionist complete with disappearing cabinet. Monks says his aim is "to encourage opera-shy audiences to try the form by tipping the balance in favour of drama. Opera productions can be so overblown - it's surprising how powerful it becomes in an intimate setting."

Monks's first season opens tonight with Ron Hutchinson's Hollywood comedy, Moonlight and Magnolias, and concludes with his own adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance, which, appropriately for Scarborough, is set on a beach. Ayckbourn will return to direct a 40th-anniversary production of his How the Other Half Loves. Surprisingly, Ayckbourn had no influence in choosing his successor: he has never had a contract with the theatre and the appointment was entirely the decision of the board.

There will be new Ayckbourn plays for as long as he continues to produce them, although the writer does not like to assume the new boss will reserve a place for him. At the same time, Monks knows the theatre cannot trade on Ayckbourn's reputation indefinitely: "Nobody knows when Alan is going to write his last play," he says. "There are perhaps some people who would like to see this place become a kind of shrine, offering endless revivals of his work. I think that would be a mistake."

Monks's main ambition is to make the theatre appeal to locals as well as tourists. He promises an expansion of family-oriented work, more shows with shorter runs, and a commitment to the theatre's concentration on new writing. He hints at having a "major, Yorkshire writer" lined up for next season, but won't reveal who just yet.

For many, the Stephen Joseph will always be "Alan Ayckbourn's theatre". But Monks clearly intends to be his own man: "Stephen Joseph said you should destroy whatever you have after seven years and start again. By his own reckoning, we've been here 47 years too long already."

Community Theatre

(The monks of Monk Bretton founded the church in my home village of Royston in 1234)

By Michael Hickling in Yorkshire Post Magazine

A former Barnsley miner will reveal that Britain's got talent with his biblical epic performed by the community. Watch a preview in the stunning setting of Monk Bretton Priory.

A call comes in on John Kelly's mobile phone. It's Judas Iscariot.

"Yes Judas?" The conversation continues for a minute of two. "Okay, right Judas, thanks Judas, bye."

It's not clear if all the members of John Kelly's cast stay in character when they get in touch with him. Maybe God (to be played as a disembodied voice by Patrick Stewart) will ring in a moment? Probably not. Doesn't He usually communicate by other means, through a clap of thunder or something?

We are sitting in the bar of John Kelly's tiny theatre in Barnsley. The one-time miner created it by taking out a second mortgage on his house, and all that his investment bought at the time was a wreck of a building. With ingenuity it was transformed into a little gem called the Lamproom which survived for a decade without a penny of public funding.

It's now in it's 10th anniversary year and John Kelly is moving from this small, but perfectly-formed auditorium onto a broader stage. He's directing his own outdoor community version of a medieval Mystery Plays cycle in an arena at the ruins of the 13th century Monk Bretton Priory.

The total number in the cast and crew is nearly 200 – bigger than a capacity Lamproom audience of 187– and will play to 500 people a night for 12 nights.

There are no mysteries in the Mystery Plays. The name comes from the way each craft, or "mystery", in a town undertook to adapt and perform a Bible story to be part of a linked narrative from Creation to Last Judgement.

It was an enterprise which did not justify the ways of God to Man so much as bring them vividly to life by capturing the imagination of the unlettered.

Ordinary people were embedded in Catholic ritual, so instinctively responded to this extension of religion as theatre. These home-spun takes on familiar stories probably had an impact like today's Hollywood blockbusters. Audiences throughout the country turned out anticipating shock and awe and that's what they they seem to have got, with a bit of low humour thrown in.

We're not entirely sure, since most of their scripts were lost after the plays were banned. Four survive, mainly intact, including the York cycle of plays and the Wakefield cycle which were unearthed last century in Lancashire. A modern taste for them was re-discovered when York revived their cycle in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain.

John has spent years studying them to create his English Mystery Plays which, he says, is 80 per cent new writing. "They can be very long and exceedingly tedious. I've condensed the greatest moments to about two hours, 15 minutes." He got the idea for a narrator he calls Bogoak from the Coventry Cycle and found Toby Stephen, a comedian and presenter on Radio Sheffield, to play the part.

John has also brought in Morris dancing, longsword dancing, medieval music and jesters for what he thinks is the only outdoor play of this sort taking place this summer in western Europe.

He is not one for received opinion where Bible stories are concerned. "I've got great sympathy for Judas from a theatrical point of view. Why does the poor chap have to spend his eternal life in the fires of Hell just because he's the one who had to move the storyline along?"

