Lights, music, curtains...

Frome Festive Poetry Cafe on Monday evening had a focus on the community aspect of these bi-monthly-ish get-togethers at the Garden Cafe: we've enjoyed some fantastic guest poets at these events, and will continue to do so, but this time the metaphorical mic was given over entirely to the floor - or rather to the creative people who come as audience. Here's me somewhat randomly allocating the gifts donated by Hunting Raven Books and Merlin Theatre but the prize for everyone was a really lovely night, rich in imagery with poems ranging from poignant memories to witty word-play. Several 'debut poets' took the plunge, including a touching 'thankyou letter to Frome' from Chloe Rayburn, joining popular regulars like Mike Grenville (with a piece inspired by the current Black Swan exhibition you can read here) humorists Moira Andrew and John Christopher Wood, and John Payne, who read and distributed a moving poem from his current research on the workhouse in Bath, consulting leather ledgers in the Guildhall basement: They list the money spent, the figures, / but not the suffering / of children, elders, the mad, the sick./ We must hold them in remembrance ourselves.  Thanks David Goodman for the photos.

Next night's illuminating imagery was the literal kind, with an evening walk over the Wiltshire border into neighbouring Longleat Festival of Lights rewarded by an awesome scene of myths and legends in massive scale filling the park right down to, and including, the lake. This extraordinary spectacle is on until Jan 5th and it really is, also literally, fabulous: I've been critical of this costly 'spectacular' in the past for tacky cartoon figures and badly re-envisaged storybook characters, but this year's theme-envisaging is truly awesome - every mythic monster and hero from legends around the world is here, aesthetically beautiful as well as posed in thrilling story-telling moments - the illuminated tags beside each were being extensively used by visitors, I noticed, to succinctly fill the sad omissions in our 'education' system. There are hundreds of beautiful images there to enthral and photograph - I picked two that chime currently for me.


For the rest of the week Frome seems to have been wall-to-wall music. Raggedy Men at the Cornerhouse were a perfect choice for Friday, with dancing from the start and lots of shout-along moments to great songs from Jonny Rotten and The Clash - classic smashing punk, but with riffs! Andy, Bugsy, Carl, and drumming dervish Pat - you were just what we all needed.


Dancing-from-the-start at Cornerhouse again next night for amazing Bristol band Flash Harry, who claim to be a folk rock-balkan-cajun band but it's not that simple (!) to describe them - they can sing&play at fast-forward, make a sea-shanty sound like Deep Purple, make a hoe-down song jazzy or the other way around, and have a penchant for hamsters. I can't find their wonderful Get Out Of Bed song online but here's a sample of their style from a Bristol gig.

Sunday afternoon Acoustic Club in the Three Swans, co-ordinated by Paul Kirtley, was a pleasantly casual affair, with a series of enjoyable performances including a great set from Mountain Speaks Fire who were joined for their version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night by guest singer Anna Callan making an early debut. (I always thought this was a Nirvana original, but it's actually traditional, first recorded in 1939 by Lead Belly)

And the tempo stayed relaxed back at the Cornerhouse for Graham Dent's Sunday jazz night, this time with Caroline Radcliffe as guest singer with Graham's regular Piano Trio and John Plaxton on trumpet.

As this is primarily an arts blog, there will be no comment about what also happened last week and I'll leave you with a seasonal poem from William Yeats: The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spirtus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
 That twenty centuries of stony sleep
 Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The 'Showtime' edition, mostly

Let's start with a costume drama: Pride and Prejudice (Sort Of) is a refreshingly hilarious version of Jane Austen's most performed story presented by Bristol Old Vic with Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh as a Trom Theatre Company & Blood of the Young production: Six energetic young women take on 21 key roles with entertaining indifference to plausibility, Lizzie's father being played with surprising conviction by an armchair, and there are frequent expletives and bursts of cheesey pop songs, with several nods to other classic productions, as when Darcy arrives home and his baffled servant comments 'You're very dry, sir...'  What's particularly good about this high-spirited, wickedly funny, version - apart from the costumes and the general absurdity - is the clear focus on the economic situation which was Jane Austen's real motivation in creating a household where the iniquitous laws of male inheritance would devastate the lives of six women, unless one of them at least could snare a man - but not silly Lydia's way, causing her mum to lament ‘who would touch any of you with a shitty stick now?'
There are so many moments of sheer delight created by this multi-roling cast it seems unfair to have a favourite, but Meghan Tyler's vulgar, outspoken, lovely Lizzie would be mine - here she is with wicked Wickham (Felixe Forde) at a moment of temptation. Isobel McArthur, also Mr Darcy, was the writer and Paul Brotherston directed. On in Bristol till 27 September before touring until spring 2020.

