Dramatic passion and all that jazz...

February's 18° days may be rightly disturbing, but the week's sunshine worked well for Tobacco Factory's new Shakespearean offering of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I can be a tad purist about Shakespeare - in my view his timeless themes rarely need tweaks to bring them on trend - so it was a delight to find that this updated-version is superb: nine excellent actors and innovative direction ensured that the comedy is laugh-out-loud funny, plots are clear, and energy high throughout. The tripled-up roles of the cast work brilliantly, with special praise to the men: Joseph Tweedale whose gay Helen/us was not only plausible but seemed almost essential, Dan Wheeler whose Flute totally & hysterically stole the final scene, and Danann McAleer,  brutal as a fairy and charmingly ineffective as an Am.Dram co-ordinator - all memorable roles. Heather Williams’ Bottom will stay with me for some time too… I did have some reservations: costumes were not 100% successful, and nor were the fly-tip props, the fairies looked and sounded more like a tribe of crusties, and the start-&-finish ‘twist’ didn't do it for me - but the same-sex love affairs worked well and the Pyramus and Thisbe cameo was a real highlight. At a deeper level, director Mike Tweddle credibly found connections with our 'harsh and problematic' possible future: 'Sadly, in 2019 it's all too easy to see how our politically fragile society could lose its hard-won social values.' Highly recommended, on till 6 April. Images: Mark Dawson.

Chicago, based loosely on life in that city during the 1920s,  era of jazz, 'celebrity criminals' and lawyers who lucratively defended them, proved a splendid choice for a 'High School Edition' from Frome College students. Directed by Claudia Pepler, on a superb art deco set designed and built by Mike Witt, with on-stage orchestra, razzle-dazzle costumes, this outstandingly talented team of youngsters danced and sang their way brilliantly to the happy ending - for the starlet murderers anyway. Megan Wright and Cordelia Tarbrooke were stunning in these roles (Images: Mike Witt top, Chris Bailey cast shot), with Barney Nuttall great as hurt husband (front end L) and Solo Candy (front end R) unforgettable as Billy Flynn, the media-manipulating lawyer. Frome College productions regularly reach a standard that makes it unsurprising that so many participants go on to train for the professional stage - or that the dedicated team of adult supporters regularly win awards in this field. This is another memorable one.

Meanwhile, Frome was preparing to transform itself into a magical promenade theatre show for the entire weekend, as Window Wanderland decorated the town's streets with 189 (I counted the list on the back of the map!) houses created fantasy lands and fairytales on their windows. Most used coloured tissue and silhouette cut-outs, some were simple and some were impressively complex, and the total effect was fabulous. Schools and shops and businesses joined in too, and the most elaborate creations- like the projected works of Singers Foundry -had clusters of admirers around them, with passing groups offering further recommendations, in this extraordinary night gallery. This one is not the most sophisticated or artistic, but for me it sums up the spirit of the project, and our town too.


Another good week for live music as well, with an excellent Roots Session at the Grain Bar - honey-voiced Steve Loudon supporting The Spoonful, Cream-themed blues trio with an esoteric range of stringed instruments, good material, and great voices.

 Friday was a big night at the Cornerhouse: Martin Earley celebrated his 8th 'birthday' as landlord there with a session from The Critters, the 8-strong rock-&-reggae band that Carling would probably claim to have made 'if we made bands'...  Nicki Mascall led this high-energy outfit through a medley of favourites from Moondance to Stir It Up, and the entire bar instantly became a mosh-pit of dancers. An unforgettable event, huge credit to all the band.

Saturday night is always a dilemma, as there's live music in several bars, but after a long window-watching walk, I dropped into 23 Bath Street for the garage band night: Los Grebos, the 4-piece covers band with an unexplained passion for Ken & Barbie, and Unit X, tagline "Frome 3-piece doing original punky noise psycho metal numbers". Here's Ron Tree, well-known and popular in Frome, singing about the badger people ('you can't kill the badger people/ they survived the ice age/ they're the recorders of time...') - photography was initially tricky as stage set-up seemed designed to smoke the musicians out like foxes, but the dancing was good.


