Bands, words, and surprising sunshine

Seasonal spangly candly celebration abounds now in Frome but the weather in our neck of the woods doesn't seem to have yet got the hang of winter. Mild days enlivened by rainfall in literal floods alternate with dazzling sunshine and blue skies enlivened by birdsong - possibly from birds that should be halfway to Africa by now.  Maybe they too don't want to leave Europe.

On, quickly, then to arts news beginning this week with live music. Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots on Wednesday's Roots Session at the Grain Bar gave a fantastic performance in a party atmosphere that delighted the crowd who squeezed in for the penultimate show of the year. As well as great musical performances this band are always a visual delight with lots of drama - this time enhancing their instrumental accompaniment with sousaphone and kazoos - eager audience participation for those - with a plea from 1982 to Stop The Cavalry (Patrick you get 3 stars for noting my title gaffe!)
Thursday evening the Granary had a great night of garage & punk bands - here's Los Grebos -
and Saturday the splendidly eccentric Blue Midnight made a welcome return to the Cornerhouse. 'Unlike anything you've ever heard' as trombonist Nick Waterhouse modestly describes a band that melds reggae with folk, adding violin, bass, harmonica, drum & vocals, playing songs called things like His moustache is part of the family but he isn't and Can't pay the rent! No image for Sunday's Frome Jazz Club at the Cornerhouse but an excellent session of Nordic works from Keith Harrison-Broninski's trio with trumpeter Gary Alesbrook. I especially liked Witchi-tai-to, based on the Jan Garbarek version, Keith tells me (if I've got that right) and Dodge the Dodo.

Frome FM Radio station is thinking about books for Christmas, which is very nice for me: Writers on Radio on Tuesday invited me to talk about Frome Unzipped and to read an extract in a programme extremely professionally led by Sara Scholefield which included also some excellent tips for writers from Suzy Howlett and Lisa Kenwright (link here). On Wednesday the Book Group invited me to join them to discuss gifts for avid readers and also the counter-phenomenon of tsundoku which probably happens everywhere but only the Japanese have sensibly identified the common habit of collecting new books and not getting round to reading them.. link to that on the Book Group page as 7th December's show.

Frome Unzipped also enjoyed a place on the bookstall of Nunney Road Christmas Bazaar, warmly hosted by Elanor Steel Ceramics and crammed with crafts, cakes, and mulled wine, where I was delighted to meet Dave Hamilton, who writes widely on countryside topics, and to agree to his suggested book-swap.

Meanwhile..... plans for a Nevertheless production in Frome Arts Festival 2019 are already showing their tiny fecund tips... we have the venue booked, the actors, the scripts... fans of pub theatre, keep an eye on our page in the coming weeks!

Three dramas and a funky band

American author Patricia Highsmith was by all accounts a weird woman: rude and racist, she self-identified with her most well-known character, psychopathic killer Tom Ripley, and believed that murder, by gaining for a moment the absolute attention of the victim, was a way of making love. She spent her final years in Switzerland. A foul-mouthed alcoholic misanthropist can be savagely funny in small doses, as Father Jack proved, but the unrelenting tirade of vitriolic abuse is almost monotonous in Joanna Murray-Smith's 2014 play Switzerland, currently revived at Theatre Royal Bath Ustinov Studio. What saves the story from being merely unpleasant is the increasing suspense as her visitor's persona subtly, mysteriously, shifts, and what makes the production impressive is the superlative acting of Phyllis Logan as the rancid writer and Calum Finlay as the young man who arrives to plead for one more Ripley story, and to bring her a knife... Chekhov famously said if you show a gun in the first act someone has to fire it before the end: there's a huge armoury on this set from the start, but it's the hunting knife with its ‘polished mirror steel & thin tapered edge’ which is significant from the moment of reveal...  I can't say more without spoilers, except that designer William Dudley and director Lucy Bailey have combined to create an impressive production of a thought-provoking play. On till 1st September.
From Switzerland to Donegal: Aristocrats at the Donmar in Covent Garden, the highlight in a reunion with my friend & Derry flat-mate for two years shortly before the last troubles. Brian Friel's play charts the final days in the big house of a once-wealthy family, their grandeur now all gone, all with troubled lives, social conflicts, and secret griefs… Yes, it did feel pretty much like the secret love-child of The Cherry Orchard and it's not Friel at his best - there’s some over-egged speeches and the late-arriving motif of a hidden child is unnecessary as well as unresolved - but it’s brilliantly acted: David Dawson is mesmeric as Casimir, the fey, fantasising, brother, and Emmet Kirwan is strong as Eamon, the village lad who managed to marry one of the daughters of the ‘big house’ and now seems unsure why… Also excellent is patient Willie (David Ganly) - the Lopakhin in this infertile orchard - and there’s a brief but unforgettable glimpse of the once-powerful father. What distances us from the intimacy of these lives is the meta-theatrical approach that director Lyndsey Turner has chosen, with stage directions intoned to introduce each section and characters miming briefly before settling down still in view to wait their cue like subs on a bench. The non-naturalistic approach goes to extreme in Es Devlin’s design which I found distracting, particularly when the emotional final act was literally upstaged by the scenery - a massive faux-19th Century rural backdrop symbolising past splendour - and lugging a dolls house around the bleak stage to illustrate items mentioned in the script was overly contrived and a bit naff. But apart from that, an entertaining show.