It takes a really special talent to range from witty impro chairing of  TV's HIGNFY to the sinister hitman in Pinter's The Birthday Party last year at the Harold Pinter Theatre  but Stephen Mangan can, which is why I was really keen to see The Man In The White Suit on stage at Theatre Royal Bath this week. So keen that I actually bought a ticket - press seats are unavailable before its West End premiere at Wyndhams - and called it my birthday present to myself. So this is not a review, merely a personal appreciation, and as there are no production photos available apart from the promotional one which makes it look truly terrible, here's an image from What's On Stage of Stephen Mangan as Sidney Stratton with Kara Tointon as the skirt interest.

Set in the optimistic 50s. when skiffle dominated the teen scene and the quest for durable, rather than disposable, products was still an industrial aim, the storyline is simple: an amiable young inventor aims to create an everlasting fabric to make life easier for everyone, but neither the profiteering manufacturers nor the salary-conscious workers actually want it... out of this slender cloth a hugely entertaining drama is fabricated, with major credit to the energetic cast, especially to wonderfully endearing Stephen Mangan whose escapes and confrontations must surely have given him some bruises in rehearsals... With a plot-line half-way between Professor Branestawm and the Big Bang boys, it's all mainly slapstick and fish-fights (don't ask) but there's a slender thread of seriousness: the inventor's appeal 'More and more clothes is not the answer -some day it will all catch up with us!' raised audience applause, and there were jeers at greedy capitalist's threat 'For the good of the country, laws can be circumvented, even Parliament prorogued!' At least I think they were jeers, you never can tell with Bath.

After two such dazzling and inventive parodies perhaps New Old Friends was inevitably disadvantaged in terms of creating dramatic impact with their production Crimes on the Coast which premiered at the Merlin on Friday. The concept seemed promising: a Poirot pastiche held by one narrator, with three lively actors playing every other role aided by stand-in costumes when necessary, but the script was long-winded and the narrative voice lacked impact. There were some entertaining moments - the intrusion of puppets, and false legs to create a small boy - but the overall storyline is slow-moving and incoherent. It might work better in a studio setting, with more audience connection, rather than on a large stage.

Part-performance, part-music event, Vicki Burke gathered quite a party on Sunday to film the chorus - with dance - for her upcoming video project Magic Money Tree (Crowdfunder link here.) Vicki has recorded some of the musicians and Sunday's sunshine was a great opportunity to film the song: here's Howard Vause describing his concept as we gather around the oak tree in Rodden Meadow. - sounds like this will be another great video from this innovative director.

Moving now to music performance, and a highlight at Wednesday's Roots Session at the Grain Bar as The Raggedy Men held a full-house audience rapt - though not too rapt for dancing between the tables... There were several new numbers in this high-energy 75minute set but nobody tires of their fabulously-revisited classics like Teenage Kicks, Guns of Brixton, and (always my favourite) No More Heroes...

And by popular demand, Splat the Rat were at the Cornerhouse on Saturday with their rapid-fire take on folk classics like the Irish Rover - sadly without amazing 'box-banger' Sultan Vinegar, but with a strong drummer stand-in. Jazz on a Sunday night at the Cornerhouse is always a great way to end the week, especially after a sunny day: Grahm Dent's trio had as guest for this month's session guitarist Martin Kolarides for an evening of laid-back musicality - I especially enjoyed their version of Thelonious Monk's feisty number Well You Needn't.

A literary event to conclude this bulletin, with the Society of Authors lunch in Bath organised by Diana Cambridge: an excellent light meal at the Bath & County Club in Queens Parade followed by a well-pitched short talk by Nic Bottomly, aka Mister Bee from Mr B's Emporium, the bookshop with a difference.  Self-published books now outnumber conventionally-published ones, with active local promotion more important to authors than ever now amazon has pushed the trade into so precarious a state, but the good news is that this is the third consecutive year of growth for bookshops. Interestingly, the book trade was one of the first businesses to be hit by amazon, but the survivors of that blitz are successfully fighting back with 'extreme customer service and passionate bookselling' - Frome's Hunting Raven Books is another good example of this - and the trend to environmental awareness is helping stabilise high street trade too. A fascinating summary with an encouraging conclusion for writers of all genres.

