Back in Frome, sweet landing...

Say what you like about grey clouds and drizzle ~ as I do ~ but Frome is spectacularly good at making the most of the stub of the year.  Even before the festive season is launched with our annual
Extravaganza, Silk Mill has a Flea Circus offering an amazing array of creations ranging from previously loved to uniquely inspired. Stalls of exquisitely crafted jewellery and lip-smacking comestibles cluster with vintage coats & curios and the brilliant graphic imagery of BoswellArt.

And as compensation for those evening strolls in Spanish plazas there's a murder-mystery at the Merlin. For a good old-fashioned who-dunnit it has to be Agatha Christie, the best-selling crime writer of all time.  Frome Drama Club chose Witness for the Prosecution for a 22-strong cast production and followed the vibe of the 1950s era to the buttonhole in this 3-Act investigation of a brutal murder and the trial of its principal suspect. FDC has a massive amount of talent among the company and the principle roles were particularly impressive, as Laurie Parnell & Alan Burgess struggle to save Aynsley Minty from the cunning of his cold-hearted wife, the ever-excellent Keely Beresford. Clever set designs enhance the performance, especially when Chambers morphs into Courtroom in the gloom of an Act 3 intermission. There's a double twist in the final scene which I didn't see coming although, having just read Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test, I probably should have...

Also scoring on the Bob Hare check-list for psychopathic behaviour would be Finn, highly trained in surveillance skills which he's using obsessively on his family. Philip Perry is mesmerising in solo, a new play by Samuel E Taylor for the Theatre West autumn season, and Bristol Old Vic Basement provides a non-comfortable proximity that works really well for this powerful monologue of pent-up emotions.  A gripping study in the dangers of invasive intimate knowledge, with two moments of reveal so startling I literally gasped aloud. Director Sita Calvert-Ennals and the performer are both also credited with co-devising, what a fantastic project that must have been for the writer.

Also interesting from a writerly perspective,  at Black Swan gallery Jim Whitty was talking about the process involved in his current exhibition Flux which explores the question 'when is a painting finished?' (Renoir, apparently, settled this as 'when my wife calls me for dinner.') Jim's two big canvases depict the old quarry in Vallis Vale, by night with fire and by day with detritus, and each one represents weeks of 'lost' paintings ~ previous versions, altered by persistence.  "I love complexity and texture" he says. Here's the daytime quarry, which is famous in geological circles as the 'De La Beche' unconformity, for its visibly different stone stratas.  Jim's fascinated too by 'particles moving in space ~ stars, swarms, snow.'

Then on Sunday the Chocolate Festival at Cheese&Grain celebrated everything lip-smacking from choccy tattoos for children to a Cocktail Bar ("ladylike but brutal"), with luscious-looking cakes, truffles and bars as well as chox camera-shaped and hurdy-gurdy-coloured. I reckon I nibbled nearly my body-weight in samples at this convivial event, and am now fully arrived back in Frome.

Just when you thought it was safe to leave Transylvania, another irresistible beast...

What do you get when a born freak, a former beauty queen and an award-winning director tell the true story of Beauty and the Beast? asks the promo for this ONEOFUS/Improbable touring co-production visiting Bristol en route to London. The answer is a full house in BOV studio and a stunning show, impressive as much for its honesty, humour & humanity as for its startlingly erotic interpretation of this classic fairytale. Mat Fraser, probably UK’s best-known disabled actor, uses his deformity to become a beautiful beast to Julie Atlas Muz, burlesque artiste from Detroit, his feisty fairy-tale captive and real-life wife.

 “What better way to make a fairy tale than to fall in love?” Julie asks the audience at the start as the couple introduce themselves to us with an intimacy that becomes integrated with the performance as personal anecdotes and private moments in their own story are spliced into the legend. Silently assisting these two extraordinary performers, puppeteers Jonny Dixon and Jess Jones dexterously manipulate props and contribute much to the wit as well as the glamour of this amazing study of human emotions: fear, lust, loss, loneliness, tenderness, and finally redemption through love.
There’s a lot to laugh at too: from complicit looks to the audience at dramatic moments to a raunchy banquet scene which would make Tom Jones look like taking tea with Philip Larkin. The final scene strips any last vestige of vanilla from the traditional fantasy as bridal Beauty stares at her newly-transformed Prince Charming, yells “Where’s my beast?” and tears off both their clothes again ~ most of the story has been performed naked ~ to create a fittingly explicit finale with the puppeteers as rose-strewing cherubs to their erotic romance.  Mat and Julie are supernova stars, but it clearly took teamwork to devise this unforgettable show, with special credit to Philip Eddols for the atmospheric set, Kevin Pollard for exquisite costumes, and director Phelim McDermott.

Frome saw a small surge of sensuousness too, when the Lip Smacking Chocolate Festival arrived on Sunday to fill the Cheese & Grain with all things chocolatey, syropy, and luscious. Sacchariferous consumables are currently off limits for me but the aroma was ambrosial, and entrants in the lip-smacking limerick competition were olfactorarily inspired, according to judge Muriel Lavender. (I only made up one of those words, btw.) Here's my entry, declared by Mlle Lavender as quintessentially about her and thus winning a place in the runners-up:
If I was a champagne truffle
I'd lie round all day on a ruffle,
     Dance with Viennese Whirls,
     Flirt with Caramel Swirls ~
I bet that would cause a kerfuffle.
First prize went to Jackie Cornish aka Miss Marshmellow. I think it was a big box of chocolates...