Candid Shakespeare, fine art, and spectacular music

Pip Utton, Frome's favourite one-man-showman, has re-presented himself in iconic roles from Hitler and Churchill to Charles Dickens and Charlie Chapman and is now offering another intimate insight in At Home With Shakespeare. In role as the Stratford theatre-manager/playwright, he makes masterly use of that you-do-but-dream  conceit much favoured by the bard himself: this is Shakespeare in 2018, as amused by our misconceptions as delighted by our awe at his words, dreaming his past loves and jealousies even as we dream his presence in our theatre. He teases the audience with quotes, some not even his own, and the intriguing suggestion that his plays were all workshopped with the cast and their impro words then combined, he takes us vividly into the noisy, bawdy, noisy, world of Elizabethan theatre. It's a hugely entertaining performance as well as intriguingly informative, although not all the theories propounded are incontestable, and, to be picky, Shakespeare's neologisms are nowhere near so numerous, and there were chiming clocks in Italy from 14th Century, so impatient Juliet could well have heard one strike nine... But hey, who's counting?

The Black Arts Open Exhibition is now in the Long Gallery, and this year the selection has been well received: it's varied and thought-provoking but every piece has some interest or appeal - in fact doing what a gallery for the community does best. From the precise beauty of small things meticulously painted by Dan Morley to Marian Bruce's dangling mobile of wild wailing faces, there's much to intrigue and ponder on, with several figurative pieces too, like this portrait of her daughter by Kay Lewis Bell.I'd seen this at Shave Farm during last year's Somerset Arts Week, and it was great see it again with the red 'winner' label -among other accessible choices by the judges, one of whom this year was Michael Eavis.
Our Words at the Black Swan workshop on Monday was led by Mike Grenville who encouraged us to consider the entire exhibition as if deciphering its messages from a time in the future... (you can see some of the outcomes here.)

As temperatures plummet and clocks are set to winter, Frome appeared to treat itself to a little music festival. We enjoyed several international visitors: South African Nibs Van Der Spuy at the Grain Bar Roots Session with an excellent set including a moving tribute to Nelson Mandela, and delightful duo Hope Country along with Luke Philbrick and Hannah Scott guested at the Sofar session (Hope is in Wisconsin, where they aren't big on geography, apparently, as the lads' tour was mapped on a tee-shirt image of the UK with Scotland shrivelled and N. Ireland vaporised, which might help Brexit negotiations but would pose issues for the 1.9 million population.) Our Sunday Jazz Club this week featured Bosonova rhythms with the gypsy violin and sultry voice of Azhaar Saffar. Paul Kirtley gathered a posse of local musicians together on Thursday as  'Bare to the Bones' charity event at The Artisan,for a lively jam session of folk/rock/ blues favourites plus some original songs - including Paul's Crones of Avalon with me performing the poem that inspired it. Popular Three Corners were the Saturday night band at The Cornerhouse, another big line-up with a large following, and next afternoon when two favourite Frome bands played at the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon, most of Frome seemed to follow them. The awesome Raggedy Men gave us a stonking set of classic punk tracks, followed by The Back Wood Redeemers' dark revivalists songs of pioneering America, in the Stygian gloom of a cavern-like room where swirling dust glinted gold in the sunlight every time the door opened - wonderful atmosphere and terrific music. So that's four solo performers, a duo, a quartet, a sextet, an octet, and a jam session varying from three to a dozen - all in six days...  Keep it up, Frome, it's fabulous.

A mixed bag ~ words, art, cool music and hot argument...

Let's start with a bit of social history. Tom Fort, author of The A303 and currently The Village News, came to Hunting Raven Books in Frome on Wednesday evening and gave a fascinating summary of the development of villages: firstly into settlements where people lived and worked the land, and latterly to a retirement status for the affluent middle-class. "The social space was never the village hall, it was the doorstep," he says, and claims the enemy of village survival is Conservation Status ~ "I'd like to burn all conservation documents - you can't preserve a village in a state of visual perfection, what matters is the heart." Tom has a delightful discursive style, apparently effortlessly intimate, and responds with endearing honesty to questions ~ as when, apropos his book on the A303 ("commissioned," he responds tersely, adding with feeling "I'll never write another book about a road,") he was asked his opinion on the prospective tunnel under Stonehenge: "It’s an utter waste of millions and a conspiracy by English Heritage to get people to their beastly centre."  Well said that man.

