Such a lovely place... can you ever leave?

Frome, it seems, is one of those places like the Hotel California where you can check out but you can never leave, but due to, as they say, beyond my control, this week's bulletin snapshots are gleaned largely from online notifications. 

A double book launch event at Hunting Raven Bookshop on Friday celebrated Nina Parminter's collection Split Twist Apocalypse and the wonderfully bizarre Wasp Disentanglement for Beginners from Xenon Lobster - aka Gorden Vells. I have yet to acquire Nina's but Gordon's boundary-leaping collection is simply brilliant - 'Trails' is a tiny taster. 

(Thanks Dianne Preston for the nicked pic of the event.)

Also reportedly a great night again at Guggleton Arts Open Mic on Thursday - always a brilliant party-style event, this session including two of my favourite performers: Leon Sea, and 'Twitch' - both here as snapped at that venue earlier this summer:

Meanwhile, great news from elsewhere about some of the incredible dramatic & lyrical creatives stars of Frome:  

Black Hound Productions, the innovative young dramatic company, enthusiastically reviewed in this blog for several productions, has taken their double bill (see July 24) to Edinburgh and collared a massive 5 star review rating for Seeds of Memories. 

And moving to off-the-scale fantastic,  Frome's poetic ambassadress Liv Torc with fellow 'hot poet' Chris Redmond spent last week in Botswana, brainstorming with the UNFCCC - yes folks, that's the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Her online reports are amazing: here's a taster to read & re-read with awe & hope: "We are in a giant conference centre / palace - where we spend all day with 50 other incredible people from around the world doing exercises and brainstorming ...to come up with totally new ‘there is no box’ ideas for a better more resilient world in the face of climate change. We are scientists, futurists, architects, AI creators, zen masters, royals, indigenous knowledge experts, diplomats, economists, city planners, agriculturalist, artists etc. We use a lot of post-it’s."  And it's pretty fair to say that if anyone can save the world with post-it notes, Liv can.

No apologies for concluding, despite planetary stress, on a very happy personal note: Pete Gage, superb poet & musician and friend, has sent me this delightful message: "Crysse, I have just finished reading Blow-Ins. My God Crysse, I love so many things about it, not least your amazing descriptive style and use of words/vocabulary, so uniquely put together and so colourfully conveyed, but also your ability to convey the emotions and thoughts of the characters so sensitively and insightfully. It was as though I was there in all those interactions, a silent invisible member of the family in touch with it all up to the end of your brilliant novel. All i can say, is wow! xxxx Naturally I purred like a rescued kitten, and asked if I could quote this, but Pete had also prepared a more orderly and even more awesome review, which is now on the Blow-Ins FB page here.

And this week's footnote will be my final one for MY BLOG, which began, incredibly, 16 years ago in September 2006. At that time, my writer's life was taking me around the country & around the world too, from Thailand to Chile - with Greek Islands in between, working with writers as well as performing poetry and promoting drama. The first post explains: "I thought a blog would be a great way of celebrating the wonderful variety of things I'm lucky enough to be doing... based on Jack Kerouak's 'list of essentials.' Something that will find its own form. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.  Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it."

MY BLOG has morphed, gradually, into a diarist's eye on artsy Frome, mostly, and as an addictive writer with a poor memory, it has given me massive pleasure over the changing years. Frome is in a state of flux right now (what - again? yes, as always) with the development of Saxonvale still unsettled despite the fantastic work of the Mayday team with massive support from the town; development is encroaching from the South, Marston Park is struggling, and shops are closing (sadly including much-loved Amica, owned by painter David Moss who created my last two book covers.) Frome will somehow survive, of course, and hopefully thrive - and who knows, maybe re-assert its belligerent history of protest at imposed change... but if not, it will still have its fantastic art, music, and drama. So ending this blog-story of Frome as centre of a creative universe feels a bit like the end of Winnie the Pooh: "whatever happens, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

May Day fun, frolics & failure...

So.. an odd thing happened just as I was about to post this update: the entire entry disappeared. So instead of an a thoughtful and possibly insightful review of last week, here - one day late -  is a slightly frantic summary: 

Music first, as Saturday night was the hotly-anticipated Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal event at the Cheese & Grain: five superb acts performing to a full & friendly audience, with opening and links from DJ Patmandu. Here's The Back Wood Redeemers who followed Henry Wacey, Back of the Bus, Mighty One, and The Raggedy Men -  all brilliant. A fantastic night of dancing with friends and listening to fabulous music from these great Frome performers.

