Sunday 19th October 2025

St. Mary’s Creative Space, Chester, England

“Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us.

Therefore I have entreated him along

With us to watch the minutes of this night,

That if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT 1, SCENE 1, 23-29

So says the sentinel Marcellus in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as he brings Horatio to the battlements of Elsinore to verify the sighting of the Ghost in armour which is shortly to appear. His fellow guard Barnardo supports him in the face of Horatio’s scepticism, imploring the lord to “sit down awhile, And let us once again assail your ears” with what they have these last two nights seen.

An odd way to begin a review of a live gig in 2025, to be sure, but as I exit my dew-drenched car on an appropriately ghostly and silent night and walk across the courtyard to the top of St. Mary’s Hill, just within the city walls of Chester, I know that I am at risk of merely repeating myself if I were to relate only a stolid narrative of this night of music. It is the fourth time I’ve seen Toria Wooff live in just five months and, having written reviews of those previous concerts in Manchester, Liverpool and Bury, I know exactly what to expect from where I see the church tower manifest in the autumn dark. As I pass under the welcoming porchlight of the church of St. Mary, I know I’ll be once again hearing the remarkable music of Toria Wooff and Polly Virr. What I write, therefore, is less a review than an imploration for others to follow me in doing the same.

In many ways, Toria Wooff under the arches of the church tonight provides the quintessential experience of her music; a distillation of everything that I have found appealing in her sound since first hearing her album in May and then hearing it again live from a basement in Manchester just a couple of weeks later. I knew then what has been confirmed in the live experiences since; that this was a singer-songwriter of real talent, able to back up a singing voice that is alternately haunting, tender and powerful with songwriting of real originality, dexterity and craft.

And tonight the setlist (which Toria autographs for me at the end – a genuine friendliness when meeting fans being another hallmark of her live shows) is the strongest I’ve seen. She plays all but one of the songs from her self-titled debut album, which is an excellent record, but also provides six unreleased songs which – I would imagine – will be there on the second album. When that album comes – Toria says tonight it is currently in the tracking stage – it will be, if tonight’s performances are any confirmation, as successful an artistic expression as the first.

Indeed, the first song Toria plays tonight when she takes the stage is one of those unreleased numbers. ‘The Bargain’ is a subtle song that cleverly recasts the plight of a woman who risks being controlled by a charming man into something akin to a deal made with the Devil – who, of course, always approaches with fair words and appearance that hides his true self.

The church is the finest setting in which to hear the song. While St. Mary’s on the Hill hasn’t been used for worship in more than fifty years, it still retains deep in its stones that grandeur and quiet communal awe that all old churches possess. After I enter, I take a look around the nave before finding an empty seat in the front row. We’re surrounded by black curtains along the arcades and in front of the apse, but I can sit back and look up to see striking carved bosses in the camber beam roof. The building itself is older than the words of the Bard that I quoted at the start of this review, and the three witches supposedly buried in the grounds would perhaps be pleased to find a kinswoman standing confidently in the chancel tonight. Toria Wooff is a self-professed Goth, and tonight she’s dressed in a long black dress, with black boots and black hair and blood-red lips, a Taylor acoustic guitar resting across her body. Polly Virr, who takes a seat beside her and rests her cello against her neck, is also dressed all in black.

In fact, the only performer tonight who doesn’t bedeck themselves in black tonight is opening act Sam Moss, who steps out in troubadour colours of olive and weathered grey. He delivers a fine acoustic set in a soft, soulful voice, the Boston-based musician’s songs sounding like Walden set to chords. After delivering seven songs he departs for another gig he has across town.

