Men of steel and reasons to be brave

It's black history season in theatreland this week, with the opening of two memorably good new productions both with a focus on struggles for equality. Blue Door at the Ustinov Studio in Bath is the second in their season of UK premiers from the Americas. Tanya Barfield, writing before Obama's presidency, set her drama in 1995 which was the year of the Million Man March, a peaceful mass gathering in Washington as a statement of black presence. The play charts one insomniac night in the life of Lewis, a mathematics professor who did not join the march.  Satisfied with his academic success, although still chronically fearful of racist judgment, he saw no reason to identify with a troubled past - until his career is in jeopardy and his wife leaves... A series of powerful stories, mainly to audience, track his ancestral history as unravelled by two hugely impressive actors: Ray Fearon as Lewis and Fehinti Balogun as three generations of his family.  The slave cabin set and nightmare lighting (Madelaine Girling & Elliot Griggs) effectively enhance Lewis' nightmare in a thought-provoking play that still has resonance today. Well worth a visit. On till 9 March.

Bristol Old Vic's Weston Studio takes a more upbeat look at the struggle, with a focus on the 1963 protests in Bristol at the 'colour bar' on Bristol bus workers, in Princess and the Hustler.
Ten-year-old Princess hasn't seen her hustler father for years, until he returns unexpectedly with a sister for her and her angry mother and wary brother, and embroils them all in the 'Walk to Work' protest project. (As a happy aside, the actual Civil Rights organisers were invited to the press night party and thoroughly enjoyed reliving their role.)  Fast-moving, funny, and emotionally truthful about both family dynamics and the way political issues can split close-knit communities, this BOV co-production with Eclipse and Hull Truck is written by Chinonyerem Odimba, tightly directed by Dawn Walton on a great set (Simon Kenny designer), and superbly acted by the whole cast, with a standout performance from Seun Shote as the maverick father. In Bristol till 23 February, then touring till mid April and should be a massive success everywhere. Images: The Other Richard

Moving back to Frome now, for local treasure Pip Utton's one-man show at the Merlin Theatre on Friday: And Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You. Quite a move from Pip's usual historic characterisations, this moving account of the devastating effect of Altzheimer's disease on sufferer and family alike was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival last summer and greeted by 5-star reviews. Talking direct to audience, Pip's tender funeral eulogy for a loved wife merges with the survivor's own struggle with the same demons, tracked by the medical tests used to show the way minds dissolve as if by acid attack when gripped by this 'worst illness of them all.' Pip's poignant saga was inspired by his experience of seeing his mother deteriorate and die, and any kind of upbeat ending might seem impossible but Pip managed this with compassion and realism, and well deserved his standing ovation.

A quick look at music now, with a couple of excellent ensemble events: a Celtic and Transatlantic session in the quirky upstairs room at the Three Swans on Friday night - always an inclusive showcase of the extensive talents of Frome's musicians - and another great blues night with Paul Kirtley's Bare to the Bones team, with the amazing blue-grass Original Barn Finds as guest band.

'Frome as a visitor destination' was the theme of a conference at the Town Hall earlier this week, and if that c word makes you sigh, maybe you have no experience of a Frome conference - this one was well-presented in a friendly atmosphere (thanks Jean Boulton and Mayor Rich Ackroyd) with short & mostly relevant presentations, nondaunting Q&A opportunities (with enough mics), lots of coffee, and a fab free lunch from Mrs B's.  One of the most fluent and interesting of the presentations was Sue Bucklow's preview of a theme event in the upcoming festival - the Heritage Lottery funded project to reinstate in the town's awareness one of the major names in Frome's industrial history: JW Singer, whose foundry from 1866 for nearly 130 years created massive sculptures of monarchs, myths and monsters admired around the world. Every one of the commissions cast by the skilled foundry workers - there were around 700 of them - was photographed in process, and by extraordinary serendipity around 3000 of the glass plate images have been recovered.  You can see more on the Discover Frome site here and there will soon be a Singer's Trail around the area of town that created the sculptures now installed around the world and admired by millions.

