From pre-Raphaelite Soho to modern Tottenham, via apocolyptic & other tales

Holburne Museum in Bath currently has a 'special exhibition' of Rossetti's Portraits, and they really are something special. Dante Gabriel Rossetti has been my favourite of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ever since 2009 when Aiden Turner took that role in the brilliant TV series Desperate Romantics - see right -  but the gentle, generous sketches of his friends which are among the portraits displayed  actually suggest a far more sensitive personality than the BBC's portrayal. Certainly he had a passion for red-heads, and after the laudanum-overdose death of Elizabeth Siddal ("accidentally and casually and by misfortune" the official verdict decided) he become infatuated with Jane Morris, pictured above.  In modern eyes these paintings may not look unconventional, but they flouted the Royal Academy's norms as established by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in their vibrance, detail, and subject matter. 

The museum gardens seem mainly under reconstruction or self-rewilding, though lovely, with bedraggled blooms and spiky stems tumbling around in every bed. It was still raining when I left, but Bath buildings look wonderful in the rain, their blonde stone enriched by the saturation and a velvet white sky beyond.

Staying with imagery: Frome Wessex Camera Club offered an excellent show of individual work inspired by the pandemic in Corsley Reading Room - sadly only for four days so this will end on 25th.  With 21 screens plus projected imagery,  Closing Down and Opening Up covered a range of responses from personal stories of hospitalisation with - luckily - happy endings, to a focus on new skills or personal memories, with photographers on hand to discuss their work.  Free, fascinating, and with tea & cake, this was a brilliant way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon.  Here (above) is Julian Sandoe's graphic saga of a son in intensive care plus a first grandchild, and my snap of Mick Yates, who superbly curated the whole exhibition. 

(late addenda - can't resist adding Mick's reciprocal snap, which also shows the exhibition stands much better than mine:

On the music scene, autumn has begun with a flurry of gig cancellations, as cautiously-emerging bands have had to recognise what our alleged leader currently doesn't: that the 'new normal' will always trump careful planning. So it was great to catch the fabulous Hot Club de Frome playing hi-energy jazzy blues at Lotte's Bar on Wednesday night.

In a different genre, Frome musician John Law, nationally esteemed for his 'kaleidoscopic fusion of jazz, rock, electronica and classical,' performed his new composition CONGREGATION at the Wiltshire Music Centre, offering a sumptuous taster here. The full session is still available on livestream here.

As prohibitions on social gatherings seem set to continue into another season of discontent, one  unexpected bonus has been an extension of communication skills among the determined: Frome Writers Collective's Gill Harry, who initially took our meetings zooming online, this week successfully created a hybrid session from the meetings room at The Crown, with sound for readers provided by Lisa Kenright & Mike 'Herb' Herbert. The evening's theme of 'Spooky Stories' inspired ten readings and a range of tales from shivery to satirical: I particularly liked Brenda Bannister's quirky take on the Little Shop of Horrors theme. 

Story-telling on a grander scale from The Art House in Southampton where The Travelling Talesman is also maintaining an online option, this time with a topical little saga titled The End Of The World As We Know It. This extensive Apocolyptic tour begins in Mesopotamia (latterly know as Iraq), source of the first written tales of constructed history which, like all legends, concern man's struggle against malevolent deities.  In a narrative featuring eye-popping atrocities, this extensive saga of the gods' war on humanity travelled through varying mythologies through wars, floods and plagues from Valhalla to Fukushima and beyond.  Most interesting of all was the after-show question session, which inspired this monologue from the Hampshire griot: "There are no 'things', everything in the world is make out of vibrations tiny flashes of energy...but Time is the fundamental frequency of the universe - the reason we can't see this is that we're all on that wave ...dark time and dark energy are such big frequencies we just can't see them."  What happens at the end of the world? he was asked. "Every note eventually dies away. Entropy carries us to a constant state, until we achieve the death of the universe. Only then is the end of all life as we know it."  