Sunday was Independent Market day, followed by an afternoon session at Bar Lotte from the truly brilliant Rosco Shakes, with daylight giving a slightly better opportunity to catch a snap of this fabulous funk-blues band. From a laconic version of Ain't nobody's business but my own, to a rocking Kansas city here I come, the Rosco team delivers superbly in its own inimitable style, with Tim literally dancing as he speed-plays the keyboard. 

This was a great week for arts: Mark Brooke's provocative and unusual images of Melissa Stanton-Matthews were on show at the Station Gallery, where on Thursday Melissa also read some of the poems from their shared collection of art and words Meet Me Inside - a candid sharing of feelings about 'being human' in a world that values beauty above other attributes.  Melissa's intimate personal poems chime with the series of portraits Mark created to show the real woman beyond the perfect model, but Melissa is actually very beautiful.

Friday saw a plethora of exciting art show openings: Black Swan has some amazing work from Simon Hitchens, whose Beyond Body exhibition explores the connection between our experiences and those of inanimate matter like rock, to ask questions about our concept of experience: "what makes a being sentient? Is a mountain or stone a being?" Simon is fascinated, he explains, by 'the difference between the human and the non-human – what passes and what outlasts.”

Showing until 26 May and well worth a visit.

Over at the Whittox Gallery on the same night, another thought-provoking exhibition opened. Endangered tells an important story about the life cycle of eels in Britain where sadly they are now close to extinction. Julia Manning's beautiful wood and linocut prints chronicle their amazing journeys from birth in Somerset rivers to finally reaching the Sargasso Sea, and she has been working in schools to raise awareness and hopefully halt their decline. This fascinating and informative exhibition, which also includes some wildlife sketches by Nik Pollard, is showing until 25 June.

Finally in this splendid arty triumvirate of Friday night openings: the Art Fair at the Silk Mill & Bennett Centre was open throughout the weekend - a delightful throng of art and craft of every description. The quality of work by these local makers is fantastic, and their ingenuity is amazing too: Paul Juillerat's felted banners incorporating personal treasures, and esoteric art created from scrap by Matthew Sowter to name just two of the intriguing practices on display along with the paintings and high-quality craft work.

So Friday night in Frome was buzzing with arty vibes but unfortunately I'd booked to see Mark Thomas at the Rondo in Bath and missed all these openings, although did manage a full catch-up around the venues in Frome next day. Mark's lockdown shows had been funny and full-on political so I was hoping for some satisfying satire on the current state of the nation, but disappointingly his focus was on other issues, like having a row with the front rows and giving a  detailed description of his annoying aged mother's toenails, so I left at the interval to enjoy a stroll back through the city and a wait for the bus at Be At One, where barmen wear ear plugs but the vibe is always friendly. Here's Bladud in the Parade Gardens, from my afternoon stroll round the city.

And finally - I think, though I may have missed something as it was a busy week - the continuing benefit of lockdown for me has been Zoom, a portal to art talks and theatre performance when live visits were banned and this week a connection to two interesting meetings hosted by Penny Hay at Bath Spa School of Education, who talked with Liv Torc about the amazing work with the Hot Poets.

 Liv is passionate about poetry and about the urgency of need for awareness of our climate crisis: the Hot Poets project she's spearheading made such an impact at COP26 that the team have been invited to join the UN at COP27.  Liv talked fluently, and often funnily, about the contribution that poetry can make to essential awareness of issues, and about her own writing process: 'I look on it like sculpting a piece of clay - you have to work on it while its wet', she says. 

Later that day  Penny Hay also zoom-interviewed Mikey Please, recent recipient of a Bafta for his Aardman-developed animated film Robin Robin,  Mikey talked entertainingly about his own animations and the process with Aardman - surprisingly, it's so complicated that no retakes are possible meaning everything you see is the first take - and gave credit to all the team who worked on the project, including musicians Ben & Beth Please aka The Bookshop Band, and, especially pleasing for me, my writer/film-maker son Sam.

So there you are, that was the week that got wiped by my system, or at least the shreds remaining in my memory - with a final footnote which is also the reason there's no report here on the May Independent Market, as my morning was shared with 400 others forming a human chain around the Saxondale site currently under threat of cynical development. There's an alternative plan on offer which would benefit us all far more (you can view it here) and the Big Mayday Hug around the site will hopefully have shown how much support this one has, and the level of concern in Frome about the future of this area in the heart of the town.

