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!

Apocalyptic drama in Bristol, Festival fever in Frome

Big stage news of the week - Kneehigh's Dead Dog in a Suitcase is back at Bristol Old Vic - until 13 July, when the tour continues on to Galway International Arts Festival - and it's as fearsome and funny as it was five years ago and, grimly, even more recognisable as a darkly-mirrored but realistic world. I see was too overwhelmed back in 2014 to blog a coherent account, and feel much the same now: this production is a jaunty remake of The Beggar's Opera, a show-case of performance skills, and a fiercely furious satire, all mixed apocalyptically into a kind of real-life Punch & Judy show. The performers - there are fourteen, including musicians and puppeteers - are all incredible, especially Rina Fatania whose evil vivacity will haunt your dreams, while Dominic Marsh as murderous philanderer Macheath must be the sexiest hitman in the galaxy (after Stephen Mangan in Pinter's Birthday Party - unless you count a psychotic terrorist as a hitman, in which case Aiden Turner in The Lieutenant of Inishmore remains unsurpassable) - but back to Dead Dog... Writer Carl Grose and director Mike Shepherd worked with composer Charles Hazlewood whose 'mongrel score' ranges from evocations of 18th Century opera to ska, disco, grime and 'songs culled from the edge of existence'. And like John Gay's 1728 bawdy backstreet parody of grand lives which provided the characters and the plotline, there's a serious punch beneath the fantasy and frivolity - as significantly forewarned in the opening scene of the show: "Look closer, you might realise this world is no different from your own.” Except perhaps that this one has unforgettable special effects at the finale - no spoilers, but the standing ovation was well deserved.


And now to spectularly sunny Frome:
Matt Owens, founder member of Noah & the Whale, has since moved on to a successful solo career (and don't ask where he'll be in five years time) - entertained an enthralled crowd at the Wednesday Grain Bar Roots Session with Kerouacian tales and original songs.

After that, Frome moved up a gear to festival mode: there's an impressive exhibition of the work of JW Singer's foundry & its aesthetic impact around the world at Rook Lane Chapel, and - with 23 more visual arts venues poised to open - there were two excellent events on Friday: painter Mark Jessett at the HUBnub centre (he says he does try to use laid-back, calm, colours but it just doesn't happen, you can see the vibrance right across the gallery!) and Ann Harrison-Broninski sharing her sketches of the life of Frome in the gallery room at The George with sunset views across town, accompanied by folksy sounds from Crossing the Rockies. Both delightful events.
 








The focus shifts to literature on Saturday morning, as Frome Writers Collective took over the Silk Mill for their Small Publishers Fair, a superbly organised, very busy, event. Barry Cunningham, MD of Chicken House and patron of FWC  opened the day with a few perfectly pitched words about the need for imagination in order to create change, and the famous festival cantina opened at noon to provide refreshment outside. For me this was an anniversary: one year ago Frome Unzipped - from prehistory to post-punk was launched here, so it was really nice to meet up again with my publisher,  John Chandler of Hobnob Press.

Also on Saturday, the sofa on Catherine Hill returned to feature the striking sound of Otto Wilde, dubbed Cab Calloway channelling the future soul of Jack White, and Artisan pub garden enjoyed sunshine and swing with Alexandra's Washboard Band.

For the evenings, Cornerhouse was the go-to music place: an exuberant set from quirky Back of the Bus, and Pete Gage Band excelling even its own usual brilliance on Saturday night.

So as you can tell there was much to enjoy but I can't tell you anything about the official festival opening at the International Food Feast with its tantalising stalls, or the traditional flamboyant entry led by the Street Bandits, the excellent bands and entertainments... with an afternoon dress rehearsal for our Nevertheless Pub Theatre show Where the Fault Lies too, something had to go...  (There'll be a same-night second performance at the Cornerhouse now, too, at 9.30 as the 8.00 tickets sold out so quickly)   So I'll end on a comedy note, with Peter Fleming- have you seen? at the Granary with an ageing BBC children's presenter, nostalgic for the old days of glove puppets and making things with sticky-back plastic... endearing and very funny, this should go well in Edinburgh.

Final non-artsy footnote, purely because my recent gloomy forboding of curtailment in reports met with several concerned responses from kind blog-followers: normal service now expected to resume, as I've had an alternative diagnosis with much more positive prognosis.  Smiley face - and thanks all.

Sunny daze as festival season nears

Sunny days have tentatively arrived again, in time for festival season so it may seem ungracious to point out that the nights are already lengthening now we're past the magic solstice, celebrated with a massive music jam at the Artisan for Paul Kirtley's Bare to the Bones ongoing charity collection. This session enjoyed only the Bones regulars but two other Frome bands, The Decades and Hello Hopeville, plus washboard virtuoso Alexandra and mellifluous flutist Shehzad, resulting in something of a challenge for sound man Steve and four hours of varied medleys... great fun though not ideal for cameras - here's Paul leading a melange of regulars and visitors in All You Need Is Love...

