It starts earlier each year... a blogful of festive goodies...

Even in a week crammed with sparkly-season specials, Wednesday evening at Bar Lotte is always a highlight: this week the fabulous Rosco Shakes gave us jazzy blues with great bass from Josh, Ned's amazing drum/vocals combo, Tim sensational on keyboard and Steve on 'sax that gets you eating your knuckles', to quote my companion... unsurprisingly there was dancing before the evening was over. 

And live music ushered in a weekend of festive art markets - here's The Decades at Black Swan Arts' brilliant Makers Market on Friday night, with masses of brilliant craft stalls & a late night cafe too. 

How nice to have a funky festive market crammed with works by local artists, you may think - but this is Frome: in the same weekend we also enjoyed an amazing art fair at the Silk Mill, Midwinter Joyant in Keyford, a Christmas Gift Market at the Cheese & Grain, and a Makers Market in Lower Keyford with mulled wine under tiny glittering lights... and then it was Sunday, time for our nationally acclaimed Frome Independent - market, that is - selling absolutely everything edible, drinkable, wearable, displayable, and above all giveable... if you didn't solve all your present problems there then either you weren't trying or you found too much you wanted to keep yourself.

As there were far too many intriguing & beautiful items to decide which images to include here, this pic is from outside Hunting Raven Books, where Julian Hight was selling his fantastic books of trees around the world.  Which also leads me nicely on to the most unusual book launch I've ever attended: Frome legend Tony Bennett (we have a lot of local legends, you may have noticed) selling his illustrated life story at the Sun Inn, with queues extending outside the door to grab a signed copy of life as fully lived by this truly iconic Fromie - notorious as an award-winning florist as well as for leaping from a blazing bedroom after a bedtime cigarette set his house on fire. Here's Tony signing my copy of He Can When He Will - and he remembered my name. Now that IS fame.

And speaking of Frome's quirky creatives, we also have our own festive Dismaland-alike: Santa's Grotty, the inspired creation of artist and political satirist Kate Talbot, a grim experience of phoney good cheer amid dangling covid microbes, which is entered via Kate's notorious shop Hung Drawn Quoted.  Here's a glimpse of one of the exhibits, though sadly I'm not allowed to give away any of the outrageous lifesize caricatures...  The £5 entry price goes to Fair Frome.

Still with a festive focus, but more cheery and moving out of town now:   

I've been a devotee (which is the posh word for besotted fan) of Stephen Mangan since Episodes, in my view one of the cleverest TV comedy series ever - and he's now taking the lead role in A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic so, since the window for safe travel before winter may soon narrow, this week seemed a good opportunity to scoot up to London and see it.  I haven't visited this venue since leaving London in my late teens - previously I went regularly with my father, dramatic critic HG Matthews, or else on my own, paying 2/- 'on spec' at the door for any seat still available - so it wasn't surprising to find the theatre much changed. Matthew Warchus, the current artistic director, has aimed for an atmosphere audiences will find "accessible, inclusive, and informal", which turns out to mean with friendly attentive staff, lots of loos, and - for this production anyway - a free mincepie on arrival. 

The performance area of my memory,  where I watched a young Judy Dench throwing a tantrum in Franco Zefferelli's unforgettable production of Romeo & Juliet, is now part of the auditorium, and actors used a kind of central corridor between the aisles to perform their high-energy, immersive version of Charles Dickens' tale of a skinflint visited by 'ghosts' that bring remorse and radical life change. 

A Christmas Carol has become as deeply identified with seasonal celebrations as carols themselves - there are 12 in this show - and this is the fifth winter that the Vic has featured this production.  Programme notes identify 'rage, determination and a fiery compassion' as Dickens' motivations, and these would have been inspired in part by his own painful childhood. This Scrooge is never too afraid of the ghosts to argue, but he is moved to tears by his memories. The nightmare aspects of the tale are vivid, but it's a feel-good show too, with a running thread of love and the possibility of new hope, enhanced by the hundreds of tiny lanterns dangling above the storytelling, and the visual surprises.