Another event with a retrospective edge to conclude, as Frome author Frances Liardet held a launch party at the Cornerhouse for the UK edition of her novel We Must Be Brave set in and after the last war.  Response to the American and Australian editions has been sensational, and reviews of worldwide are superlative - check out the Guardian- 'masterful... lyrical... richly observed, lovingly drawn and determinedly clear-eyed to the last.' Frances' editor at 4th Estate, Helen Garnons-Williams, talked to the packed room about her excitement when she first read this 'lovely, luminous' book and Frances read the opening - a lovely luminous event too.

Candid Shakespeare, fine art, and spectacular music

Pip Utton, Frome's favourite one-man-showman, has re-presented himself in iconic roles from Hitler and Churchill to Charles Dickens and Charlie Chapman and is now offering another intimate insight in At Home With Shakespeare. In role as the Stratford theatre-manager/playwright, he makes masterly use of that you-do-but-dream  conceit much favoured by the bard himself: this is Shakespeare in 2018, as amused by our misconceptions as delighted by our awe at his words, dreaming his past loves and jealousies even as we dream his presence in our theatre. He teases the audience with quotes, some not even his own, and the intriguing suggestion that his plays were all workshopped with the cast and their impro words then combined, he takes us vividly into the noisy, bawdy, noisy, world of Elizabethan theatre. It's a hugely entertaining performance as well as intriguingly informative, although not all the theories propounded are incontestable, and, to be picky, Shakespeare's neologisms are nowhere near so numerous, and there were chiming clocks in Italy from 14th Century, so impatient Juliet could well have heard one strike nine... But hey, who's counting?

The Black Arts Open Exhibition is now in the Long Gallery, and this year the selection has been well received: it's varied and thought-provoking but every piece has some interest or appeal - in fact doing what a gallery for the community does best. From the precise beauty of small things meticulously painted by Dan Morley to Marian Bruce's dangling mobile of wild wailing faces, there's much to intrigue and ponder on, with several figurative pieces too, like this portrait of her daughter by Kay Lewis Bell.I'd seen this at Shave Farm during last year's Somerset Arts Week, and it was great see it again with the red 'winner' label -among other accessible choices by the judges, one of whom this year was Michael Eavis.
Our Words at the Black Swan workshop on Monday was led by Mike Grenville who encouraged us to consider the entire exhibition as if deciphering its messages from a time in the future... (you can see some of the outcomes here.)

As temperatures plummet and clocks are set to winter, Frome appeared to treat itself to a little music festival. We enjoyed several international visitors: South African Nibs Van Der Spuy at the Grain Bar Roots Session with an excellent set including a moving tribute to Nelson Mandela, and delightful duo Hope Country along with Luke Philbrick and Hannah Scott guested at the Sofar session (Hope is in Wisconsin, where they aren't big on geography, apparently, as the lads' tour was mapped on a tee-shirt image of the UK with Scotland shrivelled and N. Ireland vaporised, which might help Brexit negotiations but would pose issues for the 1.9 million population.) Our Sunday Jazz Club this week featured Bosonova rhythms with the gypsy violin and sultry voice of Azhaar Saffar. Paul Kirtley gathered a posse of local musicians together on Thursday as  'Bare to the Bones' charity event at The Artisan,for a lively jam session of folk/rock/ blues favourites plus some original songs - including Paul's Crones of Avalon with me performing the poem that inspired it. Popular Three Corners were the Saturday night band at The Cornerhouse, another big line-up with a large following, and next afternoon when two favourite Frome bands played at the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon, most of Frome seemed to follow them. The awesome Raggedy Men gave us a stonking set of classic punk tracks, followed by The Back Wood Redeemers' dark revivalists songs of pioneering America, in the Stygian gloom of a cavern-like room where swirling dust glinted gold in the sunlight every time the door opened - wonderful atmosphere and terrific music. So that's four solo performers, a duo, a quartet, a sextet, an octet, and a jam session varying from three to a dozen - all in six days...  Keep it up, Frome, it's fabulous.

