A tale of two towers - then normal service resumes

Torre del Mar is a coastal resort in the Malaga province, which means the beach is basically a sandy strip between high-density resorts, but it was originally a Moorish fishing village and the town behind the long promenade is popular with the Spanish so although Brit is spoken, it doesn't predominate. The old castle was expanded and fortified in the 1730s as a direct response to the loss of Gibraltar: some of the old walls remain and although much has gone, there are definitely what the Bristol Old Vic team would call Ponderable Clues. Information at the site  is entirely in Spanish, and is compiled with plangent indignation, translating: In 1704,  Gibraltar was lost in an act of piracy by the English fleet while Spain was not at war with Great Britain, and became a base to continuously harass the coasts of Malaga... Everyone you'll meet nowadays of course is charming to the English - we're no longer the dominant nation who seized the rock, we have a more risible role on the political scene, and Nazi bombing less than 100 years ago seems even more outrageous - there's a mural of Picasso's famous protest painting on the sea front, in the silver-sandy tones of the strand. We were on the campsite, under plane trees and near the beach bars where you could watch the moonlight flickering on the sea as darkness spread and it was still warm...

Further down the coast in Gibraltar itself, there's another history: a tale of epic endeavour as years of conflict left the rock riddled with tunnels longer than the roads outside, and 14 sieges devastated the community - the final one, in 1740, lasting four years. This tale doesn't need translation- it's English, like the town streets and pubs named after our monarchs, admirals and politicians. The caves, however, were home for Neanderthal communities for 100,000 years - there's a great museum emphasising their important place in the history of the rock - and from 711 this was a key part of the Muslim empire here, named The Hill of Tariq after their leader. The old Moorish tower known as the Calahorra, half-way up the climbable part of the hill, was the largest in the area of Iberia controlled by Islam and for 800 years called Al-Andalus. This was a seige tower, a place of last resort in the many battles that followed - there's 'impact craters' on its sturdy walls that have been dated back to the Castilian attack of 1333. Life under siege for the British community during the 18th century would have supported Thomas Hobbes view of life as 'nasty, brutish, and short', in a camp where disease, starvation, and bad sanitation killed them off in hundreds every year. Military discipline was savage - the mother in the reconstruction may be upset not just by that cartload of grey corpses but because her husband is lashed to a frame awaiting flogging for missing a call of Who Goes There? as required every half minute by men on sentry duty.

Back home, Frome is doing a nice line in autumnal sunshine and Somerset Open Studios arts fortnight is nearly over - in fact the only studio I've visited is Clive Walley who is developing his impressive series of Birches in Mist... here's Clive with 109 and 110 as a  diptych. The turbulent, red-tinged, foreground to these ethereal trees adds a strange undefinable element that visitors have found powerful and disturbing.

Though I've missed much music, including marvellous Pete Gage at the Grain Bar, I did arrive home in time to hear the extraordinary voice of Lewis Clark at the Cornerhouse, not only sounding amazing on his own folk/blues but interpreting Amy Winehouse impressively too.
Saturday was also Bath Spa University MA Scriptwriting Showcase Festival, with an afternoon of 16 short scripts, showcased fully-produced for stage or screen. Rosie and I went along as all three young actors in our 2017 Nevertheless Pub Theatre festival drama - Time Slides -were involved in various productions. I usually prefer live drama, but the two films we saw impressed us more than the staged scripts: one was a clever & very funny parody of women's roles in the entertainment industry written & directed by Gabrielle Finnegan, the other the poignant & succinct story of a short-lived child-snatch by a feckless mother - look out for more from Isla Ure. Gabby, hope you don't mind I've nicked this picture of you filming from the Shorts and Tees website!

It's six years now since writer Kate McEwan had the unlikely-sounding idea of overcoming her procrastination by gathering a likeminded group around her to encourage each other to persevere.
'The Write Place' became their shared solution - a studio at The Black Swan where you reserve a desk space and then just get on with it, and the group has grown to around 200 members, all using the opportunity of a few hours away from home pressures or temptations plus the ethos of commitment to personal projects. And perhaps also unlikely, Sunday morning turned out to be a perfect time for a writer's party to celebrate with prosecco & cakes, and talk with writer friends familiar and new, and join Kate's toast to 'Procrastination, the tie that binds us.'