And it's not yet too wet, or cold, for walking the lanes: hips and berries are doing their jazzy thing all around the hedgerows, and a sunset walk to Marston Park offered the usual superb lake views.

This post was originally planned to conclude with the poem Begin, in homage to Irish poet Brendan Kennelly who died on Sunday, but because those inspiring words have been shared here previously (and because you can read it here - or hear the poet read it here ) instead here's the poem which last week won its teenage author, Giovanni Rose, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, beating over 6,000 young poets from all over the world - and showing why we need poets. 

Welcome to Tottenham

Where we wake up to the smell of 'Chick king',

mixed with the odour of the corpse from the night before.

Where we cover our blood stained streets with dried up gum,

Where kids have holes in their last pairs of shoes,

Where daddy left mummy and mummy’s left poor.

Welcome to Tottenham.

Where if you look like me then it’s harder for you,

Where everybody’s equal unless they’re darker than you.

Where the police see colour before they see the crime,

Where children get stopped and searched and aren’t allowed to ask why.

Welcome to Tottenham.  

Where the drugs addicts sit at the back of the 149. 

Where education and sports are the only ways to shine.

Where we ride around on stolen scooters,

Where we can’t afford tuition so the streets are our tutors.

Welcome to Tottenham.

I love but I hate my home,

I still listen to the voicemails of my dead peers in my phone,

I live in a nightmare. I had to learn how to dream,

Welcome to Tottenham.

The devil’s playground.

We fight over streets we don’t own,

Knife crimes on the rise because the beef can’t be left alone.

Why does no one understand that we just want our youth clubs back,

Why do they claim they’re not racist but label the violence here black?

Welcome to Tottenham.

 

theatre, art, music words - the 'Back in Business' one!

When theatre goes real-time live again, these free treats from London's costliest theatres will be much missed- do grab them while they're around. The Globe's offering this week was Romeo and Juliet, weighing in at just shy of three hours but superbly performed - Rebekah Murrell as Juliet and Petra Letang as her nurse especially brilliant - and thrilling viewing (unless you're one of the students whose laments that an English lesson is only supposed to be hour long littered the comments online).
Dominic Dromgoole's direction brings out the unruliness of the rival gangs and the youthfulness of the lovers, both initially naive in their notions of romance until sobered into the harsh reality of transgressing clan rivalries.  The sword fights are thrilling but have been filmed rather too close to follow the vital dynamic leading up to Romeo's fatal thrust, but overall there's good coverage of audience excitement.

Thursday night's National Theatre offering of 'Danny Boyle's monster hit Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein' was as unforgettably amazing as you'd expect from the first two names. Unforgettable especially for the long opening section of electric birth through the creature's long lonely struggle to articulate movement and sound, watching the thing grow into a humanoid and then a lover of poetry and a philosopher under the tutelage of the blind old man: this was full of charm as well as poignancy. When this connection is abruptly broken by the seeing world and the quest for vengeance begins the trajectory is set steadily for melodrama. Mary Shelley's tale of the motherless creature, completed while living in Bath, is a psychological drama as much as a monster story, and the parallels with her own life in terms of loss and disregarded needs are plangent. This brilliant interpretation of a timeless tragedy is on all week, well worth viewing.

 Bath Festival went virtual too, with a varied menu of free options including Grayson Perry's Art Club, in which he invites viewers to submit their own work, with the chance of  inclusion in his next real-time exhibition "when this is all over." His theme this week is portraits: here's one that artist Nathan Wyburn made of him, using soy sauce and noodles. Grayson was also much taken with the latest trend on facebook, even more popular than the 'ten-albums-that-define-me' one: Recreate artworks with things you find at home now has over 50,00 members and there are some fantastic efforts out there - if you haven't started following yet, you're missing a treat. And in the Golden Oldies corner. Channel 4 is releasing to the world 'Bingeable Box Sets' of comedy classics - every series of Seinfeld, and Father Ted to name but two.