A double dose of drama, and some Hot Words

“Never boring for a split second” was Noel Coward’s view of Harold Pinter’s dramas: that's certainly true for Theatre Royal Bath’s new production of The Homecoming, arguably  the most Pinteresque of all this playwright's plays. Complex family relationships are revealed by conversational interaction which, whether brutal or benign, always seems banal. On a superb set (designer Liz Ashcroft) conveying in its spaciness the isolation of each inhabitant, director Jamie Glover ensures that every utterance contributes to the sense of non-connection and personal fantasy. The whole saga is brutal, physically and emotionally, yet the stylised unreality of speech with Pinter's iconic pauses and nonsequiturs ensure that it’s more intriguing than scary.All the men are steeped in their own delusions, never fully interacting, their speeches full of self-important fantasies. When these are challenged they crumple, several times literally. They don’t listen to each other, except to scoff. In reality these men are weak and seedy, and when Ruth arrives, the prism tilts. In a society more than ever concerned with gender roles, it’s interesting to surmise what Ruth’s effortless dominance signifies. Her husband’s passivity is as bizarre as her behaviour, and the unseen children are another insoluble: it’s almost as if Pinter didn't want his puzzling play to be ‘solved’ at all...

There are big names here: Mathew Horne - a million miles now from Stacey’s patient adoring Gavin - is impressive as Lenny, one of the strange sons of Max, who is well played by Keith Allen (Trainspotting), and the rest of the cast all have strings of credits. Shanaya Rafaat takes the role of Ruth, the wife who accepts her husband’s family’s offer to adopt her as a whore with the unforgettable farewell to her husband ‘Don’t become a stranger’; Ian Bartholomew is moving as Sam, the more-nearly-normal brother of Max; Geoffrey Lumb is touching as the quiet boxer and Sam Alexander plays Teddy, the homecoming brother.  The best thing I've seen on that stage for a long while. Images: Alan Henning

                                                                                                        

We move, theatrically speaking, now from the social attitudes of England in the 20th Century to those prevailing in 1782, when 133 men and women were thrown off the Zong slave ship as unwanted 'cargo' to preserve their drinking water. The radio version of The Meaning of Zong, produced by Bristol Old Vic, was broadcast on Radio 3 last year (reviewed in this blog March 28) and was both shocking and moving , but this full-stage 2-act version brought spectacular imagery and sound to the tragedy. Giles Terera, who took the role of the agitator for justice Olaudah Equiano (an actual 18th Century campaigner who was himself a stolen for slavery as a child) has been working with director Tom Morris for six years to bring this story to the stage. During that time Bristol became a hub for Black Lives Matter protests, culminating in the toppling of the Colston statue to join the bones of the many black slaves drowned there for their insurance money. As a case study of an era when black men and women were simply cargo, and their

killers were prosecuted not for murder but for an insurance scam, this is fascinating, but it's superb as theatrical performance too, shifting from spectacular displays of djembe drumming (Sediki Dembelo, music designer & performer) to dreamlike sequences under the sea, then shifting to eloquent arguments as the legal case is gathering momentum. Paul Higgins is brilliant as Granville Sharp, nearly worn out by his lonely role of opposition to the slave trade, but sharp enough to see the case through.  Jean Chan's stage & costume design enhanced every mood, with wooden planks a powerful link between the scenes whether as ship decks or menacing threats. Images @curtisrichardphotography.

Readers with particular interest in the theatre bits of this blog will find more on Plays International website here, and here 😊 

Moving on now to a group enterprise in environmental awareness:  Poets have been concerned about the damage caused by mankind to the earth's environment since at least 1820, when John Clare published Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Nature but since COP 26 this concern has become - in the southwest at least - a coordinated effort to create positive change, through raised awareness and informed action. Hot Poets is the result of a collaboration between performance poets Liv Torc and Chris Redmond, supported by a raft of institutions and individuals, and last year they produced a collection of 12 Poems About Saving the World.  Liv and Chris have now taken Hot Poets a stage further, with online workshops to create performance pieces about a chosen environmental project: this week they hosted two readings. At the session on Monday (thank you David Thompson for inviting me!) all of the sixteen poems presented were excellent: impressive in their research, compelling in their message, cleverly crafted, and moving in their delivery. 