Next out from the mixed-bag, music: Masses of it this week as Saturday was Record Store Day, an opportunity for live music in the streets which Frome never ignores. Covers Vinyl Record Store on Catherine Hill offered moody melodic 'anthemic angst' from All That Glitters while our national treasure Raves from the Grave, the indie record store that makes people move home to live near, offered not only local legend Carl Sutterby with his punk-rock band The Wochynskis, but an international legend too: Chris Difford, musician-songwriter from The Squeeze.
Cheap Street was totally jammed with happy-memory smiles as a massed chorus sang Up the Junction along with him. Cool for Cats was even more evocative as Chris not only wrote this one (back in 1979) but sang it on the album too: he seemed pleased, and oddly surprised when we nostalgically crooned the chorus...
Record Store Day ended with dancing at The Artisan with Rebel Heroes ~ best Bowie tribute band I've heard ~ you can sample soundcloud tracks like Ashes to Ashes on their site. There were other days of free live music too ~ Thursday wasn't a one-off thing like take-your-dog-to-work-day. We had the usual open mic sessions and on Wednesday Roots Sessions at the Grain Bar offered self-written songs from musician Ben Morgan-Brown, and Circe's Diner.

Circe in Greek mythology was a minor goddess with a knack of necromancy and powers of transformation which she used to turn Odysseus's men into beasts, but it's unclear which of her witchy skills would be required in the catering trade so this was an intriguing name for a singing duo who certainly offered something very different.
And the Cornerhouse offered mellow Sunday afternoon music from Three Corners, somehow now morphed from triangle to octagon or at least octet, but still delightful.  Here's singer/songwriter Caroline with Tom, one of the new members.

Art now, and down to the Black Swan where Frome Art Society's Annual Spring Show opened with a prize-giving on Friday. It's a popular show as the exhibition has a self-selecting process so is widely representative and the paintings are all accessible. You can see the winners here.
Friday evening was also the opening at the Round Tower of a shared exhibition by Lizbeth Spurgeon and Suzanne Woodward, whose very different painting styles combine impressively and look great against the stone walls.

Now for something completely different. Regular readers (thankyou, much appreciated) will know this is an Arts Blog - a personal record compiled by me as a kind of self-appointed (self-important you may say) monitor of Frome's live arts scene and other things arty in the Southwest, so there's very little about family & friends and even less about politics.

But now is no time to be teetering on the fence and seething, so while Art is as important as life and death, this is more important: a debate in Bristol run by the Canary on the topic How did we get into this mess, and what can we do about it? If you're unfamiliar with the Canary's 'frank and fearless' journalism you might find it helpful to know the name is derived from the use of these birds in mines to warn of impending crisis... hence the expression 'sing like...' meaning tell of hidden wrong-doings. The panel on Thursday however was not all as left-wing as Canary's Editor-in-Chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza: next to her sat Steven Woolfe, an ex-UKIP independent MEP, persistently proving that if you scratch an ex-UKIP you find... a UKIP.
Talking more sense than Woolfe's self-laundering babble about the need for managed immigration and grammar schools, the star of the show for me was Adam Ramsey, editor of Open Democracy and, sadly for us, a Scot, who answered the question in the title succinctly thus: After the English lost their empire and could no longer go round the world killing people and taking their assets, they turned on their own, which is why housing has become primarily for investment not homes and London is the money-laundering capital of the world. Ask the Mafia. Fourth panel member was Dr Susan Newman, lecturer in politics, who explained that thanks to neo-liberal economic theory developed as an alternative to Keynesian liberalism, we have a broken economic system which promotes capitalism over equality and our main GDP comes from Finance, employing few and creating nothing. Brexit has compounded our problems: As Adam explains, withdrawal from EU agribusiness systems leaves us with a US-style system, we've ripped up the Good Friday agreement that safeguarded Ireland and Scotland may withdraw from the UK without radical constitutional change. Susan agrees: Corbyn's 10 Pledges are a good place to begin to save the future of next generations.

Kerry-Anne went further: Adam’s not kidding about how severe the Tory Brexit will be. This will be a bonfire of rights that took hundreds of years to achieve. Corporates will abuse you and your children in the way they do in places like China with no rights. Unexpectedly, we've been given a chance, but only because we're supposed to blow it... so the clearly-presented consensus of the panel led overwhelmingly to only one solution: get them out. Vote with your heart if you can, but do whatever you have to do to stop them.
Which is what I am am saying now. If you live in the UK, please make this dystopian horror end.
In the words of Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens ~ and as it's World Book Day today, that brings this back to being an Arts blog ~ "There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imaginations of human beings. People understand that 'primitives' cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits... The principal difference between modern business people and tribal shamans is that they tell stranger tales." 

