War, slavery, and sunshine as winter officially ends

'Pink Mist' sounds like a lipstick shade or a girly cocktail but for the troops in Afghanistan, it meant the fine spray of blood in the air when a soldier is blown to bits. It's the title of Owen Sheers' extraordinary drama of three young men who, inspired only by paucity of alternatives, go to war and are all terminally damaged. This was first staged at Bristol Old Vic in 2015, returning 2017 and is now available online here until 22 April. 

The play is a kind of surrealist mix of poetry and dance, with high-energy performance and dream-like intensity from a small cast and the interpreter always visible beside the action like a lamenting Cassandra - it's all powerfully effective. The script was inspired by interviews from returned servicemen and their families, which makes it all the more harrowing that none of the soldiers was inspired to enlist for any reason other than frustration with their life options in Bristol, and none gave any consideration at any time to the larger issues of national conflict.  This casebook study of three urban boys who deserved a better life - Arthur, Hads and Taff - shows the ripple effect on families and questions the values of the society we live in. You can read more about the cast and production here:  recommended viewing, if only to appreciate the emotional impact & scope of staged theatre. 

Bristol Old Vic has been providing drama in a variety of ways throughout lockdown, with this week's diversity including an audio play on Radio 3: The Meaning of Zong, directed by Tom Morris and written by Giles Terera, recreates with emotional intensity the true story of the slave ship which in 1781 dumped hundreds of black men and women overboard and successfully claimed insurance for their lost 'cargo'.  Moving between the historical court case with real-life figures of abolitionist Granville Sharp & Olaudah Equiano (Samuel West & and Giles Terera) and imagined mystical scenes from 1781,  it's sometimes difficult to follow, but the facts of the case are dreadful enough to grip the listener throughout.

Southampton's Art House on Saturday featured a zoom-adapted performance of Kevin King of Egypt, a bizarre tale created by poetry performer & psychiatric nurse Rob Gee - who Frome audiences will remember from his popular visits to Merlin Theatre for Poetry Platter events. Kevin has bipolar disorder and we meet him in a mood of strange elation as he decides to break out of the psychiatric ward and head for Egypt. All he needs is his passport and a run of luck, and it seems at times that he may achieve both, as he somehow acquires a policeman's wallet, a malleable taxi-driver, and a small girl called Millie. Kevin is an immensely sympathetic character, despite his extraordinary behaviour: the points he makes about social controls are insightful, and there's a lot that's really funny in this deceptively simple, very skilful, monologue.

A contrast in zoom mood now:  At the Coalface is the title and theme of Frome poet Rebecca Brewin's collection of poems published by Blurb Books: her online launch on Thursday was hosted by Mike Grenville with an introduction from Helen Moore and harp interludes from Vicki Burke. This evocation of mining and miners' lives merges with a mining of the poet's own history, and Rebecca uses the power of lists to summarise, define, and deepen the experiences she evokes. An impressive launch for a complex collection. 

And my tale of The Invisible Granny was Thursday's featured Storyopathy event from Kilter Theatre in collaboration with Clare Reddaway's A Word in Your Ear fiction sessions. Sadly I missed the link to Olly Langdon's reading but my pestering messages got me through the waiting room in time to hear Dr Olly's suggestion of retrouvaille as a key theme which, although his therapist persona is spoofy, I felt gratifyingly insightful.  After the audience dispersed, the page stayed open long enough for a big old catchup chat with friends who'd booked to hear my story of Izzy Quirk who had never been on holiday and what happened when she did. 

Time for another look at a couple of Frome's Podcasters: what's brilliant about these audial sessions is that they aren't time-sensitive so if you miss one you can catch up any time later, or binge on them box-set style. Eleanor Talbot, seen here with Jessie and some of her jewellery designs, hosts Variations on a Theme which this week covers the topic of cover songs. Is the original always the best - or even the best-known? Case in point is the 1982 hit written by Tears for Fears' co-founder Roland Orzabal for the band, but Gary Jules' more powerful cover of Mad World was a massive Christmas hit in 2003.

