Romance, carnage, stillness & sounds

If you adored Amélie and love chocolate, you will be completely besotted by Wise Children and Plush Theatricals' Romantics Anonymous, the delightful musical love story of a shy chocolate creator and her gauche chocolatier boss, now playing to enraptured audiences at Bristol Old Vic. It's an Emma Rice production so there's copious electric lighting to designate scene changes throughout this sweet story, wittily narrated by a brilliant ensemble cast featuring Carly Bawden and Marc Antolin. Highly recommended if you can get a ticket before February1st - there was a full house standing ovation when I saw it, so you may have to kill. Image: Steve Tanner

Marital discord and middle-class mores have always been considered fair targets for drama, and Yasmina Reza goes for the jugular in The God of Carnage, a play about the savage antagonisms simmering below the civilised veneer of two married couples who meet to discuss a playground fight between their respective sons. If that doesn't sound much like a comedy, it's because it isn't really one, although we are invited to laugh at the bourgeois-style assaults: Christopher Hampton, who translated the script from French for this production at Theatre Royal Bath, reports that the playwright fears humour will make her work too entertaining to be taken seriously. Yet there is humour, of a very bitter kind, in this tale of escalating friction as both mismatched couples are confronted with their own unresolved differences as well as the antagonism of their opponents. It's very well acted, especially by the men, Nigel Lindsay and Alan Paisley Day, whose roles give them more light and shade to work with than do the women's (Elizabeth McGovern and Samantha Spiro, who's impressive at projectile vomiting). Lindsay Posner directed and the set, featuring a symbolic spear-ball above blank walls, was designed by Peter McKintosh. Image: Nobby Clark

Moving on to art: Hauser & Wirth do openings in style, on Thursday celebrating Don McCullin's superb exhibition in a party atmosphere with live music and fires in their lavish garden. The stillness of life comprises mainly Somerset scenes: the photographer himself, who lives locally, was at the gallery with friends. He was known at one time for  images conflict, and these stark landscapes seem to me to have a resonance of restless energy, even when unpeopled. His work is brilliant.

Keith James at this week's Grain Bar Roots Session brought a small team of guitars to supplement his solo performance, playing profound songs for deep winter days: existential reflection from Leonard Cohn, protest from Bob Dylan, poignancy from Joan Baez some of Lorca's dark poetic words and, more than ever a song for our times, Joni Mitchell's 1970 anthem for Woodstock: We are stardust - we are golden - and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...

Frome's lavish habit of providing an embarrassment of riches most weekends sadly meant passing on the The MellowTones, a new band already with a hot reputation, to join in with the dancing at the Cornerhouse where Tempting Providence provided a lively selection of classic rock, including a fabulous mash-up of Wicked Game with White Wedding and a breath-taking version of Wagon Wheel that raised cheers. Here's the team: Paul Kirtley, David Goodman, and Colin Ashley, with Peter Barnes and Nicki Mascall- icing on the cake provided by popular bar managers Tom and Amy's classy jive!

Autumn harvest: drama, art, music & woodland mystery

Merlin Theatre Productions always reach an extraordinarily high standard for amateur performances, especially those involving a wide age range, and My Fair Lady this week was not only a visually exciting all-singing-&-dancing delight but also offered an interesting & empathetic interpretation of key relationships. Daisy Mercedes' direction, with its focus on 'chemistry' in the relationships - and, crucially,  the shift of the ex-flower-girl's ecstatic song 'I could have danced all night' to relate to her breakthrough in elocution - creates an Eliza with two fathers, the feckless Doolittle (superbly played by Graeme Barry) and the fierce linguist professor, bringing a whole new dynamic and tension to their relationship.
This high-energy show never flagged, and Act 2 reached a brilliant crescendo in the emotional tension of script, plus also the best ensemble highlight in Doolittle's show-stopping lament 'I'm getting married in the morning' - congratulations to band and costumes too, here. A very strong cast led by Richard Pugh's dyspeptic Higgins and Daisy Weir's determined Eliza. Thanks Chris Bailey for making these great publicity pictures available.

Now to another fable - Cyrano do Bergerac.
It’s a story so extreme Mills & Boon would baulk: a man who loves so deeply that he sacrifices his own longing in order to unite his beloved with the man she prefers, wooing her with an articulate passion his rival could never possess, and carrying that secret until the day he dies. And the part is written nearly entirely in rhyming verse, which really does require the calibre of Tristan Sturrock, the actor who in a 2012 production of Peter Pan managed to make it charming and not-creepy-at-all that a middle-aged man should climb through a little girl’s bedroom window and abduct her - he is always mesmeric even with a false nose the size of a turnip.

