Hero’s Welcome: Ayckbourn still marches on

Hero’s Welcome might be more “vanilla” Ayckbourn than the title suggests, but it’s still an excellent play showing Ayckbourn is no spent force.

One of the biggest bits of shock news of northern theatre this year has been Chris Monks’s unexpected departure from the Stephen Joseph Theatre after only six years. With both artistic and executive directors leaving in such a short space of time, the theatre has an uncertain future ahead of it. Luckily, the one constant force in this affair is Alan Ayckbourn, who in spite of having stepped down as artistic director himself in 2009, still produces new plays and revives classic plays. This is the one thing they can rely on.

Although Ayckbourn is still writing at the same rate he’s always done, after the excellent My Wonderful Day in 2009 there’d been a bit of a lull, with plays that were either sameish, or original ideas that didn’t quite work out. This changed in 2014 with Roundelay, a very skilled set of five interlinked plays. And one year on from that it’s time for Hero’s Welcome that does not disappoint.

Lumiere 2015 preview

This will mean nothing to everyone who follows this blog outside the north-east, but us Durham folk cannot possibly have missed the fact that the Lumiere festival of light is coming next week from Thursday and Sunday. I very rarely cover arts over than theatre on this blog, but as a Durham local, Lumiere is my one annual exception.

Lumiere is the brain-child of Artichoke, who manage lots of arts festivals including a lot of light-related ones. Prior to the first Lumiere in 2009, they organised a chain of beacons along Hadrian’s Wall, which I missed but heard a lot of good things about; and Viking-themed Odin’s glow in Newton-under-Roseberry and local landmark Roseberry Topping (not far from the Saltburn where I grew up), which I saw and was excellent.

But it’s the festival in Durham that has had the most enduring popularity, now back for its fourth biannual visit. So successful is Lumiere that Artichoke has even exported the format to Derry/Londonderry in 2013 (their capital of culture next year) and London proper in 2016. But, thanks to some very vigorous campaigning to keep arts council funding, Lumiere remains synonymous with Durham.

I’ll be reporting on Lumiere after the festival when I’ve seen things for myself, but here’s a preview of what I recommend we look out for.