Andy Wrintmore's podcast guest couldn't be more appropriate in the week we heard Easthill Field has been saved from development by the support team's efforts to research the wildlife and prove its value as ancient meadow, as the Giant Pod with Julian Hight focuses on Frome's punk-rocking self-taught tree specialist. This informative & entertaining session covers a wide range of topics including tree communication, 'forest bathing' in benign pheromones, and protection activism as well as his travels and those great tree books. Andy has now also given the podcast treatment to musician Nick Wilton, another fascinating Frome personality - who I'm proud to say, like Julian - and Andy himself - featured in my book Frome Unzipped - from prehistory to post-punk. So it's good to know 4000 year-old trees and neo-punk are both still thriving in Frome.

And finally... another 'Best Place to Live' list in the Sunday Times, another win for Frome as top place in the south west. Illustrating their accolade with a photo of the rapidly-depleting shops of Catherine Hill, the Sunday Times summary may not delight all residents by its enthusiasm for "tasteful Farrow & Ball tones" as a primary reasons for selection. At £84-119.00 for a 5 litre pot, F&B elegance represents everything that many long-standing residents resent about the 'gentrification' of Frome. Luckily there's a lot more to love about our town, including the passionate interest in its past & present history, reflected by online groups like Frome History & Mystery,  Frome Local, Frome Wildlife Watch, and more. Where else, I wonder, would my photos of a bit of ruined aqueduct, from an aborted idea at the end of the 18th Century, attract 6,824 views on facebook in 3 days? Here's the entries, now blocked: my book Frome Unzipped (p92-93) recounts the sad story of the failed project to create a canal link to Frome, despite the extraordinary inventiveness of James Fussell, and I'm learning more from comments now - including the inevitable financial scandal... (thanks Patrick Moss). 

A good week for drama on screen & birdsong outside

Performance arts have been major victims of the ramifications of the past year, yet continue to respond with initiative and vigour. SHOOK by Samuel Bailey at Southwark Playhouse won the 2019 Papatango award for new writing and was set to transfer to the West End before the pandemic ended that option, but until the end of the month you can see this powerful piece of theatre online for a tenner here in a film of the show "dedicated to all the productions that never were."

Despite the grim institution setting, and the appallingly sad real-life glimpses, there's huge compassion and tenderness as well as humour and even hope in this story of three young men submitting to parenting skills education to while away their incarcerated days. Josh Finan as Cain and Ivan Oyik as Riyad are simply brilliant. Direction by George Turvey, with the effectively, depressingly, realistic set & costumes created by Jasmine Swan, SHOOK is definitely worth a tenner and 95 minutes of your life - highly recommended. 

Performance poet Rob Gee is one of the 'names' who has guested in Frome - he brought his first show Fruitcake to the Merlin for a Poetry Platter evening back in 2015. Undaunted by lockdown, Rob has devised another one-man show based on his combined of experiences of nursing and performing.  Death - A Romantic Comedy, staged at the Arthouse Southampton, was a zoom event, and though the story was on the Trainspotting spectrum in terms of anarchic behaviour, Rob's genial narration of a mortuary party prank that went pear-shaped and a lost-&-found second-hand pacemaker leading to terminal romance is a delight. Interspersed with these antics and in the same droll tone, Rob recalls the blasé stoicism of this older, war-surviving, generation: 'They'd faced death in their '40s and now they were just facing it again.'  Rob's narratives of deranged geriatrics is the sort of humour probably essential for a psychiatric nurse but it's not black, more a sort of Stygian sable, delighting in any eccentricity not actually fatal. And then those too. 

