Onward lies the way... mythical Cornwall, legendary Frome...

 It's been one of those weeks... when the sun remembers its attendance throughout June was pretty poor and determines not to lose out on gold stars... when being in Frome is so delightful the tag 'twinned with Eden' seems inadequate... when, to quote the Independent Market slogan, Something Wonderful Happens, every day. I haven't got room for them all so here's a smattering:
Sunday's monthly street market was slightly less busy than usual, possibly because the sunshine had seduced people to sit in their gardens (or for me, to battle with encroaching floral profusion) so stall-holders reported that crowds were more ready to linger and buy. As always, great music on the busking stage and in the Archangel courtyard from Partners in Crime, where Paul Kirtley introduced the audience to the concept of (my) crone poetry via his clever, funny, song Young Crones of Avalon inspired by Bungee Jumping Crumblies ~ he plans to convert more of my poems, so we may end up touring in combo.... !
Rushing on now, as I did then, to the Grain Bar where Friends of the Frome Festival were delightfully entertained by a sampler of some of shows on offer next week, with music, words, and comedy for all tastes and ages. Here's the lovely duo from La Zingerella, presenting a clip from their one-act opera, with superb live lutenist, at Trinity Church on the final Sunday.
This early-evening smörgåsbord happily finished in time for a scamper up the hill to Wheatsheaves for a gig organised by the Momentum powerhouse called Dave Clark. His band Dexter's Extra Breakfast provided support, and Canary's Kerry-anne Mendoza described how & why she set up her journalistic team to counter the manipulation of mainstream media.  Grace Petrie was the stunning headline act: a candid 'protest singer', massively talented and effortlessly charismatic, her final message was "The politics of fear is all we've had. It's time we gave the politics of hope a chance."

And as the spirit-lifting sunshine continues to sizzle, my Wednesday concluded at Bristