Women being men, men being men, and life in Frome

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald is an acknowledged classic, a novel with prescient awareness of the social cruelty inherent in the rampant materialism of 1920s of post-war America. The theme and the plot are contained in one of the last lines of the book: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."   It's a great read - a story by a man about men fighting over their status and over their women, quintessentially a tale of male rivalry set in a landscape of that luxurious, careless era. So you wouldn't expect two women,  with basically a settee as their set, to create the entire story so evocatively, powerfully, wittily, and movingly. Although as this production is from Bristol's  Wardrobe Theatre, you probably would.  Tamsin Hurtado Clarke and Jesse Meadows take on every character in Scott Fitzgerald’s novel to evoke the doomed romance between Daisy and Jay Gatsby as seen through the outsider eyes of Nick Carraway, often role-shifting several times in a single scene. They’re helped by excellent filming and music, and a set that, like the story itself, evolves from its frenzy of self-indulgent hedonism into violent chaos. Director Tom Brennan with director of photography Jack Offord & their teams filmed it all live in January, and you can book here to see the performance until the end of March - recommended. 

Also now streaming, Hymn at the Almeida is another two-hander but a more traditional and weightier affair: the story of two men who shared the same father, written by Lolita Chakrabarti and dealing with Issues with-a-capital-I, like parental responsibility and race and policing, with much weighty dialogue. Despite the fact that the actors actually shared the set, they were filmed separately for 99% of the story, so although Adrian Lester and Danny Sapani were very good, the sense of their interaction was disappointingly absent. Directed by Blanche McIntyre, here's a screen shot of a rare lighter moment.

Another of those of Best-Place-To-Live polls has revealed once again, that the top town in Somerset is Frome, for its 'arty artisan indy businesses and cafes' - let's hope they all survive the shutdowns. River House on the bridge is enterprisingly taking orders online for speciality donuts.  And fittingly for our notoriously dissenting town, Frome's own Tolpuddle Tree, a descendent of the famous Tolpuddle Martyrs' tree in Dorset, has been planted in Rodden Meadow exactly 187 years after the original memorial - Julian Hight, Frome's Mister Trees, gives more of the context and tells the story here.

A brief note on visual arts now: Banksy, Bristol's most famous 'unknown' son (also a friend of several street artists in Frome) featured on TV last week in an excellent documentary Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art.  Sadly this isn't available online in this area but if you missed this inclusive look at how art was reclaimed from the investors and returned to the people, you can take a look at this short trailer.

And finally, poetry corner: Winter Warmers is a collection of seven heart-warming poems supporting pubs in a difficult year by celebrating their role in within their communities. Bristol poet Malaika Kegode performs the poem for the South West, and also don't miss Steve Pottinger representing the Midlands with The Best Pub in the World.  Over in Bristol, David Johnson, always a well-received guest at Frome Poetry Cafe, featured on a zoom event on Saturday at which the highlight for me was his reverie as Edward Coulson tipping into the Bristol harbour ("only a quick dip / no time to dive").  And looking ahead to June, the brilliant news is that Frome Poetry Cafe will be joining the town's Festival celebrations with an event on the ECOS amphitheatre - note our fantastic guest Liv Torc, and get the details in your diary now! (Thanks Suzy Howlett for the flyer)

 

Writers' journeys

Tonight's Frome Poetry Cafe had the theme of Journeys, so it was ironic perhaps that Daisy Behagg was left stranded at Castle Cary and couldn't join us... but our other lead poet David Johnson was on fantastic form with performance pieces about railway journeys and journeys into history ~ ending with a witty imagined 18th Century slam, with neurotic Romantics on tour / signing their volumes in the foyer. So mega sympathies Daisy ~ who will try again later this year ~ for your trauma, but luckily local eco-poet Helen Moore was on hand to step in, and the 17 open-mic poets took us on many fabulous journeys too. A full house at the Garden Cafe and a wonderfully rich evening.. one of those special nights.
Obliquely on the subject of journeys still: it's 100 years since Dylan Thomas was born, and Graffiti magazine had a little competition for pieces inspired by his poems.  Fern Hill is a favourite of mine since early childhood when my father read it to me, so I took its rhythms and notion of long-ago memories and adapted both to summer holidays on the south coast of Devon... and then came the storms, prompting an ending more disturbing than nostalgic. I'm pleased to say the judge liked it and Dawlish Warren won first prize. It's a fine line between homage and plagiarism, so I hope I haven't transgressed too much - you can judge for yourselves here:

Now as I was golden brown and straddling the rock pools 
Along the laughing beach and singing as the sand was home 
The sky high and dazzling blue,
 Granny held me in her towel 
Wiping icecream from my salty face
 And queen of the mermaids I wriggled away and ran back to the waves 
Heedless of any call beyond their gentle surging swell,
Toe-kicking the coarse wet sand 
All along the brown-sugar rim of the sea. 

And after the thermos-and-sandwich tea, dried and cardiganed,
Princess was I of turreted sand-castles and splendid forts
With scalloped moat and paper flags
Flying their stripes and stars
The whole world in my dominion.
And picnic packed and sandy shoes pulled on to go, we'd see
Slow foaming rivulets creep over our brave constructions
Licking the ramparts into sandslides,
slipping back into dunes as the sunset streamed.