Still with performance, Artsreach, supported by Dorset Council, provides constant menu of options, the latest including Winter Warmers from the Inn Crowd - warm-hearted poems about pubs, online every Wednesday. This one's from East Anglia's Charley Geneve, it'll take you back to the better days. Here in Frome we're proud to claim haiku queen Liv Torc, still providing her fabulous HAIFLU film chronicles of the passing weeks - currently celebrating the one hundred thousand milestone, and featured in The Times as well as on BBC4 - I'm inappropriately pleased one of my photos made it into this.

Bob Marley's birthday was, or would have been, on Friday. Kevin Macdonald's iconic movie Marley, released in 2012, was premiered in Bath's Little Theatre - apparently a favourite venue of Haile Selassie during his years of refuge 1936-40 in the city. It's a fantastic authentic biography and social history of the era, still available to view.

And now for something completely different: Italian baroque arias accompanied by archlute, one of those esoteric events that turn up randomly in Facebook's eclectic mix. I had initial doubts about Musicke in the Ayre but a proxy visit to Iford Manor's beautiful grounds was an irresistible lure. In fact the whole event was delightful, a compilation drawn from several open-air concerts, subtitled with translation, superbly performed, and with wonderful shots of the Peto gardens.

Art spot now, which should have been in the poetry spot, but my visit to Poetry Ireland on Monday for a Celebration of Women Poets marking Brigid's Day & Black History Month was foiled by late arrival, but googling St Brigid led to a wonderful exhibition in Dublin's Hamilton Gallery two years ago.  The gallery is now hosting exhibitions online, currently with an amazing celebration of Bram Stoker - there's a great little video viewable here - so this year let's celebrate Imbolc with gothic horror for a change.

Tuesday was World Wetland Day, and Frome has plunged whole-heartily in the celebration of wet with waterlogged fields and swollen river. Until Roman intrusion in the 13th century, February was apparently called Solmonath - Mud-month - according to the etymological almanac of Susie Dent Word Perfect, but the plethora of rainfall hasn't deterred local enthusiasm for nature-watching. 

As well as several facebook groups keeping an eye on encroachment of protected reserves, others simply share enjoyment of natural beauty: trees, birds, and all life wild and precious in & around Frome.

Otters - here's one posted by Nathan Slee - deer, dormice, red kites & kingfishers were all spotted last week, offsetting dismay at the invasion of Easthill Field's precious biodiversity by a grave-digging team who mistook the ancient hill for a practice pitch... Mendip officials, ruffled by probing from -of all unlikely champions- a Daily Mail journalist, announced themselves 'satisfied' that the lugging of a mechanical digger into ancient land currently under disputed threat of development was merely 'a misunderstanding' - just one of current areas of concern for the town, with a disappointing outcome to the long debate over Saxonvale and the misnomer of 'Selwood Garden Community' looming - appreciation to the hardworking objectors... And If you can't get out as much or as far as you'd like, enjoy this evocative film created by poet Linda France in a project to record 'the natural world in a time of Climate Crisis and Coronavirus'.

Ending this post with a massively belated THANKYOU to all my readers who have been leaving  messages after my postings. This is apparently an option offered by the new blog format I moaned so much about, and I've only just noticed.  Do keep it up, 'Paul' and all of you: your comments are really appreciated, and in future you will get a response!

Lifting the lid off the Psych ward, and a sunny afternoon in London

Standup poet Rob Gee brought his multi-award winning show FRUITCAKE to Frome on Friday for a very successful "Poetry Platter" event at the Merlin, with an appreciative audience on the stage simultaneously enjoying Keren's amazing suppers and Rob's rapid-fire insights and 'commandments from the Psych Ward.' The material for his performance, all taken directly from Rob's experience as a psychiatric nurse in acute wards, is preposterously funny but also moving, shocking sometimes, and always delivered with genuine compassion for anyone who at some point in their lives finds themselves "knitting with one needle.""
Rob has no respect for the pharmaceutical industry and makes no judgement on those who explore alternative self-medication: "It is a point that we're not meant to be toxic-free, that's why the good lord gave us pleasure receptors, and livers."

