Forget the lost summer, there's post-equinox fizz now...

After a skimpy summer, and a heatwave that went awol, this was a good week for autumnal indulgence.

I've never before been to a Speakeasy, where you knock on a back alley door for entry into a den of alcoholic luxury,  but last week Eleanor Talbut initiated me into the HydeAway with its menu of exotic cocktails. In this Hollywood-rococo style bar we were served by professional mixologist Giles, who gave me the backstory of my negroni: he uses Holm Oak smoke to create the dramatic effect on arrival at the table, and sees cocktails as creative experiences, taking inspiration from memories of colour, smell and taste from childhood as well as the visual skills he used as a cameraman for BBC documentaries. Add Gilbert O'Sullivan in the background to complete the scene... another great night out with Ellie, 

which segues nicely into her latest podcast (here):  Déjà Vu is her topic this time, with the usual esoteric medley of tracks on the theme, plus an interview with me about my new book.

I'm not gonna lie, the big event for me this week was the official launch of Déjà Lu at Hunting Raven Books, hosted by dynamic manager Tina Gaisford-Waller, and well attended despite the evening storms.  Once again, thwarted by restrictive format of new improved Blogger, I've resorted to a screenshot image combo to show the welcome & support I enjoyed from Tina, who then took the shot of my audience, a smashing group who came up with great questions and were supportive throughout. 

Art now, and Somerset Open Studios continued throughout the week for the 205 artists particpating across the county - here's another report from a Frome studio: Clive Walley has developed his series of 'Birch trees in the mist' using tar applied by trowel after reading a book about the seige of Stalingrad and pondering on the primitive resources for art that would have been available to the soldiers.  By coincidence my photography that afternoon had included trees by the Frome river path, which in monochrome version are weirdly similar to these atmospheric images  - this is again a screen shot for comparison.

Friday night saw the opening of a solo exhibition from Mel Day at the WHY gallery in Frome. Mel is famed for her amazing twisted-metal writings and other art pieces, but these this prints and drawings show a different aspect of her skills, although these people are mostly bent and twisted too... Elegantly and impossibly contorted, their postures seem poignantly resonant of their internal lives, and perhaps all our lives nowadays.  Dancers and Dreamers is on until mid-November, so do visit if you're near Frome.  

Art is a useful segue into the Frome Independent, too, as this nationally-famous street market - cancelled for over a year - is now enjoying its first-Sunday-of-the-month status in the streets, alleys, and open spaces of our town, and art & craft feature even more than cheese!  (This month there were wild mushrooms too, collected by The Happy Forager). 

Local artist David Daniels who always pitches on Catherine Hill, has some fabulous new 'storyboards' of tiny landscapes, and - since encouraging young artists is a political act - these handcrafted resin earrings from the stall of Bristol jeweller Rosa Pietsch were irresistible too. And of course, there's the wonderful busking stage where superb sound is guarunteed from Luke Emery - this week with four top class acts: Nick Balura, the Bert Jansch of Frome, followed by the 'twisted blues and religious fervor of hugely popular The Back Wood Redeemers - then reggae rythms from the Mellowtones, and for the final hour, folk from Crossing the Rockies. Here's the irreligious Back Wood boys extolling their enjoyment of a chocolate Jesus. 

Party time this week started on Thursday at the Black Swan, with a welcome to Malcolm Lloyd, the incoming Chair of Trustees, with drinks & nibbles in the courtyard - a very pleasant occasion. And Friday's wedding party in Great Elm Village Hall had some great acts from a range of Frome performers all evening, and when the sound system collapsed, the Hoodoos simply leapt onto a bench and treated us to an unforgettable acoustic version of the Rattlin' Bog....

with Saturday's party at Frome's Rook Lane Chapel celebrating the birthday of a local opera singer who not only performed superbly herself but also inspired open-mic from many of her guests (who were polite enough to also applaud my unexpectedly-required and just-about-recalled poem rendition of You know it's a Fairytale) - was also impressive entertainment, again ending with dancing. So that's two nights of quality performances concluding with wonderful Anne singing like this converted nonconformist chapel was the Albert Hall.  The diversity of talent in this small town is astounding. 

