8 harrogateadvertiser.co.uk ~ ripongazette.co.uk ~ wetherbynews.co.uk Thursday, July 23, 2015WEEKEND

ENTERTAINMENTIN SHORT

Top Knaresborough DJ Rory Hoy’s exciting 2015 continues with a new single out now with Ashley Slater called Hey Everybody which has already been declared the best tune of the year by Craig Charles on BBC 6 Music.Hoy will be performing at a Rugby World Cup concert in Bradford on August 21.

RORY HOYHey Everybody singlefeat vocals of Ashley Slaterwww.roryhoy.com

DJ

This year’s Northern Aldbor-ough Festival may be over - or is it?Organisers are presenting an open air performance by Thee Inch Fools of Shake-speare’s The Tempest on Au-gust 18 at the Walled Garden at Aldborough Manor.www.aldboroughfestival.com

THREE INCH FOOLS PRESENTS THE TEMPESTAldborough Manorwww.aldboroughfestival.co.uk

Theatre

After a successful show at HSBC Harrogate when they turned the banking hall into an art gallery, the organisers of ambitious new organisa-tion Art Harrogate are now showing off local talent such as Caryl Hallet, Phil Wilson and Norton Finn Robinson in an exhibition at St Peter’s Church on Cambridge Street in Harrogate.

ART HARROGATEExhibitionSt Peter’s ChurchHarrogate

Art

ENTERTAINMENT

Light, cameras, strings - Psycho revived

Janet Leigh in the shower scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Magna Carta’s Chris Simpson outside his narrowboat. Inset, the cover of Magna Carta’s new album, Fields of Eden.

There must be 300-400 peo-ple here in the Royal Hall to see an old black n white movie screened with live orchestral accompaniment.

I say “old black n white movie” but in this case it is Hitchock’s chilling classic Psycho, which remains as fa-mous today, nearly, as it was when it first scared the wits out of audiences in 1960 on its

original release.This special night is one of

the more unusual events to take place as part of the official summer programme of Har-rogate International Festivals but it appears to have paid off.

It’s quite a jolt to hear com-poser Bernard Hermann’s slashing chords from the mass string section of The Harro-gate Festival Orchestra boom out from the semi-darkness of the Royal Hall during the in-famous murder scene in the shower.

But does the film still stand up today? Mostly. The firstly brutally ‘modern’ movie to

come out of old Hollywood, Psycho still has the power to shock, though Hitchcock was clearly more concerned with the film’s dark psychol-ogy than its plot which creaks with age a little.

Does hearing Hermann’s sinister score live improve the movie? Not really. In fact, being aware of an orchestra in front of you, the conductor’s lap-top emitting a small ray of light like a distress signal, does break the spell a bit. Whether it’s a superior gimmick like 3D depends on whether you can suspend your sense of disbe-lief, a vital part of movie-going.

REVIEW BY GRAHAM CHALMERSHitchock’s Psycho LiveHarrogate Festival Orchestra

Review

IN SHORTVeteran musician hitsnew high water mark

Horses whinny at the canal side as Chris Simpson tells me about what’s different now about Fields of Eden, writes Graham Chalmers.

It’s a year since I last sat face-to-face with this Har-rogate-born musician as he gave me a sneak preview of his and Magna Carta’s first new album in 10 years, his 23rd to date.

There’s been a few chang-es to this wonderful series of rural-orientated, reflective songs since that memorable afternoon of tea and toast on his colourful narrow boat.

The mastering has given a bright new sheen to the tracks recorded mostly live in Will Jackson’s Leeds studio and there’s an extra throwa-way track at the end to give a personal sign-off to an album high on ambition for a veteran performer whose health and wealth have both seen better days.

At 73, Simpson shows no signs of losing his great song-writing talent and remains sufficiently passionate about his craft to be ready to venture to Canada for some live gigs when I return to the lapping waters of the Leeds-Liverpool canal near Skipton in his be-loved Dales which inspired this stunning new album.

He tells me he will “be lucky to break event” from the transatlantic jaunt but he’s a

stubborn man who happily admits to being “not sure he’s any good at all.”

Despite enduring popu-larity in Canada and Holland where this champion of Nid-derdale is remembered and revered, Magna Carta have been largely forgotten in their own land.

But th e e nthu s i a s t ic crowds who turn out for Chris and this ever-changing band’s occasional small gig in the UK, usually near where he lives, still remember how their albums such as Seasons

and Lord of the Ages sold by the millions in their late 60s/early 70s heyday.

I spot his weather-beaten guitar case leaning against the wall of the boat covered in the stickers of his travels as Chris tells me how everyone who’s heard Fields of Eden so far has declared it “the best album I’ve ever done, perhaps the best album by anyone this year.”

For once this is no exag-geration from a man who has a suitcase of tales to tell about the likes of the Beach

Boys and David Bowie back in the day.

Brilliantly performed and recorded, Fields of Eden is magnificent stuff, full of mel-ody and spirit, the reflections of a great survivor.

But without Chris’s stub-born streak it might never have been released. After taking on Universal, and winning, to get permission last year to the release for the first time of a memorable live recording of Seasons at the Royal Albert Hall in the early 1970s, Fields of Eden was de-

layed by another of Chris’s battles with record compa-nies.

But there’s no time to talk of that. The album is finally out, thanks to a passionate two-man team in Bexleyheath in Kent who run a label called Talking Elephant which also releases vintage albums by the likes of Kaleidoscope and The Albion Band.

Chris sounds touched by their approach to running things which, it has to be said, is a bit old-fashioned - they let good music do the talking.

CHRIS SIMPSON &MAGNA CARTAFields of Eden albumTalking Elephant label

Interview