The diversity of chosen projects was fascinating, as was the diversity of approaches to crafting a poem: 

Angela Higgs wrote from the future, 'remembering' the transformation of brown-fill sites to solar farms, while Tokoni mourned the sinking islands ('is it home when you can no longer stand on it?') and Jay Farley's marvellous combination of scientific research and clever word play actually managed to convince me that mushrooms can, or at least could, save the world... 

Music spot this week goes to the marvellous Brue River Band, who promised and delivered 'floor-filling funky blues' at the Sun Inn on Saturday - a friendly venue great for atmosphere but not for photos - and Sunday saw quite a lot of people at Rise Community Centre in  Whittox Lane chapel for a fabulous exhibition of wildlife recorded in Easthill, the most ancient of all Frome's undeveloped sites. As well as a large number of screens filled with superb images and fascinating information, there were quizzes to inform and intrigue, cakes and plants for sale, and music to enhance the mood. 

Signing off this week on a personal note: my devoted MacBook, constant companion for the last 7 years, had a heart attack on Thursday and has been dying by degrees. It's currently on a life support system - a new separate keyboard - but requires so many rests, and splutters for words so often, (eg this paragraph has taken 5 minutes) that I've had buy a replacement, on which, hopefully, normal service will eventually be resumed. Massive appreciation to David Goodman, without whose technical - and emotional - support, my MacCrisis would be still unresolved.  Off now to the Proof Pudding book club, for review-sharing and cake.

A dramatic week: absurdity, tragedy, & some poetry...

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Who said February was a dull month? This week has been crammed with performance and creativity. Let's start with live theatre:The Late-ivity. Yes, it is the nativity story from the bible, Jim, but not as we know it.  Living Spit, unabashed that January is trudging onward, has brought their version of the arrival on earth of the Son of God to Bristol’s Wardrobe Theatre at the end of its short revival tour - revived from December’s performances when it was called The Nativity, that is.

The Wardrobe has fantastic audience atmosphere, especially for comedy, and Howard Coggins & Stu McCloughlin are absolutely on top form here - I speak as one who has followed them for over a decade of fantasies and histories, always steeped in absurdity. Here, Howard’s bored God picks a random woman (Howard) to impregnate, so Stu dashes around as an exasperated Gabriel, and both of them morph into shepherds and kings, skimming hilariously through the familiar tale to their own undoubted highlight: Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, recreated by audience participation as scores of dolls were chucked at us to dismember and hurtle back. The stage by the end looked like party leftovers from a cannibal feast. Sadly next week is the end of the run for this show: if you can’t get tickets, keep your fingers crossed for The Later-ivity - this one could run & run.

The recent remake of West Side Story, which has been popular with both reviewers and the public, has been showing at the Westway, Frome's charming little independent cinema: the combination of Spielberg and Sondheim, plus wild passion and hot nights, is clearly unmissable in a chill January, and the Westway has added attractions like icecreams on offer from a tray during the intermission, and a foyer bar. Adding to these small delights, this movie has been very well reviewed by both critics and audiences - and rightly so. This version is, as you'd expect, careful to get ethnicity correct, and also to establish a credible social context for the aggressions of the deprived teens.  Choreography & agility in the dances is as brilliant as you'd expect, and that clever, funny, song Gee Officer Krupke works particularly well as a private ensemble number rather than an unlikely challenge to real authority. It's great, altogether.

Still with drama: a chat in The River House with Frome's writer/performer Hannah Kumari whose one-person show ENG-ER-LAND will be touring the UK from February. As well as celebrating her own passion for football, Hannah says it's an exploration of her own mixed race identity, and what it means to be English. "I wanted to write a play that was fun and uplifting, whilst also confronting big issues," Hannah says. The play is coming to Frome in March, with a showing at the Football Club as well as the Merlin theatre.

This was a rich week for poetry too: Words at the Black Swan ekphrastic poetry group met on Monday to respond to the extraordinary Slow Time exhibition in the Long Gallery which opened last weekend. This fascinating project proved really stimulating to all ten workshop participants- do take a look at the website in the link, there are some extraordinary and beautiful responses to these pinhole landscapes extending Cartier Bresson's concept of a 'decisive moment' into an infinity of time. One of the group, Mike Grenville, also made a film you can view here.

Then Thursday evening Rainbow Fish Speakeasysession on Zoom led by by Frome's wonder-girl Liv Torc included some wonderful words, mostly crafted from heart-felt personal experience, with brilliant guest Rebecca Tantony also movingly personal in her poems: there's a sample of her work here. 