And now that October has made the season officially autumn, it's time for the Ezra Pound poem that I generally offer at this time in the year:

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough

And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass

Outlook unsettled but magic still around

Let's start with a storm: the torrents sprayed wildly on the audience by wonderful Folksy Theatre  in Merlin's ECOS amphitheatre to get us all into the spirit of The Tempest on Wednesday evening. Musicians as well as actors, this endearing quintet held their audience rapt as they morphed between characters with speedy costume changes, from ethereal sprite & romantic lover to a couple of drunks, in the most impressively extreme case. 

Shakespeare was all about patron-pleasing, and while Good Queen Bess loved the vulgarity of the Merry Wives and the man-teasing of Malvolio, her 1603 successor James I didn't: he wanted magic and masques, which aren't so easy to graft into a popular rom-com. Perhaps that's why The Tempest is the bard's last play: Prospero's breaking of his magic stick is seen as symbolic of Shakespeare's decision to create no more stage dramas after this one, believed completed in 1611. Folksy's production wisely minimised the gratuitous mythical set pieces and focussed on clarifying the storyline and maximising the comedy. 

In both these aspects they did really well: Andrew Armfield was delightful as both Stephano the drunk and Ferdinand the lover (playing each with just a touch of Bertie Wooster), Ariel was enchanting and Miranda charming; Caliban as apparently an Ulsterman fresh from a brawl in his underwear was entertaining though without the poignancy sometimes found in this abused role, and Tom Hardwicke's Prospero was simply the best interpretation of this demanding role that I've yet seen anywhere. Huge credit to director Lee Hardwicke too. The audience sprawled across every level of the ECOS stones clearly loved it, and so they should: it was brilliant - well paced and full of energy and fun.  Here's Rachel Delooze as Ariel with her master, and as above as Trinculo with Stephano and Caliban (Gilchrist Muir).

While open-air theatre companies have had more chance to survive the last couple of years, problems for indoor productions have been intense and, despite some ingenious adaptations, most stage practitioners are having a really tough time. Acting For Others is the UK Actors Support Network and actor John Cragg runs a Youtube page of productions created to fund this charity for the industry. This week has the impressive addition of a zoomed reading of King Lear directed by Andrew Hilton, founder/director of the excellent Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory company which, until he stepped down in 2017 after 18 years of high-quality productions, was always a high spot in my reviewing calendar. With a stunning cast headed by David Horovitch as the impetuous old king, this is so good that - even for nearly 3 hours - it's easy to forget that the boxed heads meet only in our shared imagination. Here's the self-deposed king at the start of his sufferings, losing his temper when reproached by his daughter and teased by his fool.

Eleanor Talbot's latest episode of Variations of a Theme has a focus on the Mind's Eye, and an interview with Pete Gage, previously best known as a fantastic keyboard player and singer - he was the voice of Dr Feelgood during the 1990s - who has now published a book of his poems and mandalas. His interview starts at 13.50 in (pausing for John Lennon's Mind Games at 26 minutes, and restarting at 37.00 -49.00) and is a fascinating account of Pete's creative sensitivity and processes, with a beautiful reading of his poem about Robert Schumann written in Bonn. Pete's readings show a sensitivity that may surprise many who know him mainly from his mega-popular blues band, and the mandalas are all quite beautiful - order from Pete here, or from Hunting Raven Books.

As we cautiously emerge into new national regulations, all balancing desire to maintain safe social barriers against the detrimental effects of isolation on our mental health, Frome's Sun Inn opened its newly-improved premises for a live gig from The Hoodoos. No dancing, seating spacey, masks worn at the bar, and the exuberance of this multitalented sextet all combined to make this one a must-do for me.  Live music is the life blood of our community, it seems, and as the long sunny evenings wane it will be hard to resist such events.

