Music, poetry and more, as September comes...

Kicking off this bulletin with live music, doubly precious in this short window before the changing season will halt outdoor sessions again. Paul Kirtley's We Don't Scare Easy Tribe returned to The Mill at Rode on Saturday afternoon and treated visitors in the garden area & balcony to a high-energy medley of old favourites like Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder and Gerry Rafferty with a good splash of Oasis, Greenday, Crowded House, Police, Stones, and perfectly hitting with vibe Joni Mitchell: We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...  All in all such a stonkingly great session that optional donations in the bucket for Fair Frome reached nearly £180. Big credit to (L-R) Jim, Chris, Joseph, Colin, Paul, Alex, David - and to sound-man Steve.  Here's the idyllic location:

Sunday's session at Prestleigh Inn, near Evercreech, rather more laid-back, proved a delightful way to pass a sunny Sunday afternoon in friendly company with live music - and this too had a fabulous location, with views over the Royal Bath & West Showground fields which are readily accessible for roaming from the pub garden. Hospitable landlord Gary made everyone welcome in this perfect spot for a sunny afternoon, enjoying a quirky take on Beatles and more by Jakey Zee with Sherrie Nutty followed by a strong solo performance, enhanced by loop, from Jorden Lindsay.

No live drama this week but physical theatre Kneehigh offered a free online experimental show: 'a love story with a bitter twist, a modern fairytale for grown-ups and brave youngsters.'  The Neon Shadow is a short two-hander exploring isolation and desire based on a Hans Anderson tale enhanced by animated effects. It's an interesting take on a difficult theme and is still viewable on the link, as there are plans to develop this work into a live performance, so take a look and comment if you feel intrigued.

Highlight of the week for me came on Friday with the Frome Poetry Cafe on Merlin Theatre's ECOS amphitheatre, an open-mic event which was weather-precarious right up until 7pm when we launched into - in the words of participating poets, an event with 'lovely atmosphere, very high standard of contributions, and a real uplifit in these weird times' - 'a gorgeous evening of words and moonlight!' Fourteen performers & readers from as far afield as Bath and Box shared a range of themes & styles from witty ditties and black humour  to poignant memories. Huge appreciation to all especially to Liv Torc for treating us to the premiere of her new poem commissioned by Siren Poets There's Something About Mary, and mega thanks to sound-&-lighting man Steve, and to Merlin's open-minded director Claudia & team for trusting our posse of bards to behave ourselves as well as having a fabulous time.

Still in Frome: it was great catching up with Eleanor Talbot to talk about her weekly online show Variations on a Theme. Eleanor's life took her from Dublin to Canada via the Scottish Highlands, so she brings a wide cultural interest to this quirky show broadcasts from downtown Frome. taking a different themes for each episode: love, revolution, guilty pleasures... even punctuation, with a retrospective look at the interrobang, a punctuation symbol that apparently enjoyed a brief heyday in the 1960s when writers identified a need to denote the 'excitable query' and combined exclamation with question marks in a single symbol: He said what‽  Was this the serpent's-apple forerunner of all emoticons, emojis and gifs, now released by this first sin!

Ending this week's bulletin with a puff for The Price of Bread: a short interview with Suzy Howlett on the Frome FM 'Writers on Radio' show hosted by Frome Writers Collective here: it's starts a7 minutes in and lasts around ten, then ends with Wonderwall as I think my messily-creative, dreamily romantic, central character Lee would have loved Oasis.  It was great fun chatting with Suzy and I realised, as I listened in, that she's an extremely astute interviewer....   

And as a happy footnote, this novel has now crossed the Atlantic to Canada and America, and has now provided a discussion topic for at least two book groups! I still have a few copies, and Hunting Raven does too. I'm delighted with the reader reviews, too. 