Cyrano is Bristol Old Vic’s autumn production, directed by Tom Morris, with a cast of five men and two women in roles ranging from nuns to soldiers, and with their trademark live onstage music. There’s some initial jostling of within the auditorium and at one point we're urged to join them in song, but then the action settles into consistent narrative and becomes clearer. Programme notes explain the theme as quintessential theatre - a tale of pretending, and what happens when you ‘pretend your way into the most beautiful love story you can dream of.’ But these are boys, so it’s a war story too, and perhaps more interestingly, a story of low self-esteem, as despite his lyricism and swordsmanship - displayed superbly - Cyrano's sense of self-worth can't get past his nose. There are some touching moments, like the Black-Adder-finale-recalling war scene, and some amusing ones, like the Romeo-&-Juliet-balcony-evoking love scene when tongue-tied Christian parrots Cyrano’s lyrical words, but this kind of 'pure theatre' can seem at odds with the connection to its city's people that BOV has laudably pledged to prioritise, and it can seem a little bit whimsical and irrelevant. Unless you're a bearded nun, in which case you'll feel right at home. Images: Geraint Lewis

Also at Bristol Old Vic, up in Cooper's Loft, drama from a very different era: Everyone is Dead is set in a dystopian near-future where even the rain is toxic and Mad Max style gangs roam the land while non-specified enemies are bombing relentlessly.  Rosie Finnegan & I are interested in quirky small productions and this one further intrigued as it won the recent Theatre West competition for a play by a woman writer, with both actors also female. The drama itself is as feminine as  forest fire, though, with the two women taking refuge in a basement after a violent raid on the house. Intense hostility and emotional anguish is difficult to sustain for an hour but this is a thought-provoking play, well-interpreted by Florence Espeut-Nickless and Alison Fitzjohn as her father's one-night-stand, with impressive fight direction from Black Dog.

Back in Frome, Black Swan Arts have revealed the winners of their Open Arts Competition, always one of the most exciting exhibitions of the year as hundreds of entries are sifted to create the final exhibition - here's a glimpse of the opening night. Curated by Amanda Sheridon, this has been hailed as one of the best yet, and it's on till November 16.There's huge diversity of materials, forms, and concepts to appreciate but my 'public vote' goes to The New Ambassadors by Ros Whitehouse, as stuffed with symbolism as Holbein's original painting - and is it me or does that elongated skull (with a wisp of blond hair) look undeniably like Trump? I took a mirror along on my return visit, just to check....

Music now, and Wednesday's Roots Session at the Grain Bar came from exciting 'rock-infused folk' duo Crooked Weather, with strong support from Josh Beddis. Next night's event, aptly titled Inspired & organised by Daniel Dobbie at Rye Bakery, provided a complete contrast:  Tallulah Rendall, rock-singer-turned-sound-therapist, with a mesmeric voice and presence - you can experience a sample here - with Peter Bearder, aka Pete the Temp, performance poet and generally off-the-wall entertainer with words and sounds. Here he is, treating us to strange sonic experiences like rapping in Latin and random loop effects, clad in an elegant evening dress and Ascot style straw hat. Both acts were superb, and the bean soup beforehand was good too.

The rainy week ended dry and sporadically sunny for John Payne's Autumn Poetry Walk through the beech wood to Cranmore Tower, an extraordinarily lofty folly with amazing views across the Dorset hills. This was originally planned by John, with Martin Bax and myself, for last year, but illness interfered with that plan, so it was especially good to be all together again on Sunday. As well as leaves, and mushrooms, there were  masses of fallen nuts on our path, and one of our group was able to explain this crunchy carpet: 2019 has been a 'mast' year, when forest trees simultaneously flower excessively, leading to huge increase of fruit later. Mysterious, and fascinating! Thanks John for the picture of me & Martin at a reading stop.

A dab of history & lashings of Bank Holiday sunshine

First to Bristol, where South-West based physical theatre company Le Navet Bete has unleashed their current touring show The Three Musketeers in Bristol Old Vic, recreating rollicking tales of 17th Century intrigue in a re-envisaging of the daring deeds of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis - and of course d'Artagnan - with a cast of royalty, whores, conspirators, spies, monarchs, as well as the evil Cardinal Richelieu... it's all loosely grounded in Alexandre Dumas' fictional historical tales but with firmer affiliation to physical theatre capers and Young Ones style comedy.

