Autumnal delights, before days under canvas begin

Samhain passed fairly quietly Frome this year: blustering storms cancelled the town fireworks and hallowe'en tricks and treats seemed muted, almost as if the punctured national build-up to October 31st left us unsure whether to celebrate or shudder. The week started extremely well however, with a superb Poetry Cafe at the Garden Cafe featuring delightful Stephen Payne as guest and Jo Butts, 2019 Festival Poet Laureate, re-sharing her winning poem.
Stephen's set featured quirky elegiac poems, arriving gently but with hi-impact afterglow -I especially loved the conga rhythm in the poem about eight siblings whose non-survival matched their order of arrival... Our nineteen (yes, 19!) superb open-mic poets offered an entertaining & engrossing variety of themes and styles, from John Christopher Woods' satiric ode to the Bullington Boys (to the tune of Cambeltown Loch) to Kat Jones' Tempest-ic life-story-style poem.  I was too enthralled to take any photos, but here's a picture of Stephen Payne somewhere else, and the flyer for our next event: the Festive Poetry Cafe (on December 9th will be an all-Open Mic event with lots of !!!presents!!!

Great music this week too: Root Sessions at the Grain Bar gave us Light Garden, billed as 'genre-defying' and mostly  sounding more funky than folksy, apart from the harmonic overtone singing which is a speciality they also teach. Peter Burns, supporting solo with an impressive loop system, included several of his own songs in his set, including a deeply personal one about his hometown, Belfast, called ironically The Riches of America - link here.

On Friday, an evening with the impossible-to-overpraise Pete Gage Band ensured The Cornerhouse was full, with dancing despite the crush. Pete's band set also included sway-slow numbers like their unforgettable of Motherless Child and - my favourite - Evening - the versions in those 2 links are recorded at other events, but give an idea of Pete's powerful versions of these classics.

Paul Kirtley brought another Bare to the Bones music event to the Artisan, featuring popular local country & blues band Hello Hopeville. His house band, the We Don't Scare Easy crew, focus on singalong enjoyment - Have You Ever Seen the Rain, and All Along the Watchtower are popular standards - with great impro jamming too.

Concluding the week's evening gigs, here's a glimpse of the lively Jazz Jam in the Cornerhouse, a relaxed atmosphere for musicians of any jazz-experience - and always with some great pro.s!

This Sunday being the first one of November, the streets of Frome were filled for the penultimate independent market of the year. 'More than a Market' is tagline of the Frome Independent and on a sunny winter's day it can seem more like party, as the queues for the street food and pop-up bars aren't as long as in summer yet it's mild enough for strolling and enjoying the bands and buskers. This view from the other side of the river shows the tip of the cross-town spread of an event that boasts over 80,000 visitors annually (I put all that in just because I like the autumny image) Here's a few of the music-makers this time - the band onstage is the Decades but I don't know the soloist and didn't ask either the busker on Stony Street corner or the DJ in Ramshack Barbers - let me know if you know and this will be amended! Have a happy November, all.

Historical art and drama in a sunshiny Easter week

Armageddon RIP -the death of the final conflict- is a powerful concept appropriate for this era,  and this week especially, as Barry Cooper's exhibition at Silk Mill tracks the sombre years of media controlled explosions since the Twin Towers fell, using newspaper front pages overlaid with symbolic imagery (mostly a Gaia figure or a bird) - right up to last week's news of Julian Assange's sacrificial expulsion. Barry is mainly known for his stone carvings - the 'woman howling at the moon' in Longleat is his - but he also has hundreds of superb, quiet, line drawings in the cabinet drawers.

Over in Bristol, the exhibition in College Green Vestibule is all about the Witch, her importance, history, and accessories. Thea Caimbeul along with Rachael Fountain (forager, scyther, archer, taxidermist) have researched enough for a fascinating book, and these museum-style presented items, beside the shadow of the cathedral, are an impressive celebration of women's presence throughout the ages, as a power and a threat. (The 'wings for smudging' are collected from roadkill, if you're anxious!)

