Entertaining
Pithy
Engrossing
Offensive
Surprising!
Fabulous
Brilliant
Different
Intriguing
Imaginative
Thought-provoking
FANxxxxxxTASTIC!
Four in a Bed - drama quartet written by me and Rosie, co-produced with Bootleg Theatre Company - finished its Frome run on Saturday with sell-out audience and post-show party courtesy of Martin, new owner of Upstairs at the Lamb and big supporter of our pub theatre venture Nevertheless. Friday night was an unexpected sell-out too, and feedback has been amazing, from one-word responses (typical selection above) to emails texts & calls. "Thank you for a wonderful evening, innovative and enjoyable, Frome so needs this!" "Really good writing - absorbing, touching and funny!"

Massive thanks to Stew, Kerry, Sara and Joe for their strong acting and to Colin for bringing it all together. There's a final performance of this production on Wednesday at Eastney and then in festival the fun starts again when Bristol's Stepping Out company brings Lullabies of Broadmoor to Frome Festival.

“The nice thing about writing a book is you have to really think” says Debby Holt at the crammed launch of her totally engrossing new novel Friends Lies and Alibis at Toppings in Bath, a charmingly ingenuous comment from a writer who is actually extremely erudite, and crafts her domestic dramas with psychological insight as well as witty social observation. This story, she tells us, started out as the exploration of a toxic marriage, but ended up more about the relationship of the wife's two friends who made it their mission to release her by wrecking it. They have mixed motives in this but Debby points out breezily "I've never had an unmixed motive in my life." It's Debby at her best, with a storyline that never dips and characters you could recognise in the street - my favourite is Leah, feeling after a bad night: "Her future lay before her like the sea at Chesil Beach on a particularly gloomy day."

Just two weeks now to the opening night of FOUR IN A BED, Upstairs at the Lamb, Frome's first and only Pub Theatre. It's organised by Nevertheless Productions, the Theatre Company I coorganise with founder Rosie Finnegan (whose creative energy and vision was recognised in recent nominations for Frome's 'Person of the Year') and our first co-production with Salisbury's Bootleg Company. We're particularly excited because we each wrote two of these four short plays, all featuring a bed in very different ways - and director Colin Burdon tells us rehearsals are going really well. Tickets are just £5 for an hour of lively dramatic action, Thursday 10th, Friday 11th, and Saturday 12th March. So come along and find out 'How they did it', discover where 'the Girl with Blue Hair' has gone, see if Marie in finds the freedom she craves in 'A Single Bed', and learn Jake's secret in 'Mirror Image' ... Please!