Poetry, punk, plans, and purple fish

An away-day from the stormy south-west this week, to the Unicorn beside Tower Bridge to see Tim Crouch performing his solo piece I, Cinna, inspired by the story of Julius Caesar. Tim has re-envisaged several of Shakespeare’s minor characters previously - I saw I, Malvolio back in 2011 but that was practically stand-up comedy compared to the psychological insight and complexity of  this exploration of the thoughts and relevance of Cinna the poet, murdered by the mob back in 44BC.
Helvius Cinna was a real person, and his death was real too, mistaken for the assassin Lucius Cornelius Cinna while on his way to Caesar's funeral. He was late already and in Tim Crouch's monologue this is due to his private reservations about Caesar's rise to a too-absolute power. 'The people want a king, like in the old days,' he laments, as contemporary riot images flash violently on the backdrop.
What would you die for? is one key question he wants us to reflect on, and written answers are required- we have notebooks and pencils provided and Tim Crouch waits like an invigilator after each challenge. (I don’t know about others in the audience but for me this was bliss - I always write in a notebook during productions, though I haven't yet perfected the art of doing so legibly while still watching the action on stage.) His instructions begin as a control, but when our controller loses his power we become the scribes and poets and historians. A complex piece that could be endlessly analysed, and another tribute to the power of real drama. Shakespeare's character Cinna the poet had no voice in the play except to protest his political uninvolvement - the plangent warning in Tim Crouch's resurrection of the silent poet is that if we lose our words as sentient witnesses, then tyranny will win. Poems in response sent in by the audience are all here - including mine.

Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday gave us a double helping of singer-songwriter excellence - Tamsin Quin and Lazy Daze. Tamsin is delightful solo, offering a selection of 'happy songs about regrets', also teamed up with Phil Cooper and Jamie R Hawkins as Lost Trades, and Glastonbury trio Lazy Daze are well known on the south west scene: I especially love their (sadly once again topical) song about floods in Somerset: The Waters Rise.

Another party night on Saturday as the Cornerhouse said goodbye in style to massively popular bar managers Tom and Amy with marvellous (and also massively popular) Purple Fish, one of the most exciting cover bands around. Much dancing ensued!

And the week ends with a double-helping of punk at 23 Bath Street, with Wiltshire's thumping ear-plug-defeating One Chord Wonders and the sensational Gimme Gimme Gimmes from Edinburgh who would walk five hundred miles and then five hundred more to perform anything remotely connected with Scotland. They look like a Butlins bar band from the 1950s (I know, I worked there)
and they sound brilliant. 

Concluding this post with a quick look ahead to the Frome Festival in July - the 20th birthday one - as we're now all submitting our events to the brochure: brilliant Liv Torc will be main guest at the Poetry Café (Monday 6 July) and Nevertheless Pub Theatre returns to the Cornerhouse on Thursday 8th with 'I'm Talking to You' - six dramatic monologues by local writers. Here's me and Rosie Finnegan threshing out the near-impossible task of picking from the submissions. We look happy, despite the dilemma, because there were so many excellent entries...  more data lata!

Dramatic anarchy, protest art, wild music & Word Play...

Julius Caesar is arguably the most political play ever written and there could hardly be a better time than now for Bristol Old Vic's production of Shakespeare's tale of ambition and chaos in ancient Rome. We're still in Italy, true, but in a symbolic cityscape of dark skies and towering columns, slogan-scrawled & more like struts on a mighty motorway than marble pillars, where excited crowds invade the auditorium. Julian Glover's Caesar enters like a cross between a scary Godfather boss and the charismatic older leader of a popular contemporary party, and the timelessness of conflict is plangent in every aspect of director Simon Dormandy's thrilling interpretation.

As with BOV's excellent King Lear last year, the performance showcases the talents of graduating students from the Theatre School alongside the expertise of a small group of more experienced practitioners, and like last year this combination results in an unforgettable theatre experience. Among the young performers Freddie Bowerman is strong as reluctant conspirator Brutus and Ross O'Donnellan is superb as Mark Anthony, somehow making those famous impassioned words sound dangerous and new. Design is also a team effort in a collaboration that works well: sharp costume and great lighting enhance overall visuals and there are some great touches ~ the glittering chandelier a symbolic crown over Caesar's head, Mark Anthony's suit-carrier, and the house lights coming on for his rallying speech making all the audience complicit... On till July 1, highly recommended.

