Trending this week: Deadly females

Frome faced the first frost of winter flamboyantly with a plethora of varied creative enterprises this weekend: Friday's brilliant Acoustic Plus night at the Cheese & Grain featured the legendary Bugs as well as Frome Afrobeat Project ~ a town-sponsored scheme for young musicians led by Lekan Babalola. Saturday was the 5th birthday of Deadly is the Female ~ internationally famed since Nigella Lawson's twitter endorsement~ celebrated in quirky baroque style with tequila cocktails and live mannequins in the window... great fun ~

~ and strangely surreal to go direct to Marian Bruce's exhibition a few doors away... "Studio Collection" is what the title suggests: an assembly of random items from the artist's working area, in various media. I've worked with Marian on several projects and it's almost impossible to find words to express the life-vision her work embodies or the dark energy that emanates.  The small pieces cramming The Parlour stir memories, evoke myths, and dig deep into feelings of human endurance and frailty. They are provocative, disturbing and inspirational. Picasso said art should 'bristle with razors' and these disempowered, dismembered, silent heads and small sewn-up bodies have that power.

Another woman artist's exhibition opening too: Charlotte Moore, taking classic paintings 'Off the Wall' at the Black Swan, presenting familiar images from art ~ mostly naked women ~ recreated as daubed figures on wire mesh, cut and layered to offer spaces for the intruding viewer. Words at the Black Swan group found much to discuss and debate in this challenging re-making of cultural iconography. Our responses when shaped into poetic form will displayed with the exhibition, which runs until 24th December.

And, loosely connected with surreal journeys through time & place, a quick plug for the next Frome Poetry Cafe on Monday December 2nd, themed to tie in with the Merlin Theatre winter show,  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  By then Frome will be all a-glitter with festive lights switched on by local hero Jenson Button, Nevertheless Productions will have moved into top gear with our seasonal Pub Theatre production Festive Stockings, and it won't be long before the mayhem begins...

Hip Yak Poetry Shack put on a fantastic show at the Merlin on Friday when the usual Yakkers ~ Liv Torc, Jonny Fluffypunk and Chris Redmond all in fine form ~ were headlined for this Take Art benefit night by Matt Harvey. Jonny shared a recollection of childhood in Little Kingshill, the only village to win awards in both Britain in Bloom and Middle England in a Coma, and a passionate love poem to coffee, while Liv offered a similarly hilarious eulogy to The Wet Patch, and a touching new poem about her unborn, unconceived, child, you who may never be more than a nudge, a thought, a fear... Beautiful. Matt's speciality is brilliant links dryly delivered and he's wickedly funny about his home town Totnes where, he claims, a Holistic Hooliganism Workshop to deal with rowdy Torquay lads resulted in chants of You're going home with your chakras realigned... All great stuff, and a worthy cause: Take Art supports a big range of creative projects across Somerset to help sustain rural communities and encourage participation in the Arts, and long may they do so.

And in other news... Frome's roaming protegee Niamh Ferguson showed some of the exotic images from her book Love from India in Paul Street Pop-up Gallery, and The Parlour launched Marian Bruce's exhibition Shelter inspired by squatter camps in South Africa ~ woven refuges and hides made from "elements readily available, reference to Zulu huts in the bush, Cape Town camps, even the nests of weaver birds." These unadorned, unrobust, shelters provoke salutary reflection on this most basic human need.

Frome's streets were thronged throughout the weekend for the famous Extravaganza ~ it's been rebranded for some obscure civic reason but we still call it that because the ritual is the same: solstice celebrations in the streets, reindeer in the precinct, mulled wine in the reclaimed precinct toilets, masses of stalls and all things festive from carols to roasted chestnuts. Highlight is traditional lights-switching-on event in the market square: loud 5-4-3-2-1 countdown from the crowd followed by equally loud burst of mirth as nothing occurs for 40 seconds, loud cheer as the tree illuminates and half the street lights follow suit. A popular ritual followed faithfully on Saturday, with this year a fantastic pop-up market throughout the town centre on Sunday. Eat your heart out Bath!

Final footnote: fans of satiric animation featuring Jack Hersey, reddest-necked cop ever, will be delighted to know there's a new one on the way: You can read about The Patsy in Scriptwriting in the UK and even better, you can click on Kickstarter and make it happen! So don't worry if you missed out on supporting rural arts, here's another opportunity to show solidarity with struggling artists and get big warm glow inside as well as a hugely entertaining outcome.