The Price in Arthur Miller's play of that name might appear to relate to the $11,000 that old Mr Solomon offers Victor for the hoarded contents of his father's house, but of course it's more than that - it's the cost of a family trauma which grew from the 'Great Depression' - and obliquely the ongoing effect of that on the entire American nation. Onstage action follows the meeting of two brothers after long separation, both returning to their childhood home now scheduled for demolition to pick over memories and grievances: the current revival at Theatre Royal Bath, directed by Jonathan Church, benefits a lot from David Suchet as the old dealer, who brings a jaunty spark to this otherwise downbeat story.  Both the brothers - Brendan Coyle and Adrian Lukis - are impressive as defensive, damaged, men vying with each other as to who paid the higher price for their father's hoarding, although glamorous Esther is less convincing as Victor's wife and seems sometimes to have wandered in from another show.  Simon Higlett's massive set literally looms over the action, graphically depicting the claustrophobic clutter of the past still overshadowing these lives. Victor when alone interacts in moments of moving tenderness with the props of his past - his fencing kit, a harp, his brother's oar, but for me the dominating symbolism of furniture cluttering their lives detracts from the development and the reveal of other, subtler, aspects. On till 25 August.

Ending this post now in Bruton, where Hauser & Wirth host free summer parties in their Radić Pavilion throughout August: last Sunday's featured Frome's amazing Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots, irresistible whatever the song - I think this one is Kirsty MacColl's tale of the guy down the chip shop who swears he's Elvis... but it could be any from their 'whirlwind of folk blues & Americana-groove with harmonies and tales of whiskey, woe, zombies, and love.'

Back in Frome, with words & music

Another of those excellent writer's events at Hunting Raven last week saw local author Sarah Scholefield's talking about debut novel Redferne Lane, already getting great reviews on 'Goodreads'. Sarah's degree was molecular biology, so no-one was more surprised than her at the digression to novel writing. Her work on the Bath MA course brought immediate attention from an agent, and after a rocky road (is there any other route to publication? answers on a postage stamp...) Sarah's novel reached publication with Thistle as an e-book and a handsome paperback. Her talk was entertaining and encouraging, with a useful Q&A afterwards.

A stunning week for music, even by Frome's cornucopian standards: Ben Cipolla Band gave us a great Grain Bar Roots Session on Wednesday, and a wonderful party at the Cornerhouse on Friday turned into an unforgettable open-mic session for Nicki Mascall and her talented friends.  Saturday night was more than usually frenetic due to a clash of two of Frome's favourite bands: Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots at The Sun, and The Back Wood Redeemers at The Cornerhouse... Both pubs were rammed and bopping, both bands on top form in splendid costumes and engaging full-on with their avid audiences, so the only thing to do was run between venues at the breaks. No chance of pix of the Back Wood boys through the dancing throng at Cornerhouse, and a crushed stage for the Cactus Crew - there are nine of them! - so here's just a taster of the night: the delightful Screeching Tartlettes, as the blackboard tagged our favourite vocal quartet.
And after all that frenzy, a mellow end to the week with jazz from the Graham Dent Trio & Nick Sorensen on sax, at the Cornerhouse.

To further complicate Saturday evening, the Merlin Theatre joined the event-clash with Thrill Me.  This demanding drama is as slick as it is grim, which is an impressive but uncomfortable combo. Based on an allegedly true tale of a mindless murder in 1924 (the facts are true but accounts differ, and motivations of psychopaths are unfathomable) Stephen Dolginoff has written a musical which is really more Chill Me than Thrill Me. The two actors and the onstage pianist are brilliant and the effect is powerful, evoking that horror-movie feeling that there's more evil around than we can ever guess as director Guy Retallack emphasises destructive obsessions - sadism and control both physical and mental - as primary narrative threads with no real suggestion of private tenderness. Credit to Merlin programming for bringing this Richard Williamson and CliMar production to Frome as one of only six venues on an international tour: Sam Johnson played the piano, with Harry Downes and Ellis Dackombe as the amoral law students.