He’s succeeded by David Gorman, Toria’s regular opener on this autumn tour, who is dressed all in black in gothic solidarity with his headliner. He provides a slightly longer and even more successful set, including his latest single ‘Darlin’ and two new songs, ‘Hourglass’ and ‘Morning’. (“Although I appreciate all my songs are new to you,” he says to the audience.) Alongside an incongruous but successful cover of Blink-182’s ‘All the Small Things’, there are the apposite songs ‘Curses’, ‘La Mort’ and ‘Another Midnight’ – all of which ensure I’ll be looking into this musician further. That is, if we all make it: both Sam and David sing lyrics tonight that make reference to apocalypse or the end of the world, and I find myself thinking that perhaps they know something we don’t, and that I should take the opportunity to make things right with the Lord before I leave this church.

But if there’s rapture tonight, it’s Toria who’s causing it. After ‘The Bargain’ I already know I made the right decision in coming here. I had been at a crossroads of my own, knowing that in driving to Chester to make the gig I would be missing most of Manchester United’s visit to Anfield – the Red Devils being one form of devil worship that’s socially acceptable. In the event it’s a historic 2-1 win (not that you care, of course), but even though I miss it I don’t regret my decision at the crossroads. It’s Toria’s set which provides the best 90 minutes tonight.

Having played the first song solo, Toria is now joined by Polly Virr for the remainder of the night. Polly is Toria’s not-so-secret weapon; a cello is one of the most exquisite sounds you could ever hope to hear and Polly plays it expertly. She adds a gorgeous texture to Toria’s already-compelling songs, complementing her soaring voice well. She applies deft touches and moments of sweeping power, whether that’s a pensive delicacy on ‘Sweet William’, deep-toned plucking on ‘The Flood’, the drive behind ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’, or the cathartic release of ‘See Things Through’ in tonight’s encore.

On the second song of the set, ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’, Polly substitutes the fine steel guitar of the album version with her cello. The song’s one of Toria’s best and most accessible, a showcase for her vocals and her songwriting. Its steel-laden album cut is a good entry point for fans of alternative country and Americana into her music.

But it’s with the third song, ‘Song for A’, that the night in Chester begins to distinguish itself from my previous experiences of Toria Wooff live. Maybe it’s just an effect of the travelling – Toria’s more than halfway through a nine-day nationwide tour, and played two hundred miles away in London the night before – but I detect an air of melancholy in some of the songs tonight, stronger than I’ve felt them before. ‘Song for A’, a tribute to a lost but not forgotten friend, has this quality anyway, but when I hear ‘Good Mother’ later in the night it’s the first time I’ve really been hit by the full scope of the sadness in the song. “I could have been a good mother, if that’s the card I was dealt,” Toria sings.

The melancholy doesn’t affect her playing or her voice – the latter is the purest I’ve yet heard it – and nor does it dampen the warm humour always present in her set. Toria mentions how she recently introduced Polly by saying she played the violin. As Polly looks up smiling from behind what is definitely not a violin, Toria says her cello is either “a massive violin, or she’s really small.” She also later delivers a disarming anecdote about embarrassing herself by miming a walk down a staircase at a previous gig, after David Gorman had gestured to her at the merchandise table during his opening set. “I doubled down and did it again,” she groans. “So now I mention my own merch. It shocked me into compliance.”

‘Good Mother’ is one of six unreleased songs Toria plays for us tonight, including the afore-mentioned ‘The Bargain’ and ‘Black Shuck’, a short “interlude” about a “cool as fuck” medieval story of a red-eyed demon dog which broke into a church. Toria is on home turf tonight; while she was born in Horwich, near Bolton (“if I want to be romantic, I say I’m from just off the West Pennine Moors,” she tells the amused audience), she has made Chester her home. And where better to bring new material to an audience than the same city where you are currently recording it?

With that in mind, Toria plays a new song she says she’s never played before. Marked on the setlist as ‘Noiselessly’ (Toria doesn’t introduce it by name tonight), it’s the latest evidence that this Northern songstress is quietly building a strong body of work that deserves to begin causing a stir. “Light up your mind,” she sings, the music rising as it finds a new chord.

