Lights, music, curtains...

Frome Festive Poetry Cafe on Monday evening had a focus on the community aspect of these bi-monthly-ish get-togethers at the Garden Cafe: we've enjoyed some fantastic guest poets at these events, and will continue to do so, but this time the metaphorical mic was given over entirely to the floor - or rather to the creative people who come as audience. Here's me somewhat randomly allocating the gifts donated by Hunting Raven Books and Merlin Theatre but the prize for everyone was a really lovely night, rich in imagery with poems ranging from poignant memories to witty word-play. Several 'debut poets' took the plunge, including a touching 'thankyou letter to Frome' from Chloe Rayburn, joining popular regulars like Mike Grenville (with a piece inspired by the current Black Swan exhibition you can read here) humorists Moira Andrew and John Christopher Wood, and John Payne, who read and distributed a moving poem from his current research on the workhouse in Bath, consulting leather ledgers in the Guildhall basement: They list the money spent, the figures, / but not the suffering / of children, elders, the mad, the sick./ We must hold them in remembrance ourselves.  Thanks David Goodman for the photos.

Next night's illuminating imagery was the literal kind, with an evening walk over the Wiltshire border into neighbouring Longleat Festival of Lights rewarded by an awesome scene of myths and legends in massive scale filling the park right down to, and including, the lake. This extraordinary spectacle is on until Jan 5th and it really is, also literally, fabulous: I've been critical of this costly 'spectacular' in the past for tacky cartoon figures and badly re-envisaged storybook characters, but this year's theme-envisaging is truly awesome - every mythic monster and hero from legends around the world is here, aesthetically beautiful as well as posed in thrilling story-telling moments - the illuminated tags beside each were being extensively used by visitors, I noticed, to succinctly fill the sad omissions in our 'education' system. There are hundreds of beautiful images there to enthral and photograph - I picked two that chime currently for me.


For the rest of the week Frome seems to have been wall-to-wall music. Raggedy Men at the Cornerhouse were a perfect choice for Friday, with dancing from the start and lots of shout-along moments to great songs from Jonny Rotten and The Clash - classic smashing punk, but with riffs! Andy, Bugsy, Carl, and drumming dervish Pat - you were just what we all needed.


Dancing-from-the-start at Cornerhouse again next night for amazing Bristol band Flash Harry, who claim to be a folk rock-balkan-cajun band but it's not that simple (!) to describe them - they can sing&play at fast-forward, make a sea-shanty sound like Deep Purple, make a hoe-down song jazzy or the other way around, and have a penchant for hamsters. I can't find their wonderful Get Out Of Bed song online but here's a sample of their style from a Bristol gig.

Sunday afternoon Acoustic Club in the Three Swans, co-ordinated by Paul Kirtley, was a pleasantly casual affair, with a series of enjoyable performances including a great set from Mountain Speaks Fire who were joined for their version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night by guest singer Anna Callan making an early debut. (I always thought this was a Nirvana original, but it's actually traditional, first recorded in 1939 by Lead Belly)

And the tempo stayed relaxed back at the Cornerhouse for Graham Dent's Sunday jazz night, this time with Caroline Radcliffe as guest singer with Graham's regular Piano Trio and John Plaxton on trumpet.

As this is primarily an arts blog, there will be no comment about what also happened last week and I'll leave you with a seasonal poem from William Yeats: The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spirtus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
 That twenty centuries of stony sleep
 Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

winter woods : the Nature Watch edition

Dendrophilia literally means simply 'love of trees' but like arbophilia it's become seen as  a sort of sap-induced sexual arousal. A passion for woodland walking is a simpler sensuality for most of us: it's about smells of moss & lichen, sound of birdsong and crunchy leaves, the green & auburn tones of midwinter, the tranquility, and our deep instinctive awe at the timeless majesty of these tall life forms we call trees. Perhaps it's more like animism ~ our ancient understanding of the super-natural powers of everything living on earth.

This post is mostly about binge-walking.  At winter solstice my walk from Frome into Wiltshire with David took us along the Sustrans path through Longleat woods, always beautiful. Here's one of the fairy-tale creatures inhabiting the parkland over the festive season. There are owls, too, though sadly in cages. Next walk was with my family and in the opposite direction: we took a field route around Radford Mill, including the ancient holloway named 'Jenny's Path' after the little donkey that hauled coal between the mine and the canal in the late 18th Century. And then on Boxing Day, my favourite close-to-home walk, along the field edge just south of Frome to Roddenberry hill fort, flanked with beeches, glorious in every season.