His show has a couple of interesting star names attached to it, apart from Patrick Stewart. Notes in the programme about the history of Mystery Plays are contributed by dangerous Becky Granger, the chavvy barmaid of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street. Her theme is that there's a theatrical void between Sophocles and Shakespeare and the Mystery Plays fill it.

In real life, Becky is John's elder daughter, Katherine Kelly, recently crowned best actress in the British National soap Awards.

The other name to leap out is Grace Kelly. This is not another ghostly-voice arrangement but a corporeal presence in the shape of John's younger daughter, who plays Eve. Grace Kelly, 19, is off to
Los Angeles to study acting when the show ends.

Her father's fascination with the medieval goes back 30 years. A school party from Worsborough High School went to York for the Mystery Plays which in those days were mounted every three years in the Museum Gardens against the backdrop of the ruins of St Mary's Abbey.

It impressed one of the school's teachers so much she devised her own. The vicar of St Mary's church in Worsborough moved some of the gravestones to make a little acting area and a local outdoor dramatic tradition was born. Later, John, then aged 33, was invited to play Jesus and he went on to direct or produce at Worsborough, bringing in semi- professional actors to bolster the amateur cast.

Three years ago, Barnsley Council asked John if he would attempt something grander in this vein with his own acting set-up, the Barnsley Secret Theatre Company. They promised a proper budget. He said no. "They sat me down and I said no again. In fact I said it three times. They didn't understand the vastness of it.

"Then we got to go and take a look at Monk Bretton Priory. It's funny, I used to live in Grimethorpe and passed it on the way to work and never really noticed it. But after that look around I was absolutely stunned. That did me. It had production values written all over it. That's the genesis."

As to his own beginnings, they are pretty unusual for the founder of a theatre and an acting dynasty. John left his Catholic comprehensive in Featherstone at the age of 15 with no qualifications. He put that right when he signed up to be a miner at Monkton Colliery and worked so hard he was crowned Yorkshire apprentice of the year for 1966. That gave him a leg-up to train as an electrician, but a long-term life underground was not to be.

Despatched on his motorbike to deliver a parcel for a fellow miner in a mental hospital, his eyes were opened to the fact that men could do this work. Within a day he had switched jobs and made a lifetime career out of psychiatric nursing instead.

The Lamproom came about after he headed a trust aiming to bring back theatre to Barnsley's Edwardian Theatre Royal. The way was blocked and John spotted in the pages of the local paper another building for sale. It's on a prominent position overlooking Barnsley and began life in 1792 as a chapel or meeting house. By the 1990s it required a giant step of the imagination to see any potential there.

A hammer and chisel were required to get inside and snow lay in a 30-foot drift against a wall. Windows were smashed and the only recent visitors had been flocks of pigeons and druggies whose detritus was scattered around. All the wiring had been stripped.

The make-do-and mend approach to turn things round blended cheek with adaptability.

Today, the auditorium's stepped flooring was once boarding belonging to a supermarket. "It was around the new Sainsbury's in Wakefield. I asked if I could have it when they were finished with it." The stage is constructed from pallets for which the Redfearn National Glass Company had no further use. A joiner put in the bar for nothing.

Trust volunteers brought their own special skills and the trust purchased the theatre from John for the same price he paid. He is now a trustee and has just been made president. As a figurehead, he will have more time to expand his writing horizons.

This autumn the Lamproom is putting on a trilogy of plays he wrote some time ago set in the Sixties. He won't be there to see them. In September he is off to Los Angeles for six months to find out more about how they write for television.

"I've got some writing pals over there who work for some of the big network comedy shows. The writers are in teams and it's amazing seeing at first hand how the shows come together. I'll be doing some writing on my own there. But I'm 58, maybe a bit too old to make it in television."

For the amateurs who come to have a go in the Mystery Plays, it's often a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

"A chap of six foot three and 18 stone came towards me in Barnsley market," says John. "He was all tattoos and bulging muscles. I went to step aside but he said, 'Remember me? I were a wave in 1983. I'd never done anything like that in me life. I never did again. Me mam's still got the photos on the mantlepiece'."

John's job, once a production is underway, is to think on his feet. "One night I counted 10 disciples. I asked the others about the missing two and they said, 'they've gone to a Queen concert'. I thought the audience were going to notice this when we got to the Last Supper and in the interval found two people in the audience to make up the dozen."

Another year, when John had a main part, his car broke down on the motorway as he drove to a performance.