Audiences in Frome are wonderful

Sumptuous sunshine returns to the southwest, happily in time for a glintingly gloaming opening night for Midsummer Dusk, the Dissenters Cemetery glittering with tiny candles and the audience filling our hay-bale- auditorium.  And happily too, expectations raised by our show's 'hot ticket of the festival' tag were fulfilled. The atmosphere was amazing and all three performances massively well received. Here's our fabulous cast with director Rosie, and there's a great review on our Nevertheless page. Feedback has been fantastic, with some extraordinary synchronicities and moving connections that are a story in themselves.

And a really lovely audience too for the Time Walk around Rodden Meadow on Saturday as Annabelle and I gave our version of earth's story over 4.6 billion years before bacteria evolved, as Bill in Midsummer Dusk put it, from primeval slime into the intelligent beings we are today - all based on scientific theory but aiming not so much to instruct as to amaze and entertain. Which we were happy that we did.
Annabelle had yet another role at the Childrens Festival on Sunday, as explorer Dora led groups of small seekers on a quest to find the mysterious bower bird in Victoria Park. Little princesses and tiny superheroes posed in the dressing-up area and marquees offering activities from painting to pool were busy all afternoon despite occasional downpours. Downtown in the Market Yard the Art Car Boot was enlivened by a demonstration of how to make molten iron, and workshops for writers were on in the Library all day culminating with the announcement of the Festival Short Story Competition results by novelist Samantha Harvey, who commended the "extremely strong collection" of shortlisted stories. Winners and photos will be posted on the Words at Frome Festival page, as will the results of the Writers in Residence.

All of which left hardly time to see many of the lovely Hidden Gardens open during the last weekend of the festival, but I did manage to scamper round town to find some gorgeous ones with lush ponds vivid with water-lilies and swirlings of iridescent fish. Brandishing the map of gardens is a good way to locate the most impressive, as others similarly armed will share tips as they pass. Similar recommendation led me back to the Open Studio trail too, to see Kate Dixon's amazing exhibition at Venue 8, an exotic Alhambra alchemised into a riverside house on Willow Vale.

My festival ends with more music ~ dancing to brilliant early evening blues from the fantastic Pete Gage band at the Cornerhouse (pic shows the vibe but omits the fab tenor sax & guitar) and then the final party at the festival Green Room in the Granary with Geniology jazzing the night away and a really fabulous support set from Coralie Hyde. It's been an amazing week. Let's do it all again in 2016!

Festival weekend: Sizzling Saturday & Stormy Sunday

The best thing about festival is the sheer number of amazing events, and the worst is that most inevitably clash, so my best aim can only be to give a taste. Frome Open Studios offer an amazing diversity as artists combine at each venue, with pens, pots, and photographs alongside paintings like Kate Cochrane's landscapes, and coastlines by Amanda Bee neighbouring Feverleaf's 'festivalesque finery and pixy clothing' at Silk Mill studios.

Saturday's sunshine held all day and into a balmy late night at Silk Mill cantina.  Frome Street Bandits led the parade through town to the Market Yard for the ever-popular food feast in early evening, followed by on-stage sessions from the Frome Jazz Club and Three Corners. Sunday's flash storm at the end of the Independent 'Wonderland' Market didn't daunt the wandering minstrels under the awning outside Lungi Baba or Jazz in the Afternoon at the Victoria Park bandstand.  More jazz at The Cornerhouse evening jam session, after a stonking session from the amazing Captain Cactus: "Rootin'-tootin'.... sort of like hula-swamp with bits of bluegrass and acoustic country rock avec les Screaming Harlots wailing like African Queens." (That's another Griff quote, I suspect)

And there are lots of excellent word-y things, or 'Literary Events' as the brochure highlights call them. Frome Writers Collective revived the 'Writers in Residence' event, with ten writers settled in cafes pubs & shops around town, scribing throughout Saturday on a set theme. Paul Newman was at Hunting Raven talking about his book Netted in a Silver Mist, which combines his drawings from the natural environment with words from Jill Harris to bring a deeper narrative to these superb evocations of wood, water, and stone.

With similar ekphrastic intention, our Words at the Black Swan workshop, led by David Davies, explored the Home In Frome exhibition to find personal recollections evoked by Mell Day's exquisite Postcards from an Ordinary Childhood and the amazing quilt of memories. Mell calls these glimpses of a past ~ all probably enhanced, possibly misremembered ~ "clear bright little moments... where our personality becomes our version of history, not snapshots but embodiments."