No Independent Market report this month, as the planned March restart was kicked off the schedule by storm Freya - but with great resourcefulness, the busking stage removed itself to  23 Bath Street where the Back Wood Redeemers gave a great show to families, friends, and surprised regulars.

And if that wasn't enough music for three days, Jazz Jam returned to the Cornerhouse for a lively session - with superb singing - hosted by Simon Sax -sadly the dim red lighting made this impossible to record without a night-vision camera, but you've probably got enough pictures bragging about Frome for one week anyway. Let's end with a look ahead to spring.... crocuses along the river path, planted by the young rangers from Critchill School. Thanks, kids!

Post-festival blues cancelled, everyone too busy

The festival is over, with Frome's response - predictably - along the lines of 'bring on the post-fest-festivities.' Merlin Miscast 'Cabaret Extravaganza' on Friday was a brilliant celebration of the talents of the contributing performers - an all-singing all-dancing reprise of twenty-two solo and ensemble songs from the last years' productions, atmospherically choreographed, with onstage band. Projected information kept the show fast-moving, with minimal but entertaining compering from super-glam Artistic Director Claudia Pepler & show director Ryan Hughes, and if this sounds overly fulsome all I can say is, it really was a great night for community theatre - and for the Merlin for nurturing so much creative activity.

Exhibiting a Paul Nash painting is quite a big deal for a small town art gallery, and Black Swan is making the most of having this one in their current exhibition: Arborealists and Guests will be in the Long Gallery until 2 September, and on Monday the Words at the Black Swan writing workshop met, with poet Louise Green leading, to respond to the theme of all things arborescent and dendriform. We looked at tree prayers and poems, created a small collective forest in words, and then focussed on a personal piece - some of these will be posted on the group facebook page here. This is a timely exhibition, in a year Sheffield - previously claiming to be 'Europe's greenest city' - has plans to cut down 20, 000 street trees in what Woodland Trust has called a tree massacre - while China has deployed 60,000 soldiers to plant trees to combat pollution. Frome meanwhile has an active tree-watch group, led by historian and expert Julian Hight who will be talking at the Gallery on August 16th. The exhibition is worth a visit: there are some wonderful images on display, though the drab Nash isn't one of them.

Here's a new thing for Frome: inspired by Bristol Rocks, we now have  Love on the Rocks happening around Frome: painted pebbles with cheery messages, secreted around the town for discovery and relocation. Toni from Fine Fettle discovered these two in Kingsway precinct. Bristol Post reports this fun-for-all craze has taken the city by storm. I have many pebbles of various sizes... I feel a rummage through the art drawer coming on.
To Bath now, for a spot of comedy at the Komedia for an Edinburgh Preview show by Holt & Talbot - Rosie & Christian to their friends - Mansplaining Feminism. Christian's commitment to this cause is upstaged from the start by Rosie who's upset because she heard a man shout ‘Great rack!’ - but not to her. Rosie’s grievance at her unappreciated mammaries continues rolling throughout the script like a cunningly-shot billiard ball as her partner writhes through varied situational sketches -mostly very funny anyway but all massively enhanced by the personalities of this combo.

Wallace & Gromit fans are probably aware already that a hunt for Gromits has been unleashed in Bristol this summer, with 67 differently-decorated models of characters from the movies positioned all around the city. A great idea for a Sunday family meet-up, we thought, and collected a trail map from St Mary's Redcliffe where the Bristol in Bloom Gromit sat. I can also report there's a Wallace in College Green, but all the other locations we planned to visit were overlaid by the weekend Harbour Festival so we had a terrific day out anyway.
Also in Bristol: South Western at Tobacco Factory is actually a production from the Wardrobe Theatre team, pulsing with their usual innovative energy and verve but in a bigger venue: their promo photos all look like they were snapped on a dark night in a dirty part of the docks and give absolutely no idea of the vitality of the show, so I've taken this image of the ensemble from their facebook page.  A cornish-pasty-style western rather than spaghetti, this revenge tale trails from Bristol to Lands End, full of local in-jokes but slickly produced and very funny. Think Hot Fuzz, with an echo of Thelma & Louise and a longing nod to Easy Rider. The best bits are the faux-film-making, with cuts and calls for close-ups, and calm technicians spraying fake blood, and the finale is superb. There are inspired ideas and marvellous moments and it's definitely a show you'd take your stage-struck children or students to show how challenging and transgressive and engaging and physical live theatre can be - but you might hope they'd use those qualities in a drama with more content than parody. On till July 27th.
Home news again, and Frome Unzipped continues to take baby-steps into the world: I'm delighted by comments in conversations and mini-reviews on facebook: 'It is superbly written' ... 'written in Crysse's inimitable lively and funky style'... 'beautifully written and so very well argued' .... 'all Froomies need to get a copy.'

