theatre, art, music words - the 'Back in Business' one!

When theatre goes real-time live again, these free treats from London's costliest theatres will be much missed- do grab them while they're around. The Globe's offering this week was Romeo and Juliet, weighing in at just shy of three hours but superbly performed - Rebekah Murrell as Juliet and Petra Letang as her nurse especially brilliant - and thrilling viewing (unless you're one of the students whose laments that an English lesson is only supposed to be hour long littered the comments online).
Dominic Dromgoole's direction brings out the unruliness of the rival gangs and the youthfulness of the lovers, both initially naive in their notions of romance until sobered into the harsh reality of transgressing clan rivalries.  The sword fights are thrilling but have been filmed rather too close to follow the vital dynamic leading up to Romeo's fatal thrust, but overall there's good coverage of audience excitement.

Thursday night's National Theatre offering of 'Danny Boyle's monster hit Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein' was as unforgettably amazing as you'd expect from the first two names. Unforgettable especially for the long opening section of electric birth through the creature's long lonely struggle to articulate movement and sound, watching the thing grow into a humanoid and then a lover of poetry and a philosopher under the tutelage of the blind old man: this was full of charm as well as poignancy. When this connection is abruptly broken by the seeing world and the quest for vengeance begins the trajectory is set steadily for melodrama. Mary Shelley's tale of the motherless creature, completed while living in Bath, is a psychological drama as much as a monster story, and the parallels with her own life in terms of loss and disregarded needs are plangent. This brilliant interpretation of a timeless tragedy is on all week, well worth viewing.

 Bath Festival went virtual too, with a varied menu of free options including Grayson Perry's Art Club, in which he invites viewers to submit their own work, with the chance of  inclusion in his next real-time exhibition "when this is all over." His theme this week is portraits: here's one that artist Nathan Wyburn made of him, using soy sauce and noodles. Grayson was also much taken with the latest trend on facebook, even more popular than the 'ten-albums-that-define-me' one: Recreate artworks with things you find at home now has over 50,00 members and there are some fantastic efforts out there - if you haven't started following yet, you're missing a treat. And in the Golden Oldies corner. Channel 4 is releasing to the world 'Bingeable Box Sets' of comedy classics - every series of Seinfeld, and Father Ted to name but two.

As always there's masses of music online - if you don't have enough of your own favourites tune into Visual Radio Arts where Phil Moakes and Maggie Gregory continue to add new shows: here's No Fixed Abode who played last week.

Sofa continues to stream international acts for free viewing, and individuals musicians are increasingly posting on facebook: Martin Dimery, ex Sergeant Pepper's Only Dartboard Band, has made several of his Beatles songs publicly viewable. Here comes the Sun is one of my favourites.  Frome's jazz-fusion giant John Law offers a preview of his new album CONFIGURATION here prior to its release, and looking wider, Radiohead has posted their archived tour concerts.

Words now, and a fascinating talk from Andrew Ziminski's from his workshop organised on Zoom by Pippa Goldfinger, describing his work as a stonemason, with a focus on the landscape of Wessex. His slide presentation included discoveries from neolithic sites including Avebury, Fyfield Down, West Kennet Long Barrow, Silbury Hill Stonehenge and was supplemented by workshop demonstrations of skills like creating sarsen polishing stones and repairing the carvings in the temple of Sulis Minerva. Buy the book, if you haven't got it already!

From fabulous fact to intriguing fiction, with Bath's Story Friday, the popular community platform initiated by mega-skilled Clare Reddaway, went online last week and continues its Friday evening sessions on the theme of 'Dark Clouds, Silver Linings' read by a team from Kilter Theatre. This week's set included a story from Chiara Vascotto, whose sensuous, visceral, personal style I remember from last year in Skyros. You can listen to her story, read Amy Vickers, here, along with five other intriguing short tales - one by Clare herself.
Liv Tork, indefatigably innovative and creative, continues to collect submissions of 'haiflu' (haiku in time of plague) to create weekly compilations: here's week 6 online, sombre but plangently sincere. Meanwhile Frome Poetry Cafe  is open for any original poems, especially with some tangental connection to 'revenge or redemption (which happened appropriately to be our theme for April) as the page becomes virtual 'open mic' for lockdown times.