Sad to miss Al O'Kane's Magical Folk Garden acoustic music evening at the Archangel, my clash this time a rehearsal for Midsummer Dusk, our Nevertheless site-specific outdoor production for this festival. Director Rosie has made the Dissenters Cemetery look fantastic and our 'Star Players' are looking & sounding terrific... only 3 sleeps now till our opening night... 

Day 3... Sun in the streets, Tempest in the amphitheatre

On the first Sunday of the month Frome's main roads are closed to traffic for a super-independent-market so the town is always exuberantly crammed with a plethera of stalls and flâneurs. Little Victory Ball were offering samples of their First World War pop-up performance, as well as the usual musical entertainments, and the Upstairs Grace gallery with its superb exhibition Substances was a great vantage point to watch activity on Catherine Hill through the window where Marian Bruce's bramble sphere hangs. There's also a wicked magical house by Paul Boswel, inhabited by installations from Klumpox, which you really need to see (closed Mon/Tue but open the rest of festival week.)

Very differently impressive are Paul Newman's pencil drawings of landscapes, which he creates instinctively rather than with any conscious sense of their story. He finds he simply taps into something of the place 'In some ways they're self-portraits.'

Taking a detour through Victoria Park, where the Frome Youth Band were playing (in our real proper bandstand) my next stop was Cheese&Grain, where Rose Flint and I were running consecutive poetry workshops, hers on Women and War, and mine Poetry as Protest, both leading to fascinating discussions as well as some sharp pieces of writing.

 Then a quick scamper to the Merlin for the open air performance of Miracle's The Tempest. With a cast of just six and some judicious cutting, this inventive company nevertheless managed to keep the integrity of Shakespeare's story with all its magic and its themes of atonement, freedom, and passion, and to enhance the entertainment for a family audience too, with physical comedy, adlib, and puppets. There are interesting character interpretations and relationships: Hannah Stephens' wild-child Miranda and Simon Norbury's brooding Prospero have a dysfunctional but caring relationship. Caliban is something of a naughty puppy, while Ariel is a mesmerising and significant presence throughout, overlooking all and aching every moment for release.  Bill Scott's direction has a great sense of confidence, especially in playing lines like 'we are such stuff as dreams are made of' for laughs (I did) and not surprisingly the full-house at the ECOS amphitheatre applauded with cheers at the end.
And to conclude another great evening: wild dancing under the stars in the Archangel's courtyard to the 'red-hot faux-French gypsy Balkan Klezmer band... les amoureux du Fromage UNITE!'  So we did. It was great.

Frome Festival day 2... time travel and feasting

A day of art and music in the streets of Frome: The Open Studios trail comprises 62 local artists in twenty venues around the town offering free viewing this & next weekend. I made a start with Sam West's paintings~ so well integrated with her house that this one lives above the cooker ~ the Bennett Centre, and the Old Wool Arts Store where I found driftwood angels and sea-glass jewellery.

Meanwhile authors were gathering for a signing at Hunting Raven bookshop and musicians queuing to perform at the Archangel throughout the day. Here's Bugs, aka Julian Hight, who featured in both line-ups.

Then on to Millenium Green, the start point of Time Walk ~ the story of the earth in a thousand paces, the project Annabelle Macfadyen and I have been working on for months... if not longer. From the supernova explosion that started our solar system to the present moment, "with all our evolutionary history inside us, essentially part of this Earth, made of stardust, and bacteria, and shaped by the fish and reptiles and the early mammals we once were, within the web of life, from the beginning of time." I  seriously did more research for this project than for my degree, but it was terrific fun and our group of walkers was gratifyingly appreciative. Phew. What's next.

Well, the Food Feast, of course (African Kitchen my pick) with the marvellous Street Bandits leading a parade into the market yard where free music plays all night once the mayor, wearing a bio-degradeable chain, has completed the official Festival opening, which took all of two minutes, then hundreds of us watched the Milk Street Band,  then Daisy Chapman & Sue Law, then The Pigeons... ~ that's one of them below ~ and by now evening sunshine is ceding to dusk and I have been dancing with the Lady Mayoress for some time so we all decide to move on up to the tapas bar for a nightcap... and so ends day two.

