Belt Up Theatre presents A Ghost Walk, until March 6, setting off from York Theatre Royal (From York Press)

Belt Up Theatre presents A Ghost Walk, until March 6, setting off from York Theatre Royal

11:40am Friday 5th February 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

BELT Up Theatre are the new company in residence at York Theatre Royal, although the first production under their new status takes them out of the building immediately.

Former University of York students James Wilkes, Dominic Allen, Alex Wright and Jethro Compton have devised A Ghost Walk for the dark nights of York’s winter, and no ordinary ghost walk at that.

Belt Up invite you to “step out on to the streets of York to pursue a blood-thumping execution of ghostly storytelling in an intimate theatrical experience that will unlock the secrets of the world’s most haunted city”.

This is a city already haunted by a host of disparate, Dickensian-clad ghost walks, but this new show is different: a promenade performance that will set out from the theatre at 8pm most nights from tonight for a month.

“Dress warmly, stick together and be prepared to chase…and be chased,” the Belt Up publicity forewarns. Ah, there is the clue: “chase and be chased”. The company has a liking for making its audience participate in its interactive, immersive shows, as you may recall from their past shows at the Theatre Royal in their student days, such as A Clockwork Orange their TakeOver09 shows, The Tartuffe and The Trial last October.

Looking to make their mark with the first show since their transition from gown to town, Belt Up hit upon combining their customary innovation with York’s ever-present aura of history, as Dominic explains. “We knew there was no space for us in the main-house programme this season, so we asked ourselves, ‘What can we do that we associate with York?’, and we came up with ghost walks, which are so iconic in York.”

“It’s a massive ghost-walking city, and as a lot of our work involves re-jigging familiar formats, we thought would do our twist on ghost walks,” says Jethro. “So it’s a play within a ghost walk, and it’s as much a ghost walk as our Tartuffe was Moliere’s 17th century farce! We’re turning it on its head.”

Dominic believes the profusion of ghost walks – from historical to hysterical, from jokey to smutty – will be an aid to their show. “Whereas the format of theatre is established, the range of ghost walks in York is very varied, so our challenge has been to do our own take on ghost walks – when ghost walks have a twist already because they’re historical walks with a twist.”

The company quartet has worked together every step of the way on devising the 75-minute show. “We’ve come up with a story about ghost walkers, where each night the show will have a different configuration,” says James.

“Each of us will play the ghost walker on a different night, playing with the character, telling the stories in a different and bringing our own interpretations to it,” says Dominic.

How will the three other company members occupy themselves on the nights when they are not the allotted ghost walker. “It’s pretty much a one-man show, but the other three will be present,” says Alex.

“Our official title will be ‘operators’,” says Jethro. Operating what, precisely? “Oh, we can’t tell you that!” says James. “But it will be exciting,” promises Jethro.

“Again it’s a new direction for us, with a single storyteller rather than a chorus storyteller,” says Alex. “Promenade is not something we’ve done a lot of, though we did a promenade Romeo And Juliet over three days in Edinburgh in 2008, and we did The Trial as a promenade at York St John at TakeOver09 last year.”

Where it will contrast with Belt Up’s past promenade shows is in the “extremely limited” audience capacity, which will benefit the interactive nature of the show. “It’s 20 maximum each night, as we want to keep it intimate” says Jethro. “Ghost walks get big audiences and that’s fine for them, but for a play it needs to be intimate.

“It means the story can be put across in a relatively subtle way, which you can’t do with 200 people, and that was something we learnt in Edinburgh, where we had a scene in a bathroom that 100 people were trying to fit in. For the 20 inside it was great, but for the 80 outside, I think it must have been rather boring! Like Crocodile Dundee passing a story down the line!”

As part of their research, the Belt Up four went on various ghost walks in York, and that will result in a show that will take in both familiar ghost-walk routes and new ones too – an apt path for a company whose work does exactly that too. “I think it’s called ‘lovingly vandalise’ existing things,” says James.

Belt Up stress, however, that they have no intention of undermining York’s established coterie of ghost-walk hosts, hence they have been in touch with them to explain what they will be doing.

“Our show is a homage to York’s ghost-walking tradition,” says Jethro. “Just as the Theatre Royal is important for York’s culture, so is ghost-walking.”

“One of the things we’re being very careful not to do is tread on anyone’s toes,” says James. “We don’t want a turf war.”

“We hope A Ghost Walk will inspire people to investigate more ghost walks,” says Alex.

Belt Up Theatre presents A Ghost Walk from tonight until March 6 nightly, excepts Sundays and Mondays, setting off from York Theatre Royal at 8pm. Suitable for 12 year olds and upwards (or younger with parental guidance); wear suitable clothing for outdoors. Box office: 01904 623568 or www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk Early booking advised.

Did you know?

York Theatre Royal now has two companies in residence: Pilot Theatre and Belt Up Theatre.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)