Love loss chance sex and ambition

A new season from SATTF is always something to look forward to, and Tobacco Factory is the ideal venue for Shakespeare's mix of imaginary landscapes and magic realism in As You Like It.  It's a garrulous play, in fact an extended exercise in complex word-play for most of the speeches, and the wit needs careful signposting for a modern audience. Which is why it's even more remarkable that after three hours I really didn't want it to end. Director Andrew Hilton has assembled a stunning cast who all seem to live each moment for the first time, so even the longest exchanges feel immediate and engaging. Although this production makes the most of its women (Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Rosalind and Daisy May as Celia both mesmerising) inevitably the male energy predominates, but with an electric diversity through physical spectacle, music, visual gags, meta-theatricality (Touchstone and Jacques have more than a dab of Vladimir and Estragon about them) and dark psychological twists. Especially exciting are the moments when the forest glade of good Duke Senior, a kind of Occupy/voice-camp in Arden, abruptly morphs into evil Duke Frederick's court - brilliant mood-shifts by double-duke Chris Bianchi.  Harriet de Winton's vaguely 1940s costumes work superbly, and the minimal props are all that's needed.  It's on till 22 March and then touring till May, go see this magical tale the director defines as "about human experience - love, loss, chance, sex and ambition."

And that segueways into a quick film spot: Inside Llewyn Davis is a road-movie about a 1960s Greenwich Village folksinger and a ginger cat, so irresistible to me in at least 3 ways.  As it's written & directed by the Cohn brothers this is a mythic journey too ~ the cat is even called Ulysses ~ and shot in fabulous muted tones throughout. Oscar Isaac is in virtually every shot but as he's gorgeous that's no problem, and the soundtrack is movingly authentic, like the subfusc folksy venues. Even the long drive to Chicago doesn't flag thanks to John Goodman as an obnoxious fellow-passenger. There's no real surprises but beautifully-understated detail makes this melancholy story gripping from the start. It's a lesson too late for the learning, as Bob Dylan would sing.

Meanwhile in Frome, Pip Utton presents a double bill of warmongers at the Merlin: a revival of his renowned one-man show as Hitler, paired with Churchill.  Pip has an uncanny way of looking like all his one-man show subjects, and with bulky suit with white scarf, homburg, and stick, he shared a striking resemblance to the statue in Parliament Square which, in this conceit, steps down when the clock strikes thirteen to reminisce with whisky and cigars.  Much of this biographical material is entertaining ~ the caustic wit of Winston is renowned ~ and some, like his childhood abandonment, is moving. Of the war, he insists "There is no glory in death in battle" but there is glory in victory, and his unswerving policy 'to wage war' remains unregretted. The prime minister who was tagged after his death 'the most famous man in history' ends his tale and climbs on to his plinth again.

At Black Swan Arts, Print & Clay is the new exhibition from a group of ceramicists with a quirky indifference to the common perception  of clay objects as primarily functional ~ I especially liked 's huge manic moths making the wall a vast insect box. Due to gales floods and general elemental mayhem the opening night was unusually sparse but you've got till 8th March to see this delightful show. 

"Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered - flushed, but smiling proudly - with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top."
Dickens virtually invented the christmas idyll as we know it, and with three more sleeps to go what could be lovelier than to listen to the mellow rotund tones of Pip Utton splendidly retelling the classic story of Scrooge's sentimental epiphany? A packed audience at the Merlin enjoyed mulled wine and mass contentment as Pip, costumed like the author himself, regaled us with Dicken's famous ghost story from a red vellum volume set in glittering candlelight.

So now with snow thick all around - Coldplay couldn't have got it more wrong could they?- the end of year countdown has begun:
X-factor and Strictly finals: tick.
Lord Sugar's apprentice picked: tick.
Anti-Cowell kick-back in the charts: tick. (You have to admire the Cage contender for audacity - and value for money at twice the length of Trashmen's wordy bird.)
Flyaway holiday airport chaos: tick.
Yes, we must be nearly there. Still waiting for war is over - a long wait, with turncoat liberal MPs voting now to keep the troops in Afghanistan.
So, merry Christmas and a happy new year. Let's make it a good one, without any fear.
..