Once again, a fat & enthusiastic report on music this week. 'Bare to the Bones' which began as Paul Kirtley organising a few charity jam nights, has become a fixture in the Frome musical diary, with various pubs now hosting these events, and a roughly regular house band. There's always a party atmosphere as well as great music: Friday's event was another 'special' with added energy from the uke-maestro Decades and the marvellous Hoodoos and Paul's mash-up medleys of rock classics all the way down the Root 66 timeline. Here's (most of) the line-up at the end of the night:

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The sun-soaked Bank Holiday weekend was perfect for a walk along the river from Lansdown into Bath for a Sunday afternoon session at the Bell Inn, a great bohemian pub - walls crammed with posters promoting music events and Extinction Rebellion, and stage filled, on this occasion, with Kevin Brown and the Shackdusters including guest guitar wizard Mark Goudswaard. Dancing ensued!
Jazz Jam at the Cornerhouse was suitably mellow for a warm evening, with the sultry sounds of Caroline Waterhouse and John Plaxton, as guest singer & clarinetist respectively, and Graham Dent's popular trio.
Music too at Mells Daffodil Day as the blazing sunshine continued and the 3 mile path along Vallis Vale beside the river, unusually un-muddy, was thronged with walkers from Frome in holiday mood. No daffodils left, but there's always a great fairground atmosphere with food stalls, funfair, and vintage engines on display, and a beer tent big enough to stage several bands throughout the day. Here's the terrific Raggedy Men, punk revivalists with unflagging style & amazing energy, rocking the all-age crowd.

Time to move to drama, and Bristol's Tobacco Factory Theatres has a new production: Our Country's Good was written in 1988 by Timberlake Wertenbaker and inspired by his discovery that in 1788, due to the visionary beliefs of an influential officer in charge of the penal colony in Botany Bay, a group of prisoners were cajoled into putting on a play. The behind-the-scene struggles of a group of antagonistic misfits in rehearsal is not a new device (Shakespeare used it for his mechanicals in Midsummer Night's Dream) but the fact that this is based on actual data recorded in diaries makes this play-about-a-play more intriguing. Dramatic structure is complex, moving between discussions about the purpose of drama to the drama itself which means character differentiation is crucial, and as twenty roles were undertaken by nine actors, the director and designer had a big responsibility. Life in such grim confines equalises everyone to some extent and it may help this sense of fusion to have most of the cast in grey sweat-pants but it does nothing to create the essential hierarchy dominating this micro world.  I thought initially the press images were rehearsal outfits but sadly, they're not. Good performances from the actors, with Heather Williams and Kim Heron outstanding among the women, and Dan Wheeler outstanding among the all-excellent male cast. Images: Mark Dawson Photography

Final footnote: Where the fault lies, the Frome Festival production from Nevertheless Pub Theatre, has begun fine-tuning in rehearsals: Here's Harry and Hal getting into the rather strange zone of Your Time Starts Now. Wednesday July 10th is the date for your diaries - upstairs at the Cornerhouse.

Rebellion, madness and masses of music

With local elections coming up, everyone in Frome is probably aware that community issues are high on the town's agenda, so it will surprise no-one that Extinction Rebellion riders en route for London came through our town to rest overnight and swell their numbers for the cycle ride ahead. Here they are on Saturday morning, about to set off.
Excitement continued to ripple around town as Raves from the Grave celebrated Record Store Day with new releases, DJ sets, and in-store visit from Ethan Johns, legendary songwriter & performer. His short and much appreciated song set included Ruskin's Farthing, a tale of the 1878 libel case brought by Whistler against critic John Ruskin for referring to his night painting as 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.'  At a time when aesthetics were shifting away from Victorian representationalism, the court case aroused massive interest - as did the verdict, which went in favour of Ruskin but with no costs and only one farthing damages awarded. Basically, they thought Whistler's painting a mess but Ruskin was just being spiteful. It's a great song, I wish I could find it online to share with you. Ethan's new album is Revelator with Black Eyed Dogs - you can hear it in new-location Raves' great new listening booth!
Another Record Store Day feature, Frome's hard-core punks Sick Ones introduced their new singer with an intimate and rowdily popular session at Ramshack Barbers- here's Kristie Easterbrook with Charlie & Andy launching the new look.