Well there are copies in Hunting Raven, and a few more events coming up. As everyone is busy with jaunts camps and fesivals I've gone for series of 'soft' launches in different venues, and the first was hosted on Saturday by Martin Earley at Cornerhouse upstairs in the gin lounge - no author-reading, just biblophilic chats, and sales, and prosecco.

Wintry Wanderland, Wordplay, country rock, art & blood

On a freezing weekend evening the town's streets in every direction saw friends and families all out and about appreciating Window Wanderland as Frome joined this international project and around two hundred homes and businesses transformed their windows into illuminated showcases for every kind of imaginative tableaux up to & including complex fairytales like Rapunzel - even the Town Hall joined in. Big appreciation to all who took part, and to Lisa Glass for bringing this illuminating & wanderful idea to Frome.

Poetry - another Word Play recording at Visual Radio Arts for your delectation: four poets shared words and chat live on air on Saturday afternoon. Dawn Gorman, Josephine Corcoran, Jennie Gilling and Louise Green can be enjoyed on the archive link here - many thanks to Phil and Mags for their awesome commitment to supporting creativity. And I should also give a quick plug to an Open Mic at Three Swans next Saturday, organised by Edventure.

Music corner: I couldn't resist a break from writing to see the marvellous country-rock band Shootin the Crow at the Grain bar on Wednesday, and Sunday's jazz at the Cornerhouse when the John Law Trio played melodies as arranged by Bill Evans - both really special events, the kind that get people saying, isn't it amazing you can walk around Frome and hear stuff like this every week, for free? (well, there is a hat, but nevertheless!)

Art now, and an art & craft exhibition at Silk Mill all weekend in support of refugees with funds going via RAISE - I loved the big compilation picture created by visitors and stall holders contributing their image of 'home' - some fabulous evocations of family and safety, all a big contrast to the camp at Calais
and a new opening at Black Swan: Here's Kate Cochrane, one of the organisers, with the result - framed free by Mount - which will be auctioned.
And another art display opened at Black Swan on Friday with the spring exhibition of Frome Art Society, as always a huge range of styles and subjects depicted by talented local visual artists. As always also, on the Monday following an opening Words at the Black Swan offered a poetry workshop inspired by the art in the gallery. Dawn Gorman who led this session invited the group to respond to the overall vibrance of the works with a focus on colour, reading Choosing Yellow as further stimulus just as Liam bizarrely arrived with a random yellow rose. One of Frome's little moments... and another inspiring session.

Now, through snow flurries, whirling but light, to Bristol, to see the first Shakespeare at the city's Southville theatre since Andrew Hilton retired from Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, the separate company he founded in 1999 to bring a double drama season to that in-the-round theatre space. His directorial approach was strong but subtle: Lyn Gardner summed it up: "Hilton .... is a plain cook, whose unadorned approach – no concept, the barest stage possible, music used sparingly – pays dividends," and, in another critic's words, "It is tiresome a small, unsubsidised company in the suburbs of Bristol beat the great RSC, but one lesson ....is that it is time to return to basics." Some of the best bard productions I've seen have been there, often with local actors in lead roles.
Perhaps I'm grieving the end of an era, or maybe this Macbeth came too soon after the stunning wordless performance by Mark Bruce Dance Company, but this Blood Means Blood version, without Hilton's sure hand restraining over-embellishments of symbolism and sound, didn't do it for me. Awareness of audience seemed an unresolved issue, with actors circling throughout their speeches, and some casting seemed designed to baffle anyone unfamiliar with the play (the women dressed like Miss Marple's maids for soldiers, priests, and the drunken porter). And who'd have thought the old play to have so much blood in it?  Everyone seemed to be puddling their hands in blood and pawing the next person they saw.  Katy Stephens as Lady Macbeth though was extraordinarily impressive. Perhaps you should go & decide for yourselves what to make of it - on at Tobacco Factory till 7 April.

