Wicked queens, naughty nuns, and more lights & music

I don’t go so often to Tobacco Factory Theatre since the whole area became a permit-parking-only zone, and the promotion image for this version of Snow White didn’t entice me, but luckily a friend tipped me off I was missing a treat so on a dark and icy afternoon I plodded the 40 minute trek from Temple Meads Station and was opulently rewarded. This is a fabulous production - not, though there is fair bit of audience interaction, a pantomime but a great classic story, spiced gently and entertainingly with environmental and social values. New International Encounter, here in collaboration with Cambridge Junction as well as Tobacco Factory Theatres, has a reputation for superb, accessible, story-telling - inventive, succinct, and with lively musicality. The four musicians are on stage throughout: they carry the narrative thread, create the spirit of the magic mirror, and enact the seven dwarves with (mis)calculating insistence about their number. This happy band of social misfits have all left stressful jobs to live an alternative life-style, growing seven kinds of onions and serving vegan stew in a non-gender way. They do their incompetent best to take care of Snow White, but the wiles of the wicked Queen initially wobbles the community into frightened calls for "locks, keys, fence, wall - 42 feet high, with barbed wire! and a buzzer… We’ve got to take back control!" Luckily they quickly decide,  No - this is not us. Love is what matters - an open heart.  But clear personal boundaries! 
All this is fun but doesn't distract from the Grimm focus in the tale on the wicked queen and her terrible plans.  Stefanie Mueller in this role is absolutely fantastic, swinging from near-recognisable family stuff at the start - the exasperation over teenage defiant fibs - to demonic obsession with her appearance and evil plots to kill her step-daughter (I got the blame for that, actually - one of the dubious delights of a front seat in an interactive show!) But even she is allowed a small, thought-provoking, voice when she laments, I was told I had to be 'the fairest,' nobody told me that just 'fair' would be enough. Multi-talented Ms Mueller also designed the set and costumes. This is genuinely an all-age show and it's on till 19th January - a great antidote for dark days ahead. Images Mark Dawson.

Meanwhile 700 years ago in the real world no-one was having a good time in a society dominated by the draconian rules of sex-starved, sex-obsessed church officials. Based (surprisingly closely, though the dummy left for burial probably wasn't a mop&bucket) on the true story of a nun on the run, Breach theatre created Joan of Leeds - a lusty end-of-year romp with mirth, bawdiness and song, in keeping with the Yorkshire Medieval Players they claim to be, which sounded like a fun idea and worth a trip to New Diorama Theatre although central London isn't my patch for reviews. Medieval texts abound with explicit imagery of nuns involved in all kinds of activities not associated these days with holy orders - the penis-gatherer here is at least demurely clad - and Breach seized the opportunity provided by erotic visions for much scurrilous activity and scandalous costume. There was a short unconvincing attempt to evoke a parallel with the social struggle of lesbians in the last century, but the best bits by far were the lusty erotica and hysterical absurdity.


Another evening prowl in search of festive illumination, this time to Stourhead, didn't reward nearly as well as Longleat: the concept of blasting heavy colour on specific buildings and trees benefitted neither, and the elegant vista of the lake on arrival was obliterated by oscillating vividly-coloured bobbles. You don't have to be a cantankerous dendrophile like me to recognise that Stourhead is an elegant example its era's respect for the grandeurs of antiquity and the concept of beauty in nature, and fierce floodlights detract rather than embellish.

A blast of music now:
The 'Last Bones Gig of the Year' was at the The George at Nunney,  courtesy of manager Tania, and with the massed instruments & voices of the entire village, it seemed, especially for the finale version of Fairy Tale of New York which Bones leader Paul Kirtley reckons as good the original...  certainly more celebratory. I also liked the the guitar solos on Come on Baby Light My Fire, but it was all enjoyable - big appreciation to both Frome and Nunney gangs for a great gig, to the customers who contributed to Paul's charity bucket, and of course to the man of every Bones match, Paul himself. The sound was fantastic but historic buildings don't cope well with biblical-scale downpours so my images caught the convivial atmosphere rather than the event.

Back in Frome, we've had a goldrush of brilliant bands: amazing Purple Fish bringing classic rock to the Cornerhouse on Saturday, followed next night by the utterly awesome Pete Gage band with Craig Crofton on saxophone.. two sensational events from passionate professional performers - Frome pubs must lead the world for treating their customers to great gigs like these.

