Realism and lyricism and rain

Writer Will Eno has called all his characters 'Jones' which might seems to suggest they’re ordinary folks, just like you & me - but who else in the world could be like these couples - needy, evasive, self-contradictory, incoherent then exquisitely lucid? Well, perhaps all of us in our different ways. The Realistic Joneses, at Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio takes under two hours to remind us that everyone has secret sorrows and joys and if this sounds like a long play about nothing, you should know that it’s a superb script, beautifully written and acted - an absolute delight of a production, laugh-aloud one moment, poignant the next.  Bob Jones (Corey Johnson) is recuperating though it’s unclear from what (he won't say, except that his syndrome's name sounded like a jazz quartet) with support from his wife Jennifer (Sharon Small): their neighbours, John Jones (Jack Laskey) and Pony (Clare Foster), have problems too, though the owner/holder relationship here is less clear.  There is no incisive moment of conflict and no carnage, only the story of something unknowable, and it seems over too soon when it ends. Great direction by Simon Evans intensifies the sense of quest for connection of both couples, and designer Peter McKintosh has created an evocative set, with glass doors enhancing and sometimes mirroring the precarious vulnerability of all the characters, neutral removal boxes as seating, an astral void above and emptiness beyond. Written in 2012, timeless in a modern world and will probably remain my 'best drama' for 2020 right to the end of the year: it's simply superb on till 7th March, see it if you can. Images: Simon Annand.

A delightful Frome Poetry Cafe too, with Deborah Harvey and Dominic Fisher, two of the Bristol-based IsamBard poets, guesting at our spring session. 'Green Shoots & New Beginnings' was our theme, selected hopefully although in current global conditions it might have seemed sardonic. However we had a really lovely evening: as well as some even more recent work, Deborah read from her new collection The Shadow Factory and Dominic shared from Ladies and Gentlemen of the Dead. Both poets have the ability to distill the extraordinary from the commonplace, combining visceral imagery with tender memory, with form stripped down to its essence. Fourteen 'Open Mic' poets shared impressive and entertaining words too - some moving, some funny, and all much enjoyed. Here's Jo Butts, current Frome Festival Poet Laureate, reading her witty history of Saint Valentine. 


Words with music now, starting with Roots Session at the Grain Bar on Wednesday.   Jon Amor denies that he has the longest fingers in the world but it's hard to believe him: they must certainly be among the fastest strumming ones. He leads the Jon Amor Blues Group as well as performing solo with his mainly-original songs - the scorching 'Stitch in her party dress' was my ear-worm all week. A brilliant session: great rock-bluesy music and sharp lyrics.

Paul Kirtley, indefatigable organiser of local music gigs, excelled himself this week with not only a late night charity event but an afternoon acoustic session next day. The White Hart at Corsley was the venue for Saturday evening and as storm Dennis kicked off outside, the small friendly group in the bar proffered song requests and shots and turned this event into something of a party.

Next day's session in The Three Swans,  by contrast, was completely full, with most of the audience also performing. Lovely informal atmosphere and great range of styles and instruments, plus performers of every age, all crammed into the baroque-style decor of the upper room there. These three images may give some idea of the range of performers: Paul's house band (not all, just as many as fitted in to one frame) playing rock classics - probably Wagon Wheel, the Callums, (Sarah, Vin, and Annie) with Dakota by Stereophonics, and me doing some semi-scurrilous wordage of my own. (thanks David for the snap) A rich event indeed.

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.

Sprightly Shakespeare, semi-soft satire, & some songs

Let's begin with Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory and Much Ado About Nothing - actually much ado about quite a lot, as the plot centres on trickery from trivial to utterly evil, and the happy-ending bounce-back wouldn't convince most marriage guidance counsellors. But it's considered one of the bard's best comedies, and this is a terrific production with fabulous visuals, unflagging energy and brilliant actors. The young couples are both delightful, and the parents of sweet victimised Hero, Christopher Bianchi and Alice Barclay, are mesmeric throughout. Designer Jean Chan's costumes and set decoration are splendid - I loved the fancy-dress celebration where Benedick is spurned by Beatrice while dressed as a ninja turtle - and the modern setting allows for masses of fun trivia, as well as (mis)use of mobile phones. Elizabeth Freestone's direction is not only exciting but emphasises nuances in the plot which soften the brutality of Claudio's revenge as it seems his crush on Hero may have been fast-forwarded into wedlock by his controlling C.O, leaving him more vulnerable to Don Jon's faking her infidelity. My only reservation about the director's laudable decision to balance genders on-stage is that the least successful roles are the wicked sibling and the head constable who are both re-envisaged as women. It's partly the bard's fault that the scene when the Watch report their arrest to Leonato is a bit weak, as he often allocates lines of risible obtuseness to the 'mechanicals' in a way which while popular in his era tends to feel uncomfortable nowadays, but Dogberry's casting wasn't helpful here. But overall this is a terrific show and the three hours whizz by, so do go if you can make it to Bristol before 9th November.   Images (Mark Duet) show Beatrice falling for the happy trick that leads her to love, and Claudio facing the consequences of the unhappy trick that seems, for a while, to have destroyed his.