He jumped out and ran across fields to the nearest house, calling out to a man in the garden: "Good evening, I'm Noah!" The man he was hailing turned out to be Arthur Scargill, who obliged by giving Noah a lift so he was just in time to catch the Ark.

English Mystery Plays, June 29 to July 11, Monk Bretton Priory, tickets 01226 321741

A small family business

Radio: A Small Family Business
	Director: Martin Jarvis Company: Jarvis & Ayres Productions for BBC Radio 3 Transmission date: 12 April 2009 @ 8pm Availability: Not available Producer: Rosalind Ayres Sound Design: Mark Holden > A Small Family Business: Background & History     In 1987, Alan Ayckbourn took a two-year sabbatical from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough, to form his own company at the National Theatre at the invitation of Peter Hall. It was, Alan later said, probably the only offer he would accept to move away from Scarborough for any length of time. Alan was asked to direct three plays, including a new one of his own, and had to use all three theatre spaces. Alan wrote A Small Family Business for the largest – and most challenging – auditorium, the Olivier. It provided him with the opportunity to create a play that he could never conceivably produce or stage at his home theatre in Scarborough. The play was also unusual in that it was the first Alan had not written for Scarborough since Mr Whatnot in 1963 and it was completed a year ahead of production. A very different pattern for Alan who, at the time, was still finishing his plays at the last minute for the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round.  In interviews, Alan has said the idea of the play came when one of his sons was discussing the accounting ‘tricks’ he had come across whilst studying catering. Alan was shocked and it started him wondering about morality in the modern world and how even an honest man could very easily take the wrong path without ever believing he was compromising his own morals. In residence at the National Theatre, Alan created – with the obvious exception of Way Upstream – the most ambitious staging for any of his plays. The play is set in a two storey house, which not only offered the opportunity for him to present a play as he had never presented one before but it also filled the vast Olivier space successfully and without compromise. Ingeniously, the set represents numerous houses – and at one memorable moment has events running concurrently on stage in two different homes. Alan’s solution to the unchanging furniture being the family run a furniture business and all have the latest, identical designs from the factory. Alan’s acting company, which had several regular Scarborough actors, also included Michael Gambon - who Alan believes paid him a great compliment by signing his contract before he even read the script of A Small Family Business. The inclusion of the actor was a coup for Alan, but there was a near disaster when during previews Michael Gambon tripped over a cable and injured his foot. Previews were put back, but from there the play went on to become a phenomenal critical and commercial success for the National Theatre. The production went on to win the Evening Standard Best Play of the Year award. As noted by the critic and writer Michael Billington about Alan’s previous play, Woman In Mind, it was now very obvious Alan was no longer the simple farceur many had labelled him early in his career. Billington argues A Small Family Business sees Alan continue his exploration of far larger social issues affecting ordinary people: Way Upstream tackling the issue of evil; Woman In Mind the fallibility of religion; A Small Family Business tackling morality and the perils of capitalism. The impact of the play is hard to measure – unfortunately, despite its accomplishment and impact, the scale of the piece has led to few revivals – but the influential ‘90s playwright Mark Ravenhill has stated A Small Family Business was the political play of the ‘80s and had been an inspiration to him as a writer. The success of A Small Family Business and Alan’s hugely acclaimed production of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, led many to believe Alan would not return to Scarborough. A view mischievously given credence in an spurious article by the critic Michael Coveney. However, once his tenure at the National was over, Alan returned to Scarborough and moved straight into production of his play Man Of The Moment. This work would complete a remarkable series of four plays, any one of which could rightly be regarded as a classic. Much as he had written five plays in succession in the ‘70s which defined his writing of that period with Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests and Absent Friends; so the successive plays of Woman In Mind, A Small Family Business, Henceforward… and Man Of The Moment redefined him for the ‘80s. Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2006 Synopsis Jack McCraken arrives home to discover a surprise party, thrown by his wife Poppy, to celebrate him taking over the running of the family furniture business, Ayres and Graces, founded by his father-in-law, Ken. Jack makes an inspirational speech about the need for total honesty and incorruptibility in the business. The party is disturbed when Benedict Hough, a private detective, arrives to announce he has caught Jack’s daughter Samantha shoplifting (to the value of £1.87). Hough threatens prosecution unless he gets a job with the family firm. Jack shows him the door. Scorned by his wife and other daughter Tina, for not standing up for Samantha, the women admit they have both committed minor indiscretions in the past. The next day, Ken confides to Jack that the firm’s furniture is being copied by an Italian firm and believes there to be a spy in their firm. Jack contacts Hough and hires him; Hough drops the prosecution threat against Samantha and Jack becomes tainted by the very thing he despises. Hough discovers a firm called Rivetti is receiving the information. Jack realises the Rivettis are a contact of his brother, Cliff and goes to confront him. Unaware he is out, Jack discovers Cliff’s wife is having an affair with – it appears – most of the Rivetti brothers. Cliff admits to buying their own furniture at cost and selling it on to the Rivettis. A family meeting reveals practically everyone knows about the deal and benefits from it in some way. It transpires Ken’s son Desmond is the true villain, investing money in a restaurant in Minorca in a bid to leave his wife, Harriet. With the family and business in danger of being torn apart, Jack realises Hough is also aware of this information. He asks him round and offers to pay him off, Hough says he wants more than he is being offered or he will blackmail the family. Telling him to wait, Jack leaves to consult with the others and to raise more money; the family, though, decide they should hire one of the Rivettis to kill the detective. Hough, meanwhile, attempts to find the money originally offered, but encounters Polly, Tina and Samantha. They fight over the money and in a scuffle in the bathroom, Hough is killed. Coming together for a birthday party for Ken, Jack finds the Rivetti’s price for disposing of Hough’s body is to use the family firm for drug distribution. Jack reluctantly agrees, while attempting to morally justify his actions. As he re-affirms his original speech, Jack is unaware Samantha is in the bathroom, addicted to the same drugs. Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2006 >

