Madness and mutations and massive millipedes

Byron Vincent used to MC at Bristol Old Vic's monthly poetry performance events, and he was the most surreal, raw, funny, stand-up poet I ever saw. He made you laugh till your eyes stung at the existentialist absurdity of life and weep at the pain of it. Three years ago he stepped away from the spotlight for personal reasons which he reveals in his one-hour one-man (apart from onstage technician) show ironically titled Talk About Something You Like. All profits go CALM, the suicide prevention charity, and Alma Tavern's brochure gives a snappy outline: In 2011 Byron spent his summer resting in the magnolia bosom of an NHS psychiatric unit. In this show he extends the frayed mitten of insanity in the hope that you might shake hands.  As you'd expect, then: it's painful, shocking, and horribly self-exposing. It's also brave, brilliant, and horribly funny. Byron's brochure image is gruesome, but onstage despite his pyjamas he looks neat and personable, adding even more poignancy to this stream of insightful cameos of institutional life and the vortex of mental illness. This scratch performance ("that means it might be shit" defined Byron helpfully) with script-in-hand is actually a development of a piece from last February's BOV Ferment Fortnight, and it's great to see Byron going deeper and engaging more directly with the audience, even if this does get him 'panicking like a creationist at a fossil dig.' There are rich possibilities for black humour in Byron's hospital experience ~ including the display of advice to patients from which the show's name is drawn ("No no no! That's the equivalent of psychiatric entrapment!") ~ but it's the intimacy of personal detail, right back to his childhood hobby of 'collecting fears', that gives this show such scalding impact. It's on its way to Edinburgh, I hope they appreciate him. All of the hims.

Frome Festival is now only inches away, officially opening on Friday... though by the cosmic calculations Annabelle & I are using for our Time Walk on Saturday, those 2 days would be tinier than a quark, which is a particle in a neutron, which is a particle in an atom. Time Walk, the story of the earth in a thousand paces will narrate our history from the start of the solar system as a walk round Rodden Fields at the scale of one pace to five million years.  It will take an hour, with chimpanzees coming down from the trees in the last millimetres. Virtually speaking, of course.  We've paced our route in windswept winter and buttercupped spring, waded through overgrown cow parsley and paddled by flooded river, and now in glorious summer sunshine. We've found an incredible amount of scientific data, some that seems absurdly sci-fi like the trilobites with eyes on stalks and nine-metre millipedes, and developed two cosmic guides who're a bit like Vladimir and Estragon except they don't need Godot, or even Google, and they're very enthusiastic about the awesomeness of life on earth. This morning we had a dress rehearsal, with some helpful friends coming along to give audience feedback. The walk proper on Saturday is sold out.

So if you haven't booked anything yet, here's the festival link. Rosie Finnegan and I will be talking about our personal top tips on Frome FM on Friday morning ~ our pub theatre production on Tuesday & Wednesday will obviously get a puff, (that's War Zones at the Cornerhouse) but there's also drama at the Old Bath Arms on Tuesday with Tighe O'Connor's comedy contest. I'm pleased to see my short play Muffin Man was picked for production, with two more Frome Scriptwriters in the shortlist line-up as well. And there's poetry, and music, and art... oh, get a brochure!

Friday night's Hip Yak at the Archangel in Frome was, as performance poetry enthusiasts will see from a glance at the names on the poster, joyful, provocative, and 'Blimey, kaleidescopic!' as aptly summarised by my vox pop. Chris Redmond, Jonny Fluffypunk, and Liv Torc are all worthy headliners in their own right, and if you add Byron Vincent as guest, you're certain of a fantastic night of offbeat wit & highly original imagery. What's great about all these poets' observational comedy is the way they share something of  themselves, and Byron digs deepest of all. I randomly managed to win the Yakety Yak slam too ~ didn't have the forethought to photo my trophy in situ so here it is back home about to be ceremonially placed on the telly alongside the Mother's Day card that says 'Well it's been lovely but now I have to scream.'

And now I'm off to pack. My next posting will be from Half Moon Bay in California, where I intend to divide my time between writing and walking along the bay where the Pacific waves roll against dunes rich with pink and golden ice-plants... and enjoying the company of my generous friends who take me into their home for a month at a time. It's a loving connection that goes back to 1964 so plenty of reminiscences too...