Ending with exciting news - for me, anyway, and for my erstwhile 'Live & Lippy' performance-poetry partner Hazel Stewart, now living in Cumbria. We revived our lyrical connection during lockdown via zoom, and put together a package of old & new pieces which, to our delight, has now been taken by Caldew Press - here's editor Phil Hewitson zoom-chatting about options, and showing us his upcoming publication of John Hegley's poems about Keats.  So, in this illustrious company, our double-album-on-page of performance poetry pieces What's it Like for You? and Dance for Those Who'd Rather Not will be out early next year! 

A hefty week for theatre, so buckle up!

September in the Rain isn't just a recent memory or a sentimental song, it's also a play written by John Godber in 1983, allegedly about his family but also about every Yorkshire couple who sat in deckchairs on the beach at Blackpool complaining about the weather, each other, and everyone else - in fact the dramatic structure is a series of cliches strung nostalgically together... but the current production at Salisbury Playhouse skillfully finds the humour, and underlines the nostalgic charm. Jack and Liz are a couple who have never heard words like dysfunctional or counselling, so they rub along annoyingly and forgivingly and somehow manage to enjoy their annual holiday despite travel friction, awful lodgings, frequent rows, and constant rain. 

It's the excellence of the acting from Ian Kelsey and Nicola Sloane - subtly showing irrational mood swings but always, somehow, endearing - and it's the sharp direction from Gareth Machin, plus skilled lighting effects (Johanna Town) that make this such an excellent production: swift-moving enough to be entertaining though with no dramatic surprises, it leaves a slight aftertaste of sandy ice-cream as you remind yourself how life was gentler then, and can never be so innocent again. This production has been already mentioned in this blog, as I met the excellent cast last month, and am glad to report that Ian recovered from his script-related narcolepsy, and Nicola's delightful giggle survived the ardors of rehearsal. 

As theatres move cautiously, with streamed overlap, into old-style performances, some have decided that online productions may well provide a future, appealing as they do to a limitless geographic area. Going the Distance is a co-production from the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, The Dukes & The Watermill Theatre - a new comedy by Henry Filloux-Bennett and Yasmeen Khan, directed by Felicity Montagu, with a stellar cast which includes Sara Crowe, Shobna Gulati, Sarah Hadland, and Matthew Kelly with Stephen Fry. The storyline is totally on-theme: a small theatre, struggling to survive, puts on a last-ditch production choosing, somewhat over-ambitiously, The Wizard of Oz.  Naturally, egos and personal agendas intrude, and Oscar Wilde's Miss Prism's precept for fiction - that the good end happily - is only partially observed. Satire is from the start somewhat over-larded, but it does give perceptive insight into the difficulties facing live theatre at this time. Shakespeare, of course, overcame plague to continue successfully producing, but he didn't have netflix to compete with, so please watch with sympathy. Available until 17 October. 

Now for probably the most impassioned and skilful show online right now: Bristol Old Vic is promoting Can I live?, conceived and performed by Fehinti Balogun to share his journey into the world of environmental activism - its inspiration, its effect on his family and friends, and how his life was radically changed by understanding the current prospects, and real history, of our planet.   This is not only compelling and moving in the way our cultural history and the environmental prospects of our planet are always disturbing,  it's also brilliantly presented using spoken word, hip-hop, animation, graphs & graphics, and concluding with options  for positive involvement. Created by Complicité and available until 10 October for whatever you choose to donate, this one is really worth an hour of your life. 

Bristol Old Vic also had another idea to connect with a wider audience through online options: All The Threads You Left Behind is the first of a series of Sudden Connections - short pieces by five south-west artists, free to view.  This one is created by Anna Rathbone mourning the suicide of a friend.  Previously a 1:1 performance installation, this digital version commissioned by Bristol Old Vic Ferment allows the viewer to choose the pace & style of the narration - my choice was to read as well as listen to the text, and to contribute to the 'threads' memories too.

Back on the live stage, John Cooper Clarke arrived at Frome's Cheese & Grain on Thursday with his current tour I Wanna Be Yours - the title of one of his most iconic poems (you can remind yourself of it here) and also of his new book.  John's ability to entertain a crowd seems unflagging as he blends jokes & observations with book extracts and performances of his popular classics: he wrote Beasley Street, he claims, "18 years before that bitch Margaret Thatcher got in, and I worry I might have given her a few ideas!"  It has an update now, which John also shared: Beasley Boulevard.  And despite joking that marriage was useful only because 'without it we'd have to fight with complete strangers', he concluded with this poignant tribute: I've fallen in love with my wife.