A different kind of stage comedy now, as Jonny and the Baptists brought their current touring show to Merlin Theatre on Friday - it's called, for one night only, Love Frome, Hate Bastards. The last time I saw this talented anarchistic duo was in Salisbury with Eat The Poor which was political agitation from start to finish, but this is a softer, more private-feelings-focussed product. There are a few minor assaults on church & state but the emphasis is now on their families and their own relationship. The Edinburgh reviewer gave this the thumbs-up on the grounds that "Men are not traditionally good at telling their best mates the affection they feel for them, so the emotional openness here is touching" but I like my satire razor-edged so although Jonny began and ended their set "You’re either against capitalism or you’re for the end of the world," for me it was disappointingly blunt in the middle.  I blame The Telegraph, which derided their 2014 anti-UKIP show for expressing concern that someone 'terrifying and dangerous' might end up in power. "Perhaps the country is sleepwalking towards Farage-o-geddon. I doubt it." wrote Dominic Cavendish disdainfully, a scepticism that apparently wounded Jonny as he quoted it on stage. I wish he'd found more resilience: there are enough songs already about babies and bromance.

Music now: Newly founded by Paul Kirtley, the monthly Acoustic Club at Three Swans on Monday comprised a small but talented troupe of musicians including, as well as Paul himself, several impressive new acts - here's sensational trio Mountain Speaks Fire, performing Vin Callan's fabulous song February Fields. Saturday's highlight was a sensational set from Back of the Bus at the Cornerhouse - their version of Gotta Have Faith is fearsome - further enhanced by the full Raggedy talent line-up... Here's how Teenage Kicks looked in the atmospheric lighting - congratulations all (and apologies to the hidden cajon player.)

A dab of history & lashings of Bank Holiday sunshine

First to Bristol, where South-West based physical theatre company Le Navet Bete has unleashed their current touring show The Three Musketeers in Bristol Old Vic, recreating rollicking tales of 17th Century intrigue in a re-envisaging of the daring deeds of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis - and of course d'Artagnan - with a cast of royalty, whores, conspirators, spies, monarchs, as well as the evil Cardinal Richelieu... it's all loosely grounded in Alexandre Dumas' fictional historical tales but with firmer affiliation to physical theatre capers and Young Ones style comedy.

Some of the best bits are sheer pantomime - as when action moves to England with a duck-shooting scene on the estate of the Duke of Buckingham, and the audience becomes energetically involved in providing a torrent of mortally wounded ducks... Programme notes don't differentiate between performers - Dan Bianchi, Nick Bunt, Al Dunn, and Matt Freeman - but the script is credited to director John Nicholson, and the actors too, so this truly is a team effort. The set was designed by Ti Green and is complex enough for high-energy antics though unfortunately with a focus on extreme right of the stage which means if you're seated in the Dress Circle 'on the site of the original 1766 Row box' you miss any glimpse some of the crucial scenes.  Still, only 15 quid for over two hours of absurd comedy, and touring till October, so worth catching if you can.

Back in Frome, as usual there's been much live music. Tuesday saw the inaugural meeting of a new Open Mic event at the Three Swans, a great sing-along event where Paul Kirtley & I did our occasional double-act comprising my satiric protest-poem Bungee Jumping Crumblies and his song in response, and several new voices joined Paul for this now-monthly venture. Thanks Steve for the pic.