Ferment is the 'artist development' strand of Bristol Old Vic and always a great chance to see experimental work in process ~ theatre arts as an extreme sport, you might say. I didn't see all 23 but the most extraordinary and awesome show for me was Just Because I Have A Launderette in My Thigh Doesn't Mean I'm Milkshake Wednesday, poet Byron Vincent's exploration of the 'fine line between insanity and genius', which pushes observational comedy of the former incontrovertibly into the territory of the latter. The show is mostly prerecorded or read, which seems at first odd for a performance poet whose unscripted fluencyis legendary, but against a clever filmic background this only enhances the impact of his material: his life-journey from an estate where if your tattoos were spelled right you got kicked as a pseudo-intellectual to incarceration on 5-minute suicide watch in an institution that, as his visiting mother blithely comments, would drive you bonkers if you weren't there already. "If a prison had sex with a hospital, the resultant wet patch would be the Psych ward" he sumarises, and ends with a list of side-effect warnings on medication aimed to lift the spirits ~ of which death seems one of the more benign ~ and concludes "Maybe it's better to engage with actual happiness and real suffering." He shuffles off while applause is still frantic, and when we emerge from the Studio theatre there's a January-sales-style rush for feedback forms & pens, and I wish I'd actually written more, but it's hard to explain why you hurt from laughing about the pain of being human.

Chasm of Sorrow gave us 35 minutes of a show in development by performance artist Andrew Dawson about the journey taken by Chekhov to the penal colony on the island of Sakhalin, off the coast of Siberia ~ "A prison the size of Scotland. Nobody went to Sakhalin voluntarily, until 1899, and that man was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov." It’s hard to know what genre to call this: not a play, but more than a slide-tape presentation, as Andrew Dawson narrates with affability and compassion ~ an odd combo, but effective ~ and evokes through physical movement the hard journeys and debilitating punitive constraints. Chekhov spent his sojourn interviewing all 10,000 of the island’s captives, 6 an hour, 17 hours a day: the resultant book didn’t create much stir in Moscow but the experience must have affected his plays, and undoubtedly shortened his life. His words, recorded by David Ricardo Pierce, were affecting but more profoundly moving were the portraits of prisoners with the same demon-facing eyes I saw in the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh last year.

Kilter, operating from a delivery van converted into a Mobile Sorting Office parked outside the theatre, provided light entertainment not only site-specific but audience-specific too. A trio of postal service conservationists sang on letter-related themes while we browsed correspondence on display and added to it by means provided ~ coloured pens and a trad typewriter. A charmingly nostalgic interlude, though I couldn’t assent to their rallying song: When was the last time you sent your love in an email? There are times when the medium isn't the message... :-*

The Second Coming Of Sue reintroduced the alter-ego of Dafydd Jones, a tragi-comic naif and virtuoso pianist whose tinklings and falsetto trills inspire irresistible chortling. The show lifts into another dimension when Sue confides chirpily “God came upon me early this year in the changing room at Debenhams. I was ever so pleased. He’s giving us another chance!” At her urging, the front row audience timidly pat the bump and after more banter Sue returns to the piano to sing a prayer of wonderment and hope for her new baby: Will you be a boy child, will be a lady, or will you be a bit of both, just like Paul O’Grady? which slowly becomes as exquisitely truthful of parental longings as it is absurdly funny. Sue is at her best when she demands & deserves more than your usual tranny. The Mrs-Thatcher-like control-freakery she exerts over her look-(not)alike band is great, as is her survival story as an unloved orphan ~ it’s the dark side that makes her farcical humour so brilliant. I hope that's the way this fantastic character continues to go.

First BlahBlahBlah of the year ~ that's Bristol Old Vic's idea of an efficacious name for poetry performance ~ featured demurely lyrical Welsh bard Rhian Edwards and brilliant boisterous Scots political wit Elvis Mcgonagall. With definition-defying Byron Vincent topping & tailing the event, this event was one I wouldn't miss however dire the weather forecast (the Beast from the East still hasn't arrived southwest yet as I write, btw). Elvis laces his high-energy poems and polemics together with irresistibly funny comments on cultural icons like Kirstie Allsopp, Sarah Linden's jumpers, and Masterchef judging techniques.  I specially liked the Queen's Christmas Speech presented gangsta-rap stylee.

Speaking of poetry... next Frome Poetry Cafe is the Valentine special,on the theme of love in any of its guises ~ rhapsodic or cynical. How do I love thee? let's all count the ways... warily, scarily, wholeheartedly, departedly ~ come and share your style at the open-mic on February 13th. Deft & dazzling wordsmith Robbie Vane, who won the popular-vote prize in last year's love-in, is guest poet.
And speaking of writing generally... Chateau Ventenac, the superb-looking location in Languedoc where I'll be leading a session in October, invited my thoughts on creative holidays. Since I credit a writing course on Skyros for changing my life, I was happy to expound my theories for their blog. It's all true, too, so if your New Year Resolutions list is looking a bit spindly or samey (detox, tidy desk...) why not add Writing Holiday ~ somewhere gorgeous?