shows, faces, words, wildlife, and a dilemma for Frome

Black Swan Arts current exhibition is Face to Face, paintings and drawings by Oliver Bedeman, which has been widely enjoyed. I loved every piece ~ tenderness without sentimentality, life-style insights without ever seeming clichéd. Most of the titles reference song lyrics but the pictures aren't labelled so when you look in the catalogue your first impression becomes illuminated and extended. The boy with gun is a Southern Man, wondering maybe how long, how long...  the young man on the train is a Nature Boy, travelling very far, very far to learn the truth about love...
Another excellent writing workshop from Louise Green for the growing group participating in Words at the Black Swan brought extra dimension to our responses by inviting us to write pieces that explore these resonances. Here's mine:
Urban Scrawl
I see you face to face in this abandoned site, your trail 
of challenges in skull-white smiles and broken glassy eyes
your watchful burning tower blocks tagged with flourish of defiance
your celebration of dystopia, private army of grotesques;
fantastic fiendish friends, their cacophony of questions
unanswered in the silence of stubborn Saxonvale.
As a footnote, Black Swan Arts complex is currently being unified which hopefully will be good news for visitors of this vibrant resource. The assurance is that jobs are safe and in future "The cafe will be at the heart of everything we do."

First meeting of the year for Frome Writers Collective, held as always at Three Swans, featured an excellent talk by Peter Clark on the value and practice of writing a regular diary.  Peter has travelled all over the world with on British Council business and literary missions but he's far more disciplined than me and confines himself to 300-400 words a day: he reckons he's clocked in over six million words over the years, which will be material for quite a few books.  So far his Damascus Diaries and his Emirates Diaries have both been published. His talk was entertaining as well as informative: Peter refers to his raw diary as 'a blend of malice, self-pity and narcissism' and confesses the final books, while extensively edited, are still 'indiscreet.' Witty reminiscence and top tips for writers, another excellent FWC evening.

De Hepe's splendid emporium on Bath Street ~  in the local news last year for responding to aesthetic trolling by putting it in the window for the entertainment of passers-by ~ is owned as you would expect by a genial & flamboyant individual. Robin Cowley isn't naturally a small-town dweller, but he's as passionate about Frome as, well, as I am. His current concern is a very real issue, and after we talked I suggested that this blog might be a small start to wider awareness, and Robin agreed. This is his point: When Frome was down on its uppers it was individuals taking the challenge offered on Catherine Hill that provided the impetus for the change we needed. And now that that’s all come to fruition, other people are taking advantage of it by raising rents, and actually it’s penalising the very people that did the planting of the seeds in the first place. And I think that the landlords have a responsibility. I don’t begrudge anybody taking advantage of the popularity and the rebirth of the town but we need to remember why Frome is popular now.  And it’s not because of massive input from multinationals or even the District Council, so we need to remember our roots.

A serious point, which the council as well as anxious tenants will realise: combine this with rising house prices which will drive out many of the next generation ~ even if they'd intended to work in a family business that won't otherwise survive ~ Frome in the future may no longer be a popular hive of small independents and idiocyncratic self-confident style. Well, it's happened before... I refer you to Cobbett in his Rural Rambles nearly 200 years ago, on a return visit to Frome which he'd last seen when it was busy and affluent, finding destitution among the cloth workers: "Yes, these men have ground down into powder those who were earning them their fortunes: let the grinders themselves now be ground, and, according to the usual wise and just course of Providence, let them be crushed by the system which they have delighted in..."