The Three Swans took over to fill the gap on Sunday afternoon with an all-afternoon session from the massed forces of several local bands as traditional folk musicians from various traditions joined up with singers and players in a variety of styles from swampy funk to 80's pop. This was a real party event, with all ages crammed into the upstairs room amid the rococo furniture and startlingly retro wall adornments.

Happy celebrations whatever you choose to do - see you after the flack has settled on a new year.

That strange and beautiful thing called love

'Do you know what le vice anglais really is? It's our refusal not to admit our own emotions.'  This bitterly self-deprecating acknowledgement from Sebastian, jaundiced literary critic in Ustinov Studio's In Praise of Love, is at the painful heart of the drama.  From an unpromising start of domestic trivia and mutual irritation, this deceptively multi-layered story builds up to a gripping and immensely moving tale of mutual deception and self-deception, all for love... To say more would be a spoiler if you don't know Terence Rattigan's 1973 play, though probably it wouldn't spoil your enjoyment of this production directed by Jonathan Church, carefully set in time and place by designer Tim Hatley and achingly well-acted by Robert Lindsay and Tara FitzGerald as the deceiving couple.  Robert Lindsay is awesome as the disillusioned ex-novelist who sneers at his son Joey - sympathetically played by Christopher Bonwell - and addresses his wife like Christopher Robin's Nanny,  but when he tells his friend Mark about her backstory in Estonia he could break your heart.  Social mores of the '70s are strongly established in the script, nostalgically for someone of my generation, and it's also a painful critique of the collapse of political optimism: Sebastian still claims Marxist purity in his left-wing rants, and despises Joey's Liberal idealism not so much for the puerile rebellion it probably is, but as 'crypto-fascist vote-splitting to let the Tories in'.  The story was famously largely inspired by the unhappy true story of Rex Harrison losing his wife Kay Kendall to leukemia, but the terrible legacy of national aggression, as evidenced in the history of Estonia, is a strong strand too.  Showing till 3 November -book now, you won't regret it. Image: Nobby Clark

Moving forward twenty years, in a housing estate somewhere in South East London where people shout a lot, Leah, Jamie and Ste are growing up in a world obsessed with sex, spliffs, and Sally from Coronation Street. Beautiful Thing at Tobacco Factory was written and set in 1993, when being 'queer' while no longer illegal after the age of 21 is still a taboo subject in schools - and a bruising insult on the streets. Jonathan Harvey's drama must have seemed mainly a gay coming-of-age story when first performed, but as times and teens change it's become a lens on a very different & less technically sophisticated world. Director Mike Tweddle's production boasts community involvement via a large local choir who add musical energy while also ensuring enthusiastic audience response, and the cast of five were excellent, especially Jamie (Ted Reilly) who compensated for limited utterance with hugely expressive eyes, and his mother (Phoebe Thomas) who managed to create genuine personality beyond the neighbourhood-loudmouth stereotype. On till 27th then touring.
Images Mark Dawson

'Hero's journey' across the bridge of cultural divide

A View From The Bridge, the second in Tobacco Factory's spring season, like their first production Macbeth is a tale of tragic downfall - a weak man falling to temptation. Arthur Miller used a challenge close to his own experience when he was called on by the Committee of UnAmerican Activities to name suspected communists in 1957 (he refused, earning himself a conviction for contempt of court) and set his story in Brooklyn docks where a close-knit community of largely Italian immigrants shelters and protects the 'illegals' working with them - mainly their own relations. Director Mark Tweddle chose the play for its Bristol dockland connection, but there's a wider relevance too in these Windrush days. In this setting, the story focuses on Eddie (Mark Letheren), housing his wife's illegal cousins (Aaron Anthony as Marco and Joseph Tweedale as Rudolpho) and increasingly jealous of the relationship of Rudolpho with his neice Catherine (Laura Waldren). All three of these young people are superbly played - the brothers both creating highlight solo moments - and Katy Stephens as Eddie's wife is massively impressive: every word she says seems newly thought and uttered, each reaction viscerally heartfelt. Simon Armstron's lawyer has powerful quiet presence in his Tiresias role, perceiving and foretelling, and if there's any aspect less than excellent to me it's the evenness of Eddie's descent: not the tragedy of a hero misunderstanding his challenge, Eddie was frankly creepy from the start.  But the two-and-a-half hours never dragged for a moment: this is a production with energy and impact, a brilliant show, sensationally performed, with every aspect of design effective - the standing ovation at the end on Tuesday night was well deserved. Definitely recommended.  

happy days.. with some sleet, sauvignon & Sh!t.

