Frome's Glit-lit culture: silver crows, glittery art, & more

A blog about creativity in Frome ought, arguably, to mention writing more often than this one does, as there's a lot of it going on. There's the famous Write Place at Black Swan, for a start, to which members travel long distances, there's Hunting Raven Books positively pulsing with words and word-y promotions - there are scads of writing groups (I belong to two myself) and Frome Writers' Collective has over a hundred members... but literary activity unlike art and music doesn't generally lend itself to imagery & appraisal. So it's great to lead this week with a writerly event - a party organised by FWC to celebrate the success of Silver Crow, a unique concept to ensure self-published writers achieve a quality product. The organising team behind Frome's writers' collective is awesomely well organised and this party was another big success for Gill Harry and her team.   Detective fiction writer Nikki Copleston was the first to take flight with The Shame of Innocence, and since then nine more author's titles, ranging from memoirs to children's stories, have followed. It feels appropriate that Silver Crow's third birthday also launches Nikki's second novel: The Price of Silence, from which Nikki read us a tantalising extract.
Tina Gaisford-Waller, dynamic & delightful manager of Hunting Raven Books, (who feathered her speech with crow puns far more effectively than I have) spoke enthusiastically about how mutual support between local writers and bookshops can play a big role in maintaining a healthy community. Frome Festival Director Martin Dimery was encouraging too, commending local organisers for providing more literary events in our programme each year than some specifically-Literary Festivals, always with a mix of both local and invited guests.  And I was privileged & delighted to add my two-penn'orth with a short reading from Frome Unzipped and a crone poem... (yes it was Bungee Jumping Crumblies, p 47 of Burning Eye's Best Spoken Word Poetry Book in the World., - and thanks Mac for the snap of me.) 

'They come not in single spies but in battalions' said Claudius, and although he was complaining about annoyances like murder & madness it's often apt for nicer things like clashing gigs & gatherings, parties, and event openings. Luckily Frome's artistic quarter is compact enough to dash from one dazzling launch to another, as on Friday when WHY Gallery was raising a glass with master-engraver Chris Pig while Black Swan Long Gallery celebrated 'Pictures and Dioramas' of Corinna Sargood. (As a scavenger of unfamiliar words I seized on 'diorama' like an edible fungus found in the woods, and found it means a painting viewed through a peephole - feel free to look smug if you knew that already.)  The exhibits are totally extraordinary, day-glo brilliant, painted or tightly-stitched, legends from epic fantasies - you get the feeling if William Blake could embroider and had access to glittery threads, he would have created these scenes and creatures. There's also a hand-bound copy of Angela Carter's The Tiger's Bride, with Corinna's lino cut illustrations. This is a really extraordinary exhibition, almost scary in its brilliance - a huge credit to Corinna's generosity in sharing work of so much importance with her local town gallery, and to Mel Day for imaginative curating.

Time for music, with the brilliant Swampgrass back by popular demand at the Grain Bar Roots Session, beating up the blues with verve and style. Singer/songwriter Nick Tann, flying solo for this visit, gave strong support. There were some real highlights too at Three Swans' monthly acoustic session run by Paul Kirtley -including a beautiful, eerie, version of Nirvana's In the Pines from Mountainspeaksfire, and on Friday talented singer-songwriter Jane Langley launched her new band MellowTones at the Cornerhouse.




If you haven't yet seen Sorry we missed you you've probably recognised the connection with our online-buying culture, and with Ken Loach directing this will be an I Daniel Blake style exposé, scrupulously researched, using non-actors in every role - honest, moving and uncomfortable. The 'white-man-van' gig economy survives in this Nottingham example on a fake premise of self-employment which means in reality if you miss a day you not only lose your day's pay, you pay the wage of your replacement - however painful the family or personal circumstances that took you away. Tight script, good photography, and some lovely family moments ensure this is a really good movie as well as call for change in our focus as a society.  I saw this film on Saturday in the bar of Ken's own football club - Bath City FT - with the local Labour party providing supportive leaflets, but it was interesting to hear Ken's opinion in the Q&A afterwards that the over-riding issue in our upcoming election, and priority for any future government, is the planetary crisis of climate change.