Sunshine on Sunday made this the perfect day for a scamper round the Open Studios trail and marvel at the dazzling inventiveness and skill of Frome's artists. Two which stood out were the vibrant collective work at Circus stands out ~ I specially enjoyed the wall poem written in wire ~ and the theatrical pieces of John M Robinson, who creates narratives drawn from fact and fantasy for his characters: here's the corrupt tarot-reader but I was also fascinated by the notion of Albrecht Dürer's portal to the future leaving him trapped in 2011...

Music has been stonkingly high standard too: mindblowing two-hour sets from fantastic headliners like The Critters at Olive Tree and Pete Gage Band at the Cornerhouse... wow. I wish I could think of more superlatives but wow, wow, wow says it all really.

Against all odds we had a balmy night for The Importance of Being Earnest in the beautiful Merlin amphitheatre. Miracle Theatre have a great reputation for over-the-top open-air performances of well-loved classics, but I remain unconvinced that Oscar Wilde's wit needs any enhancement, or that playing sophisticated Jack Worthing as a buffoon and giving suave Algy's lines to his manservant are valid adornments to social satire. Ben Dyson, though brilliant as a neurotic butler, failed to create a formidable Aunt Augusta despite vicious umbrella-jabbing. Certainly not vintage Miracle ~ but the audience laughed and the weather was perfect.
Overall verdict on Frome festival: a fantastic, if exhausting, week crammed with brilliant experiences and performances. Especially the music.

And with all that going on I nearly missed The Hollow Crown: Richard II on BBC iplayer, which would have been a pity as it was visually beautiful with some superb filmic moments. This version played much with homo-erotic and quasi-religious overtones, even to the extent of rewriting Richard's murder to evoke a Judas-style betrayal and a crucifixion image. Ben Wishaw was compelling as the King raised to believe himself omnipotently above the rivalries and intrigues that swirled around his realm, and all the rest of the cast were excellent too though Bolingbroke did sometimes look disturbingly like Corrie's Tyrone.
..

ABC Day brought eleven Authors of Books for Children for a series of events around the town, including a Library session of Teatime Treats: that popular ABC of activities, books, and cakes. Rachel Ward and Kate Maryon both have new novels out to complete their respective trilogies, and plans for more stories to keep their avid 9-13 year-old readers happy.

Edward Albee's one-act play The Zoo Story is the festival choice of Frome Drama Club, with performances in various venues including, appropriately for a story set on a bench in Central Park, Frome's Victoria Park. Written in the late fifties, this brilliant script, like the best of Raymond Carver's stories, both evokes its era and reaches beyond to existential humanity. Intriguingly, Albee later put a ban on all professional productions of this play and it's now available only to students and amateur companies. Actors Aynsley Minty and Dan Gaisford deserve full marks for engagingly illuminating the loneliness of the human heart.

Scene change to a rainy night in the garden auditorium of Blaise Castle: Oddsocks Productions version of Macbeth promises "something funny this way comes", grabbing gags and giggles from the audience at every available moment - a latecomer greeted by friends is cue for all five actors to dash over demanding a group hug; the obligatory unsilenced mobile and even the persistent downpour become opportunities to heckle the audience in scots accents. The actors dredge the bard's words for humour too, finding knockabout farce in the famous tragedy by fair means or foul. Devices like giving Duncan a lisp and Lady Macbeth arriving apparently via The Only Way Is Essex got the kids laughing but did little for the characters' emotional depth, leaving the show reliant on charisma and clowning through a long, wet, two hours. Luckily the players have plenty of both qualities: Oddsocks Macbeth - like their version of the witches' cauldron - is a trifle, but an honest trifle.

Back now to Frome Festival and the art trail - twentyone venues, more if you include the fringe, as Open Studios. All were differently fascinating, so I'll mention just three for their connection with words: Box Art by Robert Lee on the theme of Novel Images was intriguing - this one's called Tangos Telegrams and Tolstoy ,inspired by The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson. Then a wonderful collection of work in different media at Inside Out where our new local laureate David Davies has been writing alongside the artists ...we are getting smaller / somewhere drifting, somewhere / long, into ever-reaching forward. Beautiful.

Amazing work too at the studio of Ellen Tovey whose 'artist statement' concludes: Inspired by the innumerable elements of the self, my paintings become an exploration of and surrender to the unknown. What better summary of creativity, including writing, could there be?