The sunshine & prosecco edition

It's 'summer season' time at Theatre Royal Bath with another determined-to-please production: While the Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan is another WW2 farce and, as with their previous show (Coward's Present Laughter),  I found myself compelled to upwardly revise my sniffy opinion of this genre. The storyline may be absurd but it's a delight to watch, with a fabulous set creating 1940s Albany both outside & in, gorgeous costumes, sharp direction and superb cast. There are shades ~ or rather gleams ~ of Oscar Wilde and PG Wodehouse, but this hilarious parody of social mores has hidden shadows too, evoking an era of insecurity as social status totters while bombs fall and black-out nights bring war-time wildness.
In his inherited luxurious chambers, the Earl of Harpenden finds his real 'war effort' is the struggle for the lovely Lady Elizabeth (Alexandra Dowling), against the blustering charm of American Lieut Mulvaney (Rupert Young) and the cunning of Clouseau-esque French Lieut Colbert (Nicholas Bishop), with the mix confused further by tart-with-a-heart Mabel Crum (Tamla Kari), and Elizabeth's gambling father (Michael Cochrane). All are excellent, and Rob Heaps as the Earl, potentially the most facile stereotype of all, brings huge charm and subtle strength to the role. Christopher Luscombe's direction ensures brilliant timing and I came out with eyes sore from laughing.
On till the end of the month, highly recommended. (images Tristram Kenton)

Back in Frome, Tic Tac Toe is addressing another era of social values in The Scandalous Love of Oscar Wilde, a monologue analysis of the writer's attitudes and the path to his downfall. Luke Stuart superbly inhabits this role in a piece still in development, directed by Geoff Hunt and written by Calum Grant, to be shown at Merlin Theatre on August 6th. The preview was at the Cornerhouse, which also on Saturday offered the marvellous All Nighters' Northern Soul with dancing on a nostalgically-talc-scattered floor until late.

More live music on Sunday from flaminco guitarist Joe Taylor at the Archangel in the afternoon, here with his other guitar in singer-songwriter role.
And I'm ending this celebration of drama and music on a personal note: thankyou to everyone who sent birthday messages, and to those special friends who made sure I had prosecco as well as sunshine to complete a perfect day...

Shop Local, play local, dance exotic...

Focus entirely on Frome this week, with the Frome Shop Local day on Saturday ~ an exciting range of performances in nine different venues throughout the day. With puppetry, poetry, and fantastic music in shops and cafes throughout the town, totalling six hours of free entertainment for all. We had Pete Gage, Nikki & Griff, and Dexters' Extra Breakfast with our croissants and coffee, Vikki Burke's harp and Gina Allen singing up the hill, Eddie Martin rocked Raves from the Grave, Annie Aldam held the children rapt in Ellenbray, and here's Hannah Teasdale in Hunting Raven Books and Al O'Kane in Frome Wholefoods.  Big thanks to the town council, this was a great initiative which will hopefully be repeated next year even bigger and better!

Moving on to art: two exhibition openings The Binding Grid of Creative Connection from Bridport artist David Smith, promoted by Black Swan Arts, is featured at the Round Tower and represents for the artist 'a celebration of the affirming nature of my experience of Twitter' to collect work on the theme of 'black squares black lines and black magic.' Frome painter Amy Yates, in contrast, uses lucent & evocative colour for her images of Frome: her work is displayed in the Grain Bar throughout November, with cards for sale.

Local drama company Tic Tac Toe were at Frome's Merlin Theatre with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) ~ a lighthearted, often witty, sometimes very funny, deconstruction of the bard's themes & works that always entertains a young audience. For the more sophisticated, there was exotic dance at the Silk Mill with an amazing Bollywood routine.

Looking ahead theatrically, Nevertheless Fringe Theatre will be upstairs at the Cornerhouse with our new show Toxic Cocktails ~ 'contempory comedy with a toxic twist' on Dec 16 & 17. Hold the dates and watch, as they say, this space...