Final footnote for this week: after scouring the galley proofs with magnifying glass and tweezers, my endlessly patient and supportive editor/publisher feels we are nearly nearly ready for a launch...  so here's a sneak preview of the draft cover - I have permission from the e.p & s editor/publisher for this reveal....)
Excited? let's just say right now the moon is looking tiny down there...

work evasions and play enthusings

It's been quite a week for schedule suspension and magical moments...
I'm going to come back to this image of the new fountain in Frome promptly hijacked by the Frome-illuminati for human sacrifice, because the excitement disrupting my working week began last Friday when a busload from Frome, driven by daring Dave, headed to Bristol's Thunderbolt to hear fabulous Captain Cactus band and his amazing and gorgeous Screaming Harlots. Good support too - awesome steel guitar from Luke Philbrick and a great atmosphere at the venue.
Next night was David Goodman's party at the 23 Bath Street, which has become such a terrific venue since Lark and Toby have taken in over. Lovely to see so very many friends and the Raggedy Men punk set was a memorable highlight... I think their version of No More Heroes - with what seemed like a hundred of the partygoers joining in - is likely to be the defining moment of this year for me...

Nunney Acoustic Cafe on Sunday afternoon always has a great range of performers: this time featured band Sloe Jam and others including a wonderful gypsy duo, the superb Splat the Rat from Swindon and some talented younger musicians like Maia Fry and ever-impressive Archie Ttwheam. (Sorry Archie, I see you are Otto Wilde now but as that comes up on google as a steak grill manufacturer, I'm sticking to the name I first knew...)

Tuesday was the Frome Writers Collective social evening, this time with an engrossing talk from Lisa Kenrick who runs Mr Rook's Speak Easy story-telling sessions in Frome. Lisa demonstrated how to grip an audience with a vivid and visceral version of the tale Frome's medieval rake Edward Leversage, and then gave advice on constructing and telling such tales, and also how to find inspiration and where to go for further guidance.

And then with no Roots session this week I really really should have dedicated the rest of my time to the project.... about which you patient blog readers have heard so much & seen so little. Instead I was lured by the witchery & wizardry of Rare Species to follow them around Frome on a tour of secret signs of the Fecund Coming...

Starting at the spring below the church steps and prowling the area nearby, Virginia Faggus and Gerald Terd held forth on much historical detail we might not know - how the young blades used the well to spread fecundity, how merchants sailed back and forth along the leat, and the fact that the Three Swans name came from the Leda legend in a little-known love-triangle version... at the church door Virginia expounded an alternative-and-weirdly-true-sounding tale of Vicar Bennett's activities in Frome, invited here by the Fromenati to create a hotbed of hedonism. It was at this point Virginia began to show somewhat alarming symptoms of some kind of demonic invasion. Gerald ploughed on, taking us up Poldark's Passage ('Aiden would suckle on my unctuous paps' Virginia reminisced, a bit of a non sequitor as Gerald was talking about unsolved murders at the time.)
We headed across Bath Street as the running commentaries continued, with Gerald now on the look-out for tell-tale evidence of the secret society of the Fromenati. He found a tunnel opening they may have used to burrow to their base in Babblington (the smaller ones, anyway) and a SIX-SIX-6 sign and it wasn't till we reached Catherine Hill that things went totally bonkers.  'The epicentre' shouted Geraldine and strode on ahead waving a car away so effectively the driver actually reversed all the way down the hill as she advanced chanting 'Juicy and Divine'.  Meanwhile something had gone wrong with Gerald's divining rod. By the time he had staggered and we had straggled to the bottom of the hill, Geraldine had turned into a one-eyed demon. She lassoed Gerald and made me hold him (I tried to resist honest but she had manic power) and made us all...

I can recount no more of the shameful night I joined the illuminati-Fromenati and poor Gerald ended up on Boyle's Cross, only say: Eat your heart out Hot Fuzz, you may have exorcised Wells but the wild energy loosed by Bennett’s burrowings below the pagan spring will empower the Fromenati forever! It was indeed the Fecund Coming.

Do novels make great plays? What's unmissable at Frome Festival? and other imponderables...