A great finale to a busy week for me, with a reunion trip to metropolis which included among other treats Sunny Afternoon at the Harold Pinter Theatre,  a brilliant evocation of the life & times of four lads from Muswell Hill with 'a certain unwashed je ne sais quoi' who came to be known as the Kinks. The actors, especially slumbrous-eyed John Dagleish as Ray and George Macguire as crazy brother Dave, are also fantastic musicians, and as our seats were unexpectedly upgraded from budget balcony to front stalls, we were right in the party atmosphere at the finale, when the entire audience rose to their feet to clap along and dance.










And, three minutes walk away, here's the current incumbent of the 'fourth plinth' of Trafalgar Square: it's Gift Horse by artist Hans Haacke (not sure why Greater London Authority specifies that Hans Haacke is an artist, maybe they fear tourists will one of the Queen's stable failed to win at the Derby and was hoisted up there to starve.) The interesting thing about this installation is that the ribbon on the horse's leg is a live ticker connected to the London Stock Exchange 'completing the link between money and history'.
 I had my own sunny afternoon atop that plinth once, as part of Anthony Gormley's One and Other project.  It doesn't seem like six years ago, but it was. I recited & read poems, mine and other peoples', for an hour and had an absolutely thrilling time ~ my blog entry the next day (July 19, 2009) brings it all back, and among the lovely comments from friends and strangers there's a link to my One&Other webpage, archived forever, with 139 little <3s. 

The Riot Club - not very pretty I tell thee, but recommended viewing

They look like Cameron's infamous Bullingdon Club, but they're not ~ that was back in the 1980s, and POSH is set right now, an invented but horrendously-plausible example of the 'dining clubs' at the finishing schools of our ruling classes. Election year is a good time to revive this 2010 Royal Court hit, and this Salisbury/ Nottingham Playhouse coproduction makes a smashing job of it.  Literally, in Act 2.
I saw it on the day Jeremy Clarkson declared himself an endangered species (in his column in the Sun, so not endangered like an anti-fracking protester or a black homeless on Skid Row) which was apt, as that’s how the rich cubs of The Riot Club see themselves: like some kind of rare fox, apparently, hounded by contemptible hoi polloi who invade their stately homes searching for cream teas and question their inherited right to classism, racism and misogyny.  Laura Wade's script is brilliant, inviting us to both laugh and gasp at these barely articulate young men for whom the highest accolade is "fucking savage!" while showing the terrifying power their money & status still claim. Good to see the high-testosterone of the (excellent) cast counterbalanced by an all-female creative team, too.

We meet the dining dectet on the night the toast is "To leave a trail of glorious destruction in our wake" and we follow their high jinks throughout one Hogarthian evening in which revelry consists of excess, abuse, and humiliating forfeits. It's mostly very funny, both in their utterances and their antics (a highlight from Tom Clegg as Toby, force-fed wine into near stupor) but the undercurrent anger bubbles and surfaces after Alistair speaks for them all: "I'm sick to death of fucking poor people" ~  an outstanding performance from Jordan Metcalfe although with his schoolboy Plantagenet haircut he looks about as upperclass as Harry looks like Prince William. And when the swashbucklers have to rejoin the real world, how will they cover their tracks? Well they do what friends do ~ friends in a club like this anyway, where like the Hotel California you can check out but you can never leave. They … oh you’ll have to go and see it. On till April 4th at Salisbury Playhouse. The Salisbury Journal wondered what their "Tory heartland" audience would make of it, but happily the full-house chose to be charmed, rattled their jewellery and cheered. As did I.

Looking ahead to Friday March 27th in Frome, the spring Poetry Platter ~ an event where the audience joins the performer on stage in a bistro-style atmosphere with real food ~ is Fruitcake! Ten Commandments from the Psych Ward, brought to the Merlin theatre by Rob Gee.
Rob, who was featured in The Guardian recently, is a very funny standup poet but his material isn't trivial, and he's one of the leading voices in the current trend of satiric comedy.  This show has won 5-star reviews & awards and the price of a ticket, in terms of artisan coffees which I believe is the going measure of comparison, is a mere two... call 01373 465949 to book.

