Poodles, ravens, and quite a lot of music..

The Scarlet Pimpernel at the egg at Theatre Royal Bath was created in association with Pins & Needles Productions, and together they've created a version which will amuse adults with fragmentary historical recall, baffle children in 6+ range, and totally delight everyone. (Top tip to enthrall a young audience: start the action with haggard crones in the auditorium offering severed heads before the show starts - the sight of 150 small children popping and squeaking in their seats is quite something...) The multi-talented five on stage seemed to be enjoying everything too, especially the fights, the flights, the dances, the disguises, the costumes (think punky Marie Antoinette), the corny gags, the brilliant music (composed & directed by Jack Drewry) and the inventive props - there's an impressive guillotine and even a life-size canon, though it fires only poodles... if this all sounds chaotic, there is a storyline holding together this tale of mistaken identities, severed heads, revolution and resistance.  Baroness Orczy's legendary English lord - who took it upon himself to rescue French aristocrats - in this version becomes the Scarlet Pimple, with Dominic Allen's splendidly vicious Chauvelin in pursuit: there is a short appearance by Robespierre but most of the story is lively invention. So if you're a history teacher and when you ask the class what caused the French Revolution and they all shout 'Poodles!', you can blame Christopher William Hill who wrote this entertaining adaptation.

Frome Festive Poetry Cafe on Monday was a real delight. Guest Rosie Jackson, who spent the summer collecting a positive garland of prizes from Poetry Festivals around the southwest, gave two impressive readings around themes of art, soul, and light in all its forms. The Open Mic section was particularly entertaining this time, with a huge range of styles from poignant to hilarious.  That splendid emporium Hunting Raven Books had donated several books as christmas gifts, and a full-house audience good-naturedly accepted my 'scientifically selected' allocation of these for poignancy (Louis Payne), scandalousness (Claire Coleman), reference to fish depletion (Mike Grenville), debut reader (Diane Preston), use of the word 'red' (Sara Morris), and intriguing fragments (Kieron Bacon).

This image is not one of mine, it's from the facebook page of the Ravenmaster, an amazing character who lives and works in the Tower of London, tending to the legendary ravens. He is completely besotted with these creatures, and insists they have 'soul' as well as intelligence and - often - a wilful sense of humour, which he demonstrated to a large, intrigued, audience at his slide-illustrated talk in the Bennett Centre on Friday evening. The tradition of maintaining the ravens' presence is fuelled by superstition but to Christopher Skaife's credit, he discontinued the habit of clipping the birds' wings - he says he wants them to stay by choice, not because they can't fly.  His fascinating talk and book-signing was the enterprising idea of Hunting Raven Books who hosted with wine and mince pies.

Catherine Hill had a pop-up Christmas market planned for Saturday but Storm Deidre was out & about in Frome so I wasn't, so sadly I can offer no report, and will move swiftly on to music: The Grain Bar Christmas Special showcased the amazing Critters, the band that moves from folk to dub & reggae to classic pop, with the wonderful voices of Nicky Mascall and velvet-throated guitarist Steve Loudon. Add great fiddle, bass guitar, drumming, and the superhuman skill of guitarist Paul Hartshorn, who seems to have ten fingers on each hand. Their party atmosphere was contagious in the audience too...

Up to the Cornerhouse now, for three nights of sheer class: Flash Harry on Friday got us dancing with their energetic & extraordinary folk/rock/jazz/ fusion - their Irish Rover made the Pogues seem tame,
then
Saturday night had more simultaneous band options than Glastonbury, with punk at Lamb & Fountain, rock in the Sun, the street band at the Three Swans, and wonderful Back of the Bus seen here heading up a party in the Cornerhouse... luckily the storm had passed by then.

Sunday was Nunney Acoustic Cafe's festive party, an extended edition involving no less than 17 spots from a wide range of great performers - here's the 'house band' spot, and superb Emma Harris at the evening's jazz cafe at the Cornerhouse with Graham Dent's trio.

Fizzing footnote for this week: Skyros Holistic Holidays has confirmed my session as 28th July to 10th August, in Atsitsa Bay.  Other activities offered include yoga, windsurfing, kayaking, painting, singing - and of course swimming, walking, dancing, and generally having a fantastic, mind-blowing, life-affirming, time.... you can book, should you feel so inclined, here!

Bands, words, and surprising sunshine

Seasonal spangly candly celebration abounds now in Frome but the weather in our neck of the woods doesn't seem to have yet got the hang of winter. Mild days enlivened by rainfall in literal floods alternate with dazzling sunshine and blue skies enlivened by birdsong - possibly from birds that should be halfway to Africa by now.  Maybe they too don't want to leave Europe.

On, quickly, then to arts news beginning this week with live music. Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots on Wednesday's Roots Session at the Grain Bar gave a fantastic performance in a party atmosphere that delighted the crowd who squeezed in for the penultimate show of the year. As well as great musical performances this band are always a visual delight with lots of drama - this time enhancing their instrumental accompaniment with sousaphone and kazoos - eager audience participation for those - with a plea from 1982 to Stop The Cavalry (Patrick you get 3 stars for noting my title gaffe!)
Thursday evening the Granary had a great night of garage & punk bands - here's Los Grebos -
and Saturday the splendidly eccentric Blue Midnight made a welcome return to the Cornerhouse. 'Unlike anything you've ever heard' as trombonist Nick Waterhouse modestly describes a band that melds reggae with folk, adding violin, bass, harmonica, drum & vocals, playing songs called things like His moustache is part of the family but he isn't and Can't pay the rent! No image for Sunday's Frome Jazz Club at the Cornerhouse but an excellent session of Nordic works from Keith Harrison-Broninski's trio with trumpeter Gary Alesbrook. I especially liked Witchi-tai-to, based on the Jan Garbarek version, Keith tells me (if I've got that right) and Dodge the Dodo.