A balmy evening on Friday, and the ECOS amphitheatre at the Merlin proved a perfect venue for the Miracle Theatre production of The Third Policeman, adapted from the novel by Flann O'Brien. The Miracle treatment involves physical hi-jinks, improv interaction with unguarded audiences (picnics invariably raided) and super-sized characters in silly costumes. This time they had supers-sized oirish accents too. This drama starts at a bar like any drably sentimental pub-based play by Conor McPherson and quickly becomes ~ to quote a friend at the interval ~ Alice in Wonderland meets Father Ted. On this dreamlike version of Craggy Island it's not clear whether the police are fruitcakes or time-lords but there's an uncanny logic in some of their arguments. Can you be executed if you are nameless and ergo never existed? And since skin is porous surely it will eventually absorb the molecules of anything in constant contact... so who's to say a person can't turn into a bicycle? Note to NASA: This would surely be a more useful line of research than string theory...
A compact cast of four takes on all roles. Ben Dyson looking a bit like Bart Simpson is on absolute top form as a policeman and Catherine Lake is hilarious in multiple roles, but while there's much mirth and playfulness there's a dark side to the narrative too: murder, mistrust, violence and punishment are constant themes.  Flann O'Brien's novel was initially rejected, and only published after his death. There was a note in the manuscript which read "It was again the beginning of the unfinished, the re-discovery of the familiar, the re-experience of the already suffered, the fresh-forgetting of the unremembered. Hell goes round and round." And because ECOS amphitheatre has a circular stage, so too did the bicycles. I like to think Brian O'Nolan would have found a droll irony in that. The show is touring the south-west till August 26, catch it if you can.
 
Sunday was an even balmier night, with an even bigger crowd on ECOS for a return tour of  Pride and Prejudice as dramatised by Oliver Gray for Illyria, also a compact & talented touring company but rather more well-behaved regarding picnic-raids. Audience interference would be inappropriate of course for Jane Austen's etiquette-conscious characters, as created by five actors and a fabulous wardrobe of costumes, all evoking both era and personality while simultaneously looking like the sort of dreams you'd have if you spent too long studying the Boden catalogue. Pat Farmer & Curlywilly Prod are credited with these delights, and the set design ~ a backdrop of fan shapes in Georgian blue with wickedly multi-purpose seating and laundry baskets ~ is by Jill 'Wigs' Wilson. The acting team all had wonderful energy and great stage presence, with Toby Webster outstanding as noble Darcy and caddish Wickham and annoyingly bookish Mary, while also filling in as a coachman when long distances required seated jiggling rather than the (also entertaining) on-the-spot pacing of their walks.
It's all fast-paced and with wonderful visual details like the flourishing of quill pens, a frequent requirement in a story where much is narrated by long emotional letters. The original novel of course is universally acknowledged to have possibly the most famous opening line of any novel, and probably the most misunderstood. Jane Austen was no early chicklit author (Northanger Abbey was written to parody the Gothic romance trend) and idea that a man of fortune 'must be in want of a wife' heralds one of the greatest, most complex, social satires ever written. Our heroine is one of five daughters of a man whose property must, by the laws of his time, be passed on to a male, so there is a real practical urgency in Mrs Bennett's desperation to marry off her daughters ~ any of them ~ to absolutely any man who can support her and the rest of her brood should she be widowed. This adaptation follows the plot, social mores & all, with conscientious detail Janites in the audience will appreciate, and P&P virgins can enjoy the frocks and the antics (and buy a programme for plot-watch). Highly recommended, and touring till 28 August.

So that's two terrific nights of drama, and we're only three days into the 2017 Frome Festival. I barely scratched the surface of the 55 events of last weekend: like all the best fests, Frome has constant clashes and every conversation seems to start You missed a fabulous event last night... So I can do no more than show a few slivers of the sensational vibrance throughout the streets and venues.
Saturday was a big day for our writers, with the Small Publishers Fair at Silk Mill, always a great venue and with the yard converted into a Cantina, it's tempting place to linger. Writers in Residence meanwhile were tackling the challenge of writing a short story in four hours while ensconced in designated shops and cafes in the town centre. And from late afternoon until midnight, we were hijacked by music:  Frome Street Bandits led a parade to the Food Feast in the central market, where they were followed by Jamma de Samba and a bizarre and wildly popular performance from SATCO street theatre, while within the Cheese & Grain itself there was brilliant folk-rock from Julian (Bugs) Hight and punk-uke from the marvellous Wochynskis.
After all of which it was time to scamper up the hill to the Cornerhouse for a truly amazing performance from Captain Cactus and his Screaming Harlots, whose 9-piece band was nearly as tightly squeezed in the space at the far end of the bar as their audience was in the rest of it, though that didn't stop us dancing.

Sunday daytime for me was mostly about jazz. Both of Frome's excellent jazz bands were playing at the Cornerhouse throughout the day supplemented by trad jazz from the New Academic Feetwarmers in the garden of the Blue House, perfect for picnicking on cherries and prosecco. My report on the Art Trail is therefore postponed....