After missing press night due to December's lurgie, I finally caught up with Beauty and the Beast at Tobacco Factory too late to recommend it, though it'll be in my column for Plays International, because it's now sold out until the end of the run. And so it should be. This delightful co-production with N.I.E directed by Alex Byrne represents the triumph of simplicity over flamboyance, with a cast of six talented actor-musicians and no gimmicks, just the magic of storytelling and song creating a fairytale drama to satisfy all ages. With only a flutter of leaves and occasional props, the scene shifts back and forth from castle to forest hovel (le gîte terrible, as we are in France) where newly impoverished merchant Maurice is attempting to relocate his horrendous twins, aided by beautiful Isabella, non-avaricious misfit of the trio. Most of the comedy is inventively created by the appalling sisters, played by Samantha Sutherland and Elliot Davis, who can't grasp the concept of 'poor' - they can't pronounce it actually, rhyming it with 'Mwah!' which is the sort of sound they're more used to.
Roles follow the fairytale mostly, but this is a feisty Beauty who chooses to confront the Beast herself. Act 2 abandons tradition too, following (with much audience consultation) the besotted Beast's attempts at wooing, on top of a table in Mad Hatter chaos of chocolate mousse, terrible jokes, and wild dancing. It's all going quite well until Beauty realises Maurice is ill and dashes home for a dad-snatch in a wheel-barrow. The ending is a mix of classic and original too, with a touching moment of transformative love, but also a kind of Thelma-and-Louise-gone-very-wrong finale for the wicked sisters.  So I'm sorry you've misssed it, all I can say is, look out for the next NIE production, and for anything anywhere where Elliot Davis is performing. Especially in a frock. And look out too for other developments at Tobacco Factory Theatres.

From devised to revived:
I've been a massive fan of Stephen Mangan since The Hunt for Tony Blair, avidly watching every episode of Episodes and, as a writer for stage, I'm obviously in awe of Harold Pinter, so when I saw The Birthday Party was celebrating its own 60th birthday at the actual Harold Pinter Theatre, I promptly booked. I like my Pinter plain: I fretted over BOV's explosive version of The Caretaker last year, and was quite happy there were no distractions from the dense perplexity of Pinter's belief that 'the more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression.' We're not really supposed to understand, the programme explains, any more than we really understand life.

The story starts like a sit-com in the boarding house of a stoic husband and his dim ditzy wife ~ Peter Wight and Zoë Wannamaker excellent in these roles ~ which has only one resident: Stanley, who might or might not have been a pianist, but he's not doing anything now, until two men arrive, who might or might not be Dumb-Waiter-style thugs, and the mood changes to menace. Stephen Mangan is electric in the role of dominant Goldberg, with good support from Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as McCann. They arrange an unwanted party for Stanley ("This isn't my birthday!"). Strange and sad things happen. Stanley might or might not know why, and as audience we are left with our own assumptions. I didn't think Toby Jones was quite compelling enough in the role of enigmatic victim, but that might come from direction. With a big stage it's hard to create tension as you don't get a real sense of menace when everyone's spaced out, and perhaps Ian Rickson aimed to keep that feeling of nearly normal life, just a bit weirdly messed up.  He did that well. I don't think I'll ever forget Goldberg's quiet, babylike, request Blow in my mouth....

And now for something completely different: a walk round Rodden Nature Reserve on Sunday morning, with about sixty other enthusiasts, organised by the Mendip branch of Somerset Wildlife Trust and led by Eve Tigwell, who pitched it perfectly for our motley crew, some experienced bird-spotters, bat-supporters and otter-counters, some tabula rasa like the toddler who toddled enthusiastically ahead, and some in the middle like me, enthralled by Frome's very own nature reserve. With hundreds of wildlife residents and thousands of visitors, this is a real gem and it's right outside Asda so you can just park and stride! but you only have two weeks before the breeding season means a lengthy closure till the autumn.
Back to work now, it's been fun sharing. As Blaise Pascal said, I would like to have written it shorter but I didn't have the time.

