Strange days indeed...

Let's avoid the politics of realtime and open with the treat-of-the-week for lockdown theatre fans as National Theatre streamed their 2012 production This House, written by James Graham, directed by Jeremy Herrin:   2 hours & 40 minutes of fast-moving, well scripted, engagingly acted, brilliant drama - funny and edge-of-chair tense by turns, entirely set in and around the Whips offices in the Houses of Parliament. As well as a gripping account of the turbulent five years of government in a hung parliament from 1974 until the draconian years of Thatcher, the play shows the mini-dramas and learning curves of each character, and what stays with me most of all is the final moral dilemma: would you sacrifice your party's future to save a man's life, probably only for one more day? Is retaining your human compassion more important than loyalty to your political tribe - even if it will mean they lose power and the entire nation will suffer when the self-seeking opposition with their harpy leader take the helm... ? It's a tough call.

With hindsight, though at the time she shocked me, I tend to agree with the most ruthless Whip of all, Ann Taylor, (Lauren O'Neill) who favoured calling in the sick MP to make up their essential numbers in the vote, and snapped back at appeal 'He'll die!' from Bob Mellish (Phil Daniels) with 'He'll die happy.' Strong comedy scenes too, with some reminiscent of the Riot Club in POSH - the public-schoolboy-mentality satire, as the Mace is hauled from place and swung around like a caber in an inter-party brawl.

Miracle Theatre also dug into its 2012 archives for this month's Monday streaming for The Importance of Being Earnest and I wish they hadn't: it's impossible to improve on Oscar Wilde's elegant wit in this satire of society manners and values. Making key characters clumsily buffoonish, transposing speech from master to servant, and decorating the action with silly dances and yoga poses is a directorial misjudgement, even for an Open Air Theatre Company with an eye on the kids in the audience, which perhaps explains Ben Dyson's unusually unimposing performance as Aunt Augusta.

 BBC Radio 4 programme The Spark, where 'Leading thinkers posit solutions to the structural problems of our age', featured Frome's Peter Macfadyen last week, discussing the impact of the 'Independents for Frome' invasion of the town council in 2011 with a brief to revitalise local politics.
'I've never been a member of a political party,' Peter explained, '- they clearly don't work. They create an environment of conflict and a system that's dysfunctional. We just wanted to do something that would work.' Once Peter's motley group of wanna-be game-changers had taken every ward in the town, they were able to start changing the status quo, abolishing sub-committees and generally making procedures more informal and understandable. In a very honest summary, Peter remembers problems and regrets as well as successes and the growing interest, in UK and abroad, in the Flat-pack Democracy ideal. Here's Peter in one of the home-made chains of office donated to him as Mayor - so many and so diverse they featured in an exhibition at the end of his year in office - here's just one.


Also words: with no live audiences available, indefatigable poet Liv Torc has created a poem for the Radio Somerset website: You Make A Difference. As mentioned last week, Liv continues to collect and compile 'haiflu' reflecting feelings about lockdown, posting a film of a selection at the end of each week ( Week 10  here).

With literally months of lockdown dominating life, it seems weird to now report on a music event in real time. In an ingenious feat of engineering and after consultation with his neighbours, soundman Steve Tomkinson set up a trio of Frome's musicians to perform at the front of his house to a - social-distance-meticulous - live audience. Paul Kirtley's version of Tom Petty's famous Breakdown song as Lockdown and Bob Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere (with a few pithy comments about Durham) were supported by fabulous guitar riffs from David Goodman and Carl Sutterby's evocative harmonica. A blast of normal energy in our strange, static world.

And after a weekend of solid sunshine touching 28 C here in Frome  - that's 82.4F to you Mo - these May bulletins will end with some glimpses of the scandalously lovely scenery around Frome last week: the proliferation of birds, bees, butterflies, sunshine and serenity, all contrasting irreconcilably with the 'reality' on our TVs and phones in these strange days. 'Stay well' is the new goodbye.

