SELBY Town Hall's new season prompted queues down the road on the morning tickets went on sale in response to an autumn line-up of folk, blues and pop musicians, comedians, authors and theatre makers.
"It was a lovely sight, but quite intimidating!" says Selby Town Council arts officer Chris Jones. "Between August and December, we've got a Mercury Music Prize nominee; the 2015 and 2016 winners of the coveted BBC Folk Award for Best Group; UK chart-topping bands and singers; a three-time Olivier Award nominee; a best-selling author; TV panel show regulars and the winner of last year’s Best Newcomer Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, among many others.
"I also think it’s our best ever theatre line-up; something that’s always a bit of a challenge here given the ‘intimate’ nature of the playing space."
The programme kicks off on August 28 with 1980s' sophisticated pop stars The Blow Monkeys, best known for Digging Your Scene and It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, followed on September 3 by Mercury nominee and one of the English folk firmament’s brightest new stars, Sam Lee and Friends.
Folk musican Sam Lee
"Backed by an extraordinary band featuring piano, ukulele, calabash, shruti box, violin and jews harp, Sam has made waves with his imaginative reworking of traditional gypsy and traveller songs, securing slots at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals as well as multiple BBC Folk Award nominations," says Chris.
While Lee represents folk’s future, Peggy Seeger, who performs on October 2, is "as good an ambassador for folk's 20th century history as you're likely to find," reckons Chris. "Peggy was the wife of Ewan MacColl, sister of Pete Seeger and is grandmother to Bombay Bicycle Club’s Jamie MacColl."
Tickets have sold out for 1970s' chart toppers Lindisfarne on December 1 and for the two-time winners of the BBC Folk Award for Best Group, The Young’uns, in their We Three Sings show on December 11, "but before that there’s more roots brilliance on October 28 from 15-piece trans-global supergroup Världens Band, whose members span three continents and eight countries," says Chris.
The Young'Uns: sold out
New York blues musician Sari Schorr and her band The Engine Room, featuring Robert Plant's guitarist Innes Sibun, play Selby on September 23; Eighties' singer, actress and film star Hazel O'Connor's October 14 show has sold out; as has Roachford's gig on November 9, when the British soul singer performs such Columbia Records hits as Cuddly Toy and Family Man.
On the comedy front, BBC Radio 4 mainstay Jo Caulfield's The Customer Is Always Wrong show on November 27 is a sell-put but tickets are still available for the one-off double bill of Mock The Week regulars Tiff Stevenson and Ed Gamble on October 23.
Three-time Olivier Award nominee Dillie Keane, Irish founding member of the Fascinating Aïda cabaret troupe, performs a solo show on October 9, while Sofie Hagen, winner of last year’s Best Newcomer prize at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, makes her Selby debut in Shimmer Shatter on November 3 on her first ever tour.
In the second half of the season, further highlights are jazz pianist Joe Stilgoe and his band's evening of songs from the silver screen, Songs On Film, on November 11; Welsh singer-songwriter Judith Owen with a band including Leland Sklar, bassist for James Taylor and Carole King, on November 18, and author Gervase Phinn's sold-out evening of recollections of his years as a schools inspector in the Yorkshire Dales on December 10.
Jo Caulfield reckons The Customer Is Always Wrong
In the "strongest theatre programme Selby Town Hall has hosted in years", Lung Theatre’s verbatim play The 56 explores the tragic events of 1985’s Bradford City stadium fire through eye-witness accounts on September 10. Jonny Donahoe, from BBC Radio 4's Jonny And The Baptists, performs Every Brilliant Thing, a new play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love, on September 17, fresh from a 17-week run in New York.
Pipeline Theatre's love story Spillikin, with a robot in one of the leading roles in the oddest of odd-couple romances, will "make you laugh, cry and ponder the big questions of love, death, and technology" on November 19.
Looking ahead to 2017, Pocklington-born comedian Richard Herring returns to Yorkshire tom play Selby on February 25 after previewing his new compilation show, The Best, at the Great Yorkshire Fringe in York on Tuesday. That night's 60-minute road test will expand to 90 minutes of Herring's favourite bits from his 12 one-man shows for his tour.
Tickets can be booked on 01757 708449 or at selbytownhall.co.uk
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