Back in the real world, Frome-style

Let's start with an argument- with William Boyd's The Argument at Theatre Royal Bath,  as part of their lively Summer Season. This is a stylish comedy of manners - a Restoration Comedy for the 21st Century, perhaps, as it has all the elements: amorousness, deceit, conflict, and satiric parody of social mannerisms. There's a cast of six and action spans ten scenes and several weeks in four domestic locations, all cunningly contrived in seconds by shifting backdrops and key props. This impressive stage design was by Simon Higlett and insured an energetic pace, as did imaginative direction by Christopher Luscome, enhancing a script which has vigour but not much variety within a very narrow social strata - upper-middle to upper class, all casually announcing their pedigree in dialogue as in some early radio plays.
Meredith’s marriage to Pip is on the blink - no surprise there as she’s a shrew who'd need a Petruchio to tame her, rather than nondescript Pip - and the premise strenuously maintained is that when any two people come together, they argue.
While the oldies bicker about the breakup, Pip’s friend Tony (who Pip grabbed by the throat in an argument) even manages to argue with Meredith’s friend Jane (who was thrown out by Meredith after an argument) simply because he, Tony, didn’t like the way she, Jane, ended her sentences on an upward note so they sounded, like, questions?  You get the impression that such contemporary trends, including the ubiquitous use of mobile phones, irritate the writer enough to shoehorn them in for conspiratorial audience mirth.
The scenes with Felicity Kendal, in a role more like the The Good Life’s Margot than Barbara yet still irresistibly alluring, with Rupert Vansittart  were the most satisfying as individual cameos, as some of the other scenes seem merely pieces of the jigsaw. It takes 80 minutes to finish the picture, and from the final applause it appeared the Bath audience had enjoyed them all.

Music now, and within nine hours of touchdown after 17 hours travel and a 16 degree temperature drop, I was at Hauser & Wirth's Radić Pavilion where Canadian veteran folk singer Old Man Luedecke was joined by the Hoodoos, self-tagged 'swampy, bluesy, folksy' and featuring the fabulous vocal harmonies of sister Yvonne and Mary. This is definitely one of the 'now' bands locally - watch out for them on Visual Radio Arts next month!

Paul Kirtley's mission to raise £5000 for Bone Cancer Research continues, with another house party at the Artisan on Friday. The Bones 'house band' performed in split incarnation, as guitarists Paul and David Goodman had a change of bass and cajon player for their second set. Most of the songs were familiar favourites but Paul also included a moving song of his own composed for a lost friend: There's a blue boat out in the harbour.'

Guests once again were The Decades with a lively set including a superb version of Dido's Thank you and a sparky rendition of that Fun Boy Three's 1981 classic The Lunatics have Taken Over The Asylum - great variety and energy from this popular foursome.

Sunday night's jazz at the Cornerhouse with Graham Dent's trio featured this month the gorgeous voice of Emma Harris with a varied repertoire including the hauntingly beautiful Gregory Porter song There will be no love that's dying here for me.

And I'm including this image from a party on Sunday afternoon because it shows an instrument I'd never heard of - the ronroco, a Venezualian version of the ukelele, similar to the charango but more baritone. So there you are, the blog that informs as well as bragging about the awesome creativity of Frome.

The Listen project at Black Swan Arts has been offering a range of events throughout the month,  and the Listening Hub at the Round Tower has continued its esoteric 'Playlists' available daily on headphones - on Saturday I caught some of composer Helen Ottaway's choice, a Peter Greenaway film about John Cage, who she has worked with and much admires.  This is project of fascinating diversity but it's difficult to illustrate the concept of listening as art, so instead here's a more visible display, from the current Hauser & Wirth exhibition of Unconscious Landscape - works by female contemporary artists.  Spider, a bronze piece by Louise Bourgeoise made in 1966, dominates the gallery, and apparently represents protective motherhood. I liked it.

And despite the systemic trauma of returning from sizzling sunshine to rain and unseasonal chilliness, it's lovely to be home in Frome, where blackberries are already hanging along the path across the Dippy and the purple blaze of rose-bay-willow-herb is becoming a white forest of feathery fans as the petals fall. Autumn is arriving, surprisingly early, but then autumn always does...

