YORK Footlights Theatre is moving its premiere of Crossed Swords from spring to summer at 41 Monkgate, York.

"We're no longer performing from April 14 to 19 but now from July 8 to 12," says co-director Jes Beswick. "This is allowing us to do an extra matinee and be part of the Upstage Centre Youth Theatre's summer programme, and we've also re-cast one actor with Lee Gemmell joining the company."

Written by co-director Olivia Jayne Newton, Crossed Swords promises swashbuckling action, roaring sea-shanties and a stellar cast of York talent. "This incredible true story has to be seen to believed," says Olivia, who will play the lead role of Anne Bonny.

"Anne is a gentleman's daughter, but she is no lady. Mary Read has spent her life disguised as her deceased brother to avoid scandal, but when these two women meet halfway across the world on the ship of infamous, flamboyant pirate Calico Jack Rackham, their worlds collide. The two unlikely friends become a fearsome duo but freedom must come at a price."

Jes will play Mary; Daniel Wilmot, Calico Jack Rackham; Lee Gemmell, Captain Barnet; John R Morgan, Governor Woodes Rogers; James Tyler, James Bonny; Jimmy Johnson, Sam Kendrick; Nathan Cole, Henry Smythe; Gemma Shelton and BethanyAnne Middleton, Wenches; and Julia Morgan, Cabin Boy.

Both Jes and Olivia took part in York Footlights' debut production of Robin Hood with a twist – "We like to brag it was Robin Hood meets Doctor Who," says Jes – when Jes played Little John in a fat suit and Olivia was Maid Marian. Company founder Nick Boardman wrote and directed that April 2013 show but Jes, 26, and Olivia, 22, are in the hot seat for Crossed Swords.

Inspiration for Olivia's play came from folk big band Bellowhead at the Galtres Festival. "A friend dragged me along to see them – I'd never heard of them – but they sang this sea shanty and it made me think 'Pirates!'. So I started looking at stories of pirates and came across the story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read," she says. "What drew me to their story was that they were ahead of their time.

"It was featured in a documentary on YouTube and I was really intrigued. I found there'd been a play about them at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s and there's a reference to them in the 2013 video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag – which shows my addiction to gaming! In a nutshell, Mary's story is about survival, whereas Anne is more rebellious."

"Anne's life was one big rebellion," adds Jes.

"Anne was the illegitimate daughter of an Irish gentleman and his chambermaid and was first passed off as a boy. By the time she was heading to America she was very rebellious; she'd already killed one of her servants with a kitchen knife when she was 13 and that was just the start," says Olivia.

Disowned by her father, Anne married in America, moved to Jamaica with her husband, who became a small-time pirate, leaving her to her own devices as she roamed around the taverns.

"It was there that she met Calico Jack Rackham, a very flamboyant pirate captain, the very closest you could get to being like Johnny Depp's 'Captain' Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films," says Olivia. "In fact, I think Johnny Depp's character was based on him."

Anne duly eloped with the Calico Jack. "Reports of the time say she was the most violent of all the crew, and she was also said to be very beautiful with her flaming red hair, almost like Boudica," says Olivia.

Mary was an illegitimate child too, who lived in disguise, dressed as her dead brother from a young age, pretending to be Mark, in order for her mother to keep extracting money from her grandmother. Take up her story later and she has resumed the guise of a man on a pirate ship that wants to knock Calico Jack off his perch.

Left as the last one standing, she is asked to jump ship to join Jack's crew, and it is at this point that Anne and Mary bond. "They became the Thelma And Louise of piracy," says Olivia.

"Mary went on to die in prison of natural causes after being imprisoned for piracy, but no-one knows what happened to Anne after Mary died, so we leave it open ended as we want the audience to make their own mind up."

York Footlights' production will incorporate film and nautical sound effects. "The audience seating will form the shape of the ship's bow and the film will be projected on to a sail," says Jes. "We'll be filming on Endeavour in Whitby and in Manchester as we want to tell Mary's back story, with my sister Saskia playing Mary aged ten."

All but three of the cast will play instruments in the July production. "We'll bring the play into the 21st century with modern language but there'll be traditional, period dress and traditional sea shanties and folk songs," says Olivia, who will handle guitar, Irish harp and lrish whistle, as well as sing...write the script and co-direct.


 

YORK Footlights Theatre was set up all because of one special little boy. When Alex Boardman was born with heart complications, the staff at Leeds Heart Unit saved his life, but the heart unit then faced closure.

Whereupon Alex's dad, Nick Boardman, founded the York Footlights in 2012 with an initial mission to raise funds for the unit's Save Our Surgery campaign. The company's 2013 debut production of Robin Hood at the York Guildhall donated £1,000 to the cause, with half the proceeds going to Mia's Memory, a charity that supports bereaved parents.

York Mind will be the beneficiaries from the latest show. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday and Sunday matinees can be booked at ticketsource.co.uk/crossedswords