An excellent Roots session on Wednesday featured Phil Cooper with his Slight Band, supported by Jamie H Hawkins, who joined Phil on stage for a couple of numbers, too.
Both these singer-songwriters write their own material: Jamie's song Walking Into Doors is an especially poignant and powerful example of his skill. Phil's performance is alsways gripping, and he has a great knack of getting the audience to sing-along - and even rattle-a-shaky-egg-along. The track Only a Song from Phil's CD Thoughts and Observations gives a good idea of his range and intimate personal style.

Pete Gage at the Cornerhouse on Friday launched a scorching hot Bank Holiday weekend in style with his legendary blues-rock band, and Paul Kirtley's Bones gang were back with their charity buckets on Monday with a new host: The Mill at Rode, an idyllic venue for a sunny afternoon, with an excellent barbecue too.  Paul's closing song, the Woodstock classic, summed up the mood of the whole event: We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden...

In fact everyone had such a good time that landlord John asked the band - and the barbecue - to do it all again on Bank Holiday Monday, so if you're reading this on posting date you can get along to the Rode and re-live the dream yourself.  And if not, have a great week anyway: simple pleasures are essential in troubled times. 

Wise children, reality disorder, and other war words

'It's a wise child that knows its own father', in the words of Homer, and paternity is a central strand in Wise Children now at Bristol Old Vic with Wise Child - which is also the name of Emma Rice's new 'joyful, emotional, ensemble touring company' here in co-production with Old Vic, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Oxford Playhouse, and York Theatre Royal. With all that involvement you'd expect something sensational, and you'd be right: it's a flamboyant, exuberant, show with all the elements BOV seems to most relish: onstage musicians, circus-style physicality, fantastic costumes, bold casting, puppets, and dark delicious fairytales made modern - it's Greek mythic in scope and Shakespearean in splendour and it's absolutely fabulous. In the past I've been querulous about puppetry but the little twins as babies and as fighting toddlers are heart-winners, and the dancing-singing-cartwheeling cast are all superb. I particularly liked Sam Archer as uncle of some of the twins and Katy Owen as the saucy naturist granny who sex-educates her adopted girls by demo with a ring donut and a stick of rock. It's based on Angela Carter's novel about warring theatrical families, so you might expect extreme feminism and Grimms-style grisliness, but the story chicanes evocatively through time & times largely happily, with some poignant moments and Wildean lines: It is every woman’s tragedy that after a certain age she looks like a female impersonator, opines Dora (delightfully played by Gareth Snook, which enhanced the epigram). For me personally the fact this is set in 20th century South London, around Brixton in fact - my stomping ground as a wayward teen - was sprinkles on the iced donut. On till 16th February, definitely recommended.

Two different art exhibitions opened on Friday: the HUBnub gallery, a beautiful space which needs strong work,  has a show that meets the challenge: impressive paintings by Jamie Gallagher which explore 'the psychological effects on humanity of the current extremes of social, political and cultural disruption.' Post Normality Reality Disorder attracted a big buzz at the launch, & I need to go back to interrogate these pieces again...

Also a powerful magnet and a lively & sociable launch: The Sands of Time in Black Swan Round Tower represents the 'creative estate' of Stina Falle, well-known in Frome for her extraordinary talent and visionary imagination. Stina has decided to sell, by chosen donation, all her drawings, paintings and makings collected throughout a prolific creative lifetime, with 100% of takings going to the mental health charity Mind in Somerset. The tower on Friday was cram full of sketches, storybooks, portraits, and installations - here's Stina behind a symbolic shroud - but they were going faster so get there before February 2nd if you want to have a piece of unique artistic history.

Music section is sparse this week, as Sunday jazz is on a midwinter break and no Roots session either, but there were some good sounds at Hat Tricks variety night at Three Swans, with jazz melodies on guitar from Graham and Adrian, and several excellent unaccompanied singers. With a couple of story-tellers and a handful of poets in the hat-mix too, this was once again a delightful night.


Moving out of town to end the week in Bath, where Frome historian and author David Lassman led a sell-out crowd of 40 Bathonians plus two interested Froomies and a helpful Toppings bookseller (Felix also organised coffee and cakes for us all) around key sites of Bath describing the events that had devastated the city. As sunshine pierced the frost, we heard insights into the blunders that led to the worst blitz, and descriptions of the lost vistas - it was all so interesting that several locals joined us uninvited at various points and there was a rush to buy David's book Bath at War 1939-45 at the end of the tour.