And having missed the marvellous Edward Thomas commemoration at Rook Lane last night, I hope to make amends at the Poetry Cafe tonight where the theme for the open mic is That Adlestrop Moment, so I'll leave you with a quick preview of the  Garden Cafe, by day a favourite with ladies who lunch, by night hosting the mordant post-punk mutant fantasies of Beef Unit...

Future focus in art & drama, with music & poetry too

To kick of with music: this week we had Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots kicking up a tornedo in the Grain Bar, a Ceilidh on Paddy's night so wildly popular the Cornerhouse ran out of Guinness though they found some cans in time for the Sunday afternoon jazz session. The nine-strong Cactus gang always give a fantastic performance ~ costumed like they've beamed in from a saloon-bar in a movie, they have massive audience rapport and bring theatricality as well as great sound to every song.

 The Celtic night was an amazing hi-energy event too, with a dozen or so guitars & fiddles, and spoons everywhere. Here's a random visitor caught up in the party (glad you enjoyed your stay in Frome Darren Vader) and the same room looking calmer on Sunday with the Graham Dent Trio and guest Nick Sorensen.

You might think that was quite enough excitement for a small town with no Primark (according to a response to Sunday Times naming Frome as one of the 'top towns' in the UK, that's a significant omission for such a status) but adding to the buzz we had an exhibition opening at Black Swan gallery and performance poetry at Merlin Theatre on Thursday. Art first: The Future Can't Wait is the outcome of a collaboration with Bath Spa University, showing work from 30 MA postgraduates from Ceramics, Fine Art, Fashion & Textiles, and Visual Communication. The dust of the past hinders innovation, clogging up the windows with grime as it pollutes creativity penned one student in an submission which charmingly if somewhat ironically reminded me of a Victorian sampler.  There's an interesting diversity of styles, mostly personal rather than futuristic, and the theme will be explored in workshops and conceptual activities in town till April 15th.
The Poetry Platter event onstage at the Merlin was a personal highlight for me ~ not only, as the theatre's Spoken Word coordinator, to be bringing rock-star-status poets to our audience but to be doing a set myself...  home turf is always scary, but I knew the other five performers would deliver the totally-brilliant goods, and they did.  Rapper XJX, Hannah Teasdale, Chris Redmond, Liv Torc and Buddy Carson were a fantastic line-up, the tapas was tasty ~ thanks Jo's Tender Loving Kitchen ~ the team at the theatre superb and the audience was absolutely lovely. Feedback has been great, let's do it again next year! Here's XJX, thanks David Goodman... more pictures soon.

Over to Salisbury to end the week's roundup with Eat the Poor from Jonny & the Baptists. Edinburgh smash-hit... riotously funny musical comedy of our times - an epic tale of inequality and revolution in modern Britain promised the flyer, what's not to like?
Ensconced in the Salberg studio theatre, I had a Living Spittish deja vue moment when Jonny & Paddy strode out with guitars. Paddy is blond & gangly like a hippy version of Spit's Stu McCloughlin, and Jonny looks disconcertingly like Stu's oppo Howard Coggins especially when stripped to gold lamé underpants (although Howard’s never clambered on top of me while fleeing from a swan revolution, so that marks a difference.) Jonny is the main voice, which he uses for the first half hour to tease the audience who he assumes are all tories or neo-liberals, and make self-deprecating gags about performing in half-empty Arts venues. This, he explains, is all extra impro, like the free ice-cream you get with a tonsillectomy, ‘we’ll come back after the interval and do the play, and then later on bed, and then death.' He seems genuinely surprised when most of us return from the bar for the second half.
The material is sharp, relentlessly political, and very funny, seeming all the more off-the-cuff because of Paddy’s surprised-sounding sudden bursts of laughter. The sudden bursts of song however are clearly cleverly planned: Paddy is great on guitar and the lyrics are as wickedly witty and political as the banter ~ I specially liked the ballad Only the Queen can kill Donald Trump. The actual play, such as it is, comprises a glimpse into a future in which the friends' fortunes have divided as Jonny has sold out to collaborate with Andrew Lloyd-Webber (btw Spit fans, isn't that just the sort of thing Coggins would do?) while Paddy, despite talent and visual appeal that make this unlikely, is reduced to sleeping on the street. There's a purpose in the parable of course: this kind of social disparity, they explain, is inevitable since the legalising of loopholes allowing inheritance tax avoidance so the rich grow richer and the poor poorer.
Eat the Poor is an economics lecture plus political broadcast on behalf of that rare species, the genuine Left, but is it also a riotously funny musical comedy?  Reader, I bought the CD and signed up for the mailing list.