Music, art, & sunshine plus a dash of technotrauma

So this week we're on a new MacBook, which is at present wary & wilful but hopefully will calm soon. Or perhaps that's me. Anyway, here goes with the update - music first:  Frome loves its punk: no need ever to ask Whatever happened to the heroes, all the Shakespearos - they're here, in the throbbing heartbeat of the town's music life, and specifically so on Thursday at Frome Cricket Club where band night turned into a massive dance party. Here's Du Kane (vocals) Steve Smith (bass) Nick Horton (drums) and Dave Maskrey on lead guitar, after a staunch opening set from Carl Sutterby, rocking the room with Teenage Kicks, Sex 'n Drugs 'n Rock 'n Roll, and other unforgettable classics.

On Wednesday evening Bar Lotte enjoyed Iain Ballamy's brilliant band line-up, with Henrik Jenson on double bass, Jem Stacey on drums and Denny Illett on guitar, with classic numbers ranging from the romance of The Street Where You Live to a funky version of Take Five. 

And zigzagging from punk via jazz to rock, on Saturday night Brakelight filled The Sun with their capering and classic anthems: Meatloaf, Stones, Queen, Beatles, Bowie... and more, all delivered hi-energy style to the enthusiastic audience in the bar.

Art openings featured this week, as Black Swan Arts is offering two impressive exhibitions at the moment: the Round Tower is featuring Artists for the Ukraine, a small but impressive collection of work donated by the makers to raise funds to send in support for Ukraine's refugees via our twin town Rabka-Zdój in Poland. Some, like this painting 'Sunflowers of Hope' by Annemarie Blake, have been created especially for this project - you can see all the art here.   

In the Long Gallery, another impressive diversity of artwork is on view at the Frome Art Society Spring Exhibition. This egalitarian group is fully supportive to artists of all abilities, and all submissions for the annual show are accepted, which makes the standard of work on show all the more impressive. Here's Stuart Weightman, standing below his portrait of 'Lee', which won second prize in the Vera Skinner awards and wouldn't have looked out of place on TV's Portrait Artist of the Year.

Big excitement in the town centre of Friday night, as new proprietors Francis and Keren Hayden (of Nunney Acoustic Cafe fame) celebrated their arrival at Home - a re-christening of the establishment previously known as Fat Radish. The theme here will be 'grazing' while chatting, rather than set courses, and Keren's focus is on fresh ingredients and desserts. There will also be regular performance events! The launch party was great fun, with much chat, free-flowing fizz, and sound-supremo Will Angeloro. Here's me & Keren with Tracey Rupp Rawlins.

Sunshine continued into the weekend for the market - also a 'Makers Market' in the main hall, for local craftsfolk of all kinds, offering edibles, wearables, cuddleables, and more: among the many intriguing artefacts, Little Spoons Ethical Jewellery was especially intriguing, as Lizzie buys antique silver spoons and remakes them into rings, retaining some of the patterning. Also beautiful & intriguing, Ginger Pink Yarns are created with dyes from foraged plants and plant-based food waste - onion skins, if you were wondering, create a luscious toffee-gold colour.

Meanwhile outside in the market yard, traders & buyers enjoyed the hottest day of the year so far, and the return of popular busker Mark Abis.  And La Strada's icecreams are back...

Concluding this week with a view of early evening across the lakes my way home from a walk to Marston Church: it's a lovely route, with flower-rimmed lanes and long views across the fields to Cley Hill - very precious now, as this land is all under threat of dubious development - and, after seeing Jacob Rees-Mogg's gushing tweet Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia, my thinking was that there might be some kind of celebration in churches today. At Marston. I found a few sheep nibbling grass bin the graveyard but the door was locked.  A great walk, though.

Out & about! Vienna, Belfast, & a phantom landscape

Bristol Old Vic director Tom Morris pulled off what many will consider an impressive coup when Mark Rylance agreed to develop his own personal project with this theatre company: the result is Dr Semmelweis, the true story of the doctor who found a way to fight the virus killing women in childbirth in the 19th Century. With hindsight it seems quite extraordinary that hundreds of women died because the experts in charge hadn't thought that washing their hands after dissecting cadavers before thrusting them into the bodies of women in labour might be a good idea, but this was the revolutionary and life-saving concept that Dr Semmelweis came up with before sadly parting company with his sanity, along with his wife and reputation.  This is a stunning production and we in the southwest are privileged that Mark Rylance brought his personal project - which actually predates the current pandemic - to Bristol Old Vic.  News is out now that Tom Morris is stepping down as artisic director of the theatre he steered to high international reputation during the last 12 years - I can't believe it's actually that long since I persuaded Tom to a breakfast meeting at the quayside to talk about his plans for Plays International. Under his steerage, Bristol Old Vic has been transformed physically as well as artistically: this production, with its emphasis on essential innovation against all odds, is curiously apt despite the personal tragedy of Dr Semmelweis himself. 

It's not a straight-foward hurtle from obstetrics to madness, however: there is much reverie and wafting dance, mostly by dream images, en route, and some violent rows as the pioneering Hungarian doctor is obstructed by the hostility of his superior (Alan Williams) and by his own unfortunate manner: an incoherence mingled with arrogance and, sadly, the approaching insanity which finally claims him. Mark Rylance is mesmeric in this role, managing to hold the audience's hopes that he may battle through his own crazy notions just as he battled through those of the hospital authorities', and come through somehow in the end. The set, conceived by Ti Green, effectively evokes an alien clinical environment while also providing balconies where the ghostly mothers, murdered by bad science, dance around in the mind of tortured, obsessive, Dr Semmelweis. (Choreography Antonia Franceschi, diaphanous costumes by Ti Green.) Oh, and a big shout-out to Ewan Black, playing 'off book' so seamlessly he had special applause at the end.

Ethereal dance-drama without spoken exchanges now, as Mark Bruce Company premiered their new production Phantoms at Frome's Merlin Theatre. This triple bill delivers all the intense atmospheric imagery and phenomenal skill in movement and mood that we've come to expect from this company. This was a triple bill, opening with two shorter pieces: Green Apples featured music by White Stripes as two dancers relate intensely to each other, and Folk Tales evoked quirky narratives of loves, betrayals and handed-on stories from the tapestry of our past. The final piece in this triology, Phantoms, opens in a landscape of beasts & strange savagery as well as extraordinary beauty in movement and connection. Ever-changing lighting effects & set details enhanced the mood of a dream - or a nightmare - of startling intensity. Phantoms will be touring nationally: we're privileged to have hosted the first performance in Frome.

 On to the movies now, and I have to admit I was disappointed in Belfast. It's set in 1970, just at the start of the the Troubles I remember well - living with a toddler and a baby in the centre of a city suddenly overtaken with civil war isn't something you readily forget - and this story opens with a barrage of street conflict as catholics in a 'mixed' street are assaulted with firebombs. So far, so nightly news. After that it goes a bit cute and goey. The boy is supposed to be nine, I discovered later, having taken him for much younger throughout. He's mad about the movies so we get snippets of popular 1970s films in full colour, to contrast with the monochrome of the backstreets - a set, not the actual streets, because Branagh was filming throughout the pandemic, which might explain the vaguely un-city-like feel of much of it. "Anybody who turns to “Belfast” for a delve into the roots of the Troubles in Northern Ireland will be frustrated," warns the New York Times, and it's true. Anyone who hopes for more insight into Branagh's formative years than a sentimental youthful crush and a passion for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be disappointed. What annoyed me most was the failure to show just how much Northern Ireland is another country, with a language & values that have little in common with the mainland. For an instance, young Kenneth & his cousin discuss how hard it is to know who's Catholic in their Protestant street. Excuse me?  That's like having a couple of south London kids discussing how to work out which of their mates are Caucasian and which Jamaican. Trust me, they know.  "A syrupy memoir offering little insight into a turbulent time," is one trenchant observation on  Rotten Tomatoes, though the Daily Mail thought it was 'an absolute joy.' 