As always there's masses of music online - if you don't have enough of your own favourites tune into Visual Radio Arts where Phil Moakes and Maggie Gregory continue to add new shows: here's No Fixed Abode who played last week.

Sofa continues to stream international acts for free viewing, and individuals musicians are increasingly posting on facebook: Martin Dimery, ex Sergeant Pepper's Only Dartboard Band, has made several of his Beatles songs publicly viewable. Here comes the Sun is one of my favourites.  Frome's jazz-fusion giant John Law offers a preview of his new album CONFIGURATION here prior to its release, and looking wider, Radiohead has posted their archived tour concerts.

Words now, and a fascinating talk from Andrew Ziminski's from his workshop organised on Zoom by Pippa Goldfinger, describing his work as a stonemason, with a focus on the landscape of Wessex. His slide presentation included discoveries from neolithic sites including Avebury, Fyfield Down, West Kennet Long Barrow, Silbury Hill Stonehenge and was supplemented by workshop demonstrations of skills like creating sarsen polishing stones and repairing the carvings in the temple of Sulis Minerva. Buy the book, if you haven't got it already!

From fabulous fact to intriguing fiction, with Bath's Story Friday, the popular community platform initiated by mega-skilled Clare Reddaway, went online last week and continues its Friday evening sessions on the theme of 'Dark Clouds, Silver Linings' read by a team from Kilter Theatre. This week's set included a story from Chiara Vascotto, whose sensuous, visceral, personal style I remember from last year in Skyros. You can listen to her story, read Amy Vickers, here, along with five other intriguing short tales - one by Clare herself.
Liv Tork, indefatigably innovative and creative, continues to collect submissions of 'haiflu' (haiku in time of plague) to create weekly compilations: here's week 6 online, sombre but plangently sincere. Meanwhile Frome Poetry Cafe  is open for any original poems, especially with some tangental connection to 'revenge or redemption (which happened appropriately to be our theme for April) as the page becomes virtual 'open mic' for lockdown times.

And as April moves into May in Frome, where we're lucky enough to have lanes and footpaths close enough to walk miles in any direction, I'll end this week's roundup with images of blossom - the wonderful Judas tree in Victoria park, and a small burst of the hawthorn blossom brimming on every hedge.

Bumper Festival picture book

This was the sunshine festival, and perfect for all outdoor events like walks, picnics, markets, art trails & 'Open Gardens', also ensuring evenings could extend naturally - usually ending late under the twinkly bar lights of the pop-up cantina in Silk Mill yard. If this sounds idyllic, you are getting the vibe: there was far too much on for this report to be comprehensive but it should give you a glimpse.
So, not in any particular order of chronology, we'll start with performance, and if you're wanting to know how the Nevertheless/Frome Actors Network production Where The Fault Lies was received, the happy answer is: rapturously. The event sold out so early we put on a second showing later the same evening and that sold out too. Cornerhouse Upstairs was transformed into a tiny intimate theatre and feedback forms throbbed with comments like "Fantastic... great plays, superb acting and a fabulous evening of entertainment!"... "Wonderful plays! I loved the humour and the depth of understanding of the human soul and relationships"... "Clever, funny, surprising, thought-provoking, satisfying"... "hilarious and inspired!" - you can see them all here, and there's a full review online on the Fine Times Recorder. Thanks David Goodman for production photos, and Martin Earley for the venue, with special appreciation to Tom for support throughout the run-up and transformation of the gin-bar into an intimate theatre.
Over at the Town Hall, a  new comedy drama by Frome writer Nikki Lloyd gained massive commendation and audiences grew throughout the run. Turtle Doves, with the focus a dysfunctional young couple and their troubled therapist (the ever-excellent Laurence Parnell), looks at a range of relationships - siblings, strangers, long-term or brief encounters - in a clever series of time-slip segments (think Tim Crouch rather than Alan Ayckbourn) with much to laugh at, perhaps with wry recognition, as well as unexpectedly moving moments. Geoff Hunt was producer of this exciting and memorable play, well acted by all ten cast members, and superbly directed in the round by Keely Beresford.
Still with words-&-performance: the Festival Poetry Cafe, always fun to host in the eponymous garden of the Garden Cafe on a sunny night, was a total delight. Guest poet Henry Madd absolutely captivated the crowded audience with his intimate yet accessible reflections on childhood, loss, and life.
Open Mic is especially important at this event, because the coveted title Frome Festival Poet Laureate is awarded on a single poem offered on that night, written on the theme of the festival. Despite difficulties from this year's dedication to JW Singer's foundry, several of our 15 readers braved the challenge, with five runner-up book prizes and Jo Butts scooping the title! Congratulations everyone who came to participate and to listen, making this relaxed and lovely evening a highlight of the week for me. Thanks Wendy Perry for the picture of Jo with Henry & me, Hunting Raven for the books, Garden Cafe for the bubbly and venue transformation.

Hip Yak Poetry Slam at the Archangel by contrast has a hi-energy vibe and is immensely competitve as the prize here is no less than a spot in the Poetry Tent at Womad. Liv Torc, Chris Redmond and Jonny Fluffypunk run this with proper sound and professional skill, and random audience members choose the winners in the tradition slam way - by holding up score cards. As with football rulings, opinions are bound to vary, but everyone seemed to agree that Stewart Taylor, self-professed 'slave to rhythm and unpaid lackey to rhyme' well deserved to take top spot with his defence of the clog -yeah, I know it doesn't sound likely, but you should have seen the repeat prestissimo... also notable was the first nudist performance in Frome!

Historical talks with a focus are hot favourites in Frome, and this festival has offered weaving, foundry work, war, buildings, and more. My contribution, along with David Lassman, to this oeuvre was 'Rogues Rebels and Renegades' - a town centre tour of hot spots in our unruly and dissenting past. David has far more experience and a louder voice so he took the main role, and our exposition was enhanced by the attentions of a 19th Century pickpocket who was eventually apprehended by traditional 'hue and cry' and confined to the Blind House - many thanks Ollie, and to Joao Diniz Sanches for the images.

For Frome Writers Collective, a busy week that began with a Publishers Fair ends with the prize-giving for the winner of the Short Story Competition, another very popular feature. After a morning of workshops and the awards for the 'writers in residence' last Saturday, judge Tyler Keevil announced this year's First Prize winner is Clare Reddaway - an absolute delight for me, as I am friends with both these  great writers & lovely people. I couldn't be there for the big reveal, so thanks Gill Harry for the picture.

Moving on from words,  the visual arts were strongly reflected, with 23 Open Studios and exhibitions showing the town's tradition of textile work is still thriving - masterly work in both creating and decorating fabric evident in exhibitions by Weavers Spinners & Dyers,and Embroiderer's Guild. The town opened its 'hidden' gardens too, but sadly I only had time for a smattering of visits. Here's one of the tiny Paul Street gardens, and part of a Dan Morley piece I covet...

Music seemed everywhere this week - in streets and beer gardens by day, in churches and halls and of course the usual pubs each evening.
Independent Market busking stage featured favourites The Raggedy Men followed by Crossing the Rockies while The Decades entertained outside the Grain Bar as Comic Con characters roamed the hot streets (thanks, man in the street, for the snap of me and Helen Pearse.)  Daytime music too at the Saturday Sofa Session promoted by Humans of Frome, this time Feral Beryl and friends entertained the crowd on Catherine Hill.

On Sunday afternoon, not strictly in the festival schedule but a highlight of the weekend, was the launch of a new sound on the scene as Ed Green's Pagan Gospel Groove Machine introduced its unique Brooklyn style of 'nature-based spirituality and funky grooves' to the world at the Red Shed in Chesterblade. With Vicki Burke on sax,  Dermot West on bass, Nick 'the potter' on drums and Tim Maryon on keyboard, this is definitely a band to look out for!