In fresh air again on Sunday for 'Open Gardens' day in Nunney village giving access to some splendid vistas: Eleanor and I travelled with Gordon Alexander and another friend to tour twelve of the superb gardens listed, choosing Midhurst as our favourite for its  layered layout, vibrant colours, and its feisty feline incumbent - but all of them really were gorgeous. Our trip was top'n'tailed with cake & tea in the church at the start, and excellent Sauvignon in The George before we headed homeward at sunset.

Concluding this week of dark clouds as well as sunshine with a look back at the Frome Festival at the start of the month, inspired by a great set of images sent me by official photographer Alan Denison - here's wonderful Liv Torc leading us off with me giggling in the background - and his fellow Frome Wessex Camera Club member, David Chedgy who caught the set-off moment of the Slavery Sedition & Sin walk around Frome, effectively led by historian David Lassman with me chipping in from time to time. 

Mormons, monsters, music... and the end of an era.

It's been going for nearly ten years now, opening in Broadway collecting nine Tonys and four Olivier best-musical awards and now it's in Bristol at the Hippodrome - the outrageous, hilarious, scurrilous, high-energy musical The Book Of Mormon. Armed with row A seats (a birthday present) and appropriate treats, my theatrical co-director Rosie Finnegan & I settled down to a couple of hours of hysterical laughter at the lines, admiration at the dance moves, and general joy at the absurdity of this tale of a couple of mismatched young missionaries setting out to convince a tribe in a remote area of Uganda that the resurrected victim of a Roman crucifixion was magically revived and returned to America to found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and that the solution to their problems of poverty, AIDS, and local warfare is to be baptised. Luckily, as the Book of Mormon didn't sound very interesting to Elder Cunningham (the Billy Bunter in a chorus line of lush blond 'elders') he has spiced up the story with bits of Lord of the Rings & Star Wars, and the tribe fall in happily with his preaching, until... well, you get the gist, if you haven't seen it yet this production is showing until 22 February.

Next night's theatrical experience could not have been more of a contrast: Return to Heaven at  Frome's Merlin Theatre is a dance drama from the highly-acclaimed Mark Bruce Company, performing internationally but developed in Frome. This extraordinary performance achieves sensational production qualities, emerging from blackness into dramatic lighting, creating tension and emotion through strange creatures and symbolism as well as amazing movement and the powerful soundtrack. Mark has suggested the story is about a jungle expedition, and the programme clarifies that this journey is non-linear and open to interpretation: there's a taster of the hypnotic mood, strange symbolism and dark beauty of the performance in the trailer here. Image Nicole Guarino

A group of the audience remained at the Merlin afterwards and were joined by many others for a vigil on the ECOS stones until nearly midnight - where better to mourn the passing of our national integrity than standing within these great monoliths, each donated by the founding countries of the EU back in 1989 to create our unique amphitheatre and celebrate union with the concepts and ideals of shared identity. Chris Watson of Magic Eye videod the event, which unexpectedly hit the Guardian front page. This was my eye-view as the singing of Ode for Joy, in German, which marked the saddest moment.

We might want to stop the world and get off, but at least there's still music... a strong double-act entertained the Grain Bar Root Session audience on Wednesday as singer-songwriter Ben Hardy-Philips, performing with William Tate, followed by a set from Fly Yeti Fly. This delightful duo live on a barge in Wiltshire with a dog who goes wild at the full moon: they watch otters, and fireflies, and these & other shared glimpses of their life combine with their excellent songs and stories to enhance their performance - a great role-model for all guests, and a really lovely event.

The usual Saturday evening clash of great music in several pubs means, sadly, I can offer no report of the ever-excellent Valley at the Cornerhouse, but the HooDoos lit up the night at the Sun Inn with their quirky style, classy singing & playing, and superb audience rapport - despite cramped space and a large pillar, which explains why this image doesn't include all six brilliant band members.

Ending this bulletin with a timeless image: Roddenbury Hillfort, with sunshine splashing the thick carpet of beech leaves on Sunday. This relic from the iron age, part of the original Selwood forest, seems to have a strange quality of silence and peace.