Ending this post with two personal highlights: first is having lunch with the wonderful 'Mama Upendo', aka Sara Hillman, whose African Kitchen stall is a regular feature at Frome's Independent Markets: Sarah in the pic. has just found herself in my unzipping history of Frome and its people, and this copy will be going to her orphanage in Kenya.
And my other special event is a sunny afternoon walking Roddenberry Hill Fort (technically Wiltshire but it's an easy walk from my side of town) - one of those magical places with its own kind of silence, and an atmosphere that seems to span centuries.

Prattly poems, fishy tales, swamp songs & more...

Poetry Platter night at the Merlin is always a treat for spoken word enthusiasts in Frome - a fully-staged & professionally-lit performance by special guests, with the option of one of Jo Harrington's scrumptious buffets too. This autumn's event was particularly special, as Steve Pottinger brought his fantastic Poets, Prattlers & Pandemonialists to Frome on their south-west tour with this phenomenally successful -and unique- confection of drama and poetry. It's poems, Jim, but not as we know them: all human life is there, its hopes and follies, grievances and joys - funny, poignant, bantering, and sometimes crazy. Droll Steve, thoughtful Dave Pitts, and marvellous Emma Purshouse kept the audience rapt for an hour of cleverly crafted, apparently casual, sharing of passions as they plan their performance in a Wetherspoons somewhere near you..

The book spot now, and it's a long one this week. On Monday I was due to talk about Frome Unzipped at the Frome Writers Collective monthly social at the Three Swans but I had no copies left and Hunting Raven Books had sold out too... cue urgent email to my patient publisher at Hobnob Press, who made a mercy-dash to Ex Libris bookshop in Bradford which had just been delivered a new batch ('It's a terrific book - local history but not as we know it, I hope it's the start of a new genre' the donating owner gratifyingly opined) so I had some copies to wave about and sell.

Also talking that night, poet Ann Philips whose beautifully illustrated new collection Inbetween Lands celebrates a year of experiences and encounters, and Elizabeth Legge who is researching the salacious background to the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1889. The 'Mayerling' mystery still apparently fascinates many - I'm using a picture from the movie, of Omar Sherif and Catherine Deneuve as his mistress although he's far more dashing than the syphilitic prince and she's a lot older than his alleged death-pact partner.

Hunting Raven Books was the venue for a strikingly different talk the next night: Sardine is the new book from writer Trevor Day, who has exhaustively researched every aspect of the life and times of this ubiquitous little fish. Sardines are harvested in seas from Cornwall to California, as the term covers over 90 similar small fish, including pilchards (but not anchovies, their mouths slant differently) and Trevor's range is equally extensive, including marine biology, nutrition, canning, cookery and social culture, like the fact that 'Doc' in Cannery Row was modelled on an ecologist-friend of Steinbeck's: Ed Ricketts, who warned as early as 1946 against over-fishing. Image here is again from the movie version, and this time actor Nick Nolte is not as dashing as the real Ed Ricketts, 'paradoxical and charismatic', who enjoyed 'many women' in his life when not involved in research into biological communities. A fascinating talk full of tasty titbits of fact and information: a smorgasbord of pescatarian delights, just like the book.

Next night another book launch, same venue but a very different topic: Frome's prolific social historian David Lassman was talking about Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in & around Frome, his newly published collection of fourteen tales of nefarious and mysterious events, compiled in collaboration with Mick Davis. Some of these are referenced in my book Frome Unzipped, but this book goes into far more detail, sometimes gruesome but always interesting: did you know that the Salvation Army in their early days were violently militant and their aggressive preaching caused pitched battles in Frome, on one occasion leading to imprisonment for two of the Salvationist leaders?... quite a contrast to the cosy, bonneted, images we have today....

Then to Bath's Rondo, to catch Edward Day on tour with his one-man extravaganza - Super Hamlet 64, an exploration of Shakespeare plot and characters as a video game in a production that the word 'zany' may have been invented for.  Funny, clever, and passionately immersed in retro video games and the bard's plays, it's indescribable really - engrossing and engaging at so many levels. I'm no game-player so didn't get beyond working out that wicked Uncle Luigi must be Mario's brother, but I loved Edward's lyrical script and the mishmash of soliloquies that finally enabled Edward to stop dying at level 4 and move onto the serious uncle-killing part of the game... the wild singing accompanied by 8-string ukulele was good too.

Moving up a level from 1985 screen graphics to fine art, there were two interesting exhibitions in Frome last week:
At the Hubnub there's If Not Now, Then When: Andrew Roberts offers a collection of 'plein air' paintings from all around Europe, which he describes as 'visual onomatopoeia for the landscape', a metaphor which while interesting seems somewhat subfusc. The paintings themselves are vibrant and full of stories, I liked them.

Just opened at the Silk Mill: Letting the Light In is an exhibition celebrating the 'culture, colours, and people' of Udaipur in Rajastathan, compiled by Peter Hayes who created the ceramic pieces. The painter of those fascinating, vividly coloured, faces is Shahid Parvez and there are also photographs by Rupert Grey and landscapes by Peter Brown.

When is it ever not a good week for music in Frome? Certainly not this week anyway, with high-energy Swampgrass simply fabulous at the Grain Bar on Wednesday,

Cornerhouse throbbing to rock classics from Lix'n'Stix on Saturday and with a brilliant Jazz Jam on Sunday, and Mark Abis one of the buskers at the Frome Independent monthly market on Sunday... which seems a good place to pause, in the sunshine of a superb October day.

Retrospective moments & Restoration drama

I had high hopes of the current Tove Jansson exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, which I visited on Thursday, and it totally exceeded them. I realised she was more than a clever illustrator from the existential anguish and ever-present incomprehensible wildness that pervades her magical tales of Moominland, but I hadn't expected the richness of her candid & personal paintings - I love this one of her family, with Tove herself slightly caricatured, watching her brothers play chess just before the war. (Lars, the one who is not in uniform, became her business partner & collaborater later in life.)
Tove was a passionate pacifist, and her cover illustrations for the Finnish satirical magazine Garm throughout the war years show her views. This 1944 one is filled with little Hitlers, robbing farms and households, torching barns, and trying on a crown. There's a tiny little creature clasping the M in this cover, and also on others, who later evolved into Moomintroll...  The popularity of the Moomin characters and stories led to comic strips and merchandise but Tove accepted few commercial propositions - for Amnesty, UNICEF and the Red Cross she made an exception. She also seems to have had a filtering policy on her literary illustrations, apparently only taking The Hunting of the Snark, The Hobbit, and Alice in Wonderland.  
After a couple of hours at the gallery I wanted to buy up the gift shop, but calmed myself with a reminder of some of the permanent treasures of this extraordinary little gallery, the first dedicated art-gallery in England and home to treasures like Gainsborough's Linley Sisters, Murillo's street urchins, Rembrandt's Girl at a Window, Reynold's portrait of Mrs Siddons being tragic, and a mesmeric self-portrait by John Opie.
Time then for a wander round the rest of Dulwich with my brother, who has a far better recolletion of this part of south London we both grew up in, me in the 1950s and he in the '60s. It's changed a lot, is all I can say, and all for the better. (Thanks Pete for the picture)