Monday was International Day of Happiness, apparently, and I'll resist comment about all the places where people may have responded with an ironically-raised eyebrow as it was also Spring Equinox ~ despite ferocious hail ~ so here's a happy picture of Frome in bloom. Tuesday was National Poetry Day, for which you get a verse from a poem WH Auden wrote just before the last world war:
      All I have is a voice
      To undo the folded lie, 
      The romantic lie in the brain 
      Of the sensual man-in-the-street,
      And the lie of Authority
      Whose buildings grope the sky:
      There is no such thing as the State
      And no one exists alone;
      Hunger allows no choice
      To the citizen or the police;
      We must love another or die.     .

   

And now to local news: The Merlin's 'Chair of the Board', Andrew Carpenter, has big plans which he expounded to the theatre's loyal battalion of volunteers at Orchardleigh Golf Club over wine. Quite a lot of wine actually: a wine-tasting session from Amathus with expert guidance on vineyards and terminology from southwest account manager and host Russ Prior (pictured here.) Andrew's vision is to maximise the business and realise the potential of the asset: he spoke passionately of partnerships & risk reviews, of the Chamber of Commerce & Survey Monkey, and audience analysis & how audience experience in the foyer was 'as important if not more important than what they see on the stage', and of course with zero Arts Funding it is vital to continue to keep solvent though it did feel a bit like being transported into a Martin Amis novel.
And finally, with a nod to the director (our lovely & superbly competent Claudia Pepler, whose imagination gave Frome the Spoken Word Platter nights among other innovative events) we were on to the main event: six sumptuous wines from around the world.  My personal favourites, since you ask, were the Viura, Finca Cerrada 2015 from La Mancha, a delicious dry white wine from the rioja grape though not from that region, and the Cabernet Sauvignon, Croix des Vents 2015, from Pays d'Oc.

Wardrobe Theatre in Bristol which always has a lively programme of its own is also part of the Tobacco Factories Beyond season, and under that banner is currently featuring an award-winning Sh!t Theatre show: Letters to Windsor House.  This is Windsor House N4, representing the worst aspects of housing in London: badly-maintained and illegally-sublet Council flats in an unsalubrious area about to be ruthlessly re-packaged for its proximity to the centre of the city. Sh!t duo Louise & Becca have a mission to 'explore the political, the personal, and the down-right perverted'; this show, presented mostly in direct-to-audience story-telling, has lots of the first two but the letters are sad rather than perverted, as the girls start opening previous tenants' mail and discovering more debts than peccadillos. It's billed as a 'heartbreaking howl of protest from a generation left behind by the property market' ~ I wouldn't go that far, but it makes the point & it's great theatre: funny, feisty and fast-moving, with clever use of projection and a smattering of live music.

There was trad jazz at the Three Swans on Thursday with Norman Leater's New Academic Footwarmers, and there's good stuff coming up this weekend too, with Purple Fish at the Cornerhouse on Saturday and Emma Harris at Frome Jazz Club in the Griffin on Sunday, but I'll miss both as I'm off with Hazel Stewart on one of our 'writers' date' weekends. It was going to be in Berlin but for logistical reasons we've ended up booking a room in Port Sunlight. Easier to focus on writing here, too, I imagine...

"'Tis a pageant to keep us in false gaze"

After the pantos and family shows, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory opened their spring season in Bristol with Othello ~ a play about racism and false reports, about how hatred and lies can destroy trust and love ~ a play for our times, you could say.  This modern-dress production puts the focus on contemporary relevance from the opening moment, showing Othello as a muslim, sharing his prayer with his new bride in a tender moment. Combining dungarees with sixteenth century speech is a big step away from realism and director Richard Twyman makes the most of this by adding some non-scripted physical sequences - aggressive singing and a wild brawl for the men and a private dance for the two women. Opinions may differ but to me these perfectly fitted the theme of the tragedy - Grayson Perry with his views on masculinity would I think approve.
Andrew Hilton, artistic director for STF, always assembles a strong cast and this team is no exception. Mark Lockyer’s Iago brings touches of black humour to a performance that never drags and Katy Stephens is absolutely superb as his enabling wife Emelia. Norah Lopez Holden’s Desdemona is delightful and immensely moving as she struggles to contain the mad anger of the beast that was her gentle-giant lover Othello, played by Abraham Popoola. And Brian Lonsdale’s Geordie interpretation of hapless Roderigo brought moments of joy in a play of progressive darkness.
The in-the-round format of the Tobacco Factory venue works really effectively for this drama, as the audience is always visible: we watch like voyeurs and when Iago, obsessed with jealousy for the man he calls 'the Moor’, expounds his plots we become collusive, passively watching the terrible consequences and undeserved suffering. Again, much like life.
(images TheOtherRichard)
The production is touring in Exeter & London in May and June, and then heads for the Shakespeare Festival in Neuss Globe, so get to Bristol while you can. Unless of course you live in Germany.