Still in Bristol, Tobacco Factory Theatres has a double bill of short plays developed from Bristol Ferment. Bea Roberts, a Devon writer whose previous play And Then Come The Nightjars I really loved, is now touring with Infinity Pool. Her previous play was about the ravages of foot & mouth which sounds tedious and grim but was totally engaging: this one is 'a modern retelling of Madame Bovary' which sounds saucy and satiric but is more of a retelling of Bridget Jones. There's a pleasing irony about a theatre show constructed entirely from projected digital imagery so that we have to imagine the story rather than watch it and though there are more jokes than insights Bea is a skilful and popular performer who is winning praise throughout this tour.

Following Bea's silent story of faltering online romance, a complete contrast as Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutas approach their audience smiling and ask us all to hold hands, an icebreaker so unexpected it actually works. Eurohouse seems at first a playfully friendly piece of physical theatre, but the mood darkens into trickery and bullying which escalates up to a shock reveal that their real agenda is to expose how life in Greece has been damaged by the terms imposed after their economy collapsed. Fellswoop Theatre hatched this provocative & powerful show with support from Bristol's Mayfest and it won an award for experimentation and innovation at Edinburgh last year.

Barney Norris is another young playwright from the Southwest ~ he grew up in Wiltshire ~ and his work is massively acclaimed so I was sorry to miss Echo's End, a tale of young lovers, and keen to see his other new production While We're Here at Salisbury Playhouse. This tale of middle-aged not-lovers has been well received: one critic found a Chekhovian comic sadness in the exchanges, which translates as a bit like one of those banal conversations you overhear on a bus. The actors are both excellent. Tessa Peake-Jones, David Jacobs girlfriend from Only Fools & Horses, is the dim-but-cheery woman well and Andrew French the only black man in Havant, a town whose very name resonates a wistful sense of something absent. He wishes he was somewhere else, she doesn't know what to wish for apart from nice decor. Unacknowledged loneliness is a familiar theme, as is imagining the dreary lives of those older than us when we are young.  Norris says in his press release 'So much of England is made up of towns like Havant where people get by, and dream of more, and pass their lives in the leap between their realities and their aspirations.'  There are some good lines (“If the whole world exists and you’re living in Havant, that’s quite a life choice really" ) but like the sheep on Cumbrian hills to which the woman rather strangely likens herself, they don't go very far. Image: Mark Douet

Nunney Accoustic Cafe celebrated their 10th anniversary with a huge weekend party but I missed most if it (a very lovely wedding, so a much happier reason than the virus of which I have much spoken) though I did catch a couple of great acts on Saturday evening: Wychonsky's punk band belting out Babylon's Burning and the fantastic Al O'Kane with his band.

Sunday jazz continues at the Cornerhouse: Here's Kevin Figes quartet playing Nordic tunes in a Scandanavian themed jam session. And both my favourite bands were playing on the Silk Mill stage at Friday's Wild Whiskey Rebellion ~ at one point simultaneously, which was particularly impressive as there are six Back Wood Redeemers and Captain Cactus with his gorgeous Screaming Harlots are a 9-piece! A great night with much dancing.

Also on Friday, Black Swan Arts launched their new exhibition In the Absence of Truth. Dorset artist Ricky Romain is a Human Rights activist who uses art to reflect on political issues and themes of immigration, war crimes, torture and other injustices. Powerful and timely, this is also the show that will relaunch Words at the Black Swan drop-in workshops to respond to each new exhibition in writing ~ restarting Monday 19 June, 3-4.30 in the gallery. Here's Ricky, and there'll be a discussion & talk on June 29.

Ending with words, and I'm beyond pleased that the sunshine this week lured my voice back in time for a chat with Frome Fm's On-Air Book Group and a recording on Saturday at Visual Radio Arts. Phil Moakes, artistic director & main inspiration for this new venture, had the admirable idea of including poetry as well as music in his schedule. For this inaugural Word Play session I was joined by Liv Torc, Moira Andrew, and John Christopher Wood, David Chandler interviewed us and we each did a little set, and you can see it all HERE!