The cafe edition - short, but with an otter.

The  Barrel House Ballroom in Totnes has been home to the Word Cafe created & run by Julie Mullen since 2019, and on Thursday Julie introduced a 30-minute film of poetry and music from local poets and performers which hopefully will stay on YouTube because it's delightful. Beautifully filmed in a variety of enticing local locations (cinematography by Chris Plant) this features poetry and music by local creatives, including Matt Harvey, with an acrostic about Totnes to compensate for his recent move to Dartington, and Brian Patten, still ruggedly scouse. Brian Patten was one of my poetry heroes - the title my published collection Crumbs from a Spinning World is derived from one of his poems - and his book launches unmissable, a fact I confided to him after his eighth, Storm Damage, and received the sighed reply 'Yes, we're all getting old.'  That was back in 1995. Here he is now, and here too is Susie David reciting her poem The Sea Calls.

Back in Frome, Black Swan Arts is preparing to reopen its gallery and the cafe reopened on Friday as the River House Cafe relocated - lock, stock, and staff - from its popular but cramped location on the bridge to the spacier premises - with courtyard seating too - of the Black Swan building. It's another upward step for this 17th Century alehouse, nearly demolished in 1974 until rescued & reopened in 1986 as an arts centre. Here's me looking very happy to join the queue on the official opening day. Thanks Emma Warren for the snap! 

Also in Frome: Our last couple of weeks' sunshine has coaxed the swirling mudscape beside the river bank to regain its role as a path, thus widening the range of rambles available in town and beyond. Frome's online Wildlife Watch group, a treasure trove of birds, butterflies, and recently beavers,  been getting excited about otters, and I was lucky enough to spot this sleek-headed little guy in the exquisite garden of Marston Mill on the Mells River after a writing group meeting. 

Drama has been coming at us from all sorts of places since our theatres, initially muted apart from pleas for donations, have regrouped and come back with online options and now National Theatre has premiered their Romeo and Juliet on the telly - Sky Arts on Sunday night. Directed by Simon Godwin and commendably contracted to 90 minutes, this pandemic production of Shakespeare's violent love story becomes a timeless tale of families and passions. Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley are the lovers, but it's Tamsin Greig as Juliet's powerful mother who stands out in a production that changes relationships and scythes speeches but creates the constraints of family dynamics and social controls in a fantastic, and memorable, way. Look out for repeats.

This blog, or rather this blogger, is determined to chicane through our present Troubles, as the Irish so eloquently delineate stuff too big to name, without discussing either of them, nor the western religious calendar,  so this spring holiday bulletin will conclude with a 'poem for today' as chosen by Poem for the Day (1) ed. Wendy Cope which is by Maya Angelou: Still I Rise was written 1978 and is shockingly still relevant, read it and weep. More cheerful is the other choice for today, from Poem for the Day (2) ed. Andrew Motion, which is Adrian Mitchell's ditty to Celia: 

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on

They later married & lived happily ever after, which shows there's more than one way to look at Easter.  

    

Gathering and spottering and a bit of puddling

Once again, a week with a nice example of the resilience and ingenuity of theatre-makers in the longest nationwide closure since the ban in 1642 which lasted more-or-less until the Restoration - although bubonic plague in 1593 had chased live performance out of London for fourteen months, if you count that.  Bristol Old Vic is one of the theatres providing lock-down dramatic entertainment online until literal doors can open again.The zoom Gathering on Thursday, hosted by director Tom Morris, was carefully planned to include new as well as remembered acts, with a balance of age and gender, and to create a sense of committed friendship within the walls of 'The Theatre Royal', as aficionados still describe this playhouse.

The theme was love, shared in poetry (Michael Byrne reciting Yeats' Song of Wandering Aengus was one highlight) and song (the superb Audrey Brisson, who chatted about her baby, also called Amalie) as well as by memories from past productions. Every performance was accompanied by one of 2 sign language interpreters, both of whom enhanced the acts by their vigorous enthusiasm. Final guest Louis Maskell joined Audrey for the Beauty & the Beast duet from The Grinning Man, which must have been a technical nightmare but sounded great. (As a footnote, a bootleg film of the original production, which this blog raved about in 2016, is viewable for less than the cost of a fish & chips, and you can get a 5-show boxset for unlimited viewing for half the cost of a bottle of fizz. Just saying!) 

Also under the heading of 'theatrical thrills', keep an eye next week, when the embargo on reports of an exciting new production of Dorian Gray is lifted... (image of Fionn Whitehead by Aaron James, for this co-production by the Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre, Oxford Playhouse and Theatr Clwyd. )

And a recommended addition to your BBC iplayer downloads: - Franz, a story of two families struggling with the aftermath of WWI - this may may you weep but remains unpredictable right to the end.