This has been a good week for music too, with several open mics, Pete Gage Band at the Cornerhouse (his new CD is amazing) and a big tribute event for Griff Daniels, one year gone and still much missed, at the Roots Session in the Grain Bar. Nikki Mascall and Steve Loudoun led an epic musical gathering including Simon Sax, Mike Peake on trumpet, and Paul Hartshorn guitar.

No theatre to review week but I'm chuffed that the new issue of Plays International has a image of The Tin Man at Bristol Old Vic on the front cover, as featured in my column on productions in the southwest within. Still on a theatrical theme, I'll end with an odd tale which began in July when I stumbled upon ~ that's the term for an unexpected and fortuitous discovery I believe, though actually they were on a shelf ~ a pile of Theatre World magazines from 1962. This monthly publication is long defunct but it was once prestigious, and my father was their reviewer for various festivals and many London shows. (His style was caustic rather than effusive, in case you were wondering where I get it from.) Anyway, he sometimes took me along, and the May '62 issue includes one I remember vividly: the first English production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, at the Aldwich.  I was overjoyed to find these back in the summer, and now I'm overjoyed all over again, as my wonderful family have framed the entire collection of covers ~ or rather, a hi-res image of each, no magazines were harmed in making of this gift. Isn't it great? All I have to do now is find somewhere to hang it...

the festive one

A bumper festive issue now it's all nearly over, that time of year when facebook goes wild with images of celebration, cake, and social inequality, and Elvis McGonagall writes a poem that says it all. Here's this year's one: Unholy Land

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed

Someone’s erected a trampoline instead

The foxes are bouncing, the baby awakes

Mary screams “Joseph! What’s this for Christsakes?

Eighty miles on a donkey and me up the duff

No room at the Premier Inn, I’m not chuffed

Where’s the Wise Men with frankincense, myrrh and gold

The angels, the shepherds, the lo and behold?

Who gives a toss about a gymnastic dog

A badger that goes “boing!” or an airborne hedgehog?

I was promised some glory, the birth of a King

At the least I want to hear Aled Jones sing"

But while we’re shopping bombs are dropping, 
                                                         I've lost all mirth

Aleppo’s burning the meaning and truth from this birth

So goodwill to all men for what it is worth

And let’s pray like fuck for some Peace on this Earth.

(The picture of Bath in the rain is to counterbalance not illustrate: it's by Peter Brown and is in the exhibition A Bath Painter's Travels at Victoria Art Gallery till 19 February - well worth popping in. )

Frome of course does everything its own way, and the Night Market Before Christmas at Silk Mill was full of delightful local craft from independent traders plus a full band around the fire in the yard.
Solstice celebrations featured Midwinter Magic at the Wheatsheaves: music and poetry, organised by Sara Vian, pictured here playing with her band.
A great set too from Sue Harding, and fine words from Graham Owen and Liam Parker (Thanks Patrick Moss for my pic)

More music at the Cornerhouse last Friday, where Pete Gage with his band were on brilliant form ~ do get their CD Left Over Blues if you haven't got it already. The last night of the year was lively here too, as musicians gathered for an informal session at Martin Earley's generous end-of-year party.

Frome's 'hub' role isn't only as a cauldron of creativity, as expressed in gigs, markets, shows, and other events ~ it's a rural thing too. There are so many amazing walks within a short radius of the town, and the weather has been friendly.

White Horse at Bratton on Boxing Day was breezy, but a Christmas Eve day walk to Longleat was balmy though I can't report how the Disneylike Beatrix Potter characters look when illuminated as we were hustled off the site by six security personnel having been identified on camera as walking in on regular footpaths without paying the £31.95 price of a glimpse (but if you're disabled it's only, oh, £31.95 ~ unless you're aged 3 in which case it's £22.95). I don't include this to add a sour note ~ we had a lovely walk and a great day, especially with a stop at amazingly welcoming Cross Keys en route back ~ but to highlight the fact that local walkers have been in conflict with Longleat for the last five years over the about-turn on ramblers' rights after genial bohemian Lord Bath handed over control to his son Caewlin.
The 900-acre estate was a priory until the pillage of Henry VIII's 'Reformation' and, since its grounds are crossed by several routes between local villages and towns, there existed until 2011 an understanding between laird & serfs that these could still be used on foot even when vehicle- barriers were up for an event.  There's much to take your money anyway if you linger, but we were on the Pleasure Walk, a woodland sculpture trail still listed as free to all visitors, so 32 quid seemed a high fine for passing an illuminated hedgehog. (There's more in the national press about the history of the walkers-v-capitalist toffs conflict and the family's own battle for the soul of Longleat.)