And after a couple missed Wednesdays, here's your musical blast from wonderful Bar Lotte! Saxophonist Iain Bellamy was with Nick Pini on bass, guest guitarist Denny Ilett, and drums this time from Marc Whitlock. I know nothing about jazz, but I do know that these sessions are fabulous.

And your final footnote this week is a recommendation for all those who for various reasons don't get up to the talks at the National Gallery in London: this is another of their short free-to-view exhibition promo films, this time Albrecht Dürer. It's a fascinating revelation of Dürer's huge impact on artists ever since.

Decisions and revisions which a ruling will reverse...

Sadly but inevitably, Nunney Acoustic Café - a major music venue just outside Frome -  cancelled their Christmas party this weekend, planned as a 2-day event to celebrate the ending of those months of disappointing restrictions.  Luckily however, although Stalbridge is a bit further away - in fact, over the border in Dorset - in this delightful little village the Guggleton Farm Arts centre has an outdoor concert-hall (ie large yard) with a covered stage. Here on Friday night, eight brilliant acts played and sang under the stars to an appreciative audience, sustained by a bar and fresh-made pizzas, until nearly midnight. Performers included Frome favourites The MellowTones (pictured) and Nunney's Francis Hayden, as well as six other solo acts, a mix of covers and original compositions. 

Of the former, I especially enjoyed the set from Nick Coleman which included a fabulously evocative version of Radiohead's Creep... A really wonderful party-night event, despite the cold. We may need more outdoor events like this as the weeks crawl past on their relentless way.

Meanwhile, Rosco Shakes at Bar Elle on Wednesday will probably be the last indoor gig of the year for me -  a brilliant finale, though, as the lads never fail to deliver fantastic rhythm&bluesy jazz. 

Words now, with the Frome Writers on Radio festive edition now available online from Frome FM: the opening interview with Tina Gaysford-Waller (at 4.45) on her recommendations features local authors published by Hobnob, including poetry from Pete Gage and David Thompson - and her 'high recommendation' of Deja Lu as a 'fantastic collection, the attention to detail is fabulous' had me purring. There's also an excellent interview with John Killah, seen here signing copies of his wild-fire success Struck Off outside Hunting Raven Bookshop. image: John Chandler

On Monday the Black Swan Arts writing group met in the Long Gallery, and with no art (yet) about which to wax lyrical, our leader Sara Morris enterprisingly encouraged us all to write limericks. Here's one from David Thompson:  

The Tory top brass in South Ken

Don't live all that far from Big Ben.

If they want to get canned

While parties are banned,

They drop by refurbed Number 10.

The last Rainbow Fish Speakeasy of the year was on Thursday: these zoomed poetry performance nights hosted by Frome's Liv Tork are inclusive and friendly open mic sessions with a main guest - this time Matt Harvey with a marvellous poem about whales from the recent Hot Poets project - you can click here to hear Matt recreating his wonderful description of the opulent flocculent fecal plumes of whale poo... There was a very different but also thought-provoking contribution too from Frome's David Thompson also on the theme of global awareness and human domination of earth and its creatures.

Also this week, a reminiscence meeting for my first ever local writing group, now in its 20s: the Fromesbury Set had a wonderfully refreshing catchup over wine spritzers at the Archangel in Frome. Our official photographer, Debs, took this selfie snap. Thursday's ongoing weekly writing group involved much sharing & analysis and a fair bit of feasting too (cranberry mince-pies a feature!) with that tang of this-may-be-the-last-time which is in the ether everywhere now... 

And my week concluded with a festive splash of theatre, as Bristol Old Vic has made their 2019 production of A Christmas Carol  free to view online for the rest of December - which, if you consider what other big theatres charge for their screenings, is a rather wonderful present to all their followers.

My blog review at the time enthused about every aspect of this immersive production which, despite the vast number of liberties taken with characters and dialogue, nevertheless stays powerfully true to the spirit of the story: the damage to community caused by money-hoarding and the indifference to others' suffering shown by the wealthy. John Hopkins in the central role of Scrooge is superb throughout, from rage to reconciliations, with a nice line in repartee during audience participation bits. 

Also delightful is the device to bring a child from the audience to remind Ebenezer of the vulnerable child he once was... here's a couple of screen shots to show the range of visuals. Recommended, click the link above!