This was a week when springtime became more visible, and hopes of real-time connections were enhanced by plans for a summer festival and band-dates in Frome, with Black Swan Arts hopeful of reopening soon, and the popular River House Cafe team leaving their premises on the bridge to join them there. The Frome Wildlife Watch group has been practically flooded with otters, now frequently spotted along the town river (video here from the phone of Oliver Wright) and the other major news this week was the siting of a White Tailed Eagle by member Julian (Bugsy) Hight - re-posted here with his permission - a bird not seen in England since 1810 when the last one was shot, but recently re-introduced to the Isle of Wight.This one seems to have decided that Longleat was a better residence - probably attracted by the number of ancient trees and wildlife in that estate. "Rewilding is happening in unexpected places" Bugsy reports encouragingly.  Primarily known as the champion of Frome's trees, he's created on commission from the town council this short video to tell the story of Selwood's oaks.  Oaks grow best in solitary positions: It's a popular misconception that Selwood Forest comprised dense thicket, as in fact 'forest' was the land the commoners lived on until hunt-mad William the Conquerer invented land ownership and claimed vast swathes for his deer. Nick Hayes' excellent Book of Trespass explains "Under Anglo Saxon rule these tracts of land were recognised as the vial source of subsistence for all peasants of the area ... commoners had rights not just to graze their cattle and pigs, but to take wood, dig peat and gravel, and fish the ponds. For the first time in English history, the commoners and their cattle were barred from the land they used. These areas became known as 'forest' from the Latin foris meaning outside of because they were areas that operated outside of common law."  Next time you visit a stately home and wonder how the family came to own it, you can remind yourself that they just did what William did: they took it from the people who lived there.

Ending this week's doings & musings with images of the river Frome in two different moods - bubbling down to join Mells brook at the sunny start of the week, and lethargic along the disputed footpath at the end of the week.

Myths, legends, and modern heroes -

An effective antidote to the national news arrived last week at Bristol Old Vic's Weston Studio which swarmed with vibrant and talented youngsters recreating heroic Greek mythology when the BOV Young Company - with extra fizz from the Wardrobe Ensemble - took on the story of Hercules in a ping pong parlour. Here all of humanity is the helpless plaything of wilful gods, as psychotic Zeus and vengeful Hera struggle for power over the young men of Thebes, and Hercules' physical power can't help him cope with his suppressed emotions. It's a morality tale for modern times, and it's funny, fast-moving and inventive as well as raising serious questions about the need for more articulation of the pressures on young men in our society. Rehearsal pictures rarely show anything of the quality of the final production but that's all I've got - at least you can see the age range of this terrific group of talented young people. Superbly directed by Helena Middleton, though sadly it was only on for three nights.

Three years on and Frome's David Bowie night continues, moving this time to the Cornerhouse for our celebration-memorial: brilliant deejaying from The Fat White Duke wearing the iconic red lightning-strike, and a big screen to show images of interviews and concerts throughout: a fabulous evening of singalong and dance ended with - of course - Heroes.

Another great music night at the Wednesday Roots Session, which featured Reg Meuross. Reg is a mesmerising singer/songwriter and also a charismatic raconteur who held the crowded Grain Bar rapt with songs about the Hull triple trawler disaster of 1968 and its consequences, and personal and fantastic tales from his US tours - like how Billy the Kid actually survived to age 95, with songs about seeing Phil Ochs & Elvis eating lunch in Morrison's Cafe in Texas, and Dylan Thomas meeting Hank Williams in a bar before Leaving Alabama... Another change of mood then, with And Jesus Wept, a lament for the 306 young soldiers suffering shell-shock in the war and subsequently shot for desertion, and concludes a superb evening of thought-provoking entertainment with the anthemic England Green and England Grey.


The Artisan on Friday hosted another of Paul Kirtley's Bare to the Bones charity gigs featuring mainly rock classics, played by a lively ensemble - with me making a brief appearance as the 'cerebral' spot. Thanks Steve!


Still on the subject of fundraising entertainment, after a recent break-in at The River House cafe and theft of their charity collection-pots, staff responded by working for an entire day in without speaking to anyone, serving customers in the guise and costume of mime artists, to raise donations replacing the stolen cash. Thumbs up, indeed!

Frome's community spirit became a bit of a theme this week, with requests to talk about Frome Unzipped on Monday to group of trainee tour guides at the Town Hall, and then on Saturday morning the privilege of joining an annual walk in memory of campaigning journalist Crispin Aubrey, organised by his daughter Meg for the legacy fund in his name. Around 40 people gathered for the start of the tour at the HUBnub where co-owner Io Fox told us about its amazing restoration, then onto Catherine Hill to hear the quirky history of Reg Ling & the Valentine Lamp, next to the cobbles of Poldark's Passage - sorry, Gentle Street, then via a look at the Silk Mill to the bridge for my short spiel about the origins of the town, and where Sarah Scholefield (pictured, with Meg) spoke of Willow Vale and her novel Redferne Lane.  By then the weather, previously uncertain, had made a definite decision on rain, so we scurried up Cheap Street to huddle into Hunting Raven Books where an encouraging number of those who hadn't told me that they'd bought my book already now did so.

Still on the subject of books, Bath Flash Fiction Awards on Saturday provided a great evening of entertainment and an amazing variety of winning tales, read by their writers, as organiser Jude Higgins launched both Flash Fiction Festival 2 and Bath Flash Fiction 3 in a party atmosphere at St James Vaults - I didn't get a group picture so this is from their website (credit Christopher Fieldon). Both these lively collections are published by Ad Hoc Fiction.


And now a rare movie-spot to conclude this post: having recently been lured by Steve Coogan's name in the cast list to watch Holmes and Watson, which turned out to be the official Christmas turkey, I was cautious about a visit to Frome's lovely little independent Westway cinema for Stan and Ollie, but it deserves every accolade reviewers and audiences have given it. Tender, beautifully written and superbly acted, this feel-good-then-bereft-then-better movie has to be the best friendship movie since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Full houses all three showings on Sunday, so book when you're passing for whenever you can!