Saturday continued the supply of music from great local bands, with an excellent 'Sofa Session' on Catherine Hill in the afternoon from Crossing the Rockies followed in the evening by sensational Rebel Heroes, local brilliant Bowie tribute band playing with passion and real authenticity... another great dancing night at the Cornerhouse.


Sunday focus was on the youngsters, with Frome Children's Festival offering a host of activities from graffiti, games, and performance skills to pump track action and a zip wire across the river - face-painting and street bands naturally obligatory - a very popular event and big credit to the dedicated organisers and talented contributors.

Children were on the menu in Bath too, with the Forest of Imagination in Sydney Gardens and Holburne Museum - 'a series of multi-sensory pop up events and installations along the theme of 'lifelong inspiration from nature'. I especially liked the egg of the Giant Ogulon, and the amazing clay creatures created by excited young participants.

Roots Session on Wednesday featured Harbottle & Jonas, a young husband and wife team who seem to have redefined folk music, writing and performance vibrant and exciting real-life tales with superb harmonies. Their current album is all about the sea, with a range of true tales like the shipwreck rescue by Grace Darling in 1838, the cocklers' tragedy on the Morecambe shore in 2004,  the lost village of Hallsands and, a favourite for me, the movingly imagined final night in 1912 of Scott in the Antarctic Was it You?  I like this picture, though it's not the best of either of this couple, because it has something of the powerful-seeming rapport between them throughout their set.

Over at the Cornerhouse, the Saturday night session was a Pink Floyd mini-spectacular from James Hollingsworth, who impressively recreates that iconic sound solo using loop technology with live percussion, voice, harmonica and guitar to build complex arrangements in real time.

 And on a balmy Sunday afternoon, what could be better than a stroll along the abundantly floral riverbank into Bath and fetch up at The Bell listening to Alamo Leel's sensational 'lunchtime session' blues featuring, as well as guest singer & saxophonist, Frome giants Pete Gage on keyboard and Paul Hartshorn on guitar.

Moving to theatre now, where on the still-warm Sunday night, ECOS amphitheatre was filled with sounds of thunder as Illyria Open Air Theatre company evoked sea-storms and the fantastical world of The Tempest. What you get from Oliver Gray, who directs these small-cast re-envisionings of Shakespeare's plays, is a script largely-uncut and conscientiously edited,  masses of costume changes with a proliferation of increasingly bizarre hats, and at least one episode of audience-invasion for picnic-basket raiding. With a cast of only five some liberties are inevitable, and this production went further and redefined the exiled duke & sorcerer Prospero as not Miranda's father but her mother, Prospera, who has the seething self-certainty and strong address-style of an ex-headmistress, & thus comes across as pretty scary. As the programme points out, this alters the relationship to a single-mother issue, though on a remote island with potato-peeling the focus of their shared mum/daughter time and only a dancing sprite and a chained monster for company, there’s not much option to explore the sociological impact of this shift. However as always, it's all very well done, with a strong cast and action pitched perfectly for outdoor enjoyment. Shakespeare laced this dark script with pantomime humour in the drunken butler scenes, and the cast made much of these, also added their own touches of mirth from the start as buckets of water drenched the shipwrecked sailors. Ferdinand and Miranda’s whirlwind Love Island romance is charming, Ariel’s final flight is a triumph to flare in the mind forever, and - in short - once again the intrepid Illyrians (despite unexpected realism in one of the fights: big respect to David Sayers for maintaining role as the blood visibly dripped down his face) have definitely pulled it off.

Meanwhile, preparations for Frome Festival intensify and Frome Writers Collective has already set the glitter-ball rolling with their Writers in Residence event - thirteen scribes in cafes and shops around the town, all equipped on Saturday morning with a surprise topic on which to create a story in four hours...  here's long-hander Tim Bates nicely settled in The Settle with scones and favourite pen, and on the other side of town Suzy Howlett teching it up at Black Swan. The resulting scripts have been collected for prize allocation and there will be a night of shared readings in September.

So now with less than a week to go, tickets are flying from Cheese & Grain Box Office and Where the Fault Lies, our Nevertheless Pub Theatre production on Wednesday, sold out completely and after hasty discussions with the Cornerhouse and the Frome Actors Network team, there will be second performance later in the evening - so seats for the 9.30 showing are now on sale - and early grabbing is recommended. Oh, and Frome Festival Poetry Cafe has achieved the highest echelons of esteem - we are in the LIST RECOMMENDS! If you're anywhere in or near Frome on Monday 8th July, I hope to see you at the Garden Cafe...