Ilkley Playhouse will be filled with music and laughter this weekend starting with The Rob Dylan Band on Friday night. Formed by a group of musicians who share a passion for the music of Bob Dylan, their performance captures the spirit of the Rolling Thunder Revue with exciting and dynamic playing and powerful vocals. It was a sell-out performance the last time they performed at Ilkley Playhouse so if you haven’t already, get your tickets booked!

Stagefright Comedy Club returns on Saturday 28th January. Frontlining this event is Matt Richardson, a brash but self-deprecating, multi award winning comedian, delivering every memorable punchline with an irresistible twinkle. His TV credits include Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Celebrity Juice, Pointless Celebrities, and Dancing on Ice. He also has his own critically acclaimed show on Virgin Radio. Joining him is Masai Graham, twice winner of the Funniest Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe Award and former UK Pun Championship winner. Expect puns, one liners and dizzying wordplay. Also performing is Percy Savage, a middle class Cumbrian with a plethora of inventive and effortlessly rib-tickling perspectives. And Eddy Midgley, an endearing chap in his early twenties making sense of the bizarre world of grown-ups with devastating comedic aplomb. This is all fabulously compered as usual by Anthony J Brown.

Our first Wildman production of the season opens on Tuesday 7th February with Three Mothers, written by Matilda Velevitch. This is a compelling and uplifting play about motherhood, homeland and the power of love; told with insight, warmth and humour. When Khady’s husband dies she is forced to sell his goats. Sending her eldest son away from Senegal across desert and sea to Europe in the hope that he will find a better life, she plunges her entire family into uncertainty. When Gisela’s life in England is turned upside down, she goes home to Bavaria seeking comfort and familiarity. But her attempts to assist the steady flow of refugees arriving in her childhood village soon awaken memories from her own past. Erika reveals the truth about the journey made on foot with her baby daughter after being expelled from Sudetenland in 1945. The bold choices made by these three mothers are brought together as one compelling narrative in this wonderful play. The play runs until Saturday 11th February.

Following a stunning debut performance at Ilkley Playhouse last year, the Jon Palmer Acoustic Band returns on Saturday 18th February. Based in Otley, this high energy, folk, roots and rock and roll band is best described as “exploding out of the same box as The Pogues, The Saw Doctors and The Waterboys.” They have a great reputation for finishing off the night in a joyful, energetic and chorus filled way.

Ilkley Playhouse is hosting a 6-week History of Modern Art course starting on Wednesday 22nd February. This course offers a selective introduction to the history of modern art focusing on major artists who are less well known. Each session addresses a specific artist and art movement and its related themes and contexts. Topics covered include Camille Pissarro and Impressionism; Maurice de Vlaminck and Fauvism; Francis Picabia and Dada; Philip Guston, Abstract Expressionism and after; Ed Ruscha and Pop Art; Gerhard Richter, photorealism an abstraction. Each session offers an introduction to an aspect of modern art and will address specific themes, contexts and artists. The sessions will typically consist of two halves: the first giving a broader overview of an artist’s career; the second a more in depth discussion of a particular issue or work.

Ilkley Players are delighted to have been selected to participate in the National Theatre Connections programme for the third time. Each year the National Theatre commissions ten new one-hour plays, written specifically for young people by established playwrights. They then select three hundred schools and Youth Theatre Groups throughout the country to produce these works. A cast of twenty-one Greenroom students will be producing (Circle Dreams Around) The Terrible, Terrible Past by Simon Longman from the 2nd to 4th March in the Wildman Studio. It is a play about being young in the fields and towns that feel far away from where things might be happening; a play about the expectations of life and the circularity of human existence.

On Wednesday 8th March Argentine Tango dancers Celeste Cimino and Luciano Millaqueo make a debut appearance in An Evening in Buenos Aires. Supported by dancers from the British tango community, this intimate production celebrates the history and music of Argentina’s iconic dance. In a program of live dance, music, film and images, you will be transported from the birth of tango in the first decade of the twentieth century to the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s.

To book tickets for all our plays and events visit www.ilkleyplayhouse.co.uk or contact Ilkley Playhouse box office on 01943 609539.