Dinosaurs Live at Grand Opera House – things to do this week

The dinosaurs are roaring and roaming anew and love is in the air in Charles Hutchinson’s top tips for summer joy

Children’s show of the week: Natural History Museum presents Dinosaurs Live, Grand Opera House, York, today, 2.30pm and 4.30pm

FOR the first time since 1881, the “home of dinosaurs”, London’s Natural History Museum, is going on tour, teaming up with Mark Thompson Productions for a “dinosaur adventure like no other”.

Suitable for age three upwards, the show takes a pre-historic journey to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods as life-like dinosaurs come alive on stage. In addition, today’s audiences will learn more about fossils, time scales and how our planet has changed over hundreds of millions of years. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Love stories of the week: Junk Drawer Theatre Company, Thank You, I Love You, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, today, 7pm

STEP into a world where love is found in the quiet moments, the whispered goodnights and the spaces between words in Lucy Connor-Mulhall’s Thank You, I Love You’s 70-minute exploration of connection: romantic, platonic and everything in between.

Through fragmented memories, late-night conversations and the weight of unspoken emotions, Junk Drawer Theatre Company’s Rachael Lanaghan, Emine Altinsoy, Billy Abbey, Holly Carter, Luke Quarrington and Isobel Pilot’s characters navigate love, loss, and longing. Some hold on too tightly, others learn how to let go, in a reminder that love is not so much the grand gestures, more the smallest, softest things, such as a shared bed, a stolen glance, a promise to light the sky for someone who needs it. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Coastal gig of the week: Texas, TK Maxx Presents Scarborough Open Air Theatre, tonight. Gates open at 6pm

THIS weekend, Sharleen Spiteri leads Glasgow band Texas through five decades of hits, from I Don’t Want To Be A Lover, Say What You Want and Summer Sun to Inner Smile, Mr Haze and Keep On Talking. Rianne Downey supports. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Irish craic of the week: Ronan Keating, York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, today. Gates open at 11.15am; first race, 1.25pm; last race, 5pm

IRISH singer, presenter and talent-show judge Ronan Keating returns to the York Racecourse Music Showcase Weekend, back on the Knavesmire track where he performed with Boyzone in July 2018.

Expect both solo and boy band favourites. “If you’re going to a festival or a racecourse, you have to give the people what they want, what they’re expecting, and because of the Boyzone documentary that’s on Sky and NOW TV, I’ll be doing more Boyzone hits than normal this time,” he says. For race-day tickets, go to: yorkracecourse.co.uk.

Ryedale Festival finale: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Final Gala Concert, Hovingham Hall, Sunday, 6.30pm

THE ‘Liverpool Phil’ make their Ryedale Festival debut this weekend, exploring the Italian vistas of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4, complemented by Mozart’s Oboe Concerto (featuring soloist Helena Mackie), Faure’s serene Pavane and Poulenc’s mischievous, charming Sinfonietta. For the festival programme and tickets, go to: ryedalefestival.com. Box office: 01751 475777.

Edinburgh Fringe preview of the week: James Willstrop in Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be A Man?, Friargate Theatre, York, July 28, 7.30pm

JAMES Willstrop, cynical and driven only by his sporting success, is on the verge of becoming world number one in squash. A chance meeting leads to an agonising dilemma that threatens everything he has worked so hard to achieve.

Through tender recollections of his mother Lesley, who died when he was 17, and by undertaking the hardest training session of his life in real time, Willstrop learns lessons about ambition, success and love in the Harrogate sportsman, actor and writer’s solo musical ode to beautiful mothers, sporting ambition and fatherhood. Box office: ridinglights.org.

Political play of the week: A Man For All Seasons, Grand Opera House, York, July 29 to August 2, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees

THE greatest, most powerful and dangerous figures who shaped English history are brought vividly to life in Robert Bolt’s award-winning play, directed by Jonathan Church on a tour that visits York in its only northern outing before a West End run.

Now 80, The Professionals, Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently star Martin Shaw plays Sir Thomas More: scholar, ambassador, Lord Chancellor, friend to King Henry VIII and man of integrity. When Henry demands a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, clearing the way for him to marry Anne Boleyn, the staunchly Catholic Thomas is forced to choose between loyalty and conscience, committing an act of defiance that can only lead to the ultimate price. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.

Musical revue of the week: York Stage in Disney’s Dare to Dream Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, August 1, 7.30pm; August 2, 2pm and 4pm

HONOURING 100 years of Disney music, this 60-minute revue follows an eager group of trainees on their first day at a fictional Walt Disney Imagineering Studio. As the trainees set out to help each other discover their dreams, they work together to explore the power of those dreams to unite, inspire and make anything possible.

Disney’s Dare To Dream Jr includes songs that appear for the first time in a Disney stage musical, notably fan favourites from The Princess And The Frog, Coco, Enchanto and Frozen II in a showcase of contemporary songs, timeless classics and new medleys to surprise and delight Disney devotees of all ages. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Exhibition of the week: Sweet Legacies, York Theatre Royal, until August 3

YORK Theatre Royal’s foyer is transformed into a pop-up exhibition of photography, visual arts, audio, film and more as part of the Sweet Legacies community engagement project.

The project has seen the Theatre Royal work with 22 community groups across the city to put on a series of fun, free and inclusive activities and events.

The free exhibition is open to all to learn more about the project and the Rowntree family to coincide with the Theatre Royal and Riding Lights community play His Last Report.