Wake me up when September ends

It was National Poetry Day last week and Liv Torc, chieftain queen of the Hip Yak Shack was commissioned by BBC Somerset Sound to create a poem celebrating 'home truths' about the county. Liv visited Hunting Raven Books on Saturday to share this and other poems - you can listen here, and she'll perform this, and her now-viral poem Human Emergency, at the Green Platter event next week - if that's not in your diaries, put it in now!  Poetry's annual day was also marked by a performance in the now-disused Shepton Mallet prison choreographed by Frome's Rosie Jackson - I missed this, but there's an excellent blog account here by Deborah Harvey, one of the poets. The all-male prison closed except for visits 2013 after four centuries of chequered history: I visited it regularly for a while to tutor one of the prisoners who had a yen to write a play and a social worker prepared to support him, and found all the Category C lifers remarkably pleasant.
It's now five years since Flatpack Democracy - a guide to creating independent politics was published by eco-logic books as an account by Frome's IfF councillor & ex-Mayor Peter Macfadyen of the work behind establishing Independents for Frome, who took over the council and still hold it now. Flatpack Democracy 2.0 tells what happened next, which includes national and international connections formed in response to this template, and was launched last week at Rye Bakery (with nibbles and prosecco, Frome's pack isn't too flat for that.) Publisher Peter Andrews followed his role as barman with an intro to Peter Macfadyen's brief talk,which ended with a quiz for each table. Questions like Where was the term 'flat-packing' in this context coined?  (it was Amsterdam) and How many times has Frome's MP voted to reduce spending on welfare (it's 23, shockingly) generated much conversation at the tables, as independent councillors and candidates from Shepton, Bath and Wells had joined us for the event. For anyone interested in how communities function and thrive, Peter's sequel will be as invaluable as his first report, full of realism about group interactions and written with humour as well as the wisdom of experience.

Despite this week being short for me - Spanish sunshine was still the view even on Wednesday - there's a lot of music to report.  Visual Radio Arts featured an hour of The Hoodoos, Frome's 'funky swampy' new sensation - you can watch it here, as VRA keeps an archive of all its shows - with Carl Sutterby stepping out of his Raggedy Man role to interview the band members: here he is talking to multi-talented David Goodman.


The Hoodoos  headlined at the Grain Bar Open Mic on Sunday too, in a crammed programme with a large attentive audience and, unusually for this venue, onstage lighting -welcome in theory but somewhat eyeball-challenging.

Ben Hardy-Phillips, who recently set up this monthly event, has extensive contacts so it was great to see musicians from Glastonbury and Bruton - and young talent like the fantastic foursome '1156'.

Visual art now, and a brilliant new exhibition: Art Interiors: Garden & Home by Steven Jenkins and Jenny Raggett opened on Friday in a party atmosphere at the Silk Mill, a perfect location to display these beautiful ceramics and fabric items as well as wall art - all available to view and buy until 16th October, well worth a visit.

Also a visual treat, here's a glimpse of Patrick Dunn's 'Banco de Gaia' visuals at the Loft on Friday night - perfect for multi-sensational dancing as September ends and there's another Independent Market, where Frome's Red Rebels walk silently through the crowds to remind us that climate change protest is escalating as the new month begins.

Frankly, a miscellany

Booking is now open for  Frome Festival in July and Annabelle & I have been walking Rodden Meadow at one step to 5 million years in preparation for our Time Walk - the story of the earth in a thousand paces, struggling to unknot  the scientific complexities of the last 6.5 billion years. Solar Physicist Keith Barnham has no such difficulty: in The Burning Answer, "a user's guide to the solar revolution" he explains history, here-&-now and future options in a guaranteed-readable form.

 Here's Keith at his Hunting Raven book signing on Saturday with poet Claire Crowther and Oliver Dowding, organic farmer and enthusiastic purchaser. And while we're on the subject of earth ~ survival of, and best way to live on ~ Flatpack Democracy, the story of Frome council's successful bid for independence, is still creating a stir with a Guardian feature last week.

Moving from prose to poetry, Rosie and I were guests at Words from the Rising Sun, a friendly venue in Bath with an intimate atmosphere. A fun night, thanks Sadie - and Kevin Boylan on the tin can guitar.  And moving on again to drama, Nevertheless Productions was featured on the Frome FM writing spot Write On with David Lassman, on Sunday.

This year is the fourth anniversary of Frome's unique Pub Theatre which, inspired by Rosie's vision of bringing professional productions to the town at an affordable price in an accessible venue, has been thriving at The Cornerhouse ever since. During those four years we've brought in 14 productions, all using professional companies, so it feels good to pause and celebrate before our next project: War Zones, commissioned for Frome Festival and  showing on July 8th and 9th ~ you can book now...  we do sell out you know!
Speaking of drama, I must do a quick plug for Lane's List: invaluable for anyone writing for stage as local playwright David Lane trawls the lucky bag of current dramatic opportunities.
And since this post is already a mishmash of themes and genres, I'll end on a musical note: the marvellous  Fat Stanley at the Olive Tree on Saturday night. Here's wishing you happy writing in the sunshine, and lots of dancing too.