So as this is my last bulletin before the traditional day of winter celebrations on our small island, I'll leave you with the wonderful musings of J Alfred Prufrock, by courtesy of TS Eliot: click here and enjoy the luxury of mere melancholy, which is something there's little place for in these times.

A week of dazzling night-lights & sizzling performance

Storm Arwen (the Welsh name means 'fair' which seems  ironic) gave an early fluttering here on Friday causing cancellation of the 'Little Night Market' which should have launched Frome town festive celebrations but the Lantern Procession went ahead, to the excitement of the huge crowd watching Jamma de Samba lead hundreds of lantern bearers down the hill to the town centre where mayor Andy did the tree-lights-switch-on. This parade is really something: Frome artists Mel Day and Alice Vaas for the last five years have been leading workshops for anyone wanting to join in, providing willow wands and  tissues as well as instruction, and results this year were especially stunning, with magical moonflowers and other clever constructions like owls, and a dazzling green frog.

Still in Frome next night, this time with two Olympians of poetry, Liv Torc and Elvis McGonagall.  Fromie Liv features often in this blog; Elvis has performed in Frome in the past, but my role as Spoken Word Co-ordinator at the theatre was on plague-pause until we heard he was booked for a southwest tour - although ironically the other venues weren't able to deliver so Frome was the sole beneficiary - all of which moithering leads to the happy outcome that on Saturday a big & beaming audience in the Merlin Theatre was brilliantly entertained by an award-winning shouty Scottish poet, with a local legend as support act - honestly, you couldn't want a better night than that could you.

Liv established massive rapport from the start and delivered a mix of very personal poems and powerful eco-poetry: as one of the Hot Poets, she delivered her remarkable poem When You Know The Water's Coming at COP26 and her terrific collection The Human Emergency is available from Burning Eye.  

Elvis has published a new collection with Burning Eye too: that link in this case takes you to Complete and Utter Cult, which contains many of the vehement & hilarious political diatribes with which he entertained his audience: you'll find his exasperated satire on emotive reporting Gimme Some Truthiness, his savagely funny 'trip through the sunny uplands of British exceptionalism' What a State and - my favourite -The Immigration Alphabet, in which “P is for Priti Patel, turning back boats like a psychotic King Canute.”  Both these poets have big personalities and amazing delivery, so it's unsurprising there were queues after the show to buy signed copies - at under a tenner, both books should be on your Christmas lists both to give & receive!

So now we've acknowledged that the C word will have to be uttered quite a few times before this time next month,  it's panto time:

Little Women in Black, billed as 'a brand new darkly comic Christmas show from The Wardrobe ' was my choice for a festive drama this winter as I'm a big fan of this anarchic Bristol pub theatre. - it's so niche and locally popular that promotion is minimal, and this image is the only one available of their 'parody mashup' of Louisa May Alcott's tale of dull lives in 19th Century Massachusetts. This "anarchic, sexy, adult-only devised comedy with little women, big guns, scary aliens and a sweet 1990s soundtrack" presents the March sisters as you've never imagined them... Pretty Amy, a wannabe Britney with a passion for pink, is probably the most like her fictional inspiration; her sisters however are sassy sky-roaming galaxy guardians apart from massive Beth, who doubles as Laurie, and he's an alien, but a great singer.  It's all fast-moving and incredibly funny, and the audience rapport is phenomenal - you feel like you've crashed a private party at times, and the four actors - Jenny Smith, Tesni Kujore, Jessikah Wilson, and Tom Fletcher, are brilliant.  Directed by Julia Head, showing until 16th January. 

There's no getting away from the approaching rituals now that the tree lights are on in the centre of town and decorations dangle in all the shops. Frome FM's friendly On Air Book Group once again invited me and Tina Gaisford-Waller, manager of Hunting Raven Bookshop, to join them at the recording of their festive edition edition. Sheila Hedges and Karen Stewart focussed on fiction, I went for non-fiction* and poetry, and Tina  gave us a whistle-stop tour of her hot tips in every genre.  Here's Karen, Tina, me and Sheila enjoying this delightful hour of chat, recorded by James Ellis and enhanced by mulled wine, mince pies, and general booky chatter: the show goes on air on 3rd Dec at 2pm, and the link will stay live for later listening.   (* apart, obviously, from commending my own collection of short stories, Déjà Lu - perfect stocking filler or small gift, available from Hobnob Press, Hunting Raven or me!) 

