Lifting the lid off the Psych ward, and a sunny afternoon in London

Standup poet Rob Gee brought his multi-award winning show FRUITCAKE to Frome on Friday for a very successful "Poetry Platter" event at the Merlin, with an appreciative audience on the stage simultaneously enjoying Keren's amazing suppers and Rob's rapid-fire insights and 'commandments from the Psych Ward.' The material for his performance, all taken directly from Rob's experience as a psychiatric nurse in acute wards, is preposterously funny but also moving, shocking sometimes, and always delivered with genuine compassion for anyone who at some point in their lives finds themselves "knitting with one needle.""
Rob has no respect for the pharmaceutical industry and makes no judgement on those who explore alternative self-medication: "It is a point that we're not meant to be toxic-free, that's why the good lord gave us pleasure receptors, and livers."

A great finale to a busy week for me, with a reunion trip to metropolis which included among other treats Sunny Afternoon at the Harold Pinter Theatre,  a brilliant evocation of the life & times of four lads from Muswell Hill with 'a certain unwashed je ne sais quoi' who came to be known as the Kinks. The actors, especially slumbrous-eyed John Dagleish as Ray and George Macguire as crazy brother Dave, are also fantastic musicians, and as our seats were unexpectedly upgraded from budget balcony to front stalls, we were right in the party atmosphere at the finale, when the entire audience rose to their feet to clap along and dance.










And, three minutes walk away, here's the current incumbent of the 'fourth plinth' of Trafalgar Square: it's Gift Horse by artist Hans Haacke (not sure why Greater London Authority specifies that Hans Haacke is an artist, maybe they fear tourists will one of the Queen's stable failed to win at the Derby and was hoisted up there to starve.) The interesting thing about this installation is that the ribbon on the horse's leg is a live ticker connected to the London Stock Exchange 'completing the link between money and history'.
 I had my own sunny afternoon atop that plinth once, as part of Anthony Gormley's One and Other project.  It doesn't seem like six years ago, but it was. I recited & read poems, mine and other peoples', for an hour and had an absolutely thrilling time ~ my blog entry the next day (July 19, 2009) brings it all back, and among the lovely comments from friends and strangers there's a link to my One&Other webpage, archived forever, with 139 little <3s. 

The Riot Club - not very pretty I tell thee, but recommended viewing

They look like Cameron's infamous Bullingdon Club, but they're not ~ that was back in the 1980s, and POSH is set right now, an invented but horrendously-plausible example of the 'dining clubs' at the finishing schools of our ruling classes. Election year is a good time to revive this 2010 Royal Court hit, and this Salisbury/ Nottingham Playhouse coproduction makes a smashing job of it.  Literally, in Act 2.
I saw it on the day Jeremy Clarkson declared himself an endangered species (in his column in the Sun, so not endangered like an anti-fracking protester or a black homeless on Skid Row) which was apt, as that’s how the rich cubs of The Riot Club see themselves: like some kind of rare fox, apparently, hounded by contemptible hoi polloi who invade their stately homes searching for cream teas and question their inherited right to classism, racism and misogyny.  Laura Wade's script is brilliant, inviting us to both laugh and gasp at these barely articulate young men for whom the highest accolade is "fucking savage!" while showing the terrifying power their money & status still claim. Good to see the high-testosterone of the (excellent) cast counterbalanced by an all-female creative team, too.

We meet the dining dectet on the night the toast is "To leave a trail of glorious destruction in our wake" and we follow their high jinks throughout one Hogarthian evening in which revelry consists of excess, abuse, and humiliating forfeits. It's mostly very funny, both in their utterances and their antics (a highlight from Tom Clegg as Toby, force-fed wine into near stupor) but the undercurrent anger bubbles and surfaces after Alistair speaks for them all: "I'm sick to death of fucking poor people" ~  an outstanding performance from Jordan Metcalfe although with his schoolboy Plantagenet haircut he looks about as upperclass as Harry looks like Prince William. And when the swashbucklers have to rejoin the real world, how will they cover their tracks? Well they do what friends do ~ friends in a club like this anyway, where like the Hotel California you can check out but you can never leave. They … oh you’ll have to go and see it. On till April 4th at Salisbury Playhouse. The Salisbury Journal wondered what their "Tory heartland" audience would make of it, but happily the full-house chose to be charmed, rattled their jewellery and cheered. As did I.

Looking ahead to Friday March 27th in Frome, the spring Poetry Platter ~ an event where the audience joins the performer on stage in a bistro-style atmosphere with real food ~ is Fruitcake! Ten Commandments from the Psych Ward, brought to the Merlin theatre by Rob Gee.
Rob, who was featured in The Guardian recently, is a very funny standup poet but his material isn't trivial, and he's one of the leading voices in the current trend of satiric comedy.  This show has won 5-star reviews & awards and the price of a ticket, in terms of artisan coffees which I believe is the going measure of comparison, is a mere two... call 01373 465949 to book.

A small medley of footnotes to this post: The venue with no name at the Wheatsheaf narrowly avoided closure last week, thanks to a hasty facebook petition, allowing MJ & The Rocketeers to live up to their name on Thursday in a great session with even Tainted Love getting the 60s treatment. And as spring teeters in, there's street theatre from Show Of Strength in Wells next Saturday ~ Frome Comedy Club host Tim O'Connor is one of the writers of these short cuts, though sadly there's a clash with the Pump Jam at Welshmill Park that day.

And here's the Pavement Poet in Bath.... an idea for Frome Festival, anyone?