Make me merry, York!

Today - August 1st - is Yorkshire Day: highly appropriate for a blog post about my dash down to York this week.  Tempted by the prospect of seeing two Bensons brought to life on stage, I decided to make a proper trip of it, booked a B&B near the Theatre Royal and a direct train from Sunderland.

I love York.  It is a city I am very familiar with and which never fails to delight and York Theatre Royal is one of my very favourite theatres.  Apart from its history and quirky magnificence, I love the fact that it feels like a theatre with its roots very firmly in the community it serves.  The play I went to see - 'His Last Report' - was a perfect example of this, telling a local story - that of the social conscience of the Rowntree family, using a huge cast made up of the people of York to tell it, alongside two professional actors.

In less competent hands, this could have become a piece of self-serving historical nostalgia - rather like one of the popular historical pageants referenced in the text - but the material had been carefully shaped, structured and staged to create something that was both impressive and thought-provoking, making some searing points about poverty - both financial and cultural - then and now.  The play made excellent use of its theatricality to link the past and the present and to underline the fact that the kind of responsibility Seebohm Rowntree felt for his workers is something still sadly lacking in much of today's commerce and industry. 

Of course, my main motivation was to see how the Bensons were used as part of this storytelling.  I knew of Brynhild's employment as a gym instructress from Catherine Hindson's blog post from March last year: The Rowntree Society | Brynhild Benson: Star of the Cocoa Works Stage - The Rowntree Society and was excited to see how she would come across on stage. Played with exuberant energy - and formidable gymnastic skills - by Christie Barnes, Brynhild emerged as someone brimming with enthusiasm and that kind of zeal which was a very recognisable Benson-family trait. Her excitement at the prospect of introducing Morris Dancing to the Rowntree workers was tangible!

I had wondered how FRB could fit into the plot and how he would be represented - what 'take' the researchers and writers would have decided on to make him part of the story.  I admit to a little concern that there might be some 'hamming up' to create 'old fashioned' acting, but I need not have worried.  Frank, as played by Maurice Crichton, hit the perfect note between skilful theatricality and poignancy and really did Benson justice!  The decision to show the end of King Lear deliberately echoed the scenes of child mortality which had been the motive for Seebohm Rowntree's actions earlier in the play, and provided a real moment of reflection, played as far downstage as possible with the youngest members of the cast as a rapt onstage audience of school-children.  

Review: His Last Report | YorkMix

Out of role as Lear, Benson's lines also rang true as he expressed his belief in Shakespeare's plays as something alive and life-enhancing (and as a former English and drama teacher I wholly endorsed his views on Shakespeare in Education!)  It was a pleasure and a privilege to see that such care had been taken to present him as a believable character and to position his ideas within the context of socially progressive movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which he would have recognised. 

Having the opportunity to meet Maurice afterwards and discuss - at length! - Benson and the Bensonians was an extra treat and I left the theatre - at a rather late hour, it must be confessed! - with a sense of renewed enthusiasm and motivation and the feeling that I, too, must do justice to Benson.  

Wednesday morning gave me a chance to browse the bookshops - both new and second-hand - before going to see my second play of the trip.  The Grand Opera House in York is an old music hall venue, now run by ATG, which bares some similarities to the Tyne Theatre.  A gorgeous Victorian auditorium is hidden inside an unprepossessing exterior - you could easily walk past it and miss it!  

'A Man for All Seasons' is a gem of a play and I have always wanted to see Martin Shaw on stage and never quite managed it before.  He is now eighty years old, incredibly, but his energy and commitment to this mammoth role was unwavering and he could easily have passed as someone much younger. He has an incredible stage presence as well. 

The supporting cast - particularly Gary Wilmot as Everyman and the wonderful Edward Bennett as Cromwell - gave this a real 'ensemble' feel rather than the 'star vehicle' it might have been, with an impressively clever set and some well- directed choices.  I left the theatre walking on air.

I couldn't help thinking of Frank in his seventies, still touring, touring, touring and the audiences that would have turned out, perhaps remembering him as a much younger man but grateful for another chance of seeing him on stage.

A combination of serendipity and impulsiveness have enriched this week -  a timely reminder that I need to seize chances as they arise and not find excuses to let them pass!  (And on the way back to catch the train home, Bettys came up with a bag of Fat Rascals and some tomato chutney to keep the York merriment going just a little longer!)