Winter words ~ poetry and performance

Let's begin with the poetry. I had high expectations of Monday's Frome Festive Poetry Café: dry humour from guest John Christopher Wood plus eclectic variety on the open mic promised a great evening and a supportive forum for unveiling my collection Crumbs from a Spinning World. It was indeed a wonderful event, with full-house audience and a great buzz,  twenty open-mic poets, and John's droll wit immensely popular. From quickies like 'What do you call vicars with no underwear? Nicholas Parsons!! to his reflections on temporal inexactitude and the plasticity of time, there was much word-play to ponder. Audience readings were excellent, ranging from seasonal humour to moving profundity, and I was chuffed with responses to my 'crone' poems ~ thanks David Goodman for the image. Burning Eye Books have now posted the podcast recorded in my kitchen last week ~ link here. If you haven't got 30 minutes (who has?) you could slide to 24.30 for the 'predictive poetry' bit (fun for all) or 27.50 to hear a 'crone' poem.  And despite the drizzle I had some interest for my 'Pop-up Poetry' session on Saturday at the Library ~ thanks Sara Vian for this 40-second video clip!

Festive showtime has arrived, with a double splurge of Bristol's best: Cinderella: A Fairytale at the Tobacco Factory is a revival of the Travelling Light show originally directed by Sally Cookson which I saw & loved five years ago, with several of the same performers as well as the same musical magic. The concept is to retain that Grimm psychological horror at wicked parenting and damaged children, with domestic bullying and bleeding severed toes (they bounce as well, which is particularly awesome) but with beautiful storytelling, tenderness, and humour throughout. Every scene, from the forest of birds to the palace gala, is created by five extraordinary actors and two brilliant musicians. Isabella Marshall as Ella is a delight but her appalling family are even more riveting: Lucy Tuck is mesmeric both as spiteful sister and head-scarfed Queen, and Craig Edwards' metamorphosis from tender father to incandescently evil stepmother will probably haunt me forever. The in-the-round format of Tobacco Factory's main house is perfect for this production, creating an imaginary world through inspired lighting with clever direction ensuring varied viewpoints from all angles throughout. A fabulous show for every age, running till January 22nd but may sell out ~ book while you can! Images Farrows Creative

In contrast to Cinderella's traditional tale, The Snow Queen at Bristol Old Vic adds an elaborate plot involving goblins, robbers, reindeer, radical animal rebels and a psychedelic flower-witch. The acting team and musicians are great but the complexity of storytelling make the hero's journey hard to follow, and re-envisioning that profound shard of ice in the child's heart as a 'mirror of opposites' loses the poignancy and impact of the original Hans Anderson tale.
However there's much to charm: dramatic lighting, lively musicality and spectacular puppetry, as well as superb performances, especially from Gerda and Kai (Emily Burnett & Steven Roberts). I had a soft spot too for the dysmorphic reindeer (Dylan Wood) though his role is bewilderingly extraneous. Written by Vivienne Franzmann, director Lee Lyford and Tom Rogers designer, this runs till 15 January. Images Mark Douet.

And with seasonal shows all around, as someone (probably not Scrooge) must have observed, why stop at two? So on Friday I was back in Frome watching a musical interpretation of Peter Pan by Merlin Theatre Productions, directed by James Moore with a lively cast of 34 plus singers, musicians, and a 7-piece band. With Edwardian London evoked by the ensemble from the start and a story-teller to keep the narrative close to Barrie's style and child-like imagination, the production stayed satisfyingly close to the familiar story, creating 'suspension of disbelief' with minimal props & set. I expected to be annoyed that Captain Hook had been transposed from his alter-ego paternal role to be played by a woman, but Daisy Mercedes won me over with her psychotic dominatrix/Teresa May combo. The lead roles were all well taken, with Ryan Hughes and Tabitha Cox superb as the waiting parents, and the steampunk pirates almost as endearing as the lost boys. I really liked the way the central vision of a boy refusing to grow up was maintained right to the end, so the final song is from Oliver Edward's Pan as courageous anti-hero still rejecting the treadmill life. Impressive show, well done all. Image Ken Abbott