For a more realistic view, also through unaware eyes, you might want to read The Price of Bread, the true story of a young family living in central Belfast when the Troubles erupted, as seen through the eyes of an English girl who came to live in this conflicted city with no idea of the ingrained realities and only hopeful hippy idealism to counter the terrifying hostilities exploding on the streets. You can get a copy from me, or Hunting Raven Books in Frome, or my publishers Hobnob Press - or any other outlet. It's about what it was like when the city streets were filled with blockades, when it wasn't safe to take children uptown, when red-white-and-blue were painted along the kerbs of the backstreets as a  warning, and the colour of your coat could mean the difference between an attack and a safe passing. That's the Belfast I remember. 

And finally... the absolute joy of packing up the jigsaws that cover the floor and rejoining the real world! A bit wobbly - a little bit woah! & a little bit wha? - but definitely in that lovely land called Beyond Covid.  Huge condolences to everyone who had it worse than me, massive thanks to everyone for their gifts & kindness. Here's a Frome market stall in Saturday sunshine, where Tom from Bristol Fungarium is selling chinese-inspired tinctures from mushrooms. Being a Leo, with an affinity for lion imagery, it wasn't surprising that the lion mushroom was the one that chose me: this amazing fungus looks like a massive exploded brain, but if it helps me get my house back to some kind of order and cleanliness, that will be magic indeed.  

The no-jacket-required issue, mostly outdoors

As we in the Southwest shuffle with fingers crossed into festival season, at present time there's much to look forward to. Frome Festival has a full programme out, and Bath Fringe Festival - always influenced by the creative energy of the students as well as the city's established traditions of music, theatre & comedy - is spilling with great-sounding events and exhibitions, many of them free.  Rosie and I went along to see a late-night production of a new play by Gabrielle Finnegan (who Frome audiences may remember from our Nevertheless production Time Slides for the 2016 Frome festival) at Widcombe Social Club on Monday evening. Gabrielle joins the two actors as narrator of Cat and her Whittington, retelling the familiar story from a modern perspective & a self-avowed Marxist feminist view. Full of factual data and angry polemic, this unapologetically transgresses the general rule that entertainment shouldn't preach, but all the case-study situations are realistic and the link narration, delivered mainly in panto-style rhyming couplets, is witty as well as vehement. Personally I really enjoyed it - this is a director/performer to look out for. 

Still lingering in Bath, the Holburne Museum is reopening, but - like several theatres in the southwest, with a sympathetic eye on those still not comfortable with - or able to - travel, so there's an online exhibition of the works of Thomas Lawrence, introduced by curator Amina Wright and free on Youtube. Lawrence's reputation hasn't survived so strongly as his rival Gainsborough, whose famous Blue Boy (painted in response to his Red Boy) hangs in Dulwich Picture Gallery, a regular Sunday-afternoon-walk from my parents house when I was a child. Late 18th Century art was more admired at that time, and a reproduction of Lawrence's painting of Miss Murray hung over my bed as my father had, in a rare moment of sentiment triumphing over gloom, for some reason decided she looked a bit like me.   

And the fabulous sunshine has led to a scatter of outdoor gatherings, as well as some wonderful walks and incredible floral displays along hedgerows, fields, streets and gardens. Saturday's market was full of the usual displays of plants, craft, garments, jewellery, cakes and coffee stalls, with the Tribe busking on the bridge. Here's three popular Fromites - a writer and two musicians - spotted by an appropriate stall, and Somerset's favourite poet Liv Torc.

Live music has already returned to the streets of Frome with Frome's Tribe taking position on the bridge on market days, and on Sunday afternoon the boys took the open-air stage at Marston Park. Rosie and I walked there down the lanes and across the fields, and enjoyed a great set of rock classics from the band in this beautiful lakeside location in stunning sunshine.

