A dramatic week for personal passions

Sorry, You're Not a Winner, the new play by Samuel Bailey produced by Paines Plough & Theatre Royal Plymouth and currently ending its tour, arrived at Bristol Old Vic for only three nights so unless you live in Newcastle you won't be able to see it now, which is sad because it's absolutely brilliant. The title is an ironic comment on a social setting the writer knows well - but Liam has stepped up, he's got a place at Oxford, moving away from the drab neighbourhood that limits his options, and leaving his best friend Fletch who's too ready-to-be-rough to ever succeed. This 90 minute play is about friendship, lost yet enduring, and how hard it can be when you come from a place where success feels a bit like shame. It's also immensely rich in humour and insights that go beyond social cliches, tightly written, and superbly acted. 

Eddie-Joe Robinson is compelling as the clever lad who doesn't feel comfortable with the Oxford crowd but can't reclaim his home territory; Kyle Rowe is utterly believable as his irrepressibly reprobate home-town 'bestie'.  The storyline focus is so strong that this feels mostly like a two-hander although the lads' women are also very well-played, especially Shannon (Alice Stokoe) with Katja Quist as posh Georgia. Also integral to the production's success is Jesse Jones' tight direction and Lucy Sierra's superbly simple set: an immovable environment where doors both invite and abruptly bar entry. As a social comment on Unequal Britain, this is unarguably convincing; as a drama it's mesmeric.  Images: Steve Tanner.

As a footnote, Sam Bailey won the Papatango Prize with his first play Shook which was released as an online production after plague stopped play on the stage of Southwark Playhouse: you can read my review in this blog Feb 7th last year. 

Back in Frome, the Merlin stage was filled with elaborate costumes from the decadent end-game days of the French 'Ancient Regime' as revived in Frome Drama Club's production of Les Liaison Dangereuses. This version of the epistolary novel by Pierre Choderios de Lacios is from Christopher Hampton: it's all about decadence and deceit, and this production involved fantastic costume and a lot of scene changes - in fact the set-movers were on stage more frequently than several of the characters. It's also a tour-de-force for Laurence Parnell, onstage most of the time as the tirelessly immoral Vicomte de Valmont. Director John Palmer confesses in the programme notes to a longstanding desire to produce this saga of decadence and abuse on a delirious scale in pre-Revolution France.

As a footnote, blatant sexual importuning unexpectedly became topical at the weekend when news broke - on every national media outlet - that Frome's MP is suspended for sexual shenanigans & drug use. And we thought all he did in parliament was abstain!

A very different performance event came to Frome with the first session of Dirty Laundry, an evening of story-telling and poetry at The Three Swans on Wednesday. The brain-child of Olly Davy, a superb raconteur himself, this was a really brilliant event with a wide range of themes and styles offered by the ten performers to an enthusiastic audience - I'm chuffed to have been one of them, and look forward to the next session on May 19th. Here's guest headliner Chris Redmond, currently working with the 'Hot Poets' at "the hopeful end of climate change" with a brief to change the narrative to 'imagine a future we love rather than one we fear.' 

 

The Three Swans upstairs room was also the choice of Vicki Burke, multi-talented musician who plays sax in funky-folk band Flash Harry as well as performing on harp and singing her own compositions: she used all her self-expression talents on Monday at in the launch of her new CD, Beauty in the Beast, a Musical Journey into the Labyrinth. These compositions complement the spiritual journey described in her book, from which Vicki read extracts, supported by violinist Gina Griffin. A well-planned and fascinating event.

Pete Gage, widely admired as a talented musician, became well known as a poet after publishing 44 Poems with Hobnob Press last year, and has followed this with his second collection Gerontius: deeply-felt personal reflections illustrated with atmospheric colour photographs also by Pete. His launch for this collection was at Hunting Raven Books on Thursday, and Pete talked about his influences and his central theme of light and darkness, to an attentive & appreciative audience. He also brought his piano and played some favourite songs that chimed movingly with the themes of his poems: Evening, Motherless Child, and Nobody's Fault But Mine - these links are to live performances by Pete with his band at The Cornerhouse in Frome and The Bell in Bath, but Pete is just as impressive on his own, in a bookshop... We're privileged, in Frome.

Art top spot this week goes to Si Griffiths' exhibition at Spacecraft in Westbury, a wonderful shop selling arty things of all kinds, including guitars handmade by Lucas Vermeeren.  Si's work is in a separate gallery and looks terrific: there are several paintings featuring his iconic clown character, some sinister but most poignant, but a street-art influence is emerging in Si's newer work which is really impressive. This image (right) is one of his largest, and visitors all found it fascinating.

(You can see the painting I bought last year in his 'Sold' gallery - line 8 down, 2nd along, which he has titled Grief but I saw as My Parents' Marriage. So, same thing really.)

And a shout-out to Tony, the kindly bus-driver who generously drove me all the way back to Frome when I'd misread the timetable and there were actually no more buses running beyond Dilton Marsh.... 

Still with paintings: Artists for Ukraine, the new exhibition at Black Swan Round Tower, is showing works donated by over 30 local artists for auction, with all proceeds going to the Town Council's fundraising for Frome’s twin town Rabka-Zdrój in Poland, which is arranging to take in over 500 Ukrainian refugees.  This painting is Freedom and Truth, by Sabrina Rowan Hamilton: There's a wide range of styles and themes, some from very well known names, and the exhibition is showing until 24 April so plenty of time to view and bid - you can see all the art works and bid online here.

And finally: Sunday could not have been more busy, with a Frome Independent - market, that is - in the morning, including the usual busking stage where Back of the Bus drew a large crowd of supporters (and several toddler-dancers) then the brilliant Rosco Shakes at Bar Lotte all afternoon, with a Jazz Jam at the Cornerhouse in the evening... So I'll end with an image of each, and hope you can work out which is which... Good luck everyone with next week's promised snow!