Festival weekend: Sizzling Saturday & Stormy Sunday

The best thing about festival is the sheer number of amazing events, and the worst is that most inevitably clash, so my best aim can only be to give a taste. Frome Open Studios offer an amazing diversity as artists combine at each venue, with pens, pots, and photographs alongside paintings like Kate Cochrane's landscapes, and coastlines by Amanda Bee neighbouring Feverleaf's 'festivalesque finery and pixy clothing' at Silk Mill studios.

Saturday's sunshine held all day and into a balmy late night at Silk Mill cantina.  Frome Street Bandits led the parade through town to the Market Yard for the ever-popular food feast in early evening, followed by on-stage sessions from the Frome Jazz Club and Three Corners. Sunday's flash storm at the end of the Independent 'Wonderland' Market didn't daunt the wandering minstrels under the awning outside Lungi Baba or Jazz in the Afternoon at the Victoria Park bandstand.  More jazz at The Cornerhouse evening jam session, after a stonking session from the amazing Captain Cactus: "Rootin'-tootin'.... sort of like hula-swamp with bits of bluegrass and acoustic country rock avec les Screaming Harlots wailing like African Queens." (That's another Griff quote, I suspect)

And there are lots of excellent word-y things, or 'Literary Events' as the brochure highlights call them. Frome Writers Collective revived the 'Writers in Residence' event, with ten writers settled in cafes pubs & shops around town, scribing throughout Saturday on a set theme. Paul Newman was at Hunting Raven talking about his book Netted in a Silver Mist, which combines his drawings from the natural environment with words from Jill Harris to bring a deeper narrative to these superb evocations of wood, water, and stone.

With similar ekphrastic intention, our Words at the Black Swan workshop, led by David Davies, explored the Home In Frome exhibition to find personal recollections evoked by Mell Day's exquisite Postcards from an Ordinary Childhood and the amazing quilt of memories. Mell calls these glimpses of a past ~ all probably enhanced, possibly misremembered ~ "clear bright little moments... where our personality becomes our version of history, not snapshots but embodiments."

Sad to miss Al O'Kane's Magical Folk Garden acoustic music evening at the Archangel, my clash this time a rehearsal for Midsummer Dusk, our Nevertheless site-specific outdoor production for this festival. Director Rosie has made the Dissenters Cemetery look fantastic and our 'Star Players' are looking & sounding terrific... only 3 sleeps now till our opening night... 

It's never too late to live happily ever after...

My introduction to theatre was through my father who was a traditionalist: iconic drama at top London venues throughout my childhood was, with hindsight, fair trade for the ban on cinema and TV, but musicals weren't on the dramatic menu. I discovered Stephen Sondheim's darkly magical world only five years ago, when saw Into the Woods on stage in Leamington and was captivated.  So even the fact the movie is a Disney production didn't stop me scampering off to Bath at first opportunity to see the big screen version out now (and up for 19 nominations including 3 Oscars including Meryl Streep's fantastically witchy witch). Into the Woods  is a collage of fairytales, laying out the familiar character cards and motivating longings of the game ~ romance, reconciliation, justice, and above all the primal scream for love ~ with wit and satire too (I loved the leaping princes' waterfall duet ~ in real location apparently, with only chicken wire spread over the rocks to avert catastrophe for Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen).  And perhaps oddly, half-sung dialogue doesn't detract from psychological insight, as when Cinderella queries the value of social elevation, and the giant-crisis panic response of mutual-blaming.  Sondheim's characters must be a dream for the actors who, from Johnny Depp's all-too-short lupine life to James Corden's heroic journey as the baker who finds manhood by facing his fears, are all terrific. So there you are: if you've missed it live, I'm sure it'll be downloadable. A visual feast, as they say.

Meanwhile in Frome, the fantastic Three Corners featured at  Grain Bar Roots Session and Friends of  Frome Festival gathered after hours at the River House to hear Melanie Jones reading from L'Amour Actually, the novel inspired by her blog on life in rural France. The woman was one of those irritating expat types who felt she owed it to the world to impart on all her superior knowledge of life in France ~ but don't be deterred, that's a quote from the story, not my comment about the author.

In case you haven't heard of Tommy Emmanuel ~ I hadn't, till recently ~ he's 'an Australian virtuoso guitarist best known for his complex fingerstyle technique, energetic performances, and use of percussive effects on the guitar.' Wiki also mentions the clatter of awards he's won around the world. And he finished his current UK tour in Salisbury, where I was lucky enough to be one of the thousand-plus music fans in the City Hall on Friday (thankyou David!) to hear his final gig. Stunning is the best word. Tommy can do anything with the guitar, it seems, from evoking nostalgia ~ his Beatles medley a special favourite ~ to jigs and reels apparently played on fast-forward ~ Tall Fiddler simply incredible. He gives a helpful lesson, too, for anyone with bionic fingers and 23 hours a day free to practice... As those links will show, he's a charismatic performer and a charming man who really seems to believe his own motto: "It's never too late to live happily ever after."