And now for something completely different. What if in 1594 Will Shakespeare's players, made tetchy by the plague outside and the mounting bodycount in their new drama, had insisted on abandoning the Aristotelian rules of tragedy to create a merry ending for Hamlet.  Thus, Hamlet Act 6 A Comedy, performed by Shakespeare Live at the Merlin Theatre, introduces Friar Lawrence from Romeo & Juliet, now reskilled after his disaster with the star-crossed lovers, to devise a resurrection for all the slain, plus new liaisons for everyone.  Laurence Parnell as both bard and friar provides a series of unlikely revivals: none of the poisons or sword-wounds were terminal, Ophelia didn't drown she tripped, and even the skull of Yorrick gets a rewrite. Clearly the team had great fun with this extended adaptation of a short script by Dennis Harkness, directed by Alison Paine.

In case you've got this far and are wondering if everything this week involved seated observation, the answer is no, there was also some walking about: The new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth  by Thomas J Price entitled Thoughts Unseen features bronze heads, some small and some enormous, and several incredibly large bodies. They are really impressive - enigmatic but accessible: the artist says his aim is to question historic narratives & power structures in society, using presentation and scale to explore our assumptions. His monumental figures inevitably trigger thoughts of the current debate around monuments in public places, too.  It's superbly crafted, thought-provoking without being overly cryptic, and well worth a visit - a return visit too. This exhibition, and the Eduardo Chillida one too, will be in the galleries until January 3. And the gardens there, of course, are lovely even in autumn and winter.

Saturday should have been music night at The Sun in Frome but sadly the popular Raggedy Men had to cancel - though this did give me the chance to catchup on Have I Got News For You, and Richard Osman's House of Games Night, two TV-trivia gems postponed by Friday's reopening of The Crown, my local hostelry, now completely revamped for gloozing (glam boozing.)  But the week did end with live music - lots of it, as popular Nunney Acoustic Cafe reopened with fizz (literally) after its 18 month lull. Eight acts took the stage, ranging from folk to funk, solo debut to celtic band - all superb: here's the featured guest band from Swindon Splat the Rat and Frome's new quartet combo Unit 4.  Dancing between tables and Keren's opulent cakes were both popular accompaniments to the onstage entertainment. 

 

Finally in a busy week: regular readers will know that, although my passion is theatre, occasionally a movie will lure me to Frome's smashing little Westway Cinema - all seats four quid, and ice-creams on a tray at the intermission like in the old days. No Time to Die, Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond, was the occasion this week. As I'm not really competent to review this medium, here's  the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw to explain why he gave the show 5 stars: "It is of course a festival of absurdity and complication, a headspinning world of giant plot mechanisms moving like a Ptolemaic universe of menace. It is startling, exotically self-aware, funny and confident, and most of all it is big." Here's a link to a short homage to the actor who kept the  Bond franchise alive.

Ecumenical matters and why bingo was cancelled

David Haig is so good in the role of gentle, jaded vicar in Racing Demon currently at Theatre Royal Bath perhaps he should have his own TV series, a kind of 'Yes Reverend Minister' showing the ungodly rivalries that writhe beyond the rectory. David Hare wrote this play in 1990 as part of a trilogy taking a deep and critical look at the three central pillars of public life: church, law and politics.
Inevitably each of the posse of South London clerics has to represent some aspect of the problems that beset the Church of England in 1980s: Rev Lionel is jaundiced by realism, Rev Tony (Paapa Essiedu mesmeric) is terrifyingly evangelical, Rev Harry (Ian Gelder) has tendencies making him open to blackmail, while Rev 'Streaky' Bacon (Sam Alexander ~ my favourite actually, with touch of Teddish Dougal) just loves margaritas...
What with all their shenanigans and a couple of Bishops too there's not much role for women, who have a token presence to represent sidelining and abuse but only Tony's discarded girlfriend has much to say: Rebecca Night looks lovely but doesn't seem to have discerned a real character within her lines. Admirably focused direction by Jonathan Church, and Simon Higlett's design is excellent, creating multiple locations each identifiable from minimalist set change and clever lighting (Tim Mitchell) This is a solid and entertaining production, no twists but a plangent reminder why church attendance continues to dwindle, and there are some very funny lines. And if you google that title, it's a card game where the aim is to find the hidden demon in the pack... clever, eh.  Images Nobby Clark

Back in Frome after a few days visiting my northern brother (and btw Virgin Cross-Country trains go about the speed fingernails grow) into a busy week as Festival approaches.