"Thankyou for coming to this and not wandering around Bristol in a green felt hat, getting pissed in the name of St Patrick." This is Bristol Old Vic's Word of Mouth, about to prove once again that a poetry performance can move, amuse, and thrill every bit as dramatically as a play - and more succinctly & intimately too. Byron Vincent compèred with his usual enchanting dialectical dexterity, recalling a scary '80s childhood contending with waving gladioli, stranger-danger, and Mr Noseybonk.
First guest was World Slam Champ and BBC radio4 fave Elvis McGonagall who, having applauded our Paddy's day choice, metaphorically rolled up his tartan sleeves to give every aspect of modern culture a pasting - especially politics. Ferocity and wit in equal measure scythed through the coalition, banking, Cameron's Big Society ("how patronising is that? Enid Blyton meets George Orwell") and Operation Undying Conflict in Afghanistan.

Luke Wright has called his brilliant new show Cynical Ballads and performs his 'seven caustic tales from Broken Britain' as a powerpoint presentation with visuals ranging from Searle-like cartoons to quasi-lecture notes on the history of the ballad form. “Some poems work on the soul, some poems work on the funny bone” Luke says, but his do both: they're passionate and satirical, but every light jest has a dark shadow - as in his tale about The Luck of the Brungers which ends bleakly
If you’re wondering what the moral is, I’m afraid I’m wondering too.
Trolls like this will always win. And there’s nothing we can do.
Luke doesn't think Britain is really broken, he says, despite this collection of misfits and monsters, and he sees his show as a kind of angry nagging love-letter. And that's how it comes across, despite the yobs and the snobs and the drunks on the train - as a series of deeply felt and turbulent tales about the painful poignancy of human life.
Like Byron said at the start: “Everything’s ok really – well it isn’t, but it’s always been horrible, so that’s nearly the same.”

Four In A Bed has had its last outing - in Southsea, somewhat bizarrely, at The Cellars in Eastney. A great little pub venue, providing our actors for the first time with a stage & lighting to enhance their frolics. Performances peaked - great to end Nevertheless Productions short tour on such a high note.
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"Sex" announces Muriel, rehearsing randomly for her solo gig at The Bell in Buckland Dinham. The rehearsal was hilarious though I was in Bristol on Thursday so missed her much-acclaimed performance of poetry and wit burlesque-style, but there will be more... Muriel emerged from the Poetry Platter night at the Merlin, so I am of course claiming to be her chrysalis-unzipper, but - of course - Muriel Lavender is her own exclusively marvellous self and will continue to be so.

The reason I was in Bristol was Word of Mouth, BOV's monthly spoken word showcase, compered by Byron Vincent and therefore unmissable. There's only one thing funnier than the eccentricity of Byron Vincent's animated diatribes against social absurdities like X-factor and social network messaging, and that's his delivery. I start giggling as soon as he shambles onstage talking, only controlling my chortles so's not to miss some querulous gem like the atheist preacher who buggered belief and the maniac who married a hobnob with two kids eaten by ghosts, or his extended family alighting on facebook like a swarm of semantically challenged locusts... (any more and I'd be spoilering you...)
Byron's intros make a hard act to follow, but the main show, Tim Clare's Death Drive, lived up to the Edinburgh festival hype. The title links a suicidal impulse ruined by parental intervention ("like dancing, seeing your Dad attempt something you want to do is not cool") with Freud, and a moral emerging somewhere between a psychic horse and the stain on the ceiling from the dead man upstairs: time is longer than hope, and longer than sadness too. Tim Clare has an engaging confidence and a ukelele: his story is a funny, tragic, reflective, mix of interactive banter and breathtakingly lyrical poetry.

