Hello and welcome to the new Soundstagenorth website, we’ve spent far too long catching up with the 21st Century, so thank you to Iain at Cybermill for sorting everything out and getting us back online.

As you can see, we’ve been busy dealing with the podcast side of things – Rose Tinted Black and White Television for one, and this year the launch of History City – the story of York — which as the intro says, goes from the “end of the last Ice Age to the present day”. Fairly straight forward, you might think, it’s only ten thousand years.

Well, it turns out that starting with the arrival of the Romans, things just get more and more complicated. We’re currently in the high Middle Ages and about to enter the 14th Century, which I suspect would be the least popular choice for any time to live. There’s Famine, War, Pestilence and of course Death. All Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse turned up in and around York in the 1300s. Look out for Episode 10, in which Professor Sarah Rees Jones takes us through a couple of hundred years of the city’s history, finishing with the arrival of the Black Death in 1349.

History City has been made so much easier with the help of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (IPUP) at the University of York. So my thanks to Dr Victoria Hoyle and to researchers George Young, Katie Vernon and Harvey Mellor and to guests Dr Ailsa Mainman, Alex Harvey of the Yorkshire Museum, Steve Roskams of York University’s Archaeology Department, Marcus Minucius Mudenus, known in the 21st Century as Dave Grainger, of Legio VI Victrix, Miranda Schmeiderer and Lucas Norton – hosts of That Jorvik Viking Thing podcast, Independent Researcher, Chas Jones and Aleksandra McClain, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology at the University of York.

Of course the Spirit of York is voiced by Alison Willis, and we’ve also benefitted from the vocal talents of David Newell and Andrew Isherwood. There’s still a long way to go and after we’ve reached “now” there will be plenty of internet rabbit holes to go down for aspects of the story that we’ve missed. Look elsewhere on the Soundstagenorth website for links to all the shows we produce.
Meanwhile, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!