Time-slips in Bath and a blast of music in Frome

Bath city, noted for elegance and style, has an alternative history that began in mud with Bladud and his pigs in 863BC and continued in muck and dubious morality, and Natural Theatre Company has been exposing scurrilous tales from the long and frequently outrageous history of that not-always-fine city in their sell-out show at the Rondo. Dirty Bath is hilarious. Three delightful women performers with a vast array of costumes and wigs take audience participation to its limits, scouring the steeply raked auditorium to identify lovers, gang members, murderers and more, responding to the resultant unscripted contributions with inventive vigour,  coaxing startled audience members on stage to enact exchanges of unlikely historical exactitude and in one instance to model male genitalia in plasticine..
it's all bonkers, and very funny. We met lovely Eliza Linley, painted by Gainsborough, eloping with Sheridan, inspiring duals among her lovers. We met Chaucer's raunchy Wyfe of Bath,  Hugonot refugee Sally Lunn, the murdered Nymph of Avon Street (enacted by puppets), a bedhopping fake castrato, the absurd duelling suitors of courtesan Fanny Murray, and many more outrageous characters before notorious gangleader Carroty Kate hands out peaky blinders caps and newspaper boulders for a mass street fight finale to the show. Massive appreciation to Alison Campbell, Amy Vickers, and Florence Espeut-Nickless for their titillating tales, to Andy Burdon who directed, and to whoever created the gloriously glamorous costumes.

Roots Sessions at the Grain Bar this week featured a Frome-grown band: Back of the Bus, four feisty women singer-players with backing from three strong musicians, featuring mainly '80s covers - the great ones, like Hazel O'Connor's apocalyptic 'Eighth Day'.

And another fantastic night of music from The Raggedy Men, also a local band with massive talent and a big following, who rocked the Cornerhouse on Saturday with their iconic re-styled punk - with all the best angry classics, from Brixton's guns to burning Babylon and beyond - with awesome riffs and fantastic drumming.

This week's review-round-up of local events is thinner than usual, what with one thing & another - well, mainly one thing - so to bump up the medley here's a reading recommendation: This emerged originally through the Proof Pudding Club started by Tina Gaisford-Waller, enterprising manager of Frome's Hunting Raven book shop. The Future We Choose - Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac may sound like it will be another gut-wrenching summary of the appalling state of the planet and initially it is, but it goes on to make a convincing case for hope. We actually have, in prototype or possibility, all the means to improve the global situation and survive - in fact to improve our species into a more caring one, with a sense of stewardship of the earth. It's really well explained and well argued, and brings a blast of hope to our blighted world.  Next week's top tip: The Plague, by Camus...