Who knew there was so much in it...

... Frome, of course, where else could you see an indie feature film, original live theatre, and a nightly array of brilliant musicians and bands?

The live theatre, inevitably, was the big event for me: Toxic Cocktails at the Cornerhouse played on Wednesday to a full house and on Thursday to an overfull one ~ massive thanks to those who stood throughout, and all of you who melted in the heat of the upstairs room at The Cornerhouse (who knew it would be 13 degrees still at 9.30 on a December night?) And thanks too for your wonderful feedback ~ here's a taster, and there's loads more on our Nevertheless facebook page. 
* Awesome! I really enjoyed all 3 ~ perfect combinations of interesting & thought-provoking as well as entertaining & funny 
 * Very talented writers – always provide a really good event    
 * Fantastic – all 3! Complemented each other really well. 
 * Hugely enjoyable. Beautiful writing as always from Nevertheless. 
 * They get better and better. Interesting subjects, thought-provoking  
 * Excellent. Best ever night.
 * Top class writing, thought-provoking, entertaining 
 * Absolutely loved it! 
 * Never experienced pub theatre but I’ll definitely come again
The show then went on to Alma Tavern in Bristol for two nights ~ we're indebted to our co-Producers Stepping Out Theatre Company for arranging this. An awesome project brought to excellent outcome, thanks Joanna Smith & Anneliese Paul our lovely actors.

The movie was Metatron, a debut feature from Frome Independent Film Makers premiering at the Westway on Sunday night. Film-makers Simon and Adam Bargus in collaboration with scriptwriter Nikki Lloyd to create a Pinteresque tale of a four people headed towards a menacing rendezvous, each with their own personal goals & conflicts.  Menacing and darkly comical by turns, this reminded me of Short Cuts ~ the film version of linked Raymond Carver short stories ~ slickly scripted & beautifully filmed with extended shots and superb locations.

And I can't end, as usual, without appreciating the amazing musical talent of Frome, offered for free at our great bars and venues ~ sadly, I didn't get to see everything but here's a glimpse of the marvellous Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots who drove us wild at the Silk Mill as well as at the Cornerhouse, Stephen Sax and the Jazz Jam gang who also set the Cornerhouse ablaze, and gorgeously cool Bonne Nouvelle at the River House, where incidentally Ellen makes cocktails like no-one else...  Happy seasonal festivities, everyone...

fairytales under gathering storms

It was a wild and stormy night for Frome's winter Poetry Cafe on Monday but the Garden Cafe nevertheless filled to extra-chair-added maximum for a brilliant night of heart-&-hearth warming poetry. Our two guests are both impressive performers: David Johnson taking us graphically from the steps and shadows of Bristol to a fantasy of the Romantics on tour ("Bob Browning leads off with Oh to be in Frome...") and Hannah Teasdale sharing beautifully crafted personal pieces. The 'open mic' was split between general and mermaid- related poems ~ John Christopher Wood wickedly straddling both ~ and from  seven impressive readings, the tickets for Little Mermaid at the Merlin Theatre went to Sara Morris.

It's show-time all around now. Bristol Old Vic launched their festive offering Sleeping Beauty in party style & with a charming curtain-raiser from Little Bulb Theatre: The Night that Autumn turned to Winter features three lively young performers using stringed instruments, costumes & cajoling to create a woodland of likely and unlikely creatures, including a unicorn. 
Inventive and often very funny, this successfully appealed to adults as well as littlies, and anyone who remembers Hi-di-Hi's Peggy with affection will delight in Fairy Pat and her funky Mr Fox. After seasonal refreshments BOV artistic director Tom Morris shared a foretaste of next year's events to celebrate 250 years of the venue Peter O'Toole acclaimed as "the most beautiful theatre in the world." Some of the best plays from those intervening years are on the 2016 programme, from Sheridan's The Rivals to O'Neill's Long Day's journey into night, with a mega-party open to all at the end of May.

And on to the main event: Director Sally Cookson has a lot to live up to ~ that unforgettable Peter Pan in 2013, last year's inspired 101 Dalmatians ~ and this year's creation is a gender reversal tale in which the denouement-rescue-kiss comes at half-time and is unintentional, as the rescuer is on her own quest for self-awakening... though at the end he rescues her right back, so it's like Pretty Woman but without the glamour. This is a make-your-own-magic story, with jumble-sale costumes and cardboard-looking crowns and some of the capers, like the long conference-call on old-style phones to introduce the fairies, seem somewhat beyond the grasp of a young audience, but the live music is great.