And this small struggle between indigenous locals supported by vociferous incomers against a mighty money-making mentality, ironically, segues perfectly to my last event of this post.
If you google Standing Rock you'll find it's a small reservation in North Dakota occupied by ethnic Hunkpapa Lakota, Sihasapa Lakota and Yanktonai Dakota. You'll also see, although you probably already know, that Standing Rock has for 8 months been encamped by thousands from other tribes, joined by supporters from other parts of America and the world ~  including about 4,000 US war veterans ~ in protest against a crude oil pipeline installation across their land. (pic Huff Post) The camp is now closed for winter, as freezing blizzards will ensure enough delay to void the project, but for a month, until the day the fires were dowsed, one of those international supporters was Frome environmental activist Ben Macfadyen.
When he arrived back in Frome, Ben met with so much curiosity he decided to have an informal meeting to respond to questions about his experience of working at the camp.  He'd been drawn by the core mission of the native protesters: to protect the water because 'water is life'. Ben went initially as an environmental activist but realised when he arrived that the pipeline was only one aspect of cultural oppression. His induction showed him native history not taught in any schools, even those in reservations. There's a big emphasis on the induction process, and elders rely on daily sessions of 'decolonisation' to ensure the incoming, white, supporters recognise that these are prayer camps to hold what is sacred not to empower conflict. This didn't come easy news to many, as the Lakota tribe are warriors and the vets were hardened to confrontation, so meetings were often long and conflicted. Ben says he learned 'to carry on chopping wood and shovelling snow' as the best contribution he could offer.
There seems much to learn from Ben's insights on the struggle: holding focus on peace, the central role of women, and solidarity through diversity. 'Solidarity is when you tend the fire for people who don't feel safe,' Ben said. Perhaps for those of us who feel powerless in terrible times, the best we can do is tend the fires and hold our own values. Until of course, the Snow Bird comes to save the water and war is averted by the power of natural forces...

So now end the revelries of December, and thanks to all my friends and family for the best of times in the worst of times, and I'll leave you all with a toast to the year ahead: my January Song:
 Let us praise New Year resolutions, their pusillanimous tyranny,
and let’s praise their abandonment half way through January.
Let’s eat more cake, and abridge that long debate 
about detoxing, how much we don’t need this big glass of Pinot 
- would be just as happy without it! - oh go on then, I’m not driving.
Let’s admit this new year will be just like the last: a wrangle 
with self discipline which our more articulate decadence will win. 
Let’s praise the clichés that let us off the hook: 
“It is winter – be kind” - “Men like love handles.” 
Ah, the love handles of our lives, the soft slack self-indulgence 
that under-bellies every good intention. 
Let’s praise BAD intentions. Take courage, take heart: 
Here's a toast to whatever is hidden in the dark.

Lights , sound, action...

BBC's Country file last week was all about Frome, with chatty little snippets about our local incredible edibles, from Lungi Baba's bajees, sold from a refurbished loo in the market yard, to the town's Food Assembly creating customised variable veg boxes. The programme seems designed for viewers' taking tea breaks so there's a lot of data repetition but it's good to see the green side of 'one of Britain's coolest towns' extolled instead of the usual rhapsody about retro-chic bargains.
Bath writer Debby Holt is such a fan she's including our 'jewel of the southwest' in the launch tour for her new novel The Soulmate early next year, which segeways nicely to my next report:  Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath is according to the Guardian one of the 10 best bookshops in the world and though by non-zero probability there may be an equally fine bookshop somewhere in an infinite universe, it's certainly a great venue for the 2015 Bath Short Story Awards. Short fiction was my first passion as a writer and I still believe it's a great way to learn essential elements of the craft so I went with Frome writers Alison Clink & current 'Bard of Frome' Brenda Bannister to share in the party and listen to sparkling extracts from the winning stories of the new collection. Here's Mister Bee himself, as I couldn't pick a favourite from among the excellent reader-writers. 

There will now be a short break from my usual eulogising and a Man's-Inhumanity-To-Man interlude.  

The Age of Stupid, which in 2008 tracked the progress of destruction of life on earth & identified 2015 as the tipping point after which no recovery may be possible. So with the (now overshadowed) UN conference on climate change in Paris, plus renewed threats of local fracking, East Mendip Green Party and Frome Anti-Fracking organised a showing in Westway, Frome's brilliant little independent cinema. If you haven't seen the movie you either realise it's all horribly true and don't want to think about it, or just don't want to think about it, so I'll confine my comments to this question posed at the end: Why didn't we save ourselves? Is the answer, we weren't sure we were worth saving? We know how to profit but not how to protect. The final act of civilisation was suicide.
Still on the sombre theme of "every prospect pleases and only man is vile", Bruton's best known art gallery Hauser & Wirth has an exhibition of Don McCullin's photographs from the last fifty years, mostly recording horrific conflict or appalling poverty, with three Somerset landscapes which somehow look like war zones. This amazing, brave, compassionate photographer has long been a hero of mine but I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of the gallery so this is a googled iconic compilation-shot, but I did get to see the actual Nikon that caught the bullet that would have killed him. You'll probably recognise all these marvellous and tragic images but seeing them together is something else, sad but well worth doing.