As a vigorous and vocal anti-royalist I had no more intention of seeing The King's Speech than watching William's forthcoming nuptials but a recent viewing of A Single Man on DVD changed my mind. Isherwood's tender, intimate, study of lonely grief, I felt, could not transfer to screen and especially not with Colin Darcy Firth playing the main character. How wrong I was, and this is now one of my favourite movies: script succinct, acting impeccable, and visuals, for tonal range alone, stunning. So to give my prejudices another dunking I joined the queues for this massively hyped docudrama.
I'm quite glad I did. Colin Firth apparently ached physically after his scenes as voice-throttled Prince Bertie, and it's not hard to see why - or to see why the O-word clings tight as a tic in all talk of his performance. But the most adamant republican need not fear filmic fawning: this cold, bullying, dysfunctional family is shown as unequivocally inadequate to be the crowning glory of any society with aspirations of humanity. Audiences seeking fairytale rapport between prince and commoner would be disappointed: far more cleverly, what we were shown was that the king's momentous speech about The War was nothing to do with Hitler ("I don't know what he's saying, but he's doing it jolly well" stutters the Bertie enviously) and everything to do with his own personal enemies - his unforgiving childhood and his stifling larynx. I give it a worthy 3 stars.
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Before Rodgers & Hammerstein straddled the Hollywood musical world, there was another combo: Rodgers and Hart. I learnt that this week from a Salsbury Playhouse Production called With a Song In My Heart, a superbly smooth presentation of thirty songs from different shows, linked by succinct script by David Benedict which gave poignant insight into this creative but difficult partnership. Richard Rodgers was just 16 when he met young Larry Hart and recorded “I acquired in one afternoon a career, a partner, a best friend, and a permanent irritation.” The 'mismatch made in heaven' broke down after three years, but in that time they wrote prolifically and with enormous innovative energy. Salisbury's Salberg Studio, with its slightly clubby feel, made an ideal venue for this project and the audience were all clearly charmed by the songs and their performers: Gillian Bevan taking the feisty roles, Julie-Alanah Brighten the winsome one, Joel Karie the American smoothie, and Glyn Kerslake both singing and playing the piano with amazing verve throughout the entire show. A class act, though I've probably heard enough songs from musicals for 2011 now.

Bristol is in Ferment, theatrically speaking. Ferment is the artist-development strand of Bristol Old Vic, introduced by events organiser Sharon Clark as 'ideas in motion.' Audience response is part of the process, so we're there not to appraise as finished work but to envisage how these scripts could develop to full theatricality. It feels an exciting privilege, like being shown a baby-scan - ooh, there's the head, and it's got little legs....
Only, written and read by Adam Peck, is an autobiographical monologue in confessional style, filled with colourful characters and never far from either poignancy or humour. Adam touches on romantic rejections, parental desertion, mortality, and a grandad who smells of porridge and pee and prunes, all with the same delicate ruthlessness of authentic recollection, especially the moments with his nonexistent brother who is the only person this 'only' can confide in. Fine writing and an endearing performance, which interestingly explored both intimacy with the audience and movement in time. Interesting too that the aspect that worked least well for me - hauling chairs out of the crowded auditorium - was not directorial intrusion but an integral part of the initial concept. Perhaps this would have worked better if the BOV basement hadn't been totally crowded out, but that in itself is big credit to Adam, whose play Bonnie and Clyde put him in the spotlight last year and has now transferred to London.
Another autobiographical piece, Byron Vincent's JellyHead, was top of my must-see list but sadly this brilliantly anarchic performer had to cancel due to illness. Instead I went to see The Peace, a monologue by Natalie McGrath in the voice of Mo Mowlam. Petrol bombs light up the night sky. How does anyone get used to it? It's a long time since I left Northern Ireland and I had mixed feelings at the start but this wasn't ultimately really about politics, more about being a woman in a man's world, struggling ill-health as well as prejudices. The glimpse of Blair - "the ego has landed- and he wants a medal" - was satisfying thoug anachronistic for 1998 Peace Process days, but overall this was a strikingly lyrical script sensitively read by Sophie Stanton.

Thanks to the Big Arts Give,
Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory has expanded this year for the new season which features Richard II and A Comedy of Errors. As director Andrew Hilton said at the media launch, these plays seem to have little in common but their connection is the theme of identity. Richard II is my all-time favourite play since I first saw it at the Old Vic in London as an emo teenager and the rages and lamentations of the rejected king plucked histrionic chords in my heart. I'm hugely looking forward to this new production with John Heffernan as Richard and from the enthusiasm at the Mint Hotel today, so are the rest of the cast.

It's been a dramatic week all round. Niamh led another successful performance workshop this week, with great participant feedback, as Stage Write Café presents Dressing Up Box at the Merlin is growing closer... book your tickets and tapas supper now!