And as April moves into May in Frome, where we're lucky enough to have lanes and footpaths close enough to walk miles in any direction, I'll end this week's roundup with images of blossom - the wonderful Judas tree in Victoria park, and a small burst of the hawthorn blossom brimming on every hedge.

Past times in cabaret, slave-ship, and pit - with music, of course!

Victoria Art Gallery in Bath sometimes seems like the modest little sister to Holburne Museum with its big glassy café, grand garden, and costly ticketing. Sitting unobtrusively on a busy corner by the river, Victoria has a tea-machine, a tiny lobby, and reasonable prices, yet some of the most exciting touring shows have come there - the Grayson Perry tapestries, to name but one. Their current exhibition of Toulouse Lautrec posters and other art work from  fin de siècle bohemian life in Montmartre beautifully evokes an era & location at one time associated with wild decadence which now, with its sense of passionate living and romantic pastel-coloured posters, evokes mainly a longing for simpler times.   On till 26 May, well worth a trip.

A double-book night this week, as Pete 'the Temp' Bearder brought his stage presentation of the history of spoken word From Homer to Hip Hop to Frome's Merlin Theatre on Thursday: with projected images to support his solo narration, Pete showed how the bardic oral tradition linked generations and movements, from the first griots in Africa through to beat poets and the rappers of today, the language of story-telling, celebration and protest: "Poets are the gobshites of the tribe," he concluded, proudly. You can buy Stage Invasion, Pete's account of the oral poetry tradition, here.

Hunting Raven Books that evening overflowed with avid visitors to the launch of Andrew Ziminski's history of a different kind: The Stone Mason, a History of Building Britain is an archeological and personal story, already acclaimed as 'book of the year' by expert Francis Pryor. That's actually the celebratory cake in the photo but the book looks exactly like it - you can buy it online from Waterstones if you don't live near Frome.

Still with words, Frome Writers' Collective meeting this month at the Three Swans featured several members' current projects, all of which (apart from a charming children's tale of slime parties and pig wrestling) are historical, inspired by personal interest or family tales. The question that recurred in all (except for the slime & pigs one) was whether to present the research fictionalised. Opinions vary and, as Miss Jean Brodie said, 'for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like'.

Socialist historian Dave Chapple, who gave a talk for the Frome Society for Local Study on Saturday, can be considered firmly in 'team authentic'. Dave's  meticulous research, well supported by his excellent handouts, gave a grim picture of the Social and Political History of the Somerset Coal Miners. Their long journey for fair treatment and equitable pay spanned strikes, riots, pit tragedies, and other struggles and Dave brought the story vividly to life with readings from miners' own tales, newspaper accounts, and even a replica 'gus & crook'. This was a tough rope and chain worn by boys as well as men to tug the putts of coal along the narrow seams, often dangerously slanted due to the geological formations of the mines. This outrageous device which caused bleeding and permanent scarring, as well as psychologically reducing them to beasts of burden, was deemed acceptable by the Home Office in a report as late as 1912. Here's Dave, demonstrating its size and weight.

Before we leave Somerset's mines entirely, my week ended with a long walk over the hilly area of Browne's Folly 'site of Special Scientific Interest' and nature reserve. Quarrying here was for Oolitic limestone from the Jurassic age, apparently providing stone for the façade of Buckingham Palace, and these relics are now maintained by cavers as they house roostings by the Greater Horseshoe Bat.

And now to music: we binged on singer-songwriters at the Grain Bar Roots session on Wednesday, with Sean Snook and lovely Holly supporting the Rob Lear Band - a double helping of original work played with energy and impact, and strong audience rapport.

Paul Kirtley's They Don't Scare Easy Tribe once again entertained Friday night's diners and drinkers at the George in Nunney with classic song covers, superbly performed to a hugely receptive crowd - Paul's sessions are always delivered party-style, with requests encouraged!

And on Saturday night, a fantastic performance from The Back Wood Redeemers in Frome's iconic 17th Century pub The Sun. It was difficult to imagine this high-energy septet fitting into the available space with their ever-theatrical mobility, but they did, and their set & sound was outstanding.