In do-what-thou-wilt-be-the-whole-of-the-law week...

Starting the week with another Shakespeare play, Macbeth, in contrast to last week's epic at the Globe, was a streamlined version of how to change the fate of dynasties: monarchs speedily despatched, soliloquies with no lingering,  ghosts keeping up a good pace and witches not lurking about waiting for a forest scene, just leaping in. Characterisation was novel too, as if director Cressida Brown had started rehearsals with a warm-up exercise asking the cast to 'pretend it's a comedy' and then was so tickled by the Private-Walker-cockney-style Banquo of Samuel Oatley and the Harry-Potter-geek that Aidan Cheng created as Malcolm that she said 'Don't change it!' and they didn't.

And, live on twitter, the ever-entertaining Luke Wright, who is reading poems for about half an hour every night at 8 o'clock. They are his usual droll observations of life and quirky character studies, with a bit of amusing banter in between - just like his live shows, in fact. It's free, but donations welcomed - as with every performance as our valuable Arts culture faces an ever-more difficult future.

It's difficult to keep social media out of an social-arts blog these days since, apart from TV (I've just discovered Sky Arts) these sites are where accessible things are notified. National Theatre Archives gave us Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellams, imagined stories from six different barber shops moving and funny by turns - makes you wish you'd seen it live! Many more ideas here, too.

Frome is famous for dissenting, and pretty good at street-art too, so when I spotted this sign in our town centre it seemed worth a wider audience.  It's become my most popular online post ever, and has been shared (at last check) 2,683 times. So this is a revival of my brief 'little known characters' spot which began as a blog filler and then faded when the internet took control of our waking days: Whoever stuck this on what appears to be an old meter box, at the bottom of Gentle Street, take a bow.

And on a more serious note, despite protest and pre-empting a currently-disputed planning permission, many in Frome were sad and shocked to find to a protected meadow alongside the river has been illegally levelled. So this post concludes with a thought from John Clare, from his 1827 poem The Mores - and on a happier note, a picture of a glorious holloway from one of my rural walks.

And birds and trees and flowers without a name 

All sighed when lawless law's enclosures came

And dreams of plunder in such rebel schemes

Have found too truly that they were but dreams. 

Stina Harris wanted to create "something halfway between a brothel and a temple" for Frome's Women's Day celebrations and she has, sumptuously, sacred & sleazy mingling superbly in the Sun Street Chapel exhibition. Centrepiece among the artwork to 'rejoice and honour' femininity is the sensuous sofa littered with handmade roses, ideal for a reclining goddess to pose, as Stina does here in her Coat of Sin. There was a peace vigil the morning I dropped in, especially apt as we mourn the slaughter of Afghan families by the soldier who 'didn't want to go'...

Another celebration of the female this week, though a sad one: Friday was the funeral of beautiful Jo Lindsay, smart, creative and wickedly funny, and a treasured member of Frome writers' circle. She was a great cartoonist too, and my study wall is hung with her (personalised) interpretation of a story I'd told her of the frog urging a woman to kiss him on the grounds that he'll become a prince and marry her, and meeting the response "I think I'd prefer a talking frog"... Here's Jo when I first met her, in Tuscany in 1996, and the way I'll always remember her: with a dazzling sunflower and a big grin.

A Postcard From... is the theme of the new STAGEWRITE event onstage at The Merlin. We had our runthrough at Des's house this week, and I'm gratified & excited to report the standard is startlingly high. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always authentic is my favourite review quote, and it's never been more true. If you're in striking distance of Frome & you haven't yet booked for next Thursday, do so now!

Back in the winter of 2009, Inua Ellams came to Frome with his deeply personal 14th Tale of the life of a Nigerian in England and I was privileged to be his curtain-raiser act. He's touring again, with Black T-Shirt Collection, which arrived at Bristol Old Vic this week. This extraordinary 80 minute monologue is such a tour-de-force of lyrical story-telling and metaphors for modern life it's hard to describe it. Imagine you’re a Christian child fostered by Muslims. Imagine your brother is gay and you live in Nigeria where retribution is terrifyingly violent. Imagine you went on the run together through alien lands, culture-shocked and missing family & friends, became successful entrepreneurs but belatedly realise the exploitative basis of your business. These are the challenges of Inua’s character Matthew, told on a stark, dark, stage with sparse graphic-novel style illustrations and minimal sound as he learns the political, economic, & social realities of life - and the limits of love. The pain is nearly unrelenting but the integrity of Inua's story-telling gives vitality to this unforgettable piece. It's coming to Frome's Merlin in May, please don't miss it.
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