If all this seems too paradisiacal, there's still danger imminent: our tranquil southern fields are under increasing threat of obliteration by a massive housing development which would destroy a rural area twice the size of Bruton. There's nothing NIMBY about the protest at this prospect: the estate will have no facilities, medical educational or social, and will simply provide easy access to the bypass for commuters - these houses won't supply local need, and many may remain vacant while developers wait for the real value - the land - to increase. StopSGC is the link to support the protest.

Ending this week with a quick shout-out to Frome Times, a local paper that reports the issues that actually matter. This week's front page features two environmental issues plus an award for the town's 'Active & In Touch' volunteer group: it's great to have a 'local paper' that follows and features the positive aspects of town life and the real issues. Frome Times is constantly an intelligent medium for actual news - you can read a digital version here. 

Theatrically to Bristol & Peru, realtime in Wales & Frome

This is a good time for theatre enthusiasts. Restrictions now allow companies to find ingenious ways to rehearse, but are still tight enough for online productions to continue - and by now they're fairly sophisticated. So Bristol Old Vic is now offering Touching the Void as performed in "a bespoke sound-stage in its 255yr old auditorium which not only created the atmosphere of being in a theatre, but transported viewers to the mountain itself -from anywhere in the world." Devised by BOV director Tom Morris in 2018, this drama tells the true story of an outrageous attempt to scale one of the most difficult peaks in the Peruvian Andes, as explored from the perspective of a non-mountaineer marvelling that anyone would purposefully risk their life to purposelessly climb a crag. Which is most of us, I imagine.  In this dramatisation by David Greig of the book of the same name by Joe Simpson, the nearly-deceased climber, it’s his sister who takes the inquisitorial role, initiating the dramatic interaction by repeatedly asking why, until Simon Yates, the other climber, compels her to explore their drama via furniture & fittings and a vivid imagination. There's a good short summary here.  The initial, live & highly acclaimed, production came at the end of the Bristol Old Vic's long closure for a £26m renovation project so it's fitting that this revival celebrates the gradual ending of the plague closure. Fingers crossed, anyway. Fiona Hampton takes the prime role of Joe's sister, with Josh Williams as Joe and Angus Yellowlees as Simon, and Patrick McNamee as a random hitchhiker.  Set & costume design by Ti Green. (screen shots by me.)  

Also last week, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory offered an online medley of Shakespearean sonnets and speech extracts in a patchwork of recitations by 'five contemporary characters as we explore our relationship with our city and our culture.'  The Place At The Bridge is written - or rather, compiled - by Chinonyerem Odimba and directed by Helena Middleton, and has the immense bonus of constant accompaniment throughout by the brilliant Gambian kora player Sura Susso - here with Zachary Powell, an impressively strong presence throughout. (my screen shots.) 

Moving now from Peru via Bristol to Wales: to Tywyn, on the southernmost coastal tip of the Snowdonia National Park, an area of forests and lakes and - last week anyway - solid sunshine. Developed into a resort in the 1870s by benefactor John Corbett, it's now famous for its narrow-guage mini Talyllyn Railway which appears inspired by Rev W Awdry but was actually designed to service the slate mining up the hills in Abergynolwyn.  Slate is everywhere - even fences are sometimes made of slate.

Our basecamp was a well-equipped camper-van site between a broad, silvery-sanded beach rimmed by grassy dunes, and viridian fields filled with grazing sheep, extending to the distant undulating verdant hills. A lush scene.  And nearby, the amazing Dolgoch Falls descend across flinty rocks in a fern-filled forest, and a mere 4.7-mile-walk in blustery winds along the sand, there's the picturesque sea front of Aberdovey - 'front' being the operative term, as there's not much build beyond the line of gaudy buildings that look like Villajoyosa without the palm trees, but the cappuccino ice-cream is lush.

 We were back in Frome in time for the Saturday market in glorious sunshine, complete with Paul's Tribe busking on the bridge and for a sumptuous garden party hostessed by Frome FM broadcaster, podcaster, & all-round delightful person Eleanor Talbot. 

