Emma & Einstein, plus words and art, and both in windows.

Jane Austen films, while popular with fans of heaving bodices and grand vistas, are often disdained by serious Janites as reducing these wonderful social sagas to Mills & Boon romances. Frome's Westway is now showing the new version of Emma directed by Autumn de Wilde, and it's delightful. Purists might complain that our heroine and her ultimate partner (Johnny Flynn) find their feelings earlier than the author intended, and that he is younger, fierier, & better looking than Jane Austen's Knightly, but these changes - like others such as contracting the Jane/Frank romance in favour of a stronger role for Harriet (Mia Goth) - all worked well to create an entertaining movie which looked luscious throughout. I loved Bill Nighy as Emma’s father, Miranda Hart as the irritating neighbour, Amber Anderson as Jane Fairfax, and obviously the costumes and cinematography. It’s true there was none of the political and economic critique of that era which Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility achieved, but the troops of servants, from housemaids to stablemen, constantly jumping to anticipate their masters’ needs, established a strong sense of the infantile dependancy of this ostensibly ‘ruling class’. Here's Emma with her hypochondriac father, and Mr Knightly looking sultry. (Still showing this week.)

Moving on to art now, and on a town-size scale - right across the town in fact, as Window Wanderland 2020 began its weekend visit to the houses, shops, cafes and pubs of Frome: here's the team responsible, at the Black Swan launch with Emma Warren, and just one of the literally hundreds of beautifully illuminated displays - in shops, schools, pubs, cafes, and - most impressively - private dwellings where hours of careful creative toil must have gone into designing and crafting each creation. Fictional & fantasy characters from books and movies featured often, with lots of animals and birds, some with messages. There were scores of  'favourites' for me but this one (probably on Somerset Road but the miles of walking have blurred!) sums up the moving nature of the event - shared passions, charmingly presented. Congratulations Lisa for importing this brilliant event into Frome and Jo for creating the map so we could find them. There's a short video here, made by BBC Somerset, if you missed it all!

Art on a small scale continues, always: Boann Lambert's touching work inspired by her grandmother's shoes is at the WHY Gallery, with Abigail Reed's wild life images. Abigail works mainly in monochrome too and is known for massive bears and other animals, but also creates moths - this one, she says, is largely imagined, but it looks very lepidopteran.

Pip Utton, Frome's favourite one-man showman, took his latest persona Albert Einstein to Edinburgh last summer where it was favourably reviewed as an interesting and genial evocation of that great, though not always good, scientific genius. The geniality was welcome after the addition to Saturday's billed performance at the Merlin of a run-through of Papal behaviour as preparatory work for Pip's next show. Popes proved a a tough warm-up act, though Einstein was well-received. Looking like a scatty Professor Branestawn with white fright-wig, Pip's ability to interact compelling with a full-house audience is impressive: he shifts effortlessly from roguish humour to rueful confidences, and his simplifications of those famous mathematical equations are as impressive as his twinkling eyed charm and underlying sincerity. Imagination is more important than knowledge, he insists throughout: 'If you stop being curious, you start to die.' 

More words now, from local historian David Lassman, who launched his latest investigation into the fascinating past of our town, Frome At War 1939-45 with a short talk at Hunting Raven on Friday night. Frome lost only two residents and a tiny bit of Nunney Road to bombers -and that was accidental - so the main practical impact was the arrival of child evacuees, many of whom still retain a fond connection with the town. Another social consequence came from housing American troops as one of the government-designated 'alternative' towns: this meant black GIs could not socialise on the same night as their white colleagues, to avoid fights, though sadly it didn't prevent five racial murders in the town. All this and more, including conscientious objectors & a secret visit by Eisenhower, is revealed in David's book...

This was the last week for submissions to the Frome Festival brochure, involving me in a flurry of finalising details for the Poetry Cafe,  Nevertheless pub theatre night, and a book-based history walk with David Lassman.  Other submissions are in the pot too, including a response to BBC Radio Wiltshire's quest for 'Ten Tiny Plays' set in Wiltshire. A session on writing drama for radio at Warminster Library led by playwright Jamila Gavin was provided free to support writers submitting to this, and it was a privilege to join the Warminster Writers Group for this excellent workshop. We were all too busy writing for a photo, so let's move on now to music.

Reg Meuross, troubadour par excellence, returned to the Grain Bar Roots Session on Wednesday with songs of his travels both real and imagined. Reg is a superb raconteur and while his lyrics are droll and his tunes are charming too, the banter is undeniably a big part of our audience delight. A hugely enjoyable evening - maybe a live recording would be the way to go for sales...


Fabulous Pete Gage with his mega-talented guitar/bass/drum trio band at The Cornerhouse on Friday were, as  always, a total delight.  Among other scorching classics, they do the best version of St James Infirmary Blues you'll ever hear, with stunning solos from Paul Hartshorn, Richie Blake and Eddie John.  Extra seating enabled closer audience but didn't stop the dancing!

. This Sunday as first of the month had brought, along with birdsong and a sudden abundance of wild flowers along our verges, the Independent Market which fills the streets of Frome with stalls of tantalising goods.  Blue skies and sunshine ensured a great atmosphere, and great acts on the busking stage enhanced the benign mood.  They Don't Scare Easy Tribe, a variable line-up led by Paul Kirtley, were followed by duo MountainSpeaksFire: haunting cello from Helen Robertson combined with subtly passionate voice of Vin Callan make this duo unforgettable.

And another regular favourite of mine, Frome's awesome Back Wood Redeemers put on a brilliant show at the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon on Sunday. It was even worth missing the rest of this first sunny afternoon of spring for these guys who, to quote no less a music critic than Charles Nevin, not only "bring forth to you songs of dark country, twisted blues and religious fervour" but "just as importantly, they’re also top fun." He's not wrong.