Let the festivities commence - some highlights ahead

July's Independent Market, perhaps due to temperatures touching 30º again, was slightly quieter than usual, and all the more pleasant for it, with space to admire the ingenious craft on the hill which tends often to be lost in a slow-moving crush of limbs and dog-leads.
Thankfully most of Frome's cynophilistic population had heeded the messages on social media - or maybe their own common-sense - and weren't dragging their heavily-furred, bare-footed, creatures along in conditions that would fry an egg.  As always, great sounds from the busking stage - here's Crossing the Rockies rocking the crowd with songs & airs in the celtic tradition: this local band also played in the balconied upstairs room of The George later that evening at Ann Harrison-Broninski's launch party for her Frome Festival Sketchbook exhibition - here's a sample of the Ann's lively in-the-moment sketching. There's currently a Festival exhibition in Black Swan Cafe too, with Frome Wessex Camera Club displaying some favourite shots. David Chedgy chose this memorable moment from our 2015 Nevertheless site-specific production Midsummer Dusk in the Dissenters Cemetery: Frome actor Oliver Wright as WW1 soldier George Case.

Before Frome Festival hits this blog with the force of a Harry Kane goal kick -(yes I know this is an arts blog but there was an England match on when I wrote this bit) - a theatrical digression to Wiltshire, to Cleeve House in Seend, which was the setting for a lively performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor from Shakespeare Live.
The 36-strong all-age cast presented Shakespeare's comedy of seduction and retribution in an entertaining production visually impressive throughout - a beautiful garden setting for the company's lavish costumes and magical lighting effects. There were many great moments - Rod Moor-Bardell Falstaff is terrific, his pond-weed return from the ditch where the merry wives' trickery dumped him is a high spot (image Owen Benson). Strong performances too from Jeremy Fowlds' genial George Page and Laurence Parnell's jealous Frank Ford, with Django Lewis-Clarke and Phoebe Wood-Wheelhouse absolutely delightful as the lovers. Overall this was a superb example of community theatre - vibrant, fun, with everything the discerning outdoor theatre-goer might require: Pimms, prosecco, and portaloos.

Grain Bar Roots Session was packed despite a hot night for Wednesday's excellent double bill: Al O'Kane & band, with Ben Hutcheson support - amazing talents and fantastic performance energy - I think my wide-angle lens had heat-stroke, the images really don't do justice to the acts.

Frome Festival officially begins today - Friday 6th - so this week has also been a flurry of final preparations and rehearsals.
Yesterday afternoon was our rehearsal for In the Footsteps of Siegfried Sassoon, the poetry walk around Mells devised by John Payne and Martin Bax, a three mile stroll along gorgeous wild flower trails around stone buildings soaked in history and sunshine under a sky of unblemished cobalt blue - I took only a bottle of water & my script so can't show you any snaps but it was honestly awesome.
I was home just in time the penultimate rehearsal of The Meddling of Mrs Harris, on Tuesday - definitely the most unusual event of this year's festival as Peter Clark takes on the role of Mark Twain who is taking on the role of Leopold II of Belgium, the most monstrous monarch ever, even in our long history of tyrants and psychopaths. His treatment of the Congolese people was so atrocious that reports were deemed unbelievable in the early 1900s, until the wife of an English missionary set about recording the evidence and then travelled around Europe and America with 60 slides of her photographs, taken on one of the world's first cameras. This irrefutable proof brought the end of Leopold's empire in Africa, and the woman who took the pictures has been hailed as the Mother of Human Rights by the Anti-Slavery campaign. Her name is still virtually unknown, even in her home-town - which is Frome - so come along to Rook Lane and hear all about what Alice Seeley Harris found in the Congo under Leopold, as presented in this 1905 satirical 'self-defence' by the king, with a Q&A session afterwards. There's a bar too, if you need a stiff drink after hearing some of the things that Alice saw...

Other events to look out for: Well I'll be going to all the music I can - and tomorrow - Saturday - is the Small Publishers Fair at Silk Mill, hosted by the indefatigable committee of the Frome Writers Collective, at which I'm thrilled to say I'll be lurking about by the Hobnob stall, signing and I hope selling copies of my book Frome Unzipped - from Prehistory to Post-Punk.

