New music in an ancient church

St Mary’s Bishophill Junior is probably the oldest working church in York, dating in parts to before the Norman conquest, but on 22 and 23 September the ancient building – which normally echoes with hymns – will be hosting a different kind of music.

That’s when York Shakespeare Project present ‘Shakespeare’s Songs’, performing acoustic music specially written for several of their previous productions – from As You like It in 2008 to last year’s The Tempest.

St Mary’s Churchwarden Graeme Thomas said: ‘we’re always delighted to welcome visitors to our historic church. We’ve had theatre here before, and it will be an atmospheric setting for Shakespeare’s Songs’

The venerable church has been added to over the years, but has a Roman arch, Anglo-Saxon stonework, and many other interesting features – and would have already been centuries old in Shakespeare’s own time. In contrast the music is more contemporary, with the cast singing and playing instruments from guitars and ukelele to cello, oboe and glockenspiel.

Among the performers in the present show are Maurice Crichton, recently seen as Sir WIlliam Maleverer in the Theatre Royal’s Sovereign and as fisherman Hector in Sonnets at the Bar, Emma Scott (the Project’s Macbeth, and Lucrece), and other familiar faces from Shakespeare productions in York, musical theatre and the York Mystery Plays.

After St Mary’s the production moves to a rather more modern setting on 24 September – the Super Sustainable Centre on the Derwenthorpe estate in Osbaldwick.

More details and tickets at www.yorkshakespeareproject.org/shakespeares-songs