Silk Mill opened its doors at the weekend for an exhibition by artists in the Visionary Arts Collective: The Future Is Now features a diversity of psychedelic and visionary images in a range of media. Much of it is beautiful, even when menacing, like these extraordinary figures.

And there's welcome news from the Friends of Easthill that Mendip DC have agreed not to use this ancient field for their housing development.  This is a big relief in terms of preserving the green lungs and biodiversity of Frome but, as campaign initiator Bharati Pardhy wrote when reporting the decision, the need for affordable housing is still a community concern. And it remains to be seen how, and if, Frome can retain its independent integrity after the local government reorganisation. Fingers remain crossed.

When 'normal life' is exciting... with fingers crossed...

Frome last week was abuzz about the return of the Saturday Market, a proper outdoor do with stalls selling everything from carved curios and tantalising jewellery to garden glories and amazing edibles - here's Liam's Cake Stall offering scandalously delicious vegan specialities.  Stoic local buskers Paul Kirtley and David Goodman were on the bridge to enhance the market yard browsing experience, too.

Across the town in Merchants Barton, the ongoing debate on the Saxonvale development moved  forward with a weekend-long presentation to the public of the preferred project, described as "an exemplary development on the banks of the River Frome, meticulously designed taking the historic grain of Frome as its starting point and delivering a characterful, vibrant, residential-led mixed-use community, with flexible commercial uses, high-quality public realm, and homes for all ages." It really does look what Frome needs, and local enthusiasm is high (especially for the lido.)

Also in Merchants Barton, the car parking space has been embellished by a project to raise awareness of Mental Health Awareness Week and to further highlight the need for creative development of the Saxonvale site.  Photographer Tim Gander shot pictures, which have been paired with poems and comments from users and staff at Mind in Somerset. Tim's aim is to highlight "what happens when a former industrial site is left to deteriorate. Fly-tipping, vandalism and natural decay take their toll" and his project has much to commend it, but it is worth remembering that the abandonment wasn't all negative: birds and wild flowers flourished among the trees and the old buildings were a prime site for the ingenuity of young street artists as Frome's graffiti Hall of Fame... here's a sample:

This week's zoom drama is Transition Tales from The Travelling Talesman, promoted by  the Art House Southampton with the tagline 'When gender fluid gods saved creation...' Not only in Greek mythology but in cultures across the world, deities changed gender as well as species, and his transformation tales ranged from the same-form duality of Hermaphroditus to flowers (Hyacinthus, remade in blood and tears), stars (Ursa major & minor) and in the unfortunate case of Actaeon, a stag promptly torn apart by his own hounds. Zeus had a particular penchant for metamorphosis, apparently, seducing his many lovers in multiple forms such as as a parrot, a pig, and a shower of water. Although this talk clocked in at 2 hours 20 minutes, the chronicles never flagged and the zoom audience was enthusiastic and articulate: the chat line was really interesting, posing questions like How does root sex work for fungus? (the answer is mitochondria) and comments on the gender of quabbatic numbers. Performances like this, with an option for audience participation, are as valuable for community health as Open Mic poetry online sessions, and hopefully will all outlive the pandemic and continue to zoom.

My week ended excitingly with a train journey to Gloucester, taking advantage of new freedom to meet my publisher and iron out various issues relating to my upcoming short story collection: not only a useful visit but a delightful one, as we had time to walk around the docks - which are beautiful - and the older parts of this odd, somewhat bedraggled, city. 

Relics of medieval buildings, religious and secular, are everywhere, though mostly overwhelmed by modern build, but there seems to be a will to reclaim civic history more effectively. There are quite a few boards explaining the history & context of some features - there's a storytelling bench designed by the master mason at the Cathedral in 1999 - but there's not much street art around the city. This alleyway, however, has been turned into a Van Gogh art gallery, with posters of the artist's final works all along the hoarding,  in a designated 'covid friendly outdoor exhibition.'  There are some interesting curios too, like the team of clock bellringers above the old woodwork & jewellery shop, the new gargoyles on the cathedral, and even the unpretentious centre of the old town where road signs to Eastgate, Southgate, Westgate, and Northgate once referred to the old main roads London, Devon, Wales, and the North - as shown in this 1805 map:

This was a week when summer came in starts and stops, rather like everyone's social plans, and a busy one for me: the deadline date for my quarterly round-up of drama in the southwest for Plays International (amazingly, and encouragingly, there was much to report even though not a single production was live), a restarted writing group, new fiction project underway, and sense of renewed freedom.  I'll end with a view of a sunny walk along the river path from Frome to Great Elm. 

