Tuesday 31st August 2021 at York Theatre Royal. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Having originally taken to the stage in 1980, this fabulous Willy Russell comedy maintains its charm forty years on thanks to the winning pairing of Stephen Tompkinson and Jessica Johnson. Rita (Johnson) is a working class woman feeling boxed in by expectations of who she should... Continue Reading →
Tonderai Munyevu is co-Artistic Director of Two Gents Productions, with recent credits as actor including “Black Men Walking”, “The Claim” and “Treasure Island”, and recent writing credits including “The Moors” and “Undefined”. Now, he’s taking a very personal show - which was Shortlisted for The Alfred Fagon Award 2019 - on tour as both writer... Continue Reading →
A chance meeting and a mutual love of “Educating Rita” was the spark for the major new production of the acclaimed Willy Russell play “Educating Rita”. Jessica Johnson will play Susan "Rita" White, the Liverpudlian hairdresser aiming for a better life at the Open University, opposite Stephen Tompkinson as her frustrated professor Frank Bryant. And... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th July 2021 at York Theatre Royal. T.S Eliot’s Four Quartets is an intensive rumination on the passage of time and all its complex workings. It sometimes feels like a sermon on life, or group therapy. At other times, it takes on the form of an authoritative academic lecture warning us about the perils... Continue Reading →
Park Bench Theatre is back! Sean McKenzie is set to star in The Park Keeper, which runs 9 - 17 July 2021 and will play to socially distanced audiences at The Friends Garden, Rowntree Park. Written by the Olivier Award-winning Mike Kenny and celebrating 100 years of Rowntree Park, the story sees a hard-working Park... Continue Reading →
June 1st, 2021 at York Theatre Royal. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A good story told with great charm, that’s what The Greatest Play in the History of the World... is. It’s energised storytelling which refuses to let any lulls form and instead, ploughs onwards with a combination of great comic delivery and a recurring sense of gravity nestling... Continue Reading →
Tuesday May 25th 2021 at York Theatre Royal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This ‘very loose’ re-telling of Romeo and Juliet is a treat - mostly because the cast offer that special kind of ‘we are having the time of our lives up here’ magic, but also because it’s a glowing reminder of just how malleable Shakespeare texts can... Continue Reading →
Guest Interview: Steve Pratt chats with Chris Hannon ahead of his work with Engine House Theatre in the upcoming Park Bench Theatre season. For actor Chris Hannon 2020 had all the makings of being an actor’s dream year - a TV series, performing in open air theatre in the summer and ending the year by... Continue Reading →
After a twelve year stint on the London theatre scene, Tom Bird has recently taken the leap from Executive Producer at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to Executive Director at York Theatre Royal. At the helm of a regional producing and receiving theatre during a global pandemic, Bird remains confident that the arts can weather the current... Continue Reading →
A trip to one of the best, most informative theatre websites around will tell you that York Theatre Royal is not only ‘one of the oldest theatres in the UK’ sitting in the very heart of York, but it is ‘the oldest continuously operating theatre company in the English speaking world.’ As a theatre which... Continue Reading →
Always Time For Theatre 