Still on a time-trekking theme, this time back to the days of Abigail's party, with the launch of Return to Kirrin at Hunting Raven Books. Set in 1979, it's an affectionately-spoofy envisaging of the grown-up lives of Enid Blyton's renowned quintet ~ and that's as many clues as I'm allowed without getting sued. Co-authors Suzy & Neil Howlett shared their skills, Neil providing pace & plot while Suzy added detail and nostalgic enthusiasm for Blytonesque style of story-telling: 'like that baby fleece you cuddle up to, and then grow out of.' There's uncertainty around the location of Kirrin, claimed by Dorset as based around Corfe but perhaps more plausibly an island off Cornwall seen by Enid on holiday. It seems appropriate that these origins are lost in the past.  My own experience of the jolly japers is limited to the Comic Strip Presents version in 1982, but then I had an odd childhood. A retro-party at Three Swans led to interesting comparisons of era & values, and lashings of canapes. (Incidentally, the famous phrase "lashings of ginger beer" never appeared in any of the Famous Five books... oops, gone and used the FF words. Sosumi!)
Now a leap backwards of over 300 years, with a revival of a Restoration Comedy classic: The Provoked Wife as produced by Stepping Out Theatre is lavishly stylish and authentic in every Baroque detail ~ even the venue.
Kings Weston House just north of Bristol is a long trek from Frome, but there's something quite magical about watching a play written by John Vanbrugh in the mansion he himself designed for the politician Edward Southey in the early 18th Century. In a room panelled with life-size Gainsborough-esque portraits, with lighting enhanced by chandeliers, an in-the-round performance allows the audience an intense connection with the shenanigans and improprieties of the characters. In these genteel surroundings, we sit quiet as the sylphs in Rape of the Lock (Pope too is scathing of the affectations of this era), and find ourselves voyeurs of plots both predacious and mendacious. I won't go into details ~ there's a lot of story, and it moves fast ~ other than to say the wife in question, Lady Brute, decides to take revenge by an affair, and the knock-on effect is no end of lasciviousness and frivolity. In the midst of this is a jealous neighbour and her french maid, who is really a bloke called Tom (Sam Dugmore) in frock, wig, and lippy. There's an abundance of frocks, wigs, and lippy actually: the provoking husband dons one when drunk, the magistrate he's hauled up before next day is clearly wearing a corset... Costumes are a huge part of this show, as is the amazing music (baroque with undertones of Benny Hill) created by Colin Smith and John Telfer.
The cast of eight are all strong, creating audience rapport in every scene: I was especially moved by Lady Brute and Belinda (Stephanie Manton) in a scene of rare intimacy without their wigs ~ a poignant reminder that behind the apparent licentiousness of these bored, intelligent, young women, their options were... well, nonexistent. Women, married or not, had no rights, however violent their husbands. This clever production is not only fabulous to look at and very funny, it manages to remind us of the kind of 'English' values best left behind. We're still working on some of them... Directed by Briony Waite, with the Stepping Out company support team in baroque finery to set the mood, and an after-show supper in the dining hall as extra excitement.

A half-hour Uber-ride, and three centuries, away in central Bristol, Luke Wright was performing The Toll at the Wardrobe Theatre. This photo isn't quite right hair-wise, but I can't find one closer: the Johnny Bevan look is gone and it's boyish again ~ in fact Luke still complains he's I-Dd regularly when trying to do grown-up things. It's probably difficult to know how to follow a multi-award-winning show (for both acting and writing) and Luke has gone back to what he also does so well: intimate performance of powerful poems. His tour takes its name from his latest collection, but it's the chat that makes these poems ones to hear as well as read. Luke is a master of traditional formats and wordplay and wit, but it's his narrative ballads, serious, satirical & often sad, that stay. And I really like that he opened with one inspired by coming to Frome and seeing Cley Hill.

Which brings me nicely back home to Frome, where Wednesday was an excellent night at the Grain Bar Roots Session with Swampgrass, an amazing blues band from Glastonbury, ably supported by Julian (Bugs) Hight.

As winter creeps in there's been much lantern-making, in free workshops run by Mel Day and Aliss Vaas, where so many lanterns have been made I'm surprised there's not a national shortage of withies and tissue and sloppy white glue. It's all for a candlelit procession on December 1st, and this is Orion's creation in progress, being recorded by a Danish film crew who arrived in town last week to film the Doings of Frome ~ the sort of thing that often happens here.


Finally this week, Sunday's Chocolate Festival, an annual jollity when Cheese & Grain hall is crammed with stalls dedicated to all things chocolatey, from a recreation of Willy Wonka's Factory garden to chocolate shoes and make-up, there's every colour, texture, and flavour imaginable & then some more (lime & chilli is delicious) and the smells are amazing. Here's a glimpse of the crowded hall, with Empress of Chocolate herself, Jo Harrington, looking happy. As she should.  Now I'm off to nibble on a slice of Kraken Rum & Raisin Cheesecake.