Freezing fog is both beautiful and unpleasant, a combination I think shared only by the word 'syphilis' which sounds like a flower fairy while actually meaning a disgusting degenerative disease causing dementia and death. That's about ten-out-of-ten in unpleasantness, whereas freezing fog is probably only a one-to-three, depending on whether you're walking through it or trapped on the motorway in it.

A poetic week, with a double dose on Wednesday. In Bath, lunchtime readings From Around The World at the BRLSI uni-verse, compèred - for the final time after her heroic 3 year stint - by Nikki Bennett. International in a very English way, the main theme was snow and the overall mood sombre. Rose Flint's celebration of winter lifted us finally:
This is ascension time -- sing!
Let the light hold you through the ice.

And in the evening, Frome's Garden Cafe hosted the annual festive season Poetry Cafe/Merlin tie-in event, with pantomime tickets for best poem on the theme of winter flights of fancy, as picked by Nikki Bennett, going to Margie McCallum and Carola Cooper. Fourteen performers gave us some wonderful fantasies, from a witty skit on aged Boy Band reminiscences by Muriel Lavender to Phillis Higgins' touching tribute to her personal superhero Peter-Panman. And for me the most surprising flight of fancy was Wendy Miller-Williams presenting me with a gift of gorgeous glasswear, from all the team, as a farewell present for my festival involvement. Completely & utterly unexpected, and I'm deeply appreciative.


Over in Bristol, Word of Mouth promised "a night of extraordinary urban voices" with 'achingly funny' Byron Vincent introducing 'mellifluous' Shagufta K Iqbal, 'charismatic, entertaining but thought-provoking' Ben Mellor, and Kate Tempest - 'without a doubt one of the best performance poets in the country.' Who could live up to hype like that? Well, each of these did, and then some. One of the best nights of poetry I've seen anywhere in the country, achingly funny and thought-provoking too. I couldn't put it better myself so I won't even try. Byron says there'll be another Word of Mouth event at the Bristol Old Vic basement in January - can't wait.

Bath's Oh What A Performance night - yes folks, that does make 4 poetry events attended in 3 days, the kind of excess that in Ireland prompts the question "catholic or careless?" - was actually more of a music night, with the rather wonderful Golden Eggs creating richly textured arrangements of familiar carols with cello, keyboard, guitar, percussion & trumpet that were quirky enough to charm even the most jaundiced listener with an allergic reaction to the seasonal C-word. Which is usually me. They were joined by Brian Madigan, better known in his solo persona as A Band Named Brian who promised and delivered a genuine 'folkclub first': four minutes of total silence as he recreated Cage against the Machine, the anti-X-Factor chart contender. Highlight of the evening for me though was his stunning performance, with Beth Porter, of the Pogues christmas classic Fairy Tales of New York - an absolute Live Lounge cover winner.

And finally... I can't let the week go by without homage to Corrie's 50th birthday celebrations, which went with a bang as the street exploded from the cobbles up, topped by a tumbling tram, cleverly contriving the climax of all its lingering loose-end storylines: the secret-lover baby, the secret-lover bride, the secret-lover body-burier stalker, the secret child at the pub, the secret chocolates at the Kabin... all the stuff of an ordinary suburban Soap Street in fact. Corrie is unsurpassable for its huge swings from melodrama to farce - even in the hour-long live episode with several residents bundled off to the morgue, mad Mary managed like the porter in Macbeth to interject surreal comedic notes - but it packs a profound emotional punch: there's a scene between Sally and Kevin in the darkness of their kitchen when she quietly reveals the terrible truth that Molly mouthed before she died, which is as good as any television drama I've seen and very much better than most.
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Frome Writers' Circle soiréed this month at Elaine's house, where despite the charming viands, as Daisy Ashford would say, dark themes predominated: two murders and a (very moving) wartime atrocity. To lift the mood Mike had brought his poems of wicked passion. Sighs does matter, he assures us. Ahhh.....

Telly time again: Grand Designs returned to Il Collegio this week, to show artists David Westby and Leonie Whitton in their Paglia paradise. I used to run writing courses at their first Il Collegio, in Tuscany, so it was brilliant to see how successful David and Leo have been in building this gorgeous new place themselves - and that means literally, brick by brick, with minimal budget or hands-on help. As Kevin Mcloud says. “Human beings do not chance upon Paradise. They make it.”

