Nik Briggs News Today

Whats on in York - things to do in and around York from this weekend

THIS is a 40th anniversary production with plenty of firsts and one unquenchable thirst.

A MAN-eating plant will be taking centre stage at York Theatre Royal when one of the citys top theatre companies makes its stage debut there next…

THE true story of the Calendar Girls from Rylstone Womens Institute has transferred from print to stage to screen.

WHATS in the chocolate box of Eastertide delights? Charles Hutchinson unwraps the goodies in store, from a sweet-flavoured festival to a musical…

IN the original 2020 vision of York’s pantomime season, Dame Berwick Kaler made his comeback in Dick Turpin Rides Again in his newly adopted home of the Grand Opera House. York Theatre Royal had a ball with Cinderella, bedding in a new partnership with Evolution Productions, and the Rowntree Players filled the Joseph Rowntree Theatre with community spirit as ever. Then, however, the pandemic, rather than pantomime, became the P word on all lips, tearing up the script for the winter ahea...

By Charles Hutchinson Beanstalk of the town: Yorks landmark Bile Beans sign, in Lord Mayors Walk, has doubled in size thanks to a banner for York Stages panto Jack And The Beanstalk JACK’s magical extra vegan beans at Theatre @41 Monkgate are not the only bean in York to be growing suddenly. The iconic Bile Beans sign on the side of a building in nearby Lord Mayor’s Walk has doubled in size to now read Bile Beanstalk to publicise Y...

  THIS is a York pantomime season like none before. York Theatre Royal has, like a council politician, taken to the wards seeking votes, in this case for the audience choice of Travelling Pantomime. Dame Berwick Kaler’s comeback on board Dick Turpin Rides Again, after his headline-making crosstown transfer to the Grand Opera House, has gone into Covid-enforced hibernation for a year. Likewise, Rowntree Players have taken the winter off. Yet, what’s this? A newcomer bean-sprouting u...

YORK has seen plenty of Ian Stroughair this year, online largely, from his Bishopthorpe kitchen in his cabaret guise as drag diva divine Velma Celli. From today, the West End musical actor, singer and dancer can be enjoyed in his home city like never before, making his York pantomime bow in York Stage’s Jack And The Beanstalk at the Covid-secure, socially distanced Theatre @41 Monkgate. Given his glamorous, glorious-voiced alter ego as Velma, you may have expected Ian to slip into the dam...

EVERYTHING should have been Beautiful for Jordan Fox in 2020. “I was in the tour of Beautiful, the Carole King musical, at the start of the year, and then that got cancelled by the pandemic lockdown,” says the West End actor from West Yorkshire. Based in London for the past couple of years, starring in Kinky Boots and Friendsical, the Friends-parodying musical, Jordan has moved back to Yorkshire in lockdown. Now he finds himself in the title role – Jack, not the allotment staple �...