Bristol-based theatre company Living Spit is fulfilling its mission statement 'to make poorly researched historical comedy-drama shows about people that at least one of us vaguely looks like' with The Six Wives of Henry VIII, at Bristol Old Vic till May 12th. Howard Coggins looks uncannily like Henry VIII. Stu Mcloughlin doesn’t look like any of his wives, or anybody’s wife for that matter... Believe me when I say it’s not a problem. This comic duo sustained meta-theatrical, quasi-historical, belly-achingly funny absurdity for a two-hour animated lecture which rarely flagged for a moment from the hilarious start as they introduce themselves via a duff review from their previous show. Much of the mirth comes from blatant irrelevancies featuring the allegedly fractious relationship between the two performers, and from anachronisms like the brilliant Catherine Howard-and-the-lie-detector sequence, and Henry's mobile phone calls: "Popey! ... need an annulment, mate..." Nice use of exposition too, as when Jane Seymour, docilely embroidering a cushion with Battersea Power Station, consoles her spouse for his various “rash decisions notably involving decapitation and inventing your own spin-off religion”. Like all really successful comedies there are plaintive notes too, as we see Henry's father disdain him in childhood and torment him in dreams... a wonderful show which, as Howard repeatedly and grumpily points out, deserves a wider showing than the BOV Basement - but do catch it there while you can.

This is the draft flyer for Mascara (doesn't matter if you can't read the performance dates, that's the bit that needs tweaking) which I think looks great. Press copy from the director reads: A young journalist researches the notorious Natashcha Kampusch Austrian kidnap case. As her obsession grows, it reveals a frightening web of connections with her own life. A darkly comic, tender and shocking love story.“A powerful and haunting story beautifully told” said Sarah Dickenson, Senior Reader at the Soho Theatre.
It's all getting terribly exciting. I sat in on the set design meeting with Ann Stiddard and met lighting engineer Luke Murray, both with nerve-tingling ideas for the visuals. Ann is taking the kidnap scrapbook as a starting point for her concept, moving away from a literal room to a living space that evokes the differences of perception at the heart of the story... sounds fabulous. And now the team has come together, rehearsals start next week!

Perhaps I should have taken a look at Paul Durcan's poems before blithely buying a ticket to hear him read at the final event of the Bristol Poetry Festival. I've made some great discoveries that way - Don Paterson, George Szirtes for instance - but this time, apart from one quite nice poem to Seamus Heaney and a few startling phrases like days of slapstick loneliness I sat through 50 minutes of undiverting, sometimes sneeringly judgmental, anecodotal trivia. If this guy in the custard-coloured jumper had been holding forth to strangers in a bar I would have edged away till out of earshot, and his enthusiastic reception at the Arnolfini baffled me. Blimey, the performance poets last week were ten times as lyrical, witty, and poignant too. Memo to self: avoid national treasures.

If your idea of theatre is sitting comfortably in anonymous darkness watching the same kind of easy entertainment you’d see on telly but without the cup of tea – probably not or you wouldn’t be reading this blog – then you might feel a bit insecure at Beyond, a site-specific performance devised by Karla Shacklock and developed for Bristol Ferment. Karla and her team are energetically redefining theatre in dynamic terms: anarchic, intimate and unpredictable. At the showcase on Thursday we were escorted through wet streets to St Nicholas market where Karla, poised precariously on glass jars, welcomed us. Everything we see or hear, she explained, is real, and is stored in scores of glass jars. The experiences released to each audience will be chosen without preplanning by the five performers: "What you see will be right for you."
Karla, scattering garments, led us barefoot round the corner to an old pub now the venue for this 'symphony of experiences spilling from the nooks & crannies of the building and into your hearts & minds.' Like children excited by discovering a dressing-up box, the performers scramble for attention ~ "someone come in the Laughing Cupboard with me!" ~ "I'm going to do something in here, do you want to watch me?" and our taster of these brief, sometimes baffling, experiences included funny, touching, erotic, and violent. I especially liked the flower poem, and the 'breaking-fixing' dance in the strobe lighting room. We became part of the action as viewers, even when not drawn in to participate. It may not be always comfortable, but at a time when leaders in the field like Tim Crouch and Mark Rylance are working for a shift away from 'safe' scripts presented to audiences identically every night, Beyond offers an exploration of audience-led theatre that anyone with a real interest in theatre will find too exciting to miss. It's on 23rd-29th, try it.