Frome Open Studios art trail launch party at the WHY Gallery had samples of some of the impressive work that will be showing at 29 venues around the town and outlying villages. Pictured with the mayor are Kate Cochrane and Amanda Bee, and Rosie Hart (R) is also one of the organising team, with nearly 80 participating artists working in a wide variety of media ~ there's an interactive brochure here.
Also anticipating the festival, Ann Harrison-Broninski is showing her sketches at the Grain Bar and David Goodwin has an impressive exhibition of portraits of musicians at La Strada.
Quote of the week comes from ex-manager of Cheese & Grain Martin Dimery, on the last night of his role there, walking into a massive surprise farewell party: "Did you cancel the Bingo?" The surprise was especially successful as it included a performance from brilliant Bad Sounds ~ their drummer is Martin's daughter ~  soon to be playing at Truck Fest Main Stage along with Franz Ferdinand: here's Martin joining them in a number from his own (ex)group Sergeant Pepper's Only Dart Board Band, appropriately Come Together.

And then the week went a bit Demsters Diary with a party every night & two on Saturday.

There were jigs and reels at the Bennett Centre on Friday, and for me a catch-up with Rosie Jackson who recently won first prize in the prestigious Cookham Festival Poetry Competition, then on Saturday the sun shone on the all-day Party in the Park organised by Frome FM with brilliant live music on the bandstand ~ I especially enjoyed Magic Tractor's garage rock, ending with Nick Lowe's song: What's so funny about peace, love & understanding...
On, then, to the extensive garden party organised by Andrew Ziminski, anthropologist & author, with optional swimming in the pool. It's beginning to feel a bit like summer!

Spring! bonnets & budding, ducks & Daffodil Day

It's blossom time: pink & white floral canopies along streets and gardens, wild garlic tanging the air, and a fecundity of bluebells in the local woodlands. Wow! No wonder we go spring-crazy and remind ourselves we're rural folk and rush about doing rural folk things ~ a bonnet contest plus duck race in Nunney on Sunday, while bank holiday Monday is ~ with or without blooming compliance ~ Daffodil Day in Mells. This year there's an abundance of flowers, and the sun shone obligingly on the marquees & bouncy castles, and presumably on the street stalls too although, after walking all the way from Frome along the woodland river path, we didn't get far beyond Milk Street Brewery's beer tent in the field where the rocking revivalist repertoire of totally fantastic Back Wood Redeemers made religion almost worthwhile. The four mile walk was glorious too, both ways.

Back in Frome, the refurbished Whittox Lane chapel, beautifully restored by new owners Ed Roberts and Io Fox, was officially opened as the HUBnub Centre last week. Cutting the ribbon here is Mayor Toby ~ whose 'impressive moustache' gets an awed mention in the most recent Times piece discovering Frome with surprised approval. Our 'lovely old town' must feel a bit like one of those bands that keeps getting the award for promising newcomer, the number of times it's been featured as a 'less obvious' spot to visit and listed on Top 10 charts. Confirming the thumbs-up journalist John Bungey gives Frome's regeneration since Independents took over the council, last week saw two more openings: Jo Black's Black Inc tattoo shop in Cheap Street on Saturday night, and the new Bottle Shop, Cheese & Tap Bar in Palmer Street ~ locally sourced food and drink, either sit in & relax, take home, or both, suggests entrepreneur & 'helmsman' Simon Bowden.

Contrasting holiday-weekend sounds in town to round off this bulletin: mellow jazz from Graham Dent Trio with Caroline Radcliffe at the Cornerhouse on Sunday afternoon, and Dreadzone at Cheese & Grain with a wicked Saturday night of rock/reggae. Like I said, Wow...