Back to Bath Lit Fest on Friday for a 'Writers of the World' event: 'Words in the Snow'- 15 short pieces by 3 spanish writers, read first in English and then in their original language. Yes folks that is 30 readings in all, in an hour, and though each piece was short their authors seemed aware of a race against time that allowed minimal contextual comment. Apparently they are stories told in Northern Spain around the fire "to fight against the long dark boring of the winter days" (lovely phrase) though little sense of an oral tradition emerged from these shaggy-dog, sci-fi, fables which seemed born from the rubble of more urban times. But it's always good, as my companion commented, to get out of our parochial bubble and connect to a European context.

From Spanish snow to Glastonbury rain... (that was Dave and Ben's opening song):
Subfuscous illumination at St James Vaults on Friday night but a crackling Oh What A Performance event, led by Dave Angus and with brilliant Byron Vincent as main man. There's really no-one quite like Byron. With his Dennis-the-Menace jumper and Please-Sir-Can-I-Have-Some-More? air of anxious innocence, he opens his set with a request to the audience to 'take a moment to lower your intellectual expectations' - but not below Nietzsche or you'd miss some of the poet's absurd, painful, and exquisite perceptions of an urban alcopops generation -
"beautiful but indistinct
like a Monet viewed up close."

Best of the rest... quite a lot, actually, including musical talent, but cos I do love to laugh I'm picking Rod Marks for the ridiculous rambling introduction to his Easter Bunny poem.

Great to hear 'spoken word' stuff on the radio - PolarBear on Colin Murray's show on Monday night. PolarBear was on the Apples&Snakes 'Exposed' tour in 2006 when I was one of the guest poets.
And if you missed my story on the radio on Friday and are thinking 'Dang it! I wish I had a chance to listen again!' then Afternoon Reading is the site to visit. (Thanks so much to those of you who've texted & emailed me such generous comments!)
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Bristol's BIG MOUTH CABARET, the last before comperes Rosemary & Tom take a year's sabbatical, was a monster bash of performance poets with a glittering line-up that lured me & Hazel to St Paul's Crypt at open-door time on Tuesday. Quite unnecessary of course, poetry events are required by statute to start late. "All we're doing is putting the pieces of the jigsaw together on your behalf" Byron Vincent explained inscrutibly, presenting macabre characters from mentalist mates to the Marquis de Sardines. Byron claims to have a pact with fellow poet Nathan to perform only new work from now on; I applaud the intent but mourn the passing of such surreal lines as "the finding of the baby, the swapping it for glue". Jude Simpson brought the cream of her Edinburgh set, with 'Secret Rapper' as cherry topping.
After Dr Joel's musical interlude, Nathan Filer presented his usual - self-styled - political, pertintent, poignant pieces, with his usual stylish eccentricity. I hope the ode to Wikipedia doesn't join the list of now-abandoned love poems. Headliner Elvis McGonagall had terse words on Tony Blair for "skipping off to the Middle East and taking 10 minutes of my set with him" but is making a start on analysing the Brown bounce: "brooding psychopath, now a love god?". A great set, with welcome returns from David Cameron and James Blunt among others. Poetry's been called the new rock'n'roll, with Elvis the new Elvis and Byron an Arctic Monkey, and there's a truth in the triteness: new material is essential, but us fans love the oldies too.

Still on spoken words, I'm delighted to see producer Howard has put another track, alphabetti serendipity, from our upwardly-mobile DVD out on Youtube. Launch of Crysse & Hazel, Live & Lippy, is October 26th at the Madabout Words cabaret in the Merlin foyer.

And now for something completely different: The Importance of Being Earnest, which opened at Bath Theatre Royal on Wednesday. A satisfyingly no-tricks production, exquisite visually. Much choreography had gone into being-seated styles and the parasols seemed like members of the cast. Penelope Keith had the onerous accolade of single billing on the posters and responded by under-playing Lady Bracknell’s utterances in a manner that may have rotated Edith Evans in her grave. The interrogation of Jack Worthing, designed to have that young man and the audience trembling with apprehension & awe, was conducted more like a cosy interview with a potential care worker. But everyone looked wonderful and the tableaux were great. A lovely evening.

Change of mood again: now well warmed-up to watch others perform, I spent all Thursday at the Merlin Theatre where 30 different acts were show-casing work “Made in Somerset”, watched by delegates from all over the SW & beyond. Impossible to see all, but I managed six - including drama ranging from Festival of Fools’ spontaneous theatre to carefully plotted monologue pieces, and contemporary dance from local heroes Stetsaphunk’s hip hop to Mark Bruce Company’s innovative explorations. Home, groggy with imagery & words, to pack: Peter & I are off cycling in Cyprus next week. Weather forecast: 34 C & climbing…
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