Bumper Festival picture book

This was the sunshine festival, and perfect for all outdoor events like walks, picnics, markets, art trails & 'Open Gardens', also ensuring evenings could extend naturally - usually ending late under the twinkly bar lights of the pop-up cantina in Silk Mill yard. If this sounds idyllic, you are getting the vibe: there was far too much on for this report to be comprehensive but it should give you a glimpse.
So, not in any particular order of chronology, we'll start with performance, and if you're wanting to know how the Nevertheless/Frome Actors Network production Where The Fault Lies was received, the happy answer is: rapturously. The event sold out so early we put on a second showing later the same evening and that sold out too. Cornerhouse Upstairs was transformed into a tiny intimate theatre and feedback forms throbbed with comments like "Fantastic... great plays, superb acting and a fabulous evening of entertainment!"... "Wonderful plays! I loved the humour and the depth of understanding of the human soul and relationships"... "Clever, funny, surprising, thought-provoking, satisfying"... "hilarious and inspired!" - you can see them all here, and there's a full review online on the Fine Times Recorder. Thanks David Goodman for production photos, and Martin Earley for the venue, with special appreciation to Tom for support throughout the run-up and transformation of the gin-bar into an intimate theatre.
Over at the Town Hall, a  new comedy drama by Frome writer Nikki Lloyd gained massive commendation and audiences grew throughout the run. Turtle Doves, with the focus a dysfunctional young couple and their troubled therapist (the ever-excellent Laurence Parnell), looks at a range of relationships - siblings, strangers, long-term or brief encounters - in a clever series of time-slip segments (think Tim Crouch rather than Alan Ayckbourn) with much to laugh at, perhaps with wry recognition, as well as unexpectedly moving moments. Geoff Hunt was producer of this exciting and memorable play, well acted by all ten cast members, and superbly directed in the round by Keely Beresford.
Still with words-&-performance: the Festival Poetry Cafe, always fun to host in the eponymous garden of the Garden Cafe on a sunny night, was a total delight. Guest poet Henry Madd absolutely captivated the crowded audience with his intimate yet accessible reflections on childhood, loss, and life.
Open Mic is especially important at this event, because the coveted title Frome Festival Poet Laureate is awarded on a single poem offered on that night, written on the theme of the festival. Despite difficulties from this year's dedication to JW Singer's foundry, several of our 15 readers braved the challenge, with five runner-up book prizes and Jo Butts scooping the title! Congratulations everyone who came to participate and to listen, making this relaxed and lovely evening a highlight of the week for me. Thanks Wendy Perry for the picture of Jo with Henry & me, Hunting Raven for the books, Garden Cafe for the bubbly and venue transformation.

Hip Yak Poetry Slam at the Archangel by contrast has a hi-energy vibe and is immensely competitve as the prize here is no less than a spot in the Poetry Tent at Womad. Liv Torc, Chris Redmond and Jonny Fluffypunk run this with proper sound and professional skill, and random audience members choose the winners in the tradition slam way - by holding up score cards. As with football rulings, opinions are bound to vary, but everyone seemed to agree that Stewart Taylor, self-professed 'slave to rhythm and unpaid lackey to rhyme' well deserved to take top spot with his defence of the clog -yeah, I know it doesn't sound likely, but you should have seen the repeat prestissimo... also notable was the first nudist performance in Frome!

Historical talks with a focus are hot favourites in Frome, and this festival has offered weaving, foundry work, war, buildings, and more. My contribution, along with David Lassman, to this oeuvre was 'Rogues Rebels and Renegades' - a town centre tour of hot spots in our unruly and dissenting past. David has far more experience and a louder voice so he took the main role, and our exposition was enhanced by the attentions of a 19th Century pickpocket who was eventually apprehended by traditional 'hue and cry' and confined to the Blind House - many thanks Ollie, and to Joao Diniz Sanches for the images.

For Frome Writers Collective, a busy week that began with a Publishers Fair ends with the prize-giving for the winner of the Short Story Competition, another very popular feature. After a morning of workshops and the awards for the 'writers in residence' last Saturday, judge Tyler Keevil announced this year's First Prize winner is Clare Reddaway - an absolute delight for me, as I am friends with both these  great writers & lovely people. I couldn't be there for the big reveal, so thanks Gill Harry for the picture.

Moving on from words,  the visual arts were strongly reflected, with 23 Open Studios and exhibitions showing the town's tradition of textile work is still thriving - masterly work in both creating and decorating fabric evident in exhibitions by Weavers Spinners & Dyers,and Embroiderer's Guild. The town opened its 'hidden' gardens too, but sadly I only had time for a smattering of visits. Here's one of the tiny Paul Street gardens, and part of a Dan Morley piece I covet...

Music seemed everywhere this week - in streets and beer gardens by day, in churches and halls and of course the usual pubs each evening.
Independent Market busking stage featured favourites The Raggedy Men followed by Crossing the Rockies while The Decades entertained outside the Grain Bar as Comic Con characters roamed the hot streets (thanks, man in the street, for the snap of me and Helen Pearse.)  Daytime music too at the Saturday Sofa Session promoted by Humans of Frome, this time Feral Beryl and friends entertained the crowd on Catherine Hill.