Art, drama, poets, rebels & reprobates: a busy week...

A big week for art in Frome, as Black Swan hosted their Arts Open event with a launch night crammed by celebrity judges of the ilk of Mariella Frostrup and sponsors like Hauser & Wirth and Babington. Naturally, with big names handing out big cash prizes, the private view was too rammed to really see any of the art but there were plenty of smiling faces and I do know that first prize, plus a mentoring award, went to Katherine Fry for her video of a woman sucking a table leg.

Also pictured: the installation which judge Seamus Nicolson feels represents contemporary confusion, and Bea Haines' Nest, picked by Rachael & Gary of PostScript for the 3D prize. I'll go back for a proper look at Words at the Black Swan workshop.

Straight on then to Merlin Theatre for Lemn Sissay giving a dramatic reading of his one-man play Something Dark.  Until earlier this year Lemn was mostly known as a performance poet struggling with a difficult past, but in May he took the extraordinary step of revealing that past not only to the world but to himself, on stage at the Royal Court, shifting his persona from entertainer to something more profound and precious. Lemn ~ his name, he discovered aged 32,  means 'Why'  ~ has experienced many shifts in his life. Fostered as 'Norman', shunted through care homes, crossing the world to find his family and meeting serial rejection, he now works actively with the Forgiveness Project. He sees his search for identity as both unique and universal. From his days as Chalky ~ 'I was nobody, so I became everybody's nobody' ~ to his ultimate acceptance of isolation from his real kin ~ 'Now I have a fully dysfunctional family just like everyone else!' Lemn Sissay finds connection with all of humanity, and a purpose for his own work.

     I am the bull in the china shop

     & with all my strength & will

     As a storm smashed the teacups

     I stood still.

 “It’s about opening up all the dark places that have been closed,” Lemn says “That’s what we’re doing here. We’re digging up the bodies.” Gladys Paulus, whose Hinterland exhibition recently caused such a sensation at Black Swan Arts, would understand that scouring of the past for healing.

From art and life to stage dramas ~ three of them, making for a busy homecoming. Bristol first. Waiting for Godot is so well-known as 'the play where nothing happens’ that any director must feel challenged about what special thing to bring to a new production. Director Mark Rosenblatt at Tobacco Factory brings various bits of things, like pantomime-style audience interaction and bits of slapstick. Estragon (a strong performance from David Fielder) brought a bit of Northern Irish anguish and Colin Connor’s Vladimir brought a bit of gurning comedy, John Stahl’s Pozzo was a bit Wildean and Chris Bianchi while memorably impressive as Lucky also looked a bit like Marley’s ghost; the set was a bit evocative of an unpopular Turner Prize, the costumes were a bit like a post-festival clothes-swap, and the music was... just a bit baffling. It would be good to say that the whole made something fantastic of these disparate parts, but I didn’t feel it did, and the reduced audience for the second act suggested others felt the same. Despite this being a play where nothing happens, there is actually a lot already in it, much of it mysterious and lyrical, exploring themes in the way dreams do. Friendship and freedom, loss and longing, power and personal choice, remembering and forgetting, the search for meaning and guidelines… all in a random repetitious way with no answers. Just like life, you could say. Previously, after tTF productions I'd head for my friend Bob’s place nearby to talk over a nightcap of other things like his passion for the Scottish highlands, but now he's gone to live full-time in a wee bothy or whatever it is highlanders dwell in, so I plodded back to desolate Templemeads to catch the midnight train to Frome reflecting that weird and hopeless as Beckett's script may be, its poetic intensity works best without diversions and, even with fine actors, his staging instructions need to be observed. Also feeling very grateful for the oasis of Wetherspoons. (Production now touring)