And finally, in international news:  one week after Frome Town Council won Council of the Year in the National Association of Local Councils’ Awards comes news that Frome, in its entirety, is now officially the greatest town in the country.  The Great Town Award 2016, identified by the Academy of Urbanism, looks for places with 'innovation and excellence in all aspects of urbanism' and Frome's list of achievements were recognised to include: progressive & caring work of the Town Council,  exceptional cultural & community opportunities, sympathetic blending of new with old (many listed)  buildings, lively events in the town centre (Frome Independent Market has been voted one of the best in the country by Observer Food Magazine), 'astonishing' commercial vitality & a vibrant independent retail sector, and 'impressive' response to environmental issues. No better way to end this post than in the words of Cllr Pippa Goldfinger, accepting on behalf of the town:
‘Many people in Frome have long felt that it is a great town but the secret is now out. This new award owes much to the spirit of community, innovation and enterprise in the town and I am certain that the people of Frome will be very proud that their efforts have received such national recognition.’

Happenings in Frome, including some 'Wow!'s.

The appeal of writing a blog for me is that, unlike articles, there's no need to target a market, keep to word-count, or even stay on theme.  Mine aims to commend and recommend events in and around Frome, but this doesn't preclude random musings on other stuff. Jottings about stage shows ~ tidied later for my bimonthly theatre magazine column ~ jostle with local entertainment and chat about trips and TV.  For a writer this form is fantastic, an opportunity to process experience to share with no constraint except awareness (thanks Blogger overview graph) that people do read them. So with appropriate humility, here's the latest patchwork of Things That Happened since last posting:

Local drama this week as TicTacToe returned to The Cornerhouse with their second Play in a Day which, in contrast to last autumn's surreal farce, dealt with serious issues. Inspiration came, sort of, from Frankenstein and Iain Heggie's black comedy about dementia Wiping My Mother's Arse, except the amnesiac (Mike Walker) isn't alzheimic but in denial about something revealed only in the final moment, and the monster may not really be a monster at all... And it's moving rather than black or comic, developing slowly to show the relationship struggle between the old man and his son-in-law (Ross Scott) as told in flashbacks to volunteer Archie (Calum Grant). Fleur Hanby Holmes is superb as the girl, evoking the crux of a horribly plausible dilemma with minimal words. Wow. An amazing achievement in just one day.

Speaking of time, that's what Greg Morter was doing, with some visual and human aids, at the Scout Hut last week. Greg has written a book about The Universe Story in Science and Myth and leads walks paced to scale, from the origin of the universe (not a big bang, more of a flaring forth, he says) to the present day. Annabelle and I went on one of these two day events; we reached the birth of our galaxy during the second day and man appeared in the last two centimeters. Greg had reduced his scale for this fascinating talk to one millimetre = one million years, but as I'm irredeemably earthcentric the bit I really like is when our world blasts into the story and starts to teem with life... Here's our earliest mammalian ancestor, helpfully posing with a paperclip to show how teeny he was. What is really great about Greg's talks, apart from his enthusiasm in sharing his scientific knowledge as a story, is the way he makes it possible to be positive about humanity despite our aggression, greed, and destructiveness. Those qualities, he says, were in the struggle for survival throughout the history of the universe ~  what we also have is a unique ability to care, not just for ourselves and our kin but for others unmet and for the planet itself. We have the ability to remember and to anticipate, which enhances our empathy and our effectiveness. And we can, with our new knowledge, replace 'human-scale chauvinism' with the understanding that we're living in an evolving situation and we too are elements from that fireball, 'We are the universe telling itself its own story.'  Wow.

And of course this being Frome there's been music... and a rendition of Happy Birthday for lovely Griff who runs the Roots Sessions at the Grain Bar each Wednesday, last week with Amelia Orgill and her band. Great vocals from guest Steve Loudoun and pedal steel from Gus Yorke.

