Poodles, ravens, and quite a lot of music..

The Scarlet Pimpernel at the egg at Theatre Royal Bath was created in association with Pins & Needles Productions, and together they've created a version which will amuse adults with fragmentary historical recall, baffle children in 6+ range, and totally delight everyone. (Top tip to enthrall a young audience: start the action with haggard crones in the auditorium offering severed heads before the show starts - the sight of 150 small children popping and squeaking in their seats is quite something...) The multi-talented five on stage seemed to be enjoying everything too, especially the fights, the flights, the dances, the disguises, the costumes (think punky Marie Antoinette), the corny gags, the brilliant music (composed & directed by Jack Drewry) and the inventive props - there's an impressive guillotine and even a life-size canon, though it fires only poodles... if this all sounds chaotic, there is a storyline holding together this tale of mistaken identities, severed heads, revolution and resistance.  Baroness Orczy's legendary English lord - who took it upon himself to rescue French aristocrats - in this version becomes the Scarlet Pimple, with Dominic Allen's splendidly vicious Chauvelin in pursuit: there is a short appearance by Robespierre but most of the story is lively invention. So if you're a history teacher and when you ask the class what caused the French Revolution and they all shout 'Poodles!', you can blame Christopher William Hill who wrote this entertaining adaptation.

Frome Festive Poetry Cafe on Monday was a real delight. Guest Rosie Jackson, who spent the summer collecting a positive garland of prizes from Poetry Festivals around the southwest, gave two impressive readings around themes of art, soul, and light in all its forms. The Open Mic section was particularly entertaining this time, with a huge range of styles from poignant to hilarious.  That splendid emporium Hunting Raven Books had donated several books as christmas gifts, and a full-house audience good-naturedly accepted my 'scientifically selected' allocation of these for poignancy (Louis Payne), scandalousness (Claire Coleman), reference to fish depletion (Mike Grenville), debut reader (Diane Preston), use of the word 'red' (Sara Morris), and intriguing fragments (Kieron Bacon).

This image is not one of mine, it's from the facebook page of the Ravenmaster, an amazing character who lives and works in the Tower of London, tending to the legendary ravens. He is completely besotted with these creatures, and insists they have 'soul' as well as intelligence and - often - a wilful sense of humour, which he demonstrated to a large, intrigued, audience at his slide-illustrated talk in the Bennett Centre on Friday evening. The tradition of maintaining the ravens' presence is fuelled by superstition but to Christopher Skaife's credit, he discontinued the habit of clipping the birds' wings - he says he wants them to stay by choice, not because they can't fly.  His fascinating talk and book-signing was the enterprising idea of Hunting Raven Books who hosted with wine and mince pies.

Catherine Hill had a pop-up Christmas market planned for Saturday but Storm Deidre was out & about in Frome so I wasn't, so sadly I can offer no report, and will move swiftly on to music: The Grain Bar Christmas Special showcased the amazing Critters, the band that moves from folk to dub & reggae to classic pop, with the wonderful voices of Nicky Mascall and velvet-throated guitarist Steve Loudon. Add great fiddle, bass guitar, drumming, and the superhuman skill of guitarist Paul Hartshorn, who seems to have ten fingers on each hand. Their party atmosphere was contagious in the audience too...

Up to the Cornerhouse now, for three nights of sheer class: Flash Harry on Friday got us dancing with their energetic & extraordinary folk/rock/jazz/ fusion - their Irish Rover made the Pogues seem tame,
then
Saturday night had more simultaneous band options than Glastonbury, with punk at Lamb & Fountain, rock in the Sun, the street band at the Three Swans, and wonderful Back of the Bus seen here heading up a party in the Cornerhouse... luckily the storm had passed by then.

Sunday was Nunney Acoustic Cafe's festive party, an extended edition involving no less than 17 spots from a wide range of great performers - here's the 'house band' spot, and superb Emma Harris at the evening's jazz cafe at the Cornerhouse with Graham Dent's trio.

