Day 7: musical interlude

Last night's war zone is transformed tonight for a pop-up event in Cornerhouse upstairs room as Al O'Kane hosts the Secret Magical Folk Garden: an evening of mesmeric songs from a series of amazingly talented performers. This year's festival has been brilliant musically but David Waddington's loop-frenzy version of his poignant song Icarus learns to fly will be one of my total highlights of the week. Al's putting on another Magical Folk Garden on Saturday night, not in the brochure but hopefully a more open secret ~ this quality certainly deserves a big audience!

Then on to catch the final set from Seize the Day at the United Reform Church Hall with the Friends of Palestine, a total change of mood to boran and bopping. I first heard this band last century, and I'm thrilled they're still doing Bigger better brighter bullshit and other protest classics.  The line-up was nine tonight, with saxophone and didgeridoo among their instruments, and with new songs too ~ Frack the Frackers was written after a recent visit to Barton Moss. This venue is in the heartland of Frome's radical past and as a rousing rendition of No-one's Slave rang out I imagined the glee of the ghosts in Dissenters' Cemetery half a mile away... A fabulous evening, still mild at midnight, with a nearly-full moon lighting my walk home.  The bike is just bccause I couldn't photograph the vintage cycle ride this afternoon as it was cancelled so I thought I'd show you this one by the Catherine Hill mural, parked by some lavender. Multi-sensual Frome.

Hi, November...

I've been avid to see Philomena since I first read about the true story that inspired it ~ the lost little boy and his mother's journey of atonement ~ so the first showing at the Westway on release day saw me seated in style in one of the much-coveted half-circle 'boxes' at the back (I mention this because Frome's wonderful independent cinema deserves a plug at every opportunity.) I've not read Martin Sixsmith's book, but Stephen Frears' film superbly told this moving personal tale. Judy Dench and Steve Coogan are both utterly brilliant ~ Martin Sixsmith writes he hopes his 'snootiness and self-absorbtion' are both exaggerated in the portrayal, but both the mother and the journalist are shown with sympathy not sentimentality, and their relationship is moving but never mawkish.  Rotten Tomatoes is succulent with critical acclaim ~ I specially like the Financial Times verdict: "This is a doleful, radiant, understated comedy of hope and faith. That's almost a definition of good British cinema". Tears and laughter is the general verdict, though one squashed tomato was chucked on grounds of anti-catholicism, which seems strange for a film that despite the harrowing, angry-making, truth about Church practice in the past is delicately assertive that things have improved... and so they bloody well should, since this was a baby-farm business model run on cruelty and hypocrisy (not my summary, the Guardian's.) Only occasionally does the journalist fail to swallow his atheism ~ as when exasperated by Philomena's unshakeable insistence on her 'sin' he demands "Why did God bestow on us a sexual desire that he wants us to resist - was it just to alleviate the extreme boredom of omnipotence?"

Nunney Acoustic Café on Sunday afternoon always provides great live music ~ with newspapers and scrummy food on the side ~ but this month was especially sensational, featuring among others David Waddington, Julian (Bugs) Hight, and the fabulous combo of Richard Kennedy and Pete Gage with a sumptuous & totally stunning blues set.   And rain doesn't stop outside play in Frome either: the streets were as crowded with witches, zombies, and vampires on Halloween as they were with shoppers for Sunday's lively stall-holders' Super Market. So I'll end this post with a Samhain scream and a morning rainbow.