Some of the best bits are sheer pantomime - as when action moves to England with a duck-shooting scene on the estate of the Duke of Buckingham, and the audience becomes energetically involved in providing a torrent of mortally wounded ducks... Programme notes don't differentiate between performers - Dan Bianchi, Nick Bunt, Al Dunn, and Matt Freeman - but the script is credited to director John Nicholson, and the actors too, so this truly is a team effort. The set was designed by Ti Green and is complex enough for high-energy antics though unfortunately with a focus on extreme right of the stage which means if you're seated in the Dress Circle 'on the site of the original 1766 Row box' you miss any glimpse some of the crucial scenes.  Still, only 15 quid for over two hours of absurd comedy, and touring till October, so worth catching if you can.

Back in Frome, as usual there's been much live music. Tuesday saw the inaugural meeting of a new Open Mic event at the Three Swans, a great sing-along event where Paul Kirtley & I did our occasional double-act comprising my satiric protest-poem Bungee Jumping Crumblies and his song in response, and several new voices joined Paul for this now-monthly venture. Thanks Steve for the pic.

An excellent Roots session on Wednesday featured Phil Cooper with his Slight Band, supported by Jamie H Hawkins, who joined Phil on stage for a couple of numbers, too.
Both these singer-songwriters write their own material: Jamie's song Walking Into Doors is an especially poignant and powerful example of his skill. Phil's performance is alsways gripping, and he has a great knack of getting the audience to sing-along - and even rattle-a-shaky-egg-along. The track Only a Song from Phil's CD Thoughts and Observations gives a good idea of his range and intimate personal style.

Pete Gage at the Cornerhouse on Friday launched a scorching hot Bank Holiday weekend in style with his legendary blues-rock band, and Paul Kirtley's Bones gang were back with their charity buckets on Monday with a new host: The Mill at Rode, an idyllic venue for a sunny afternoon, with an excellent barbecue too.  Paul's closing song, the Woodstock classic, summed up the mood of the whole event: We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden...

In fact everyone had such a good time that landlord John asked the band - and the barbecue - to do it all again on Bank Holiday Monday, so if you're reading this on posting date you can get along to the Rode and re-live the dream yourself.  And if not, have a great week anyway: simple pleasures are essential in troubled times. 

Songs and stories, new and revisited

Monday's Frome Poetry Cafe was special for a number of reasons. We had possibly the largest audience ever inside the Garden Cafe, the youngest Open Mic poet ever (Ibni Padagachi aged 4½, with a rousing rant about plastic waste), and immensely impressive readings by eco-poet Helen Moore from her new collection The Mother Country, exploring the concept of dispossession as it has affected peoples throughout history - and also herself, when she was disinherited by her mother. Intimate and compelling, Helen's powerful poems range from Botany Bay's penal settlement to a personal time-travelling journey through Frome Selwood.

Wednesday Roots Session at the Grain Bar gave us two stunning groups both featuring eye-widening glamour and theatricality as well as luscious singing, as the Screaming Harlots were followed on stage by featured Bonne Nouvelle, with virtuoso guitarist John Ruddock accompanying the sultry voice of Coralie Hyde. Special thanks Coralie for concluding with my personal favourite, Nouvelle Vague's delightfully slutty song I go out on Friday night...

And our Friday night saw another Bare to the Bones event at the Cornerhouse, with more musicians than ever as Crossing the Rockies joined the house band and other regulars. This charity-support project initiated by Paul Kirtley is a moveable feast around the pubs of Frome and always a lively event, this time with James Hollingsworth in the guest solo spot - here's Walking After Midnght getting the distinctive HooDoo treatment. A powerful version of Wicked Game from new duo Dan Hall with David Goodman, too. This session was also the initiation of a new sound system in town, available for the various bands and performers in Frome. I'm delighted to be a peripheral supporter of this venture, and hope soon to have mastered the art of coiling a cable...

As so often at weekends, a plethora of live music made for a tricky choice on Saturday night with Frome's ukulele band The Decades at the Granary and The Uncles from Bristol at the Cornerhouse: here. Here's ukulelist Helen Robertson, and I was too busy dancing to take pictures of this fantastic R&B band but you can get the idea of their fantastic sound here.
Also this week: Black Dog Productions' Orphan, inspired by the sinister religious cults of post-war America, came to the Rondo. Russell Eccleston who wrote the play also took on the role of Orphan, a young man seeking closure on his childhood abuse in all the wrong ways. Initially slow-burning, the story combines gothic horror with biblical and bardic tragic themes. Tiffany Rhodes held the crucial central role of Patience securely as the extremes of masculine ferocity played out an inevitably fatal game around her. Warnings in the foyer of extreme onstage violence were not overstated!