On Sunday afternoon, not strictly in the festival schedule but a highlight of the weekend, was the launch of a new sound on the scene as Ed Green's Pagan Gospel Groove Machine introduced its unique Brooklyn style of 'nature-based spirituality and funky grooves' to the world at the Red Shed in Chesterblade. With Vicki Burke on sax,  Dermot West on bass, Nick 'the potter' on drums and Tim Maryon on keyboard, this is definitely a band to look out for!

And finally, the evening sessions... as you'd expect, too many for any one person to hear all, and the only 'classical' concert for me was John Law's late-evening Renaissance, piano improvisations over electronic backing tracks, with projections by Patrick Dunn, in Christ Church where the setting sun glowed spectacularly through the famous stained glass windows.  Cornerhouse cornered the festival market for popular bands at the weekend, with three fantastic nights of dance-orgy.  Purple Fish on Friday, probably the band Carling would make if it branded bands, brought their own lights which looked fantastic but caused a quandary, to bop or to snap? No such problem next night with Flash Harry - too dark for snaps but lovely Ann Harrison-Broninski has been assiduous in her festival sketching so, from her viewpoint on the floor, here's wonderful Vicki Burke on her sax. (I couldn't find a youtube of their incredible hamster song, but this is a sample of their energy & style.) Sunday's spectacular was local band Blue Midnight, tagline 'unlike anything you've ever heard.' You might add 'or seen' as the lads barge into the pub already playing, led by the trombonist, and their set ends in darkness with everyone softly crooning la la la... 

And another fabulous Frome Festival ends. Thanks for reading!

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...

Six shows, two openings and a market

From April till December, rain or shine, the first Sunday of the month is Independent Market day in Frome, so it was specially delightful that October's market enjoyed glittering sunshine on a balmy day. As always, roads are closed to traffic and the streets filled with a medley of stalls offering everything imaginable from retro frocks & elfin caps to tastings of cheese & chutney & chocolate (lots of chocolate). There's cider & churros, bicycle-tube earrings & candelabra made from plumbing, vintage cutlery & Victorian mementos, hippy Barbie dolls & crème caramel tartlets filled with fresh raspberries (I can vouch for those) and great live music too: local acts on the busking stage, and the Archangel hosting a lively ceilidh band in their courtyard. Frome Writers always have their stall out, and this Sunday there was also a Nude Commute signing at Hunting Raven Books, despite their current brief closure for refurbishment.
And David Lassman, creator of the Regency Detective series featuring Mr.Whicher-ish Jack Swann, led a series of short walks around the town to identify historic features  in his books, as impressively researched for his latest mystery The Circle of Sappho.  Fascinating to imagine ghosts from the past striding these cobbles as wool bales are loaded onto the London wagon outside the coaching inn on Gentle Street, to find the old lock-up (1798) at the end of Christchurch graveyard, see where Frome's own poet, Elizabeth Singer Rowe lived - and the two columns that stand as monument to the ambitions of Thomas Bunn who longed for Frome to vie with Bath in architectural style...

The Edinburgh-acclaimed Nottingham Playhouse production Tony's Last Tape came to Frome's Merlin Theatre on Sunday.  Written by Andy Barrett, this is performed by Philip Bretherton who is surprisingly effective as he doesn’t actually sound, look or move like Tony Benn or even any octagenarian. As evoked by the title, the piece starts as Samuel Beckett’s play did: an old man among his recording devices, with fumbling in pockets, peering and muttering, and even - as Krapp’s stage directions require -  takes out a banana, peers at it, strokes it, peels it, … meditatively eats banana.   But unlike Krapp, Tony Benn listens to few of his tapes as he contemplates his next speech ~ apparently an obituary for a colleague ~ and tries to avoid retelling old jokes, repeatedly sidetracked by nostalgia or distracted by gadget, remembering moments both glorious and tender, angrily mourning ‘the Blair terror’ and the market-branding of his party that strangled even the word socialism… (image Robert Day)

Not just homage to a hero, this piece is also extraordinarily relevant and everyone in the audience must have had goosebumps to hear that sneer ‘if you carry on we’ll be completely sidelined and unelectable’….   From ‘the most dangerous man in politics’ to ‘national treasure’, these real recollections from Tony Benn’s diaries show a man of huge integrity, who loved his wife and family (though he does seem to have doubted whether Hillary was suited to politics), who never forgot his brother’s death, who enjoyed Ealing comedies, and tea, and his pipe, and always believed Parliament is utterly useless as an agent of change - on the ground, in the streets is where it starts.  You have to be hopeful. Because there is no final victory, just the same battles that happen over and over... And here he is for real, at a Frome Labour Party party in 1989,  that's me looking dazzled next to him. It was my room at Frome College too. O the pride!