A small medley of footnotes to this post: The venue with no name at the Wheatsheaf narrowly avoided closure last week, thanks to a hasty facebook petition, allowing MJ & The Rocketeers to live up to their name on Thursday in a great session with even Tainted Love getting the 60s treatment. And as spring teeters in, there's street theatre from Show Of Strength in Wells next Saturday ~ Frome Comedy Club host Tim O'Connor is one of the writers of these short cuts, though sadly there's a clash with the Pump Jam at Welshmill Park that day.

And here's the Pavement Poet in Bath.... an idea for Frome Festival, anyone?

Another Frome medley

Storytellers can seem like Morris dancers of the spoken word scene, so I was unsure what to expect from Tongues of Flame at Rook Lane but after seeing Miracle Theatre's take on Dr Livingstone's struggle to find the source of the Nile and knowing nothing of maverick explorer Richard Francis Burton who was equally avidly engaged on this quest, I went along to listen & learn from Giles Abbott at Mr Rook's Speakeasy on Thursday. Definitely a good decision.

Giles is a charismatic storyteller, and his extraordinary 90-minute performance created the man and his era in a range of ways: satiric, sensuous, and tragic, as we edged nearer and nearer to a man who shocked the establishment and remained always an outsider but was acknowledged the finest swordsman in Europe,  a man who "took to languages like other men take to drink", whose disguise as a Hakim was so effective he was allowed into the harem, whose observations of Somali female circumcision were censored by his horrified publisher, whose lifetime's notebooks of irreplaceable research into 19th century cultures and communities in India & Araby & Africa were burned on his death by his more conventional wife...  and he never found the source of the Nile.  But what a man! And what a performance. Marvellous.

Still on the subject of one-man shows, Pip Utton brought another driven personality to Frome on Saturday with his speech-from-beyond-the-grave by Maggie Thatcher. As our local paper said, "Frome's Merlin Theatre audiences have grown used to the theatre's associate artist Pip Utton's multiple personalities. Writer and performer Pip regularly metamorphoses into characters from history and the arts, ranging from Hitler to Churchill, from Chaplin to Dickens and more." Playing Maggie, Pip establishes himself as an ambivalent actor rather than his usual impersonation: his male Maggie, in Spitting Image style wig and pearls, is unrepentant but her alter-ego was a child of one of the mining communities she destroyed. "The Britain you wanted is the Britain we've got" is his starting summary to the lady who believed as Creon did in Antigone, 'there has to be someone to take the helm.' A thought that will divide, as the Iron Lady did in life and death.

Among other local news, Captain Cactus & the Screaming Harlots rocked the Grain Bar Roots Session, the cafe then reassembling itself by Saturday's craft market with an exhibition of paintings by Caroline Walsh-Waring, and I discovered a new literary group meeting  on the last Friday of each month 1.30-3.00 at Frome library. It's open to all so go along if you fancy a bit of reading & discussion ~ we were looking at some of Seamus Heaney's poems, one of which revealed he saw himself as a "wood-kerne", a lovely word which means an ancient Irish soldier, a hunted bandit, firing darts at the English through the forest.

And finally this week, thanks to Chapter & Verse host John Walton at Frome FM for inviting me to talk about performance poetry in general and the marvellous Rob Gee's upcoming visit to the Merlin Theatre (March 27th if you haven't booked yet!) in particular..  Rob came on the show in a phone interview to tell us more about his comedic take on the UK psychiatric system from his experience in the wards as a (reformed)(!) nurse. FRUITCAKE is still booking, so if you want to see why it slayed audiences in the States as a serial award-winner with a galaxy of 5-star reviews, come along. Did I say March 27th at the Merlin? thought so. 7.45, just £5 or a bit more if you book a supper too.