 

And also on Frome FM radio, Eleanor Talbot's ever-intriguing podcast Variations on a Theme  this week puts a focus on fashion.  As always, the playlist is wildly eclectic and the scope is entertainingly broad, ranging from Bowie and Dylan to Madness and The Irish Rovers: we learn the history of the top hat, or 'beaver', and of the kilt, and various fads & extreme styles of apparel, and I'm using this as an excuse to post a picture of Aiden Turner in a pre-Raphaelite style waistcoat.

Still with audial entertainment this week, but a shift of mood back to climatic and ecological concerns: Last Friday's art openings caused me to miss the viewing at the Town Hall of Rivercide,  George Mombiot's film about our river crisis, but you can hear about this - and other crucial situations, on Frome FM here.  

Annabelle Macfadyen was one of the protesting 'Blackbirds' at COP26: interviewed by Rupert Kirkham about her rationale, she explains  "The blackbirds in Druidic mythology stand at the gateway between the world of concrete reality and the dream world, the unconscious, and if we can open up to the possibility...  the changes we need can be made." 

This programme is well worth a full listen for the discussion, and for Al O'Kane's performing two of my absolute favourites of his songs: Losing It and Animals.  Pic snatched from Frome FM's post, thanks.    (Oh, and the strange looking game is Prometheus, invented by Frome's Christopher Curtis and now a hot favourite as a Christmas gift.)

Community poetry & partying, with bonus paintings

Liv Torc's 'haiflu ever after' show came to the Merlin in Frome this week, magically converting this often-overlarge venue into both a cinema and a small, intimate, club with a lively atmosphere. That's what Liv can do; she is a word-witch and, with added live music from her partner Richard Monks, this experimental session of projected memories plus performance plus audience participation showed yet again that she is a simply brilliant entertainer. As well as reminding us of her 'haiflu' project, which monitored our communities' pulse of emotion as the plague progressed, Liv tracked her personal extreme health crisis, and even managed to create a massive community haiflu-stream of responses from the audience during the interval. 

Still with words: Episode 40 of Frome Writers Collective on radio is now available online, with my short talk about writing short stories 4 minutes into this link, followed by a cheeky review of Déjà Lu by Suzy Howlett @14.30 minutes.  I also had the delightful experience of reading one of my favourite of these tales, Deceiving Mr Pemberley, to the friendly & welcoming Active & In Touch group at the Cornerhouse on Tuesday morning - a delightfully attentive audience and good company too. 

Music now, and  Guggleton Farm - or The Gugg as it's more usually known, is a new venue to me, discovered just in time before the winter closure of this wonderful arts venue in Stalbridge, Dorset. Thursday evening's live music in the open-air barn provided a smorgasbord of delights, from young local acts like Oscar & Georgie (pictured R) to Frome headliners Unit 4 (above),  a newly-formed Frome band already gathering fans excited by their uncompromising funky style.

On a sadder note, this is the week we said a final farewell to one of Frome's major musical talents: PeeWee Ellis, legendary saxophonist and all-round charming man, left us forever.  This example of his style, brilliance and charm is from 2018 and was recorded Ronnie Scott's. 

Friday evening saw the preview of Whittox Gallery's new exhibition Into the Colour, a shared showing of paintings by Jenny Morse & Susanna Lisle which will be on view until the end of October.  'Joyful' and 'playful' are terms which have been applied to these vibrantly coloured abstract images, and they certainly lift the spirits on a dull autumn day.  Jenny has used screen printing to create the colours she saw in a trip to Brazil and Susanna's paintings are inspired by gardens and by Islamic pattern. Results, for both artists, are strikingly gorgeous. 

This has been national Great Big Green Week, and Frome embraced the concept bigly with a splendid programme of events including walks, talks, films, activities and meetings - I managed to join the Frome Heritage Tree Walk led by Julian Hight - not, as avid readers of this blog may recall, my first excursion on this route: it is endlessly fascinating to remember this is the last remnant of Selwood forest, which was never a dense thicket but a meadow initially grazed by sheep then farmed for teasels for the wool trade, and the oldest trees here will have witnessed those times.  

Saturday evening's highlight in this menu of Green events was a live follow-up to the amazing We Feed the World art exhibition which featured in the summer festival: We Feed... Frome was created in Station Approach by stalls from local eco producers with music from fabulous Rosco Shakes.  The combination of balmy evening, amazing food, and a popular local band ensured a fantastic street party.