It’s immediately followed by another unreleased original, ‘Aleister’. Even before I saw the name spelt on the setlist after the show, I suspected this song was inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley, for not only is Toria a proud Goth girl but an avid Led Zeppelin fan. It’s a thrilling folk song, one of those confident melodies where the lyrics land emphatically on the chords like boots on stairs. Toria’s eyes scan the crowd as she confidently sings ‘Aleister’ from the chancel of St. Mary’s Church. It would be far too fanciful to suggest her eyes alight on me in the front row when she sings of “bored housewives summoning Archangel Michael”, but it’s a cool moment regardless.

But by far the most notable unreleased song Toria plays tonight is one she says has “been part of my set for a little while” already. And I can attest to that, having heard it on each of the three previous occasions I’ve heard her live. Despite its familiarity to me now, I still get goosebumps when I hear her high, haunting voice on ‘House on the Hill’, a song she says is inspired by the imagery in Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black: “the descriptions of the marshland and the desolate house… it’s frightening, but beautifully worded.” The song sung by the Woman in Black on stage tonight gets better every time I hear it, as though ‘House on the Hill’ finds more invigorating breath to draw upon here in St. Mary’s on the Hill.

It says a lot for the musical wealth on display that I feel I can relate much of the power and magic of the concert tonight without really mentioning two of Toria’s most popular songs, ‘See Things Through’ and ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’, both of which she plays. But, as I wrote earlier, this is less a review than an imploration, and there is little I can do other than to encourage you to go listen to them yourself, whether on the impressive album recording or live at one of Toria’s gigs.

Because if you are in England, and particularly if you are in the North, there will be plenty of opportunities to see her live. Toria tours frequently and, as mentioned, she is already well on her way with recording a second album – a half-dozen dark jewels of which we’ve been privileged to hear tonight. If it’s a sad fact that talent is so scarcely rewarded in our society – and Toria has plenty of talent – it is at least true that hard work and industry sometimes is.

Bells tolled as I approached the church tonight; they will toll again through the fog as I leave. In between there is remarkable music, and I can only hope that one day bells toll to announce a Gothic revival, the wider recognition of Toria Wooff’s artistic talent. As it stands, despite repeatedly telling my friends not to sleep on this, it is alone that I make my way back to Manchester for the working week, a mist travelling across the black road as I cross the latent River Dee. Sometimes you can’t even bring a horse to water, let alone make it drink.

I write this review a week later in the dead of night, on the night the clocks go back for the coming winter. As I see the time change from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., the above quote from Hamlet comes to mind. Thinking back on the lighted porch of St. Mary’s Church before doors, I remember reading once about a folk superstition from Tudor times. It was believed that if you kept a watch on the porch of your parish church throughout the night, you would begin to see the spirits of the living people of your parish entering its doors. Those who you did not see come out again would die before midsummer.

But beware this gift of augury, which came with a price: it was also said that if you failed in your vigil and fell asleep, you too would die. For the final song of her encore tonight, Toria Wooff plays ‘Estuaries’ softly, almost like a lullaby. But this is no time for sleep. Like the vigilant guards of Hamlet‘s opening scene, I have already borne witness to the event, and now await the next opportunity. Four times have I seen the Woman in Black live and had her song greet my ears. Others have too, and the number deserves to grow. Do not sleep on this any longer. Take a pew, and watch with us the minutes of this night.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Toria Wooff and written by Toria Wooff, unless noted)

  1. The Bargain (unreleased)
  2. Lefty’s Motel Room
  3. Song for A
  4. Sweet William
  5. Black Shuck (unreleased)
  6. Noiselessly (unreleased)
  7. Aleister (unreleased)
  8. The Waltz of Winter Hey
  9. Mountains
  10. Good Mother (unreleased)
  11. The Flood
  12. House on the Hill (unreleased)
  13. That’s What Falling in Love Will Do
  14. Encore: The Plough
  15. Encore: See Things Through
  16. Encore: Estuaries

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.