Nothing I knew, in those childish times, that storms would obliterate
All of my memories in one raging night of terrible severance
Rail from rock, rock from land,
Nor that rousing from sleep
I'd see the path to my past wiped away forever
And watch onscreen that timeless landscape ripped away.
Oh as I played along those Devon sands happy and unknowing
Time held us all in ignorant thrall
Believing ourselves as strong as the sea.

Finally journey of this posting: my writer friend Sally Gander, author of the Y/A thriller The Big Deep, invited me to join her on a 'blog tour' and although it sounded like a cross between a discursive relay and a chain letter, I was intrigued enough to agree. The aim is to share personal perspectives on the writing process: each 'guest' blogger answers 4 questions and hands the baton on. So here goes:
What am I working on?

Currently, so many different things I feel like the sheep in Alice in Wonderland knitting with fourteen pairs of needles. I’m writing two plays ~ both in delicate stages of development ~ and revising two others. I’m also working on two monologues, one on spec for an actress friend, plus a short for our Nevertheless Productions event in Frome Festival. The theme is War Zones, which is a challenge for a militant pacifist. I’m also working with performer Annabelle Macfadyen on a script for a ‘Time Walk’ around Rodden Meadow in the festival, telling ‘the story of the earth in a thousand paces.’ Mind-blowing science but a lot of fun. And the blog trundles on:  theatre reviews, local arts, random thoughts on anything related to writing. I’m off to California for a month at the end of March, for uninterrupted focus on all these projects.
How does my work differ from others of its genre? 
 The same way every playwright’s work is different from others':  it’s my voice and not theirs. I write psychological dramas and use dark comedy a lot. I also tend to indulge in meta-theatrical elements ~ ‘smart-arsed’ to those who don't like plays that are self-conscious about being dramatic inventions ~ so I sometimes let characters address the audience direct. Well it worked for Shakespeare...
Why do I write what I do?
To find out what I mean. I think all writers at heart write to discover their own processes of thinking and feeling.
How does my writing process work? 
Scripts for stage are no different from stories on the page, at the start. A character starts talking to you, quietly at first, and then increasingly intrusively. There are challenges in their life, and other characters with their own opinions on these matter, and eventually they all colonise your head and your only choice is to start writing it all down. When it's all collected you carve it back to the bone, marveling how much verbal fat there always is, and work out what it’s all about. Then you hand it over to a production team, who wrestle it into a coma ~ excuse the mixed metaphors but this is a mixed process ~ and then breathe life into your words and make you feel that seeing your story on stage is THE most fantastic privilege for any writer.  Then when the production’s over you go into a bereaved state… until a character sidles up and starts talking to you….
Well, that’s how it is for me, anyway. I don’t have any routines, or any preferred time of day or place. I work directly onto my laptop, at home, in a café, or traveling ~ but always have a notebook beside me to jot down thoughts.

And now over to Cliff Lonsdale, who I met first in Skyros two years ago, when he would lie full length at the edge of the Aegean and write the most amazing pieces. He sent me this thumbnail biog:
Cliff is a writer and development consultant currently living in Myanmar with his wife and two dogs; prior to this he lived in Africa for several years. Cliff spends a large proportion of his life bouncing around in the back of a car on dirt roads; he tends to have quite a lot of time to contemplate life. His utterings, mutterings and general musings on this and many other matters can be found at www.clifflonsdale.com.

"You can be seen as successful, but I can assure you as a career it's pants" says David Johnson at the Library Writers meeting on Monday. He's talking about becoming an accidental poet. "I write poems but I think it's a waste of time" confides a newcomer. David is sympathetic. He tells us he is rather against poets who don't use everyday language, although his entertaining new collection is called "Bombazine" so he must make some exceptions. David is rather against quite a lot, according to his Grumpy Old Poets manifesto, and speaks longingly of early nights with ovaltine although staying on to guest at the Poetry Cafe. "Love in a Warm Climate" is the theme. A full house enjoyed listening to David open with sustainable angst and close with sizzling anguish, and a dozen local poets sharing torrid and tender passions too.

Bath Fringe again, to see "Diary of a Madman" at the Rondo. Seb Steiger plays Poprishchin, whose diary entries arc through humorous to harrowing as this initially Pooteresque clerk spirals down through his own fantasies to the graphic solitude of the madhouse. Seb's solo performance is stunning, deserving the twelve-out-of-ten reviews he's been collecting, and the adaptation by Steve Hennessy finds a timelessness as well as troubling poignancy in Gogol's short story. The play goes to Bristol next: more information here.

Admit to watching reality tv and you get one of two responses from other writers: a flicker of shocked distaste, or a frisson of relieved recognition. For me, reality programmes reveal the psychological preoccupations of our community - and that's our readers. Rejection is a significant theme. I tend to skip the shows but watch the commentaries & the interviews with the rejected. 'The Apprentice - Your Fired' has been great. "Stop moaning about working in a male-dominated environment," scoffs the studio commentator of candidate Helene, "Life is a male-dominated environment." Oscar Wilde couldn't have put it better. Dyslexic Lee, dubbed by the Telegraph "oafish", is my fave to win. And of course, as Alan Sugar's Prospero bows out, Queen Titania/Davina is shimmying in... anyone else fancy Mikey the big blind Scots transvestite?
..