Midwinter Medley

The Midwinter Poetry Cafe was a particularly pleasant one with a great atmosphere and some terrific poems, from open mic readers as well as from our guests local wordsmiths Rick Rycroft and Muriel Lavender, and Karen Woollard & Jill Flanders from the Warminster Poetry People. Rick is a poet 'in love with the ordinary', creating lucent imagery from slugs and half-remembered dream phrase. Muriel showed her impressive versatility as a performer by following her entertaining cautionary santa-saga with some stunning haiku, including several so orally beautiful the full-house audience seemed stunned... Helen Moore read her account of an activist protest entitled #iceclimblive, now published in a collection of 'ambitious poems by women poets' entitled Her Wings Of Glass. And if you'd like to be a founding member of group of serious poets to meet monthly and focus on the craft of editing your work, contact Norman Andrews for full details. Sounds a great idea to me.
It's always good news when Three Corners has a new album, and to launch Singular the band gave a full performance of all ten gorgeous tracks at the Masonic, with a chance to dance during and after.
What more could anyone want? Maybe a portion of  Dexter's Extra Breakfast ~ and we had that as well.



A brilliant Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday, with Griff Daniels & Nicki Maskell plus guests including velvet-voiced Steve Loudoun, songs ranging from 1950s pop through folk-rock and reggae to soulful blues.  Saturday morning streets jingled to the splendid sounds of Honk Monster, with Pete Gage finishing of a mega-musical week at the Cornerhouse, atmospheric lighting great for dancing but not photo-friendly.

Fromesbury Writers takes our end-of-year meeting seriously, in terms of festivity, and as an additional reason to be merry, Debby Holt has just got a new book deal, so prosecco was essential ~ thanks Jill Miller for donating in absentia, we're toasting you in Spain and wishing you rich writing as well as sunshine.  Frome Writers Collective had their get-together in Divas, and I'll end back at the Cheese&Grain with an art-&-craft market featuring local practitioners: lively images of Frome streets from Fourmakers, quirky pendants by Pukka Jewels (love the vintage camera one) and amazing products from foraged berries & herbs by Wild Things"  ~ that's Kylie and Lauren-Olivia, who developed their business from scratch (or possibly from snatch) through the Edventure apprentice scheme. Who needs Lord Sugar? or any kind of sugar ~ their rosehip chocolate is sweetened entirely with honey.  As BBC Points West so nicely put it in their plug for our local shops "The chaos of Black Friday seems a world away from the streets of Frome.

Spent most of the week catching up with my shadow after a week in Cyprus sun, glad to emerge on Friday for the launch of Three Corners' new CD, fabulously titled 'Stone Age Genes in the Digital Era.' Luscious sensuous stuff, great music and haunting songs. I could survive life easier without books than without music, but my reviewing skills are crass: can I dance to it? and do I like the words? so for a more intelligent appreciation go to their website for the downloads.

Saturday spent poring over aims, strategies, solutions and flapjacks with the Merlin team at The Mill in Rode. Diverse perceptions released by the word game - tempting to make fridge poems with words like INVISIBLE MISUNDERSTOOD CHALLENGING LONELY HARD - good to find concensus with INSPIRING and CREATIVE.

Somewhat belatedly, I've just realised the wonderful Poetry Library on South Bank is open for business again, hurrah. I must hie me there forthwith. Also want to see the Millais exhibition at the Tate - reviewed as "mawkish manipulative masterpieces" - my father's favourite painter after Renoir. He once sweetly likened me to the girl in Les parapluies... possibly the fringe that did it.
Weather again, you see. Even blogging I always take the weather with me.

Foraged facts corner: Less than 40% of people ever buy a book... and of these less than 40% buy less than 2 books a year. That's a lot of lesses. I stole this from Clare Dudman's blog which I often browse for intriguing titbits. Some great pix of snails, too.

PS see what I mean about the fringe? Wish I still had those suede shoes. That's my first wedding, no doubt not the only bride in a psychedelic mini that year but probably the only one with visible hem tacking.
'67 is hot this week on Radio 1 too. I've been enjoying the 40 years-ago-today celebrations all week, fantastic covers like Keane's Under Pressure and vintage greats like Stairway to Heaven and Smoke on the Water... and Beatles too of course. Sergeant Pepper was the backdrop to that summer like no music ever can be these days of diversity and headphones. I'm not mourning, just mentioning.