I read in some review that Andy Sheppard’s linking announcements can be a bit enigmatic.  Well, he says a whole lot more on stage than Jan Gabarek, who rarely says anything, but enigmatic is as good a way of characterizing some of his words as any.

Beforehand, we visited The Swan, central Leeds’ little gem of a tucked away pub, also long and narrow, but with a good range of real ale, including a tasty little Leeds Brewery blonde.

By contrast, York Theatre Royal is expansive, hosting Northern Broadsides in Blake Morrison’s “We Are Three Sisters”, the Brontes, their living room an oasis amidst the constantly storm-wracked moorland and wretched living conditions of Haworth.  Mor than a nod to Chekov, obviously, but this stands on its own.  There’s isolation and sadness at the heart of it, for sure, and lurking there too is the theory that great artists need to suffer in some way, to produce their art. Yet for all their dark imaginations, the sisters tell themselves that they are often happy, and Branwell, their brother, shows that talent can be extinguished by misery as well as fostered by it.  Most sad is the doctor, lonely, drunk, with no great ability as a doctor or anything else, who just suffers. A good, but not great play, but excellently acted, though it’s a pity Barrie Rutter seems to play the same character in every production these days, only the clothes are different.