Art, books, & music (with a sea breeze ending)

Writers in this area will know that Frome's very active writers' collective has its own book brand for indie authors: Silver Crow supports publication-ready works in every genre, from children's to murder-mystery,  poetry to memoir, and with ten titles now the time seemed right to stage a celebration. FWC& in fact did this literally, at the Merlin Theatre, with a fascinating  evening of readings by the authors, ably introduced by writer and public speaker Joffre White.
Here's Ed Green, reading from 'It Leaves Me The Same', his moving account of the life and letters of his great-uncle, called from the family farm to die in the Somme.

Music now, and a great Roots session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday with an exceptionally talented double bill of musician/song-writers. 'The Billy Shinbone Show' brought us 'deviant skiffle manglings & disco-punk-rock-blues of Somerset multi-instrumentalist' - and Billy's support act was also brilliant, as Jamie R Hawkins shared original songs with Phil Cooper on Cahon.

'The Young Open' at Black Swan Arts is always one of the most vibrant exhibition of the year, and last weekend saw the opening of this collection, chosen by the committee and offering prizes in three categories: 8-11, 12-15, and 16-19. Nearly three hundred youngsters entered, with 409 art works submitted from which 166 will be on display int he galleries until the end of April.There's great energy in this diverse collection, though the curating makes some difficult to view fully - a disappointing number of glass-covered images are opposite windows and so suffer from reflections.
But it's well worth a look - and do add your favourite to the Peoples' Choice too. Here's the moody portrait of 'Orla' by Astrid Rogers which was the 12-15 winner. Appreciation to all the young people who entered, congratulations to the lucky 13 given the 'winners' and 'commended' tags, and thanks to the sponsors Ellenbray, Studio Prints, Postscript, Inspired, and Frome Community Lottery. Words at the Black Swan met on Monday to create poetic responses to imagery that especially intrigued them: I found Is That It? by Poppy Thomas interestingly provocative.

There was a music over the weekend too, with a busking day on Saturday throughout the town, and the usual weekend events but your correspondent defaulted here by swapping Frome for a family rendezvous on the coast.  Consider the evidence below, as I rest my case:

A long week but a good one in Frome

We've just enjoyed an unusually music-rich week, even by Frome's standards. Wednesday's Roots Session featured two excellent acts: Garry "the slide guy" Smith from Dorset, and the Ed Goodale Band. Ed credits his Asperger's Syndrome for the insight that enables him to create his impressive songs and lyrics, and the 4-piece lineup includes brother Ollie on drums. On Friday, the brilliant Pete Gage Band returned to a crowded Cornerhouse for a fantastic evening of blues & dancing, and then on Sunday afternoon the monthly Nunney Acoustic Cafe offered a steady stream of talented performers for a full four hours.
All were highly enjoyable, and among my highlights were Frome bands We Don't Scare Easy and Goodman and the Bad Girls, both very recently-formed, and main guest Otto Wilde also from Frome, whose unique performance style could be described as indefinable...

From music to art: the Round Tower at Black Swan Arts is currently crammed with vibrant and varied images created by students at Frome College in a wide range of media, with the corridor also ablaze with colour from the work of the Middle Schools in response to the national 'Big Draw' project. Making a Mark is on till 23rd February - a must-see if you can.


No theatre news from me this week but masses of fabulous poetry: Four superb performance poets from varied corners of the southwest descended on the Old Fire Station in Frome on Saturday afternoon, to record WordPlay for Visual Radio Arts. I had the total privilege of interviewing, in my capacity as trainee presenter, the awesomely creative voices of Birdspeed, Chris White, Josie Alford, and Rhys Ashton Tucker - you can see the result online here. Here's us with producer Phil & camera-person Mags at the end of a scary (for me) but exhilarating hour.

Slight spillage now into the next bulletin, but as I'm late with the week's arts news I'll finish with the Frome Poetry 'Love' Cafe, traditional now for February, with Hip Yak Poetry Shack queen and all-round goddess  Liv Torc (I have now run out of enthusiastic adjectives but it has been that kind of week) as our popular guest. Liv's poems of passion celebrate intimate moments like the wet patch, the great kiss, and the note on the fridge, and they are all witty and poignant and powerfully performed, so the buzz in the Garden Cafe was immense. On the open mic, fourteen readers ranged widely in their responses through humour, reminiscence, social commentary, friendship, passion, and golf... Another wonderful night - here's Liv & me with Cat who read for the first time and will be back to co-guest in a future Frome Cafe (thanks Melina) and we'll do it all again but differently in May!