The Cornerhouse gave us a diversely musical weekend, with Nasty Habits playing classic rock numbers on Saturday and next night a fabulous Frome Jazz Club event - Keith Harrison-Broninski with Al Swainger on double bass and Billy Weir drums with John Martin guest saxophonist, in a session of the 'infectious and irresistible grooves, with catchy riffs' of Cape Jazz.

Sunday afternoon brought the monthly Nunney Acoustic Cafe, always varied and this time with an interesting mix including traditional folk songs and original material, also with a satisfying waft of protest music - I particularly enjoyed Francis Hayden playing Blowing in the Wind (pictured) and Nathan Lewis-Williams' version of the Reg Meuross song England Green and England Grey.  Here's Francis, and Al Cosnett with Jo Munroe from Desmonds Dawn, with lively original songs in style they 'like to call flunk.'  Young singer-songwriters were also well represented - look out for Dan Williams and guest of the day Danny McMahon.

Concluding this panoply of performances, Kevin Brown brought his Shackdusters and his personal magnetism to this week's Grain Bar Roots Session. Not only brilliant on slide guitar, Kevin is a witty raconteur and brought us tales from Goa to Texas, via Lancashire, with a song about two Preston lads who died at the Battle of the Alamo, then back to earth with a pollution protest. A great night.

Book corner: A visit with Frome writer friends Alison Clink and Frances Liardet - whose own recent novel We Must Be Brave is making big enthusiastic waves from America to Australia - to Bath's lovely venue Burdalls Yard for Novel Nights last Friday. This great initiative of Grace Palmer follows an excellent model: there's a chosen theme for short interviews & readings with local writers first, followed after a break by a more extensive interview by Colette Hill of a guest writer - on this occasion Maggie Gee whose new book is a black comedy entitled Blood.  'Britain is in a very farcical state'  says Maggie, 'and the way I let off steam is in writing humour.' As a bonus for me, my co-writing-group friend Debby Holt (first picture) was one of the local writers also demonstrating fluent use of humour for characterisation as she shared a scene  from her upcoming novel The Perfect Couple.

Bedlam was the name chosen by Stina Falle for her exhibition at the Silk Mill last weekend of her lifetime's artworks - sketches, collages, portraits, and personal artefacts. Stina was selling all and any of the artefacts for charity (though sadly her cardboard-replica-Duchamp's-loo collection- box was nicked from the front door along with its donations) and this 'celebration of spring madness' is another fascinating example of the diversity of creativity in Frome.

The intrinsic insanity of human nature brings me nicely to the current production of Equus from English Touring Theatre & Theatre Royal Stratford East at Bristol Old Vic till 20 April - it's been touring since mid-February but there's no flagging in this 'electric re-imagining' of Peter Shaffer's award-winning play. Written in 1973 and redolent of the the psychological interests of that era, the play is long and very wordy but complex beyond the apparent characterisations and with a strong unexpressed homo-erotic element. The central character is a teenage boy with an obsession to worship which has through childhood events become subverted into a passion for horses: ‘he’s trying to become a centaur’ laments his psychiatrist, enviously, seeing this burning desire for something both physical and spiritual as an element missing in his own life. This is an impressive production. The set is nowhere, literally, just a stage. A few props come on sometimes and the lighting is atmospheric, but you are basically left in your own imagination, listening fascinated to the complex internal and external conflicts evoked by voices and the interaction between Alan and his equine alter-ego and god, Nugget, unforgettably portrayed by Ira Mandela Siobhan. (Image: The Other Richard)

Dramatic passion and all that jazz...

