A festival with a buzz, a tea-guzzling tiger and Jagger on film bring variety to CHARLES HUTCHINSON’S weekend from July 5 to 7

Friday night is...music night in Malton

An Evening With Lesley Garrett, Wesley Centre, Malton, tonight, 7pm to 10pm

SOUTH Yorkshire soprano Lesley Garrett presents an intimate evening of songs and stories in a fundraiser for the Grade II-listed Methodist chapel’s £1 million appeal.

“Performing when you care about the place and the people in the place just adds that little bit extra, so this will I hope be very special for the Malton audience,” says Lesley, who will be accompanied by pianist Anna Tilbrook.

Expect tales of opera stages, West End musicals, concert tours, Strictly Come Dancing, Garrett’s BBC television series and past performances with Paul O’Grady, Marti Pellow, Elaine Paige and Michael Ball.

Children’s show of the weekend

The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Grand Opera House, York, today, 1.30pm, tomorrow and Sunday, 11am and 2pm

ADAPTED by writer-director David Wood from Judith Kerr’s tale of teatime mayhem, this musical play is suitable for three years olds and upwards. When the doorbell rings just as Sophie and her mummy are sitting down to tea, who could it possibly be? What they certainly don’t expect to encounter is a big, stripy, tea-guzzling tiger!

This 55-minute family show is packed with oodles of magic, sing-a-long songs, clumsy chaos and surprises for Sophie, her mum and the audience alike.

Film event of the weekend

Performance (18), Nicolas Roeg season, Vintage Sundays, City Screen, York, Sunday, 12 noon

WHEN a gangster on the run (James Fox’s Chas) hides out from ex-colleagues in a Notting Hill basement, he intrudes on reclusive former pop star Turner (Mick Jagger) brooding in drug-bolstered exile with his sexual camp followers.

In the initial confrontation, each recognises something of himself in a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic 1970 British crime drama where borders between reality and fantasy – and sexual and psychic barriers – break down. Anita Pallenberg co-stars.

Outdoor/indoor event of the weekend

Insect Festival York 2019, Museum Gardens, Hospitium and grounds, York, Sunday, 10am to 4pm

MAKE a beeline for a festival for anyone who gets a buzz out of insects, hosted by the Royal Entomological Society.

Look out for live insect displays, demonstrations, photographic displays, national and regional natural history societies, book sellers, entomologists’ equipment, face painting, bug hunts and the chance to build your own minibeast.

The14th century Hospitium will be at the heart of the festival, complemented by the surrounding grounds. Entry is free for children under 16, £1 for adults.

Morning classical concert of the weekend

Concerto di Margherita, Blind Man's Buff, Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, Sunday, 10am and1pm

YORK Early Music Festival welcomes Concerto di Margherita back to York after their EEEmerging residency. They present their personal take on Guarini’s 1590 play Il Pastor Fido, wherein a shepherd and a nymph take part in a game of Blind Man’s Buff, with consequences both unintended and cruel.

Inspired by Guarini and Italian composers de Wert, Caccini, Kapsberger, Frescobaldi and d’India, they sing and accompany themselves in a fable of the archetypal lover, born in Arcadian innocence, deluded by love, disoriented in darkness, but finding solace in obscurity.

York Press:

Science city: Actor and physics teacher Lara Stafford leads a guided tour of York 

Oh, and one extra event involving macarons and gunpowder

Photons And Phantoms, A Science Tour of York, Saturday, 1pm,  and Sunday

YORK has another tour, but this one is on for only two days. "To love York is to love history. But what if you love York, history and science? And cake? Set up a Science Tour of York, of course," says Lara Stafford, who did just that when she found herself back in her home city with a drama degree, a science degree and a speckled past working at both Bettys and the York Dungeon.

Photons and Phantoms: A Science Tour of York covers local history from the Romans and Vikings to Guy Fawkes and the Victorians, but with some science experiments thrown in.

“The idea is to use York to teach science, and to use science to show people a side of York they may not have seen before” says Lara. “So we go to where Guy Fawkes was baptised and look at how gunpowder behaves; we go to a haunted church and look at how light can trick us into seeing ghosts; some Bettys' macarons reveal a lot about rainbows. I get to talk about York, and science, and occasionally burn things; what’s not to love, really?."

The York actor-turned-physics-teacher originally performed the tour for the Festival of Ideas, but demand was so high she had to turn people away. That's why you can catch a "bonus" show this weekend, at 1pm on Saturday and 10am or 1pm on Sunday.

The tour lasts 90 minutes and will go ahead whatever the weather. Meet at Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate ("Someone asked me 'which end?', and I didn’t know if they were joking," says Lara) or visit theatreofscience.co.uk to book tickets (£3, families £10, under fives free).