Bristol Spring Poetry Festival is underway at the Arnolfini, with some of the best performance poets around. I went along to As Good As It Gets on Thursday because I knew the line-up – Rob Gee, Ben Mellor and Chris Redmond – would deliver what it said on the ticket. I’ve seen Rob several times – in fact he’s overspilled my non-giant-sized sofabed after a great gig in Frome some years ago – and was keen to see his current show Fruitcake but sadly Rob had to cancel due to illness. However, as organiser Colin Brown proudly pointed out, Bristol is a city that slews with supernova poets, and local slammer Anna Freeman stepped forward superbly. Ben Mellor specialises in wonderful innovative protest poetry: he fills the stage with dissenting voices in his response to ‘celebrations for the end of slavery’, and personifies Poetry itself (“he’s turned out to be a louche, Byronic, bisexual lush”) in his satiric objections to being used for corporate promotions. Chris Redmond has great, often hilarious, stage presence too, creating compelling rhythms and and coaxing roaring choruses from our sparse audience. Check out the poo in the eye incident, if you’re brave enough. Chris is coming to Frome’s Archangel on April 26th for Hip Yak Shack so be there or your Thursday night will be seriously depleted.

The last major Picasso exhibition at the Tate was in 1960 and I was one of over 500,000 entranced by the colour and energy of his painting as well as his immaculate draughtsmanship. In those days commentary focussed on challenge of cubism – it wasn’t that long since art critics wrote derisively of his work as “a collection of coloured geometrical figures gone mad.” But what struck me about the current Tate exhibition was how small a proportion of his work is controversial in any aesthetic way. What is plangent is the humanity ~ tenderness, wit, erotica, anger, all the real passions of life are here. What's interesting too is the inclusion of work by contemporaries inspired by either admiration (Duncan Grant, Graham Sutherland, David Hockney) or envy (Wynham Lewis) as well as social context from catalogues, cuttings, and photographs. My personal favourites, apart from revisiting the sheer beauty of his blue period, were the costumes & stage designs for Diaghilev’s production of The Three Cornered Hat. And realising the secret behind those doubled faces in his series Head of a Woman: the profile in his portraits of Marie-Thérèse is the artist himself, her clandestine lover, kissing her as he paints.

frogs jumping like ping! springs...
springs ping! like jumping frogs...

Palindromic poems in dangling mobiles, poems on posters, on screens, on boards, on badges, on jigsaws.... the Arnolfini top gallery has been transformed into a word playground by the Why we Love Poetry exhibition, an all-age interactive experience open until 13th September.
I first met Liz Brownlea, one of the team who created this amazing poem creche, some years ago so it was good to catch up, and to indulge in some lachrymose musing on the magnetic board: love empty as snow after winter rain.

Arnolfini is hosting a range of other events for the Bristol Poetry Festival including readings and slams. I've been a fan of Byron Vincent since we shared a stage in Poole for a Bla-di-Bla poetry performance, so I went along to Brimstone: five poets billed as 'funny, astute... vivid and youthful ... shiny and exciting.' But there's something enervating about the studio theatre as a venue for poetry, and while it's good to hear new work, I missed the anarchic energy I was expecting - though Anna Freeman's spot was excellent.

My antidote to non-arrival of Indian summer: Indian blossom steam room at Longleat's AQVA SANA, during a long & luxurious 'pamper day' which has no literary connection except that I went with Alison Clink and we did talk a bit about writing... when not blissed out on heated seats breathing sensuous steam...

Another antidote is revisiting wonderful summer writing experiences like Finca el Cerrillo- there's a feast of words & pictures here on the Writing Magazine website - and receiving by email the "recipes for Cortijo Romero" written by participants on a hot starry night in Andalucia. Lovely to read these little sparks from an unforgettably special week - and the note from one contributor: "amazing how these recipes seem to able to capture the whole mood, and essence, of the place in such a way that I'm finding I can tap back into it whenever I read them!" Now, these voices are what I call shiny and exciting.
..