A blue & yellow week, with a touch of green

With foreign affairs, as they used to be called before we discovered that everything in the world is interconnected, on everyone's mind these days, let's start with the  BIG GIG FOR THE UKRAINE - an evening of soul funk jazz at 23 Bath Street to raise money for Frome's twin town in Poland, Rabka-Zdrój, which has already taken in 500 Ukrainian refugees. Organised at short notice by Emma Harris, this featured the talents of Rivers of England,  Leander Morales, Al O'Kane, Flash Harry, and Emma herself - a brilliant night with great musicians and fantastic sound. The atmospheric red lighting helped create a party atmosphere - this snap of Leander joining Al's set may give a glimpse of the vibe.

Music has been a strong theme of this week, with Paddy's Day celebrations in two venues: At The Sun on Thursday, celtic band Crossing the Rockies cleverly illustrated the division of Ireland by arranging a massive pole to segregate the band members, and this day-late homage to St Patrick was followed next night with another hooley as the Celtic & Transatlantic Music team arrived at the Cornerhouse in force and played throughout the evening. 

Still with an Irish theme: Derry's most widely-known band The Undertones, playing at the Cheese & Grain on Friday, was the subject Eleanor Talbot's Variations on a Theme this week. Mickey Bradley, bassist for the band since its inception & now also a record show presenter on Radio Ulster, is a charming guest with a good memory of the '70s, and is surprisingly modest for a key member of the group responsible for John Peel's favourite track of all time: Teenage Kicks. 

Theatre spot his week is a substitute: Eng-er-land, solo show at the Merlin was sadly cancelled due to illness so instead here's an online production from Original Theatre: The Red, directed by Charlotte Peters. The 'red' is a bottle of wine, which in this two-hander Benedict imagines, as he mourns at his father's funeral, that his dad really wants to watch him drinking. 

The storyline is essentially a list of reasons why an alcoholic should never drink again, and writer Marcus Brigstocke admits the play is basically a summary of his own temptations and truths. It's performed by a genuine father & son combo on a set authentically representing a wine cellar but with constant faint music which is slightly irritating. Bruce Alexander is very good as the probably-also-alchi-but-not-bothered father, but Sam Alexander his son is less convincing as a totally fit non-drinker. Reminiscence replaces story development, as the will-he/won't-he finale is not really in doubt, but my main problem with this as with all online productions is that the cameras don't consistently show the full stage and therefore, to me, it's Not Theatre. It is dramatic, in that people play parts in a rehearsed drama, but the camera-eye rather than the viewers' eye is in control, so it's just a movie that's been shot on one set. 

Moving from drama to poetry: Frome's 'ekphrastic writing' group had a very productive session this month, all creating powerful responses to the Duet of Lines exhibition in the form of pantoums under the excellent tutelage of Jennie Gilling.  Our group's responses can all be seen here, and the exhibition is on until 3 April.

Art with a purpose now, and and Auction for Ukraine at the Silk Mill which opened on Friday evening with wine & live music. The gallery was filled with donations from Frome's creatives - not only wall art, which is wonderful, with artists like Dan Morley contributing, but clothes, earrings, books & toys, and edible goodies.

Finally: at times like these, creativity & entertainment become even more important, which is why Frome is a genuinely awesome place to live: this week's Frome Times includes as well as positive initiatives in response to Ukraine, ongoing aspects of our town's life: volunteer street tidiers, restorative conversations, appreciations for projects like Window Wanderland & the Kindness Festival, green initiatives for children, drama for adults, music for all, and more. And a connection with nature is also vital, so this week's bulletin will conclude with a couple of images from local walks: one of the lakes on the southern side, and the river path from Frome to Mells. Imagine spring flowers & birdsong...    And... breathe.... 

 

 

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.