I'd also like to put a word in for the Poetry Cafe, which will actually be in the garden of the Garden Cafe on Monday - always our aim but not always an option - with Rob "not-only-clever-but-very-funny" Barratt as special guest, and the Open Mic quest for 2018 Festival Poet Laureate. Last year's theme worked so well we're doing it again - poems on Frankenstein, this year's festival choice.
There's poetry too on Thursday when Liv Torc does her wonderful Hip Yak Slam at the Archangel, and on Wednesday, the Friends of Palestine are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the death of Mahmoud Darwish, with an evening of poetry and music and a middle Eastern buffet. Darwish was six when Israeli forces expelled family and took his village: his poems express not only the suffering of a displaced people, but their hopes and dreams too. I'm very privileged to be one of the readers.

Now I'm off to visit some art openings...

Oddsocks, famous for seizing the sails of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays & ripping them down the middle, have turned their mischievous minds to The Merry Wives of Windsor, which arrived at Bristol QEH on Saturday. In the persona of a 1950s television theatre company - with onstage studio screen monitoring the action – they perform a contemporary version complete with snatches of skiffle and interruptions from their sponsor, Mrs Quickly’s household remedies. Elli Mackenzie and Andrew McGillan shone in a quintet of jolly performers, delivering the ever-popular high-level of audience interaction, and some memorably funny moments: Mistress Page shuddering with orgasmic glee as the Bendix where Falstaff is hiding goes into full spin, the inept ‘product placements’, and a marvellous final woodland scene as the lascivious knight meets his come-uppance from romping night-sprites and Anne Page flees with her lover, fortuituously called Fenton – giving the best gag of the night as her father dashes off roaring ‘Fenton! Fenton! Fenton’ and Falstaff takes off his antlers to quip that many a dog runs after deer… (the youtube clip made national news in November – what a gift!)

But there were bits that didn’t quite work so well: slapstick comedy that should be slicker, silly walks in lieu of characterisation, gratuitous bunion-munching & a pointless radio horserace sequence padding out the second act, and - most importantly - Shakespeare’s words. The play within the parody seemed to become almost an incumbence, scenes scoured for chances of mockery and speeches milked for ridicule. Yet it is possible (as Oddsox showed with Hamlet a couple of years ago) to show pathos even in farce, enhancing hilarity while engaging more intensely with the story. More could have been made of the difficulties women faced in a society controlled by men, and my particular disappointment was Falstaff’s ludicrous Tweedledum outfit: I wished he'd been shown in fat-Elvis glory to introduce the poignancy of misplaced aspirations. Without these elements it’s a tale that’s tediously one-dimensional.
But the audience laughed and clearly love this endearing troupe, which is what matters.

Frome Scriptwriters, a new group for local writers developing work for stage or radio, launched this week at the Cornerhouse. This is another initiative from Rosie Finnegan, enterprising entrepreneur who brought Nevertheless Theatre Company to Frome, and once again I'm chuffed to be on board to support this venture. We started small, but aim to grow. It's a cliché but true: there's much talent in this town - and, unlike other places I've been, much goodwill & mutual support. Meetings will be monthly, democratic, free, and open to all.

Interesting developments for all who hanker for an effective library service: the anti-closure protest has won its case against Somerset Libraries on grounds of European diversity legislation. Opening hours in 23 libraries have been reinstated and 11 are no longer headed for closure, but councillors remain defensive about their plan to 'pass the least-used libraries into community hands.'
"The world is changing and we need to change with it," said Cllr John Woodman, Conservative, citing pressure from a 'zero book budget' - a claim corrected online to £200,000. Another comment suggests: "Somerset library service has been one of the worst managed in the whole of England for many years... Now the council has a chance to rethink the whole future of its libraries the first item on the agenda is to dramatically improve the quality of the management. What (John Woodman) has said is such rubbish it hardly is worth the ink used to print it."

Frome Library, under the tireless and imaginative stewardship of Wendy Miller-Williams, has a high profile for community book-related events and is always at the heart of the summer Arts Festival. The coldest day of the year so far - we're talking minus 7 degrees - saw a posse of local bibliophiles and writers converge in the library foyer for tea, biscuits, and book sharing to celebrate National Libraries Day. Travel writer John Payne signed copies of his new book on Bath, which opens with another wintry scene, from a walk we did last year: The city is there, somewhere beneath us. Thick snow beneath our feet and a swirly misty frozen rain falling gently from grey skies stained with yellow... How very apt, on a day that began subzero and has now shrouded the town with snow.