Look forward to a weekend of musical entertainment at Ilkley Playhouse.
The ever-popular Jon Palmer Acoustic Band returns on Friday 6 February. This is a six-piece band that performs with a passion and enthusiasm that matches the content of Jon’s songs. Mixing the traditional with the contemporary, Jon Palmer writes songs with soaring, memorable choruses that you will struggle to get out of your head, long after the evening is over.
On Saturday 7th February singer-songwriter Holly Taymar makes her debut performance at Ilkley Playhouse with her highly praised show, Holly Taymar Sings Eva Cassidy. In this heartfelt homage to the vocalist Eva Cassidy, Taymar skilfully revives the timeless blend of folk, jazz and blues that made Cassidy’s interpretations iconic. The performance includes spellbinding renditions of classics such as Fields of Gold, Songbird, Over the Rainbow, Time After Time and Autumn Leaves, delivered with warm, expressive vocals and delicate guitar work. Holly Taymar Sings Eva Cassidy is a show that transcends imitation, and celebrates the emotion, purity and honesty that have cemented Eva Cassidy’s enduring legacy, while allowing Taymar’s own artistry to shine. This promises to be an intimate performance in the Wildman Studio and an evening you won’t forget.
Away from music, Tom Wells’ beautifully tender play Big Big Sky opens in the Wildman Studio on 17th February. The play explores nature’s influence on love, friendship and family and the belief that anyone who is lost can be found, even in the remotest of places. Set on the edge of East Yorkshire at Spurn Point, where the Humber estuary meets the North Sea, Angie and Lauren are closing up the café for another winter. The last visitor is Dennis, stopping by for his pasty and beans. But there is another arrival – one that’s unforeseen and life changing for them all. Tom Wells’ writing captures Yorkshire humour at its very best: dry, self-aware, quietly affectionate and often laugh-out-loud funny. The play is full of quick wit but is humour born of shared experience — resilient, generous, and deeply human. At its heart, Big Big Sky is about ordinary people rubbing along together: families, colleagues and friends negotiating love, responsibility and the unspoken expectations that come with where you’re from and who you are. Wells has an extraordinary ear for dialogue, and his characters feel instantly recognisable — the sort of people you might overhear in a café, a lay-by, or watching the tide roll in across the Humber. Big Big Sky promises a warm, funny and quietly moving evening of theatre — rich in Yorkshire voice, landscape and spirit. The play runs until 21st February.
Ilkley Players Greenroom Students return for their fourth National Theatre Connections Festival with The Animals, a powerful new play set in a Youth Custody Unit where student teacher Sam introduces Philosophy to resistant young residents. Written by BAFTA‑nominated, Emmy‑winning playwright Sean Buckley (Responsible Child, Skins), the play explores fragile hope, fear of release, and the challenges of education behind bars. Each year the National Theatre commissions eight new one-hour plays, specially written for teenagers by established playwrights. They then select up to 300 schools and Youth Theatre Groups throughout the country to produce these works with specialist help from their directors and experts. The Animals runs from the 5th to the 7th March in the Wildman Studio.
Our next Stagefright Comedy Club is on Saturday 28th March and will be frontlined by comedian Ricky Balshaw, who has been described as ‘a fascinating fusion of witty observations and storytelling’ (The Times). He is Midlands Comedy Award Winner and interestingly a Paralympics Dressage silver medalist! Joining him is Slim, who has appeared on Live at the Apollo, Live at the Hackney Empire, Sorry I Didn’t Know, Mel Giedroyc: Unforgiveable, Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains and The Russell Howard Hour. He is described as ‘brave and profoundly funny’ (The Guardian). BBC New Comedy Award Finalist 2025 Shugufta Choudhry also performs. She has ‘charming insights with a dash of darkness’ (SFC). Jack Miller completes the evening, who is ‘absolutely brilliant, born with funny bones’ (Manfords Comedy Club) and is ‘really relatable with on point story telling’ (Just The Tonic). The evening will be compered by talented Anthony J Brown, who has ‘more stings in the tail than a scorpion with a migraine' (Leeds Guide).
To book tickets for all our plays and events visit www.ilkleyplayhouse.co.uk or contact Ilkley Playhouse box office on 01943 609539.
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