Finally... it was Burns Night on Friday, so if you enjoyed carousing with whisky and (possibly vegetarian) haggis, as I did, I hope you included in your reverential readings the Ode to the Immortal Bard of Ayr, Robert Burns, by Sir William McGonagall, a tribute so full of excruciating lines it's like eating turkish delight with toothache.Your genius does sparkle bright / like to the stars of the night,this 1807 paeon of praise declares, ending fervently You were a mighty poet, few could with you compare /and also an honour to Scotland, for your genius it is fair. And you can't say fairer than that.

McGonagall is often mocked now (like I just did) but for a handloom weaver in late-19th century Dundee he did well and never appeared to doubt the merit of any of his prolific output - he showed his first piece to his local preacher who admired it with commendable diplomacy: "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this." Failing to find fortune in New York, he returned to Dundee where, for 15/- a night in the local circus, he read his poems to crowds who pelted him with eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread until the council banned the act for causing riotous behaviour. Mcgonagall wrote a poem chiding them. Interestingly, the 'world's worst poet' was making a living out of his bizarre lyrics at a time when the weaving trade was dying, and there was a theory in his lifetime that Sir Topaz Mcgonagall, Knight of the White Elephant, was actually "not so daft". Reader, you decide....

Unavoidably seasonal!

December ended with  mild weather, a lustrous solstice dawn and enormous silvery full moon, plus festivities nightly all around town. There was much festive spirit around in the week leading up to the big day, with great live music too. Artisan was the venue for another of the Bare to the Bones gigs organised and led by Paul Kirtley, with a dozen musicians entertaining with songs ranging from classic rock -with Annie Davenport's lyrical sax - to a delightful spot from a young performer apparently perched on a snowman.
By the weekend Frome was as lively as you'd expect, with music all over the place and Pip Utton's acclaimed reading of A Christmas Carol at the Merlin, but my report is a bit patchy: you know how when you're young and get over-excited and your mum says, stop dashing about - you'll Get Ill, and you don't, and you do... well, it appears it's the same when you're old too, so a few events didn't make the final cut. The Cornerhouse hosted a particularly lively session on Friday led by Geoff Younger and Colin Ashley, with great guests and much dancing, but I can tell you nothing about the following night's events (though luckily I was mobile enough to respond to Hunting Raven's urgent call for another delivery of Frome Unzipped to fulfil demand in their christmas rush.... twice!)

On Sunday the Three Swans hosted an amazing afternoon of festive singalong music - classics, folksongs and even carols - involving a gathering of murmuration proportions of amazing performers of all ages, definitely the best possible way to ease into the official crux of the season especially when topped off with the Pete Gage Band, in top form as always, at the Cornerhouse in the evening.
Cornerhouse kept the musical  flag flying high with the final Jazz Club of the year, which featured the Keith Harrison trio with guest Knud Stuwe, whose playing on the esoteric oud - an ancestor of the lute - added a wistful mood to the crowded pub.
Change of mood again at Cornerhouse with the New Year house party - host Martin Earley providing a smashing buffet and the lovely local musicians and singers creating the smashing party atmosphere.


I did manage several walks, coughing gently, so here's an image from midway through that bit between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve when the holiday shifts from public to personal: high above Eastville Park (which is really lovely btw and features a lake with swans and a heron) there's the remains of a WWII look-out station, inherited now by brambles and graffiti artists. We came across it at the same time as a group of local walkers and one was happy to tell the story. This was the site of legendary supergun 'Purdown Percy' - a massive ack-ack gun that shot down countless enemy aircraft. Legendary indeed - there was no such weapon here, only a battery of small guns  showering shrapnel all over the city. Perhaps height enhanced the sound, or maybe it was patriotic optimism, but actually between 1939-45, only two of the hundreds of German planes flying over Bristol were ever shot down.
And the traditional year's end to a writer's blog is always a poem. I was going to write you a satire on the Majestic message delivered this year beside a golden piano, which began by commending the might of the RAF and ended without apparent irony vaguely commending the notion of universal peace,  but I lost heart. Here instead is the passionate voice of Dylan Thomas reflecting on the passing of a lifetime as we all sail away from that other country called 'the past.'

Nothing I cared, in the lamb-white days, that time would take me

up to the swallow-thronged loft by the shadow of my hand

in the moon that is always rising,

nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

and wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh, as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, 

Time held me green and dying

though I sang in my chains like the sea. 

Makes me feel glad I missed out on a happy childhood.  Go well, may 2019 be tender with you.