Spartacus

(a thrilling evening at the ballet courtesy bbc tv)

The Bolshoi Ballet perform their signature work Spartacus, staged in Paris in January 2008 and featuring the Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta in the title role. This epic work by Khatchaturian tells the story of the gladiator-slave who became the leader of an unsuccessful slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

CREDITS

Spartacus

Carlos Acosta

Director

Ross MacGibbon

BROADCASTS

1. Fri 24 Apr 2009
   19:30
   BBC Four
   
   
   (review of earlier performance in London)
   
   
   
   
    

   Sarah Crompton
    08 Aug 2007

   
   

   
   

   

   Sarah Crompton reviews the Bolshoi's Spartacus at the London Coliseum

   • Big, bold and thrilling, Spartacus is the Bolshoi's signature work, but it stands or falls on the charisma of the dancer playing its doomed hero.
     

   The company hasn't had a truly memorable Spartacus since Irek Mukhamedov threw off his shackles and flew.

   Now it has. Cuban Carlos Acosta has spent a month rehearsing with the company to take on this role, an epic test of stamina in so many ways. He has performed in Moscow; now he brings his interpretation to London. And he triumphs.

   The part is built on a series of stage-splitting jumps, designed by the choreographer Yuri Grigorovich to show off the athletic power of the traditional Bolshoi leading man.

   His virile antics propel the story: a slaves' revolution is won with jetés that whir round the stage; he accepts power by bounding through the massed ranks of his supporters, pushing the sky with his twisting elevation; he encounters defeat in a last despairing sequence of abandoned leaps.

   In between, there are endless pirouettes and a lot of rousing running around - all of which Acosta carries off with skill and abandon. Arguably he might have jumped an inch higher and spun a fraction faster five years ago, but then he wouldn't have brought to the part such extraordinary drama.

   Acosta's unique skill, as his career has developed, is his ability to communicate. He comes so close to the footlights, you feel he wants to break their bounds and bring the audience on to the stage.

   And he is so expressive you believe he is speaking. When he enfolds his beloved Phrygia (Anna Antonicheva) in his tender arms, you can hear the words of love he is murmuring; when he attempts to quell an uprising in his own ranks, you know the admonitions he is using.

   It is an extraordinary gift, and it creates a deep emotion and passion that help the ballet along.

   Spartacus was made in 1968, three years after MacMillan had unveiled the psychological realism of Romeo and Juliet. Grigorovich took a different path, structuring the piece as a series of striking tableaux, linked by "monologues", solos that express character rather than thought.

   Acosta's achievement is to play a Grigorovich hero like a MacMillan one.

   On Monday night, only Maria Allash as a flashingly seductive Aegina, disdain dripping from her elegant wrists, ambition stamped over her face, came anywhere near to matching his dramatic realism.

   Alexander Volchkov plays the evil Roman general Crassus as a self-dramatising hysteric; it is a pantomime performance, but effective. Antonicheva emotes hard but lacks fluency as Phrygia.

   Around them, Khachaturian's score, vividly played by the Bolshoi Orchestra under Pavel Sorokin, swirls dramatically and Grigorovich's stage pictures unfold with vigorous glamour. It's all a bit Cecil B DeMille, but utterly engrossing.