February is also the month when our summer festival starts seriously brewing, with brochure entries due in at the end of next week. Nevertheless Productions is moving into new territory with a site-specific, outdoor, production in the Dissenters Cemetery... Midsummer Dusk will be performed, at dusk, by our newly formed company the Star Players. I forgot to take a photo of this amazingly talented trio when we met this morning so here's a picture of the venue... wow. Can you even wait????

Clocks go back & autumn hots up

The Falcon's Malteser, a lively touring show from New Old Friends arrived at the Merlin this week to entertain a delighted half-term audience. Based on the spoof novel by Anthony Horowitz, this glorious pastiche features ~ as well as a box of popular confectionary ~ every thrilling cliché of private eye fiction from disguised assassin to car chase, all delivered fast and furiously funny. Four actors take on all the roles: Tom Medcalf as Nick Diamond delivers the backstory as a 13 year-old while Feargus Woods Dunlop plays dashing-but-dim Tim Diamond with a private-eye hat and lines like why is it called a FUNeral when it's no fun, it should be a SADeral, and multi-talented Heather Westwell and Dan Winter create the seedy and sinister society that sucks the brothers in. Both charismatic performers, they sustain the dynamic of every preposterous scenario in a range of roles from dieting gangster to nightclub siren (her)and dyspeptic cop to getaway car(him).The set is perfect for farce ~ revolving doors for mayhem and enough props to create setting without any clutter. A glorious pastiche.

Farce too at Frome's Cornerhouse, venue of choice now for pub theatre, with Tic Tac Toe's Play in a Day, devised and improvised during Saturday for evening performance. Using random suggestions on facebook is brave ~ These are the lies I told you is a great title and 'class reunion' a promising theme, but 'killing by biscuit' sounds a tricky denouement. Enthusiasm and a great team (Calum Grant and Luke Stuart with Ross Scott & Fleur Hanby Holmes, my Muffin Man duo) pulled off 40 minutes of absurdity as sleuth Frank E Stein sets out to find out who murdered the world's worst magician. A tale of love, loss, frogs, and a poisoned custard cream.

More free theatre too from at the monthly Independent Market from The Little Victory Ball telling the story of the first world war from the womens' perspective. The quartet of performers blend facts, anecdotes, statistics, and song into a family show that mesmerises all ages, even on a chill morning in a noisy market yard. Immaculately researched and very moving.  Frome's monthly Sunday market is street theatre in itself: with a buskers, costumed strollers and musicians all interspersed between fields of stalls offering everything from boots and bricabrack to falafals and fine art.

Elsewhere in Frome, too, it's been a musical week. Popular Frukes played at the Festival party at Three Swans ~ (do all ukulele bands play Teenage Kicks or is that a local thing? they inspired me to borrow a uke to learn Smells Like Teen Spirit anyway) ~ and the Wednesday session at the Grain Bar featured Pat Orchard showing how he uses echo to enhance his superb guitar work. Simon Sax introduced a talent-filled Jazz Jam at the Cornerhouse on Sunday, including guest baritone saxophonist George Haslam and Norman Leater on trumpet.

Artsy round-up for this week wouldn't be complete without the visual highlights: painter Russ Ellingham's glamorous launch Art after Dark showed his new works in an exciting noir setting, and a new exhibition from Jim Whitty at Black Swan Gallery: Flux tracks the process of painting and questions when in a work can be called finished, since the narrow margin between incomplete and overpainted is elusive, which sparked an interesting session for the Words at The Black Swan poetry group on Sunday afternoon. Jim's paintings are largely based on his walks along Vallis Vale, the riverside path that links Frome to Mells, and his explorations have led to 'lost' paintings where the essence originally captured is increasingly overlaid with later observations. A bit like all of our memories, really.

Halloween is always a big night for ghouls and glamour so I'll end this post with the marvellous Frome Street Bandits heading in to the Cheese & Grain party, led by the Lady Mayoress and watched by the Mayor...