To conclude this post on a lighter note, literally, the winter spectacular at Longleat is a Festival of Lights which David & I wandered into accidentally after an extended footpath walk, finding the dusk suddenly filled with fabulous constructions ~ mythical creatures, wild animals, palaces and pagodas and much more ~ all made out of silk lanterns.  Look out for the Chinese Dagon boat and the leaping dolphins...

Bristol Old Vic main stage is still off-limits while refurbishment trundles on and, having seen some cracking productions in their tiny studio this season, I wanted to see their main event too – Coram Boy, staged in 2000-capacity Colston Hall. This is a revival of a show that began life at the National six years ago then crossed to Broadway where it was mauled by the critics. Muddled, preposterous and not much fun are some of the kinder epithets among reviews including more specific objections like "You could call it Dickensian if Dickens wrote in clichés and didn’t give a tuppence about characterisation” and, simpler if less literary, "It’s torture." Make your own mind up time, I thought, so I went along.
It's long - nearly three hours. During the interval the woman sitting next to me scoured her programme notes declaring 'we must have missed something, there's got to be a basic plot.' There was indeed a kind of central core within this vast flurry of duplicity, all double-cast to show the passage of years, which for me was defined in the words of Mrs Lynch, one of the minor villains: "All wealth is based on the suffering of others."
This is an era of opulence and degradation, the line between them thin as a hymen, or a noose. On the one side Thomas Coram, benefactor and child-saver: on the other wicked Otis who pretends to act for him but buries the babies and pockets the money. Even rescued children aren't safe really, as kind Mr Coram can't prevent them being kidnapped and shipped off to a Turkish harem. These are just some of the sub-plots - the basic plot, missus, is the double quest for a lost son, leading to a double reunion at the end. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, as Handel might say - and indeed did, appearing in a small cameo role to conduct the ending. All clear?
Coram Boy delivers a full orchestra, little choir boys, gorgeous Georgian costumes, high-energy action scenes, morally-aware social commentary, and birth-to-death dramatic scope: what’s not to enjoy? And I did enjoy, but on a very modest scale considering the vast casts and complexity of sets. It was partly the panto-style simplicity of the script, so every character stayed 2-dimensional, and partly an uncomfortable feeling that the real passion at the heart of this production was filling a large auditorium with paying punters. I couldn't imagine any one of these highly competent actors, directors, and technicians, actually aching to communicate this story to an audience, and to me that's what theatre should be. Personal and vulnerable beats slick and spectacular every time.

Within a couple of hours I was at the Watershed watching another intensely violent tale - Almodovar's monstrously beautiful The Skin I Live In , which to say anything about would be to spoil - except that this film showed the cruelty of obsession and the pain of loss in a way absolutely opposite to the play I'd just seen: frenzied and viscerally painful but deeply important to its creator.

So now would be a good time to do a review-of-the-year but I can't remember back that far so I'll just do a little list of things I've most enjoyed this Christmas:
~ the day itself, with my children and my children's children,

~ celebrations with friends - round solstice fire, at parties and in town,
~ prosecco with christmas stockings at Emily's,
~ crazy dressing-up day with Macfadyens,
~ how mild it's been!
~ unexpected discovery, on a Longleat walk, that the estate had been transformed into a winter wonderland with reindeer, and iceskating, and festive stalls and an amazing constantly-changing illuminated 'Singing Tree' sending the sound of carols through the woodlands.
~ Doctor Who Christmas Special!
~ fantastic live music at the Cornerhouse,
~ minced pies and mulled wine at the Garden Cafe...
~ Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows - fabulous cinematography, great acting, clever script.
~ decorations in streets and homes, lighting up midwinter like it always has been ever since there's been people and long before electricity or gospels since our galaxy is only one of millions and billions.....

Oh, and turkey of the holiday season: BBC's much hyped Great Expectations - aptly named for its intriguing indigo-toned previews but turning out to be an uninteresting and self-conscious adaptation disturbingly miscast, Estella more like the elder Miss Bingley and Pip looking in every shot like he'd rather be auditioning for a retro boy band. Luckily HIGNFY and the Ab Fab girls were on the other channel!

Happy New Year!