History, ecology, and music

A little over 200 years ago, Britain was at war with the French, then as we all know from school, Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo. He was given £750,000 thank-you from parliament at a time of massive poverty as grain was stored for profit by mill-owners despite bread shortage but most of us didn't learn that at school. The working classes also had no choice at all in government as 92% of the population had no vote at all, and anyway their allotted MPs had mostly never set foot in their own constituency. This was the background to the events in the true story of the massacre of unarmed men women and children gathered to listen to speeches in St Peter's Field in Manchester in 1819. 700 were severely injured and 18 slaughtered at what horrified newspaper reporters promptly dubbed Peterloo, and that's the title of Mike Leigh's latest film, in cinemas next month. The premier, followed by a Q&A session from Mike as part of the BFI film festival, was appropriately in Manchester: it was streamed live on Wednesday at selected cinemas one of which was Wells which is where I saw it. Critics have commented that some of the early dialogue is expositional (true, but how else would people understand why they were all hungry?) but the speeches are all authentically sourced: “When the powers in the hands of a number of persons whose interests are not that of the people, the destruction of our nation is inevitable and imminent” says young Radical Reformer John Baggerly.  Mike Leigh, in the Q&A also screened, was asked why he made this film. It’s soon going to be the bicentenary,  he replied, and many people still know nothing about what happened. "This is not a museum piece, it’s a visceral dramatisation, and I’m in the business of making films that ask questions. You don’t have to be very bright to see that it relates to things that are happening in our world now."

And it was that unassailable point which caused me to cancel my plans for Saturday (sorry, Common Salt) and book the early train to London, to join the other 700,000 - at least - people marching through the capital in support of democracy and a public vote not manipulated by lies deceit and fraudulent funding.

Historical contrast on Thursday at the newly refurbished Bristol Old Vic for a new production of Twelfth Night from the BOV company with Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh. The concept is delightful: Shakespeare's title invites music, mirth, & general revelry and his plot involves much dressing-up, so director Wils Wilson and designer Ana Inés Jabares-Pita turned for inspiration to the psychedelia of the '60s & '70s and a set that would evoke the idea of ‘a never-ending bohemian country house party’.
What could possibly go wrong? For many of the audience, clearly nothing: there was huge applause for the parodic songs, some of which were brilliant (Malvolio's Rocky Horror moment for one) but others, possibly missing the bard's firm hand, noticeably left at the interval. There were some strong performances -  I'd sit through it all again for Dylan Read's Feste - but some pairings lacked chemistry. The conceit that roles were taken almost randomly by the carousing 'house party' is funny up to a point, but, as with the over-milked fake-letter scene, exaggerations around gender-switching weakened and confused the dramatic impact of Shakespeare's story. Images Mihaela Bodlovic

Back in Frome, a Tree Conference networking day to encourage the reforestation of planet Earth met at Merlin Theatre on Sunday, and even with solid sunshine on the spectacular displays of autumn foliage outside and Apple Day celebrations in the new Community Orchard, the event was totally sold out and the auditorium remained crammed with passionate dendrologists and tree-huggers. Founder & director Suzy Martineau introduced a series of expert speakers all with a passion to change society's view of trees as commodities to an understanding of their vital role in planetary survival. Dr Martin Bidartondo has been exploring the effects of pollution on our fragile ecosystem, understanding of which seems hardly to have changed since Leonardo da Vinci wrote We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot: he delivered his somewhat-sombre findings with dark sardonic humour. More hopeful was the case-study of a failing chemically-saturated farm now transformed successfully into an amazing habitat, repopulated by birds, butterflies, animals, and 'thorny scrub', essential to protect tender saplings and enhance the process of natural regeneration. Isabella Tree's book Wilding is a true story with an inspiring solution: 'we have to take our hands of the steering wheel and give the driving seat to Nature' - that's if the human-centric guidelines of 'wild life' campaigns allow...

Reconvening after al fresco buffet lunch created by Keren Hayden, we heard about the importance of imagination - no argument there - and met four delightful teenagers using theirs to encourage tree planting. They were asked to suggest one thing could make a difference.' Changing the education system would be a wonderful place to start' said smart Hannah. No argument there, either. We heard, with visuals, from Andy Egan and Tersa Gitonga about reforesting projects in Kenya and Europe, and Frome's tree champion Julian Height just had time to share some of his amazing experiences and  fabulous images as Peter Macfadyen brought the expertise of Frome to the forum.

Frome's pubs gave us the usual diversity of live music: a Celtic jam at the Three Swans with Trevorr Mills, the Mark Smallman Band stirring up a blue storm at the Cornerhouse on Saturday, and Graham Dent's jazz session with Peter Jones cooling the tempo there on Sunday.

Finally for this week: All About Frome is a monthly programme on Frome FM  focusing on volunteering work in the town and this week I was invited to talk about my book Frome Unzipped in terms of the community spirit strong throughout our history ( link here.) Thanks to programme makers Rupert Kirkham and Julia Welland, and  appreciation to Richard Ackroyd for cycling from Lands End to John o'Groats for Sustrans Missing Links and to Stephen Dale, coordinator for Dorothy House.