February's 18° days may be rightly disturbing, but the week's sunshine worked well for Tobacco Factory's new Shakespearean offering of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I can be a tad purist about Shakespeare - in my view his timeless themes rarely need tweaks to bring them on trend - so it was a delight to find that this updated-version is superb: nine excellent actors and innovative direction ensured that the comedy is laugh-out-loud funny, plots are clear, and energy high throughout. The tripled-up roles of the cast work brilliantly, with special praise to the men: Joseph Tweedale whose gay Helen/us was not only plausible but seemed almost essential, Dan Wheeler whose Flute totally & hysterically stole the final scene, and Danann McAleer,  brutal as a fairy and charmingly ineffective as an Am.Dram co-ordinator - all memorable roles. Heather Williams’ Bottom will stay with me for some time too… I did have some reservations: costumes were not 100% successful, and nor were the fly-tip props, the fairies looked and sounded more like a tribe of crusties, and the start-&-finish ‘twist’ didn't do it for me - but the same-sex love affairs worked well and the Pyramus and Thisbe cameo was a real highlight. At a deeper level, director Mike Tweddle credibly found connections with our 'harsh and problematic' possible future: 'Sadly, in 2019 it's all too easy to see how our politically fragile society could lose its hard-won social values.' Highly recommended, on till 6 April. Images: Mark Dawson.

Chicago, based loosely on life in that city during the 1920s,  era of jazz, 'celebrity criminals' and lawyers who lucratively defended them, proved a splendid choice for a 'High School Edition' from Frome College students. Directed by Claudia Pepler, on a superb art deco set designed and built by Mike Witt, with on-stage orchestra, razzle-dazzle costumes, this outstandingly talented team of youngsters danced and sang their way brilliantly to the happy ending - for the starlet murderers anyway. Megan Wright and Cordelia Tarbrooke were stunning in these roles (Images: Mike Witt top, Chris Bailey cast shot), with Barney Nuttall great as hurt husband (front end L) and Solo Candy (front end R) unforgettable as Billy Flynn, the media-manipulating lawyer. Frome College productions regularly reach a standard that makes it unsurprising that so many participants go on to train for the professional stage - or that the dedicated team of adult supporters regularly win awards in this field. This is another memorable one.

Meanwhile, Frome was preparing to transform itself into a magical promenade theatre show for the entire weekend, as Window Wanderland decorated the town's streets with 189 (I counted the list on the back of the map!) houses created fantasy lands and fairytales on their windows. Most used coloured tissue and silhouette cut-outs, some were simple and some were impressively complex, and the total effect was fabulous. Schools and shops and businesses joined in too, and the most elaborate creations- like the projected works of Singers Foundry -had clusters of admirers around them, with passing groups offering further recommendations, in this extraordinary night gallery. This one is not the most sophisticated or artistic, but for me it sums up the spirit of the project, and our town too.


Another good week for live music as well, with an excellent Roots Session at the Grain Bar - honey-voiced Steve Loudon supporting The Spoonful, Cream-themed blues trio with an esoteric range of stringed instruments, good material, and great voices.

 Friday was a big night at the Cornerhouse: Martin Earley celebrated his 8th 'birthday' as landlord there with a session from The Critters, the 8-strong rock-&-reggae band that Carling would probably claim to have made 'if we made bands'...  Nicki Mascall led this high-energy outfit through a medley of favourites from Moondance to Stir It Up, and the entire bar instantly became a mosh-pit of dancers. An unforgettable event, huge credit to all the band.

Saturday night is always a dilemma, as there's live music in several bars, but after a long window-watching walk, I dropped into 23 Bath Street for the garage band night: Los Grebos, the 4-piece covers band with an unexplained passion for Ken & Barbie, and Unit X, tagline "Frome 3-piece doing original punky noise psycho metal numbers". Here's Ron Tree, well-known and popular in Frome, singing about the badger people ('you can't kill the badger people/ they survived the ice age/ they're the recorders of time...') - photography was initially tricky as stage set-up seemed designed to smoke the musicians out like foxes, but the dancing was good.


No Independent Market report this month, as the planned March restart was kicked off the schedule by storm Freya - but with great resourcefulness, the busking stage removed itself to  23 Bath Street where the Back Wood Redeemers gave a great show to families, friends, and surprised regulars.

And if that wasn't enough music for three days, Jazz Jam returned to the Cornerhouse for a lively session - with superb singing - hosted by Simon Sax -sadly the dim red lighting made this impossible to record without a night-vision camera, but you've probably got enough pictures bragging about Frome for one week anyway. Let's end with a look ahead to spring.... crocuses along the river path, planted by the young rangers from Critchill School. Thanks, kids!