The courage of his convictions

If you ever doubted the supremacy of experiential learning over any form of teaching, including psychological brainwashing, you should listen to Ben Griffin, ex-SAS founder of Veterans for Peace UK. Seemingly wired for combat since boyhood, Ben joined the Paratroopers at 18 and throughout his first tours of duty longed only for more adventurous action. Training was nothing to do with the army's role as protector of us 'civi cunts', it was all about following orders without engaging the brain. Gang mentality is developed by fear of group punishment, aversion to killing overcome by de-humanising language: aim at the centre of the mass for fire a bullet in that man's chest.  (Did you know? ~ I didn't ~ that research showed 90% of soldiers aimed above the heads of their enemies, until impersonal terms reversed the stats). Now completely indoctrinated ~ his term ~ Ben joined the SAS. It was in Iraq he started wondering if we're causing more problems than we're solving. We'd become the secret police of Baghdad, living where Saddam Hussein had lived, using his tactics. I wanted to engage an enemy, what we were doing was terrorising civilians. Appalled by what he saw, Ben left the life he'd believed was his vocation, and is now restrained by a High Court injunction from his mission to 'tell people what was really going on'. The problem, he realised, was not just the Iraq war but war itself and the militaristic attitudes of our media and society. You can go on protests and not make any difference, it's like pouring weedkiller or plants that are tolerant. We need to be more proactive.

So the group Ben formed, Veterans for Peace UK, goes into schools to counteract the gloryising of combat, aiming to change hearts and minds, although Ben admits if his teenage self could see him now he'd just think 'what a wanker.' And yes, he is in breach of his injunction each time he gives this brilliant talk, organised at the Cheese & Grain by Frome Stop Wars Campaign on Tuesday. It met with massive applause from the Cheese& Grain audience ~ but then we would clap, wouldn't we, he's preaching to the converted. Weedkiller on the already weeded, you could say.  Memo to self: be more proactive...

Midwinter Medley

The Midwinter Poetry Cafe was a particularly pleasant one with a great atmosphere and some terrific poems, from open mic readers as well as from our guests local wordsmiths Rick Rycroft and Muriel Lavender, and Karen Woollard & Jill Flanders from the Warminster Poetry People. Rick is a poet 'in love with the ordinary', creating lucent imagery from slugs and half-remembered dream phrase. Muriel showed her impressive versatility as a performer by following her entertaining cautionary santa-saga with some stunning haiku, including several so orally beautiful the full-house audience seemed stunned... Helen Moore read her account of an activist protest entitled #iceclimblive, now published in a collection of 'ambitious poems by women poets' entitled Her Wings Of Glass. And if you'd like to be a founding member of group of serious poets to meet monthly and focus on the craft of editing your work, contact Norman Andrews for full details. Sounds a great idea to me.
It's always good news when Three Corners has a new album, and to launch Singular the band gave a full performance of all ten gorgeous tracks at the Masonic, with a chance to dance during and after.
What more could anyone want? Maybe a portion of  Dexter's Extra Breakfast ~ and we had that as well.



A brilliant Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday, with Griff Daniels & Nicki Maskell plus guests including velvet-voiced Steve Loudoun, songs ranging from 1950s pop through folk-rock and reggae to soulful blues.  Saturday morning streets jingled to the splendid sounds of Honk Monster, with Pete Gage finishing of a mega-musical week at the Cornerhouse, atmospheric lighting great for dancing but not photo-friendly.

Fromesbury Writers takes our end-of-year meeting seriously, in terms of festivity, and as an additional reason to be merry, Debby Holt has just got a new book deal, so prosecco was essential ~ thanks Jill Miller for donating in absentia, we're toasting you in Spain and wishing you rich writing as well as sunshine.  Frome Writers Collective had their get-together in Divas, and I'll end back at the Cheese&Grain with an art-&-craft market featuring local practitioners: lively images of Frome streets from Fourmakers, quirky pendants by Pukka Jewels (love the vintage camera one) and amazing products from foraged berries & herbs by Wild Things"  ~ that's Kylie and Lauren-Olivia, who developed their business from scratch (or possibly from snatch) through the Edventure apprentice scheme. Who needs Lord Sugar? or any kind of sugar ~ their rosehip chocolate is sweetened entirely with honey.  As BBC Points West so nicely put it in their plug for our local shops "The chaos of Black Friday seems a world away from the streets of Frome.