Then to Salisbury Playhouse for a play where lots happens, most of it criminal and all absurdly funny: The Ladykillers, produced in conjunction with New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich & Queen's Theatre Hornchurch has been adapted from the 1955 film by Graham (Father Ted) Lineham. There was an endearing innocence about those Ealing comedies, their Laurel-and-Hardy-level violence and humour, simplistic plots and signalled denouements. Anyone who remembered this one from 1955 would delight in the nostalgia, and anyone who didn’t would surely be delighted by the silliness and gags both spoken and visual, the criminal gang's surreal ‘concert’ which bookmarked the interval, and absurdly satisfying final outcome. The complex set was amazing and deserves a permanent place in a museum or at least a branch-line of its own. On a circular stage, a virtually-life-sized station-house rotated to alternately reveal its exterior, sometimes adorned by fleeing criminals, and its 2-storey interior where the cunning-planning and most of the action took place. Mrs Wilberforce (Ann Penfold) was a delightful antithesis to Miss Marple and the five crooks created their OTT character-types superbly, with each gruesome death impressively slick (special credit to bannister-breaking Sam Lupton's Harry and Damian Williams as One-Round, slow-witted even when knifed.) Director Peter Rowe led the production team: Foxton, as well as creating the set, designed the costumes supporting the 1950s look, and presumably also the clever illuminated model of the crime scene. Multiple murder really shouldn’t be so... delightful, once again, is the word. On till 18 November.

Criminals' comic capers on stage are ok when bags of cash are  involved, but terrorism is serious, and so is Daniel Khelmann's play Christmas Eve at Bath's Ustinov Studio Theatre.

Directed by Laurence Boswell in a translation by Christopher Hampton and with an awesomely strong cast, this tense two-hander creates in real-time the hour of interrogation room faced by academic Judith (Niamh Cusack) from a man unknown to her, whose tactics vary from psychological manipulation to browbeating challenge. It's not without dark humour too, mainly from Patrick Baladi who plays Thomas a bit like Gene Hunt from Life on Mars with just a touch of David Brent. It's a great performance, bringing believable complexity to his character even in the least plausible sequences, when  the play seems to be trying too hard to be enigmatic.    Personally I found the discussion of ideology and the dynamics of protest fascinating, though some reviewers might not, and felt the weakness in the script was its unconvincing twists and turns. But definitely recommended, as an entertaining and thought-provoking hour ~ it's on till November 18. I'm now committed to further  research Frantz Fanon, who as well as supporting redistribution of wealth 'no matter how devastating the consequences' wrote Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.  Which sounds like something Lemn Sissay would understand... and also segues nicely to my final review:

The week's not yet over but this post is already brimming with rebellious struggles and you probably have more to do than sit around reading blogs so I'll end with Thursday night at the Wheatsheaves (the pub with four names, aka also The Wheatsheaf, Frome's new Venue and 23A Bath Street): a rabble-rousing evening of post-punk songs and protest poetry organised by Momentum Frome.
After a stonking set of gloriously dissatisfied & disappointed songs from Beef Unit (FB 'band interest': our dystopian present), the headline act to a packed room was Attila the Stockbroker: (FB 'genre': Surrealist performance poetry, energetic acoustic songs, punk rock with medieval tinges! )
Attila talks a lot about politics and the need for social change, but he talks also about his life, growing up in Southwick (one of the 5 'most normal' towns in the country) with a stepfather he resented ~ though he's written a moving poem about reconciling with this 'decent gentle man' ~ about experiencing bladder cancer, nursing his mother, saving his football club, and how it feels to be still actively performing political protest poetry in a post-grime world... His book, ARGUMENTS YARD, which I was delighted to win in the raffle, is 'a cultural activist's eyewitness journey through the great political battles and movements of recent times.' And he's a terrific performer, with unfaltering focus on timeless class struggle, from medieval punk-folk ballads played on thrash mandolin to fresh-today rants and raves ("He's not the Messiah or a naughty boy, he's the man Murdoch wants to destroy - that's how we know he's the real McCoy, the man they call JC..."). And above all, he says, his message is a simple one: "You don't need to be a celebrity to have a wonderful life earning your living doing what you love." He does however add, "You just have to have a way with words, the self-confidence and organizational ability of Napoleon and a skin thicker than the armour of a Chieftain tank." But that's performance poets for you...