Monday was Autumn Poetry Cafe night in Frome with guest Hannah Teesdale whose new collection Laid Bare is out now, published by Burning Eye Books.  Hailed by reviewers as 'eloquently and endearingly brutal', 'vivid and visceral', Hannah's poems have quirky humour too and she's one of our most popular visitors at the cafe. A great open-mic session included pieces on seasonal subjects from the joy of toast to the savagery of grouse-shooting: good to welcome back regular favourites, like Dawn Gorman, John Christopher Wood, and Bee Brooks, and to hear new voices too (hello young Molly Turner, whose 'Dad can't cook'...)
Over to Bath now, for more theatre:

“All we ask is to remain being the writers of our own story, to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our characters” wrote Atul Gawande in Being Mortal, his 2014 bestseller on ‘illness, medicine, and what matters in the end’.  Canadian John Mighton is a philosopher and mathematician as well as an award-winning playwright, and his 2003 play (set in 1999) Half Life, at Ustinov Studio Theatre offers case-study drama on a crucial contemporary problem: how do elderly parents deal with being infantilised by their children and carers? This is a play about the duties of care, and loitering in institution corridors, and the importance, or not, of memory. The cast of eight are excellent ~ Helen Ryan as the early-stage-dementia mother is so sweet you want to take her home as a pet, though she would probably rather be released into the wild. Timescale charts her late-flowering lust, action is crafted from existential dilemmas about morality and mortality. 'What is the point of growing old?' demands her life-jaundiced son: answers he gets are all about the need for some kind of remembering, but perhaps God will do that for us as the farcical Reverend believes, or perhaps it ultimately doesn't matter who tucks you up at the end of the day as long as your pillows are soft (and there’s still money in your bedside drawer.) Director Nancy Meckler emphasises realism in this zen-like world of wilted colours and wet-playground games and waiting, the set designed by Janet Bird adds surreal chairs on every plane.  On till 5 November.

Also at the Theatre Royal Bath: another dramatic study of social mores but in a different era: EM Forster's turn-of-the-20th-Century novel A Room With A View. Most of the promotion features Felicity Kendal as silly spinster Charlotte Bartlett  ~ she is superb in this role ~ but the heroine of the tale, naive Lucy Honeychurch, is delightfully played by Lauren Coe. In fact, as always at this theatre, it's a strong team, with Charlie Anson's obnoxious Cecil Vyse outstanding among the men, and the cream-and-honey costumes are lip-lickingly gorgeous.
Simon Reade, who adapted the novel, is sensitive to EM Forster's radical feminist views and the social critique at the heart of this story, but the difficulty in a staged version of a great book is that authorial voice matters as much as plot or dialogue. Or more. What I love about this novelist is his underlying compassion and the subtlety of his social anger. Even the most sympathetic and creative adaptation ~ and this is both ~ can suffer from too much overt parody, and the first act certainly did. The scenes in Florence were over-egged, with awkward little street scenarios and an unimpressive slideshow of the sights. In Act Two the action settles much more satisfyingly in the Home Counties, and the skinny-dipping scene (inevitably a challenge since the 1985 movie), is absolutely brilliant ~ no wonder the matrons of Bath were audibly cheering. Director Adrian Noble, on the main stage till 8th October then touring.

A miscellany of launches to conclude this post: New Frome eatery From Perú To You celebrated in international style on Friday night with pisco cocktails and the delicious tones of Bonne Nouvelle, while although Cheese & Grain bar refurbishment was actually completed some time ago, this was the week of the grand launch on Roots Session night with bubbly and music from DLM.
And there were no less than three art exhibition openings: Adam Birtwistle's launch party night at the Silk Mill for The Gathering, his paintings on a theme of Punch & Judy on till 20th October  ~ here's Adam posed with his favourites, the judges ~ and Friday evening was also the official preview of Colour in the Landscape at Stourhead's First-View Gallery, on till 19th October. Frome Artist Kate Cochrane with Annette Burkitt and Geraldine McLoughlin have combined to create an impressive display of glass and gorgeous paintings, including personal responses to the poetry of Rosie Jackson, here with Kate. The third opening was at the Black Swan, but what with walking round Stourhead lake and the pisco sours, that has to wait till next week's bulletin.