Frome FM Radio station is thinking about books for Christmas, which is very nice for me: Writers on Radio on Tuesday invited me to talk about Frome Unzipped and to read an extract in a programme extremely professionally led by Sara Scholefield which included also some excellent tips for writers from Suzy Howlett and Lisa Kenwright (link here). On Wednesday the Book Group invited me to join them to discuss gifts for avid readers and also the counter-phenomenon of tsundoku which probably happens everywhere but only the Japanese have sensibly identified the common habit of collecting new books and not getting round to reading them.. link to that on the Book Group page as 7th December's show.

Frome Unzipped also enjoyed a place on the bookstall of Nunney Road Christmas Bazaar, warmly hosted by Elanor Steel Ceramics and crammed with crafts, cakes, and mulled wine, where I was delighted to meet Dave Hamilton, who writes widely on countryside topics, and to agree to his suggested book-swap.

Meanwhile..... plans for a Nevertheless production in Frome Arts Festival 2019 are already showing their tiny fecund tips... we have the venue booked, the actors, the scripts... fans of pub theatre, keep an eye on our page in the coming weeks!

Lights, action, camera - it's festivity time

As November ended, Frome officially began its seasonal celebrations. We had the traditional tree-light-switch-on with traditional carols on Friday - after a stunningly beautiful lantern procession led by a less-traditional samba band. Hundreds of exquisite paper lanterns, created in free workshops led by talented Mel Day and Aliss Vaas, glimmered their way down to the town centre to Light the Night - another of those wonderful Frome-style creative events that engage every age.

Once the lantern spectacular had dispersed, the evening festivities continued at Three Swans with the second of Paul Kirtley's Bare to the Bones charity gigs, this one at Three Swans, - excellent entertainment from fabulous local musicians. Here's the amazing Original Barn Finds band, and me doing a spot of morally dubious poetry - thanks Mike Grenville for the snap!

Saturday night resounded with clashing bands, metaphorically speaking, as the All Stars Christmas Charity Doo opened with phenomenally fabulous new band Back of the Bus, while the Cornerhouse featured popular dance-generators Purple Fish. And another party benefit gig at 23 Bath Street completed the weekend with the fabulously fearsome (I'm running out of adjectives here) Back Wood Redeemers ripping up Sunday afternoon with a version of This Train Is Bound For Glory to terrify the angels as well as the sinners.

Sunday being the first one of December, it was of course our glittery Frome Independent market day with all the usual goodies in the star-spangled streets and carol singers. Magpie Market in the Cheese and Grain was crammed with present-buying opportunities - including the usual Frome Writers Collective stall, delightfully decorated and here also festooned by me - thanks Dizzy Greenfield for the promo. The new exhibition at Black Swan Arts is also full of buyables and collectibles: Extremely Textiles is the showcase of 9 very different local artists, all continuing Frome's traditional textile craft though mainly in non-traditional ways. Words at the Black Swan met for a poetry workshop led by Louise Green, our group of nine focusing on different pieces - interestingly, four writers chose this amazing portrait of a couple on the tube, created by Julie Heaton on dissolvable fabric so the entire image is created by the stitching threads.

There is no doubt that The Model Apartment at Bath’s Ustinov Studio, directed by Laurence Boswell, is superbly acted. Whether or not you like the play will be a more individual matter. The theme - the elephant in the spotlight you might say - is the Jewish experience of WW2 and playwright Donald Margullies uses dramatic format to explore inheritance of trauma as represented by the three central characters: Lola and Max who believed they can escape their demons in a new life in Florida, and their their daughter Debby, the demon they cannot escape.  Neil, the fourth character and a Brooklyn street-orphan, might have become sidelined within this treatise on Nazi-related suffering so big credit to Enyi Okoronkwo who was impressive in this role.
The story is saturated with symbolism: the apartment itself is temporary while the older couple await their real destination, and is also fake: the entertainments systems are empty and the fridge has no plug - their escape, in short, has no reality. Max (Ian Gelder) copes by blanking out in sleep, Lola (Diana Quick) resorts to repeating anecdotes in which she was best friend and mentor to Ann Frank. So how does their daughter Debby (Emily Bruni) cope? That’s the most scarily unsuccessful struggle of all. The story seems a reproach as well as a reminder - but November is month for Remembrance.  Image Simon Annand

Final thought for the week: As readers of Frome Unzipped will know, 'dissent' in all its social aspects emerged, from my research into the town's history, as a strong thread in my book, so when I heard of the special exhibition at the British Museum on that topic, I definitely had to go. I Object is curated by media's pet imp Ian Hislop, who pledged to 'investigate what the downtrodden, the forgotten, the protestors' had to say about history, so it seemed reasonable to expect caustic comment at least but this meagre collection is captioned by puerile speech bubbles and padded by images of Mr Hislop walking about, presumably wishing he could find something more relevant than well-known political cartoons and the odd bit of graffiti - and as for the protest-badge tee-shirt display, I've got more myself. There was one note of real dissent: a hand-printed card at the exit that read BRITISH MUSEUM RETURN YOUR STOLEN LOOT BACK WHERE IT BELONGS - so here's a picture of  one of the Elgin Marbles, now renamed The Parthenon Sculptures. Despite being hacked into chunks for transport and then further damaged by the museum's inappropriate cleaning attempts, they still look pretty impressive. They'd look even better in Athens. I Object is on till January. If you're in the area with time to spare, go instead to Camellia's, the lovely rococo teashop over the road, and sit among flowers under the chandelier. It will be cheaper and you'll enjoy it more.