Six shows, two openings and a market

From April till December, rain or shine, the first Sunday of the month is Independent Market day in Frome, so it was specially delightful that October's market enjoyed glittering sunshine on a balmy day. As always, roads are closed to traffic and the streets filled with a medley of stalls offering everything imaginable from retro frocks & elfin caps to tastings of cheese & chutney & chocolate (lots of chocolate). There's cider & churros, bicycle-tube earrings & candelabra made from plumbing, vintage cutlery & Victorian mementos, hippy Barbie dolls & crème caramel tartlets filled with fresh raspberries (I can vouch for those) and great live music too: local acts on the busking stage, and the Archangel hosting a lively ceilidh band in their courtyard. Frome Writers always have their stall out, and this Sunday there was also a Nude Commute signing at Hunting Raven Books, despite their current brief closure for refurbishment.
And David Lassman, creator of the Regency Detective series featuring Mr.Whicher-ish Jack Swann, led a series of short walks around the town to identify historic features  in his books, as impressively researched for his latest mystery The Circle of Sappho.  Fascinating to imagine ghosts from the past striding these cobbles as wool bales are loaded onto the London wagon outside the coaching inn on Gentle Street, to find the old lock-up (1798) at the end of Christchurch graveyard, see where Frome's own poet, Elizabeth Singer Rowe lived - and the two columns that stand as monument to the ambitions of Thomas Bunn who longed for Frome to vie with Bath in architectural style...

The Edinburgh-acclaimed Nottingham Playhouse production Tony's Last Tape came to Frome's Merlin Theatre on Sunday.  Written by Andy Barrett, this is performed by Philip Bretherton who is surprisingly effective as he doesn’t actually sound, look or move like Tony Benn or even any octagenarian. As evoked by the title, the piece starts as Samuel Beckett’s play did: an old man among his recording devices, with fumbling in pockets, peering and muttering, and even - as Krapp’s stage directions require -  takes out a banana, peers at it, strokes it, peels it, … meditatively eats banana.   But unlike Krapp, Tony Benn listens to few of his tapes as he contemplates his next speech ~ apparently an obituary for a colleague ~ and tries to avoid retelling old jokes, repeatedly sidetracked by nostalgia or distracted by gadget, remembering moments both glorious and tender, angrily mourning ‘the Blair terror’ and the market-branding of his party that strangled even the word socialism… (image Robert Day)

Not just homage to a hero, this piece is also extraordinarily relevant and everyone in the audience must have had goosebumps to hear that sneer ‘if you carry on we’ll be completely sidelined and unelectable’….   From ‘the most dangerous man in politics’ to ‘national treasure’, these real recollections from Tony Benn’s diaries show a man of huge integrity, who loved his wife and family (though he does seem to have doubted whether Hillary was suited to politics), who never forgot his brother’s death, who enjoyed Ealing comedies, and tea, and his pipe, and always believed Parliament is utterly useless as an agent of change - on the ground, in the streets is where it starts.  You have to be hopeful. Because there is no final victory, just the same battles that happen over and over... And here he is for real, at a Frome Labour Party party in 1989,  that's me looking dazzled next to him. It was my room at Frome College too. O the pride!