   
   
2. 
   

Othello

AFTER months of hype and hullaballoo, the waiting is practically over.(Tues-Sat this week)

Lenny Henry is finally coming to Scarborough to play Othello.

Lenny, 50, received good reviews when Northern Broadsides’ production of Shakespeare’s tragedy opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds a few weeks ago.

For example, Nick Ahad of the Yorkshire Post said: “His deep resonant voice fills the theatre with absolute ease. It feels like his frame could do the same.

“He is a massive presence and you could easily believe he is a soldier who could run through 20 men with an arm and a dagger, as he later boasts.

“In short, Lenny gives a very acceptable performance, given his experience, and those around him show where he could get to – if he keeps building on this experience.”

After three weeks, the production, directed by Barrie Rutter, finishes in Leeds on Saturday and transfers to the Stephen Joseph Theatre next Tuesday to Saturday.

All the tickets were snapped up almost as soon as they went on sale.

When it quits Scarborough, Lenny and company have a couple of weeks off before the tour proceeds to Coventry, Bath, Kingston in Kent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Halifax.

Billy Elliot, the musical

Billy Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is bySir Elton John, and book and lyrics are by Lee Hall (who wrote the film's screenplay). The musical revolves around motherless Billy, who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes. The story of his personal struggle and fulfilment are balanced against a counterstory of family and community strife caused by the 1980s coal miners' strike. Hall's screenplay was inspired in part by A.J. Cronin's novel, The Stars Look Down, and the musical's opening song is an homage.

The musical opened in London's West End in 2005 and was nominated for nine Laurence Olivier Awards, winning four including Best New Musical. The success of Billy Elliot the Musical has led to productions in Australia and on Broadway.

The work premiered in March 2005 at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London, where it is still showing; it reportedly cost £5.5 million to make (the original film version cost $5 million).^[2] It is directed by Stephen Daldry and choreographed by Peter Darling, as was the original film. The producers were Working Title Films, Old Vic Productions Plc and David Furnish. Ian MacNeil designed the sets, Nicky Gillibrand designed the costumes, and Rick Fisher designed the lighting. The original cast album was released on January 10, 2006. The musical received favourable reviews and won Three Laurence Olivier Awards: Best New Musical, Best Actor and Choreographer. It also won the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

Synopsis

Set in County Durham, against the backdrop of the 1984-85 coal miners' strike, motherless eleven-year-old Billy inadvertently finds his way into a girls' ballet class run by Mrs. Wilkinson and is attracted to the grace of the dance. Without telling his family, who would prefer that he study boxing, Billy continues to come to the dance class, and Mrs. Wilkinson, recognising his talent, encourages him to audition for the Royal Ballet School in London. Billy's friend Michael is a boy with homosexual feelings, and Mrs. Wilkinson's daughter Debbie is another friend of Billy's. Meanwhile, Billy's gruff, conservative father and brother are engaged in a daily battle with policemen in riot gear protecting strike breakers. They struggle to get the family by with very little strike pay. The father comes to terms with his son's desire to be a dancer, as he becomes resigned to the realisation that coal mining is a dying business. The musical gives more emphasis to the miner's strike than the film, and consequently its tone is a bit darker and harder-edged than the film's, but the ending is uplifting.

Musical numbers

Act I The Stars Look Down Shine Grandma's Song Solidarity Expressing Yourself The Letter Born to Boogie Angry Dance

Act II Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher Deep into the Ground Swan Lake He Could be a Star Electricity Once We Were Kings The Letter (Reprise) Finale

Awards and milestones

Sign in West End

The show was nominated for nine Laurence Olivier Awards and won four of them in 2006. These were best musical, best choreography (Peter Darling), best sound design (Paul Arditti), and best actor(s) in a musical (James Lomas, George Maguire, and Liam Mower). At thirteen, Mower was the youngest actor ever to win the award. The actors were also the first to win the award in a shared capacity. Lomas, Maguire, and Mower also jointly received the Theatre Goers' Choice Award 2005 for The Most Promising Newcomer. Billy Elliot the Musical has also won The Evening Standard Award 2005, among others.^[12]

On 12 May 2006, the three original Billys (Lomas, Maguire and Mower) appeared in a final show together to celebrate the show's first anniversary. The three rotated the role during the performance and were joined at the end by Sir Elton John. When the musical celebrated its third anniversary in London, the newly-cast Billys for the Broadway production danced to “Electricity”.