Festive refreshments at the Tobacco Factory too, where the curtain-raiser was a party piece created by the youth theatre featuring pre-teen angst & sugar-rush, and the production is also a royal fantasy ~ a new version of a 19th century princess-story, devised & produced in association with Peepolykus.  The Light Princess is absolutely enchanting.  John Nicholson, who directed & with Thomas Eccleshare adapted George MacDonald's original tale, suggested that like quantum physics the logic of the story is beyond understanding but actually it's refreshingly comprehensible, and the six performers bring a surprising range of dimensions to the narrative. There are quite a few surprises in the staging too, most of them down to the very clever set.  The prince (Richard Holt) and princess (Suzanne Ahmet) are adorable, the performances from Rew Lowe & Amalia Vitale are hilarious, the music is awesome, and the costumes are gorgeous. It's on till 10 January, highly recommended.  images Farrows Creative

Back in Frome but still on things theatrical, Nevertheless Fringe Theatre had a nice little write-up in the Frome Standard for our upcoming production ~ diaries out now, please! TOXIC COCKTAILS comprises "three short plays to turn your world upsidedown" ~ dark comedies about the state of the world which will leave you stirred if not shaken, so contact The Cornerhouse to guarantee your seats for Wednesday 16 or Thursday 17 December.

And finally, if you've been surprised to find Gentle Street full of lobster pots and currently off limits to pedestrians then you're one of the few not agog with the news that Poldark is filming there this week and Aidan Turner is in town. As I don't have a picture of him pacing the cobbles, and I wouldn't post it if I did as apparently Frome is standing in for Truro as there was too much rubber-necking in the last place they filmed, here's a googled shot to cheer us all up on these dark days. (That's ironic. But not totally.)

Life, plans, & 'only the now'

Eventide is billed as 'a love song, an elegy, a celebration' and this story of 'three people whose worlds are disappearing' is indeed all those, but also a kind of romping version of Waiting for Godot in which Vladimir self-scripts from a joke-book and Lucky has already found her freedom.  Despite the humour ~ there's plenty in Barney Norris's sharp script ~ and contemporary theme of erosion of traditional communities, a timeless existentialist depression is never much farther away than the next bottle of Stella in John's beer garden. Young Mark sums it up: "Isn't it funny how time happens to you? It's nothing you decide, you just go along with it."  And I'm still pondering Liz's theory that tarmac is what actually shapes our lives...
A really enjoyable show, funny & moving ~ mostly simultaneously ~ with empathetic direction and superbly acted by James Doherty, Ellie Piercy, and Hasan Dixon. Eventide opened in September in London and Bristol's Brewery is the last venue on this tour but look out for the next production from award-winning southwest touring company Up In Arms.

Time strums on, part 2:  Twenty-one years on from the Tom Robinson gig when I got my Love Over Rage album & teeshirt ~ both signed ~ his new CD Only the Now is out, featuring songs "as vibrant and edgy as any he’s ever written." Tom's first band tour this century finished in Frome on Thursday, and he says "I can’t think of a better place for the grand finale… the home of Raves from the Grave, one of the top independent record stores, legendary all over the country."
Tom's evening concert was sensational, a combo of revivals and new tracks, with a crowded Cheese & Grain singing along to that iconic gay anthem and applauding political rants like The Mighty Sword of Justice and Risky Business.  Some reviewers were bemused, Tom says, that a singer now 'of pensionable age' should still write passionate angry songs about oppression injustice inequality discrimination and the cynical dismantling of the welfare state, as though concern should ebb even though society worsens... but he sings gentle songs too which are simply beautiful, especially the tear-tugging title track: 'there's only the now, only the now, don't ever wish it away....'  

Paradoxically, or perversely, this post ends looking forward, to our Nevertheless Fringe Theatre winter production: TOXIC COCKTAILS comprises three short plays with a darkly comic twist.

We're delighted to have Anneliese Paul and Joanna Smith, two fabulous young professional actors from Bristol, in the roles of vampire bride, burlesque dancer, robot, and cold-cure-seeking Shirley in our new in-house production upstairs at the Cornerhouse on Wednesday 16 & Thursday 17 December, 8pm. "The best hour you'll ever get for a fiver" to quote previous feedback, and the booking list (01373 472042) is now open...