And finally, the evening sessions... as you'd expect, too many for any one person to hear all, and the only 'classical' concert for me was John Law's late-evening Renaissance, piano improvisations over electronic backing tracks, with projections by Patrick Dunn, in Christ Church where the setting sun glowed spectacularly through the famous stained glass windows.  Cornerhouse cornered the festival market for popular bands at the weekend, with three fantastic nights of dance-orgy.  Purple Fish on Friday, probably the band Carling would make if it branded bands, brought their own lights which looked fantastic but caused a quandary, to bop or to snap? No such problem next night with Flash Harry - too dark for snaps but lovely Ann Harrison-Broninski has been assiduous in her festival sketching so, from her viewpoint on the floor, here's wonderful Vicki Burke on her sax. (I couldn't find a youtube of their incredible hamster song, but this is a sample of their energy & style.) Sunday's spectacular was local band Blue Midnight, tagline 'unlike anything you've ever heard.' You might add 'or seen' as the lads barge into the pub already playing, led by the trombonist, and their set ends in darkness with everyone softly crooning la la la... 

And another fabulous Frome Festival ends. Thanks for reading!

Sun, thunder, art and life

The Chemistry of Bronze as an art concept to be honest didn't attract me much until first glimpse of the amazing exhibition which opened last Friday at Black Swan Arts. Bronze is all about weaponry and statues of warmakers isn't it? Well, no. Superbly curated by Hans Borgonjon, the casting foundry Art of a Fine Nature showed a diversity of creations from glowing guitar-fronts to random Rorschach-style seahorses and porpoises retrieved from the drips bucket and presented facetiously for inspection as the works of Sandra Pail. Here's one that might, or might not, be a witch with her incubus lover... There will be a casting demo on July 7 at 3pm - postponed from Saturday because of That thunderstorm.

Masses and masses of music this week - every pub in Frome seemed to be bursting out with bands like blossom on the Judas tree in Victoria park. (Irrelevant digression: the name apparently wasn't from the biblical betrayer but a derivation of the French name, Arbre de Judée, referring to the hills of Judea many of these gorgeous trees grew. Just an interesting fact, for fact collectors.)
Anyway though I missed most of this being out of action for 5 days (another digression, more relevant this time, the NHS service despite all attacks is at point of need utterly fantastic), I was back on the circuit to hear some great young musicians at the Frome Sofar- here's Josh, and Wedlock, sorry I don't know much more about them than their names but both were excellent.
And Sunday's Frome Jazz Club had sax player Jon Lloyd as John Law's guest - an extraordinary rapport apparent between these two - and Billy Weir on drums.







The big thing for me this week, and the reason why this blog has gone all garrulous, is that my book has finally, belatedly, been delivered to the wonderful Hobnob Press and is now under the editorial red correcting pen - I say that as though it wields its own authority but it is of course steered by my endlessly patient & supportive editor. Various people in Frome have been wondering what happened to this project, because I've interviewed many of them, saying breezily back in November that I expected to finish by end of February... yeah, that's right, a history of Frome in four months. I can't imagine why I thought 120 days might wrap it up - it's not as if it's only a bit of Frome either, like a history of 17th century button-hooks and bodkins.  The title I negotiated is FROME UNZIPPED - from Prehistory to Post-Punk, beginning at the ice-age and ending with the call for Frexit in the last Frome Times. It's a bit of a parkour ride, with masses jumped over, but you can get all that from sensible historians. This is more of a street-theatre story - there's a narrative arc, and characters, and everyone I talked to has a voice in the book because I wanted it to be genuinely egalitarian. Nearly a hundred people generously gave me their time and when I'd transcribed all their interviews, along with notes from the sensible historians, with a month to go, I found I had the equivalent of a 5000-piece jigsaw to assemble with no box. Anyway, it's off now, and I've learned so much about this extraordinary town where I came to live back in 1987... what's next? After the prosecco, of course.. (thanks David)