Monday was Autumn Poetry Cafe night in Frome with guest Hannah Teesdale whose new collection Laid Bare is out now, published by Burning Eye Books.  Hailed by reviewers as 'eloquently and endearingly brutal', 'vivid and visceral', Hannah's poems have quirky humour too and she's one of our most popular visitors at the cafe. A great open-mic session included pieces on seasonal subjects from the joy of toast to the savagery of grouse-shooting: good to welcome back regular favourites, like Dawn Gorman, John Christopher Wood, and Bee Brooks, and to hear new voices too (hello young Molly Turner, whose 'Dad can't cook'...)
Over to Bath now, for more theatre:

“All we ask is to remain being the writers of our own story, to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our characters” wrote Atul Gawande in Being Mortal, his 2014 bestseller on ‘illness, medicine, and what matters in the end’.  Canadian John Mighton is a philosopher and mathematician as well as an award-winning playwright, and his 2003 play (set in 1999) Half Life, at Ustinov Studio Theatre offers case-study drama on a crucial contemporary problem: how do elderly parents deal with being infantilised by their children and carers? This is a play about the duties of care, and loitering in institution corridors, and the importance, or not, of memory. The cast of eight are excellent ~ Helen Ryan as the early-stage-dementia mother is so sweet you want to take her home as a pet, though she would probably rather be released into the wild. Timescale charts her late-flowering lust, action is crafted from existential dilemmas about morality and mortality. 'What is the point of growing old?' demands her life-jaundiced son: answers he gets are all about the need for some kind of remembering, but perhaps God will do that for us as the farcical Reverend believes, or perhaps it ultimately doesn't matter who tucks you up at the end of the day as long as your pillows are soft (and there’s still money in your bedside drawer.) Director Nancy Meckler emphasises realism in this zen-like world of wilted colours and wet-playground games and waiting, the set designed by Janet Bird adds surreal chairs on every plane.  On till 5 November.

Also at the Theatre Royal Bath: another dramatic study of social mores but in a different era: EM Forster's turn-of-the-20th-Century novel A Room With A View. Most of the promotion features Felicity Kendal as silly spinster Charlotte Bartlett  ~ she is superb in this role ~ but the heroine of the tale, naive Lucy Honeychurch, is delightfully played by Lauren Coe. In fact, as always at this theatre, it's a strong team, with Charlie Anson's obnoxious Cecil Vyse outstanding among the men, and the cream-and-honey costumes are lip-lickingly gorgeous.
Simon Reade, who adapted the novel, is sensitive to EM Forster's radical feminist views and the social critique at the heart of this story, but the difficulty in a staged version of a great book is that authorial voice matters as much as plot or dialogue. Or more. What I love about this novelist is his underlying compassion and the subtlety of his social anger. Even the most sympathetic and creative adaptation ~ and this is both ~ can suffer from too much overt parody, and the first act certainly did. The scenes in Florence were over-egged, with awkward little street scenarios and an unimpressive slideshow of the sights. In Act Two the action settles much more satisfyingly in the Home Counties, and the skinny-dipping scene (inevitably a challenge since the 1985 movie), is absolutely brilliant ~ no wonder the matrons of Bath were audibly cheering. Director Adrian Noble, on the main stage till 8th October then touring.

A miscellany of launches to conclude this post: New Frome eatery From Perú To You celebrated in international style on Friday night with pisco cocktails and the delicious tones of Bonne Nouvelle, while although Cheese & Grain bar refurbishment was actually completed some time ago, this was the week of the grand launch on Roots Session night with bubbly and music from DLM.
And there were no less than three art exhibition openings: Adam Birtwistle's launch party night at the Silk Mill for The Gathering, his paintings on a theme of Punch & Judy on till 20th October  ~ here's Adam posed with his favourites, the judges ~ and Friday evening was also the official preview of Colour in the Landscape at Stourhead's First-View Gallery, on till 19th October. Frome Artist Kate Cochrane with Annette Burkitt and Geraldine McLoughlin have combined to create an impressive display of glass and gorgeous paintings, including personal responses to the poetry of Rosie Jackson, here with Kate. The third opening was at the Black Swan, but what with walking round Stourhead lake and the pisco sours, that has to wait till next week's bulletin.