Fizzing footnote for this week: Skyros Holistic Holidays has confirmed my session as 28th July to 10th August, in Atsitsa Bay.  Other activities offered include yoga, windsurfing, kayaking, painting, singing - and of course swimming, walking, dancing, and generally having a fantastic, mind-blowing, life-affirming, time.... you can book, should you feel so inclined, here!

Midwinter Magic... and Monsters on the move!

Moominland Midwinter is the seasonal show at the egg in Bath, though Moominland isn’t a place of sparkling lights and jollity in winter. There’s solitude and scary trolls and a fearful Grope seeking solace she will never find, there’s slippery snow and breaking ice and people who eat all your jam. There’s loneliness and anxiety and danger and even death. Hattie Naylor’s brilliant adaptation baulks at none of Tove Janssen’s Nordic existentialist melancholy, creating quirky dialogue that can range from absurdity to despair without losing the rapt attention of the watching children. Pace of dramatic storytelling ~ aided by magical lighting effects and funky music ~ never flags, despite set pieces swooping on and off stage and characters changing size as they race from close range to mid-distance. The puppets themselves, made and manipulated by  Horse+Bamboo, are magical creatures full of personality and pathos, and effortlessly became the focus of our watching and listening; Little Mi, though clearly held on to a tea-tray by a jerseyed young woman, was as much in peril in the thaw as if she were a real child skating cracking ice. 
 I loved the show, and the four children I brought all loved it too: although three are considerably younger than the recommended age of 6, they remaining engrossed and fascinated throughout ~  even dashing out of the foyer Wendy House as soon as they heard the bell ring for Act 2 ~ now that’s an impressive indicator. Congratulations to all the creative team.

As snow falls on the egg stage, my mobile is silently bringing me the news that Media Monsters is now fully cast. Marc Geoffrey our director has a Yes from a fantastic trio from last week's auditions: Vincent Enderby, Robert Myer, and Paddy Navin are joining Olivia Dennis. Rehearsals start 6th January, preview in Frome 24th & 25th and then two weeks at Alma Tavern Theatre in Bristol from 28th January... It's all fantastically exciting, not least because becoming involved in production process is the best way to learn the craft of script-writing ~ I can already see some exchanges the actor doesn't need verbalised, so my red pen will come with me to first rehearsal... can't wait.

Mirad the Boy from Bosnia, written 20 years ago but timeless in its aching insight on casualties of conflict, has been revived by Theatre Orchard and came to The Egg in Bath last week. Mirad is a catalyst and unseen hero, a victim in the Bosnia-Hertzegovena hostilities like so many others. His story is brought to us haltingly, apologetically, precisely, and with terrible lucidity by his uncle Djuka and aunt Fazila, who become dragged into the widening gyre of Serb-Croat conflict. Directed by John Retallack ~ also director of The Last Days of Mankind, another production with a powerful anti-war theme ~ this is acted with moving conviction by Dean Rehman and Gehane Strehler against a minimal set used sparingly to maximum effect. Script is by Dutch playwright Ad de Bont and based on actual events and Amnesty reports. The refugee couple end their harrowing story in Holland on a 'Selected Refugee' scheme, but there is no happy ending for those who are have lost livelihood, loved ones, families and homeland: they are, as Djuka told us diffidently at the start, not refugees but people blown by the wind all over the world... This is one of those experiences that makes you look afresh at the world outside when you leave the theatre, its railings and routes and signs, and at the casual confidence of people moving freely around.

And Emily and I are both back in Bath again on Sunday morning for a circular stroll recreating the streets the Regency Detective would have known. After coffee & croissants at wonderful Toppings Bookshop, authors David Lassman and Terence James escort our thirty-strong group around the territory of their hero Jack Swann, blending fascinating social history with tantalising plot-snippets from their crime novel. The story comes to life excitingly literally at several points as we spy as characters from the book sauntering past ~ and on one occasion dashing after a pickpocket down Avon street, in those days a red-light district rife with crime.  Interestingly, those affluent areas named after the rich and the royal look much as they did when Jane Austen tripped these pavements, but the grim homes of the dispossessed sadly have been merely replaced by an ugly soulless area which was mourned by John Betjeman: Goodbye to old Bath. We who loved you are sorry, they've carted you off by developer's lorry.
Our tour ends by the abbey as the clock chimes noon ("Dead on Twelve" says David cheerily, and some of the group look around worriedly in case this heralds another vivid reconstruction) and we troop back to Toppings for more coffee and to avidly claim our signed copies of The Regency Detective.  "Swann will do for Bath what Morse did for Oxford" predicts the Bath Chronicle confidently. Let's hope so ~ it will make a great TV series.

And now as Glastonbury is probably gathering up the last few thousand black bags of debris ~ are many campers going hang around for Mumford and Sons? ~ there's only five more sleeps before Frome bursts into the festival arena. Somerset Standard has done us proud again, with a big round-up of poetry nights ~ that's lovely Sally Jenkinson, Monday's guest at the Garden Cafe, looming large ~ and a nice push for Nevertheless Pub Theatre too. We're putting on an award-winning one-man play in a production that was Pick of Brighton Fringe and scooped 5 stars in Edinburgh from the Love Fringe review: "An excellent performance combined with Vincent Cassar's richly dark and comic script make this a rare treat." What's the Time Mr Wolf? is on from Wednesday to Saturday, quality theatre for just a fiver!
So you know what to do: pick up a brochure if you haven't got one and get booking everything you can ~ Tales from the Tunnels, the site-specific performance created by Frome Scriptwriters, is already fully booked!

Among a plethora of pantomimes, The French Detective and the Blue Dog by Hattie Naylor is the delightfully-different seasonal production at The Egg in Bath, where the ovoid stage is transformed into a quaint street in pre-invasion Belgium. Enter the famous Parisian Inspector Charcuterie (brilliantly played with Jacques Cluseau hang-dog expression and ‘Allo ‘Allo accent by Chris Bianchi), off on holiday with his assistant mini-sleuth Minette, child genius and self-styled niece. The musical is full of jolly songs like "Let's solve the murder NOW!" but they don't get beyond the opening number before the first victim hits the stage, followed by most of the rest of this village where everyone is a secret circus performer. “There is no greater tragedy than not being able to do the thing you love, that’s why we’re all so hopeless at our jobs” says Fe-fe le Knife profoundly. Deeper than the clowning and comedy, the story touches movingly on human needs: Minette’s solo “I’ll be on my own again”, as her idiotic pseudo-uncle falls besottedly for Madame Spaniel and abandons his little charge, is real lump-in-the-throat time. 12-year old Flossie Ure, who took this key role on the performance I saw, was sensational in both her singing and her stage presence.
Billed as a family show for 6-and-upwards, younger children are unlikely to appreciate the Franglais Midsomer-Murders parodies but vibrant acting, superb script, and fabulous production values carry the show triumphantly through two hours with even the littlies (mostly) gripped. Rapid costume changes and clever props helped a marvellous trio (John Biddle, Paul Mundell, and Jessica Pidsley) create a medley of Belgian misfits and the nail-biting finale is sensational – it would be a spoiler to reveal how dazzling is the circus trick that ends the show.
The programme calls this a ‘world premiere’ which suggests it may travel – it certainly deserves to, but don’t chance it – go along to Bath before January 8th and be ready for much mirth and the odd sniffle.

So here we are, another Christmas. I hope you're having a good one as I write this, and have recycled all the bottles & gift wrappings and made-up all the rows by the time you read this. The year we called 2011 and messed up so thoroughly is nearly finished - time for a new one, box-fresh and shiny. Try and keep it clean this time...