Ending with written word again: Frome Writers' Collective monthly social at Three Swans this week featured a fascinating and informative talk on writing & publishing a personal memoir. Rosie Jackson, whose own memoir The Glass Mother has been much praised, shared her experience of the process. Memoir, Rosie showed, can weave strands of political and social history into personal memory, and can be therapeutic too: "You put the narrative of your life in a container and find the meaning of an experience from your current perspective." As a sample of the genre, Rosie read the start of her book, as did two other local memoirists, all three demonstrating that writerly adage 'An opening should grab you by the throat and compel you to read on.'  Des Harris and Steve Small are previous students of Rosie, who is a highly-rated tutor as well as an elegant writer ~ you can find course details on her new website, which has this lovely image of writing in a summer garden so we can look ahead to better days.

Times a'changing...

Down in the tunnels below Bristol Temple Meads station something dramatic is happening. Tobacco Factory Theatres Beyond is staging the In Your Face Theatre production of Trainspotting. "I was shocked, and I wrote the fucking thing" Irvine Welsh is quoted as saying when he saw it in Edinburgh last year. But he wrote it in the '90s, about the '80s, so maybe times have changed. If you remember the novel and/or the equally controversial movie with the sensational soundtrack, you won't be surprised that the plot is basically the same as the 'advisory notes' on the flyer: "nudity, drug use, sexual violence and very strong language throughout". Key scenes are all there, shockingly gross & funny & frightening & tragic, and seven ferociously talented young actors evoke the principal characters: psycho Begbie, sweet Sick boy, sexy Gail, and Mark Renton as narrative voice for a disaffected subculture which impinges, like the flying poo, on everyone else too. ("I was going to wear these jeans tomorrow," I heard one bespattered man mutter on the way out.)
This is high-definition 'in-your-face' theatre, with audience members inches from the action and likely to be sat on, spat at, sprayed, poked or slurped at random. But however vulgar or violent, the graphic cameos are not gratuitous. From Renton's opening Choose Life speech to the final scene, it's a shout of rage for young lives at the bottom of a hierarchical society, dismissed as debris from childhood. It's theatre to shake windows and rattle walls, and Gavin Ross as Mark Renton gives such an incredible performance that when he stepped forward to speak to the audience at the end it was several minutes before he could get a word through the cheers. Staging and soundtrack are superb too, do go and see. You may have to kill for a ticket. Images Andreas Grieger

And straight on from Sandstorm, and Tubthumping in time-slip Glasgow, over the river to Bristol's 'vanguard venue' Mr Wolf for a great gig featuring some of Frome's finest singer-songwiters: Al O'Kane with support from Tom Corneill and Emma Shoesmith.

And now for something completely different. Impressionism: Capturing Life is the charming but costly temporary exhibition currently at the Holburne Museum in Bath. My pilgrimage there was rewarded by this small gem by Seurat: Une baignade, one of a series of studies for the Bathers at Asnières, on a canvas small enough to fit in the lid of the artist's paintbox as he painted 'en plein air'. Other than this, and a stormy landscape by Boudin (who apparently inspired Monet to paint outdoors) there's not much striking or even unifying in this small collection. Curator's notes on the movement explain the artists' themes while naturalistic were also glamorous to appeal to wealthy art collectors, subjects 'reclining on the banks of the Seine' to evoke frivolity & luxury. Asnières is actually an industrial suburb, the riverside buildings are clearly factories, and the group are young workmen. It's my favourite painting partly for that reason. (The final painting, in the National Gallery, is also arguably post-impressionist, in fact early pointillist. Just saying...)

Bah humbug, magic snow and capering crabs. Its that time again...

It's that time again, isn't it, and as I generally avoid the topical C-word with euphemisms like 'winter solstice' and 'festive season', the show currently at the Brewery in Bristol suits me fine: A Christmas Carol is as we all know the story of Scrooge, who although admittedly a capitalist with appalling business practice & a repugnant personality nevertheless had a point in his lack of sympathy with ritual celebrations.  Scrooge of course finally found sympathy for the ill & undernourished however which makes him a better man than George Osborne will ever be.

There’s no doubt about it, Living Spit have a special kind of magic. With farcically few props and only a chair for a set, this duo of ill-costumed & apparently graceless men completely control the stage whatever tale they decide to create or, as with A Christmas Carol, to inappropriately embellish. Admittedly the magic dust comes primarily from Stu Mcloughlin, who can raise an audience to its feet to sing a funeral hymn with the refrain He’s Satan’s Bum-boy Now, rouse them to hysteria with a Ghost of Christmas Past manifesting as an irritable Irish fairy called Sharon, and reduce them to tears as Bob Cratchett mourns at the grave of his lost child Tiny Tim. That’s what I call a wide range.  Howard Coggins is very good too and has a great voice especially in the song that replaces an interval, called the Interval Song, after which the story shifts to Bob Cratchett’s house where Howard is Bob's wife, the children are soft toys, and the christmas meal is a dead spider in a pile of hoover-dust. Hard to say which looked most unsuitable for purpose. As always there’s a mix of colloquial contemporary references and rehearsed ad libs in an performance that relies largely on audience affection, but the story is unexpectedly true to Dicken’s narrative from start to finish. And rather more expectedly, it’s very funny. (image Paul Blakemore)

For a more magical take on the season, head for the Rondo in Bath where Butterfly Psyche is telling the story of The Snow Child. Written and directed by Alison Farina, this endearing fantasy based on a Russian fairytale is vividly created by a strong cast - I especially enjoyed Piers Wehner as Father Frost and Charlotte Ellis as a vegetarian bear called Carl, while Beth Caudle is enchanting as the Snow Child. There's a great deal of emphasis on inclusive performance, both in special shows and by signing throughout the show which brings a kind of grace to all the interactions and becomes, like the falling snow, another of the magical elements in this lovely piece of theatre. On till December 20th.

The fairy tale of choice for Frome's Merlin was The Little Mermaid in a new version written by the theatre's artistic director Claudia Pepler, supported in this 'symbiotic' venture by a large creative team. Claudia was especially fascinated by the embittered Sea Witch who in this version has her own Miss-Haversham-style backstory ~ and her own redemptive resolution too. No authentic version of the Hans Anderson story can of course allow mer-Juliet to wed her land-Romeo (though they did perform a lift-filled dance that would've ensured their place in the Strictly final), but as Saturday was the last night it's not a spoiler to say there's a happy ending for the wilful little mermaid. Maisie Fogg was superb in this central role ~ in fact, the whole production was sumptuous, with an amazing set and lighting, great live music, glamorous costumes and fantastic fishes ~ the Moray Eel guarding the cave was amazing (Robin Ainslie-King created this illuminated monster, along with the dancing fish-heads.)  And Ryan Hughes & Aynsley Minty as clowning crabs provided a comedy double-act that very nearly eclipsed everything else. A well-deserved standing ovation from the full house ended this all-too-short run.

Elsewhere in Frome.... Poetry came to the Cheese & Grain in the guises of John Cooper Clarke, Clare Ferguson Walker and ~ my personal favourite ~ Luke Wright, looking more boy-bandish than ever. No gags about pictures in attics, please.  Luke is always amazing, and I especially enjoyed his epic abuse of Ian Duncan Smith in lipogram form using only the vowel I (because it's too easy to just call him a cunt) and a wonderful evocation of why he refused his invitation to the Palace last year to attend the 'Poetry Industry' awards: Have a Gong!

On a musical note, there are more than a few event clashes as the festive seasons starts properly rolling, but I did get to Al O'Kane's refugee fundraiser BOOM at Wheatsheaves where he was joined by Fat Stanley with disco from Banco de Gaia.  Is it only in Frome the dancing starts as soon as the music does, everywhere, both genders & several generations...? Mind you we did have Patrick Dunn's weird projections to encourage us (I noticed Nigel Farage pogoing alongside at one point)
I'll conclude with the reminder there's a fantastic lot of seasonal art in Frome right now, from the Winter Show at Black Swan Arts, beautifully curated with lights and shadow, to the Festival of Colour at Welshmill Hub where you can buy Amy Yates' views of the town as cards (and sample some of Stina's deadly-sin chocolate.)

Next week, of course, you can sample our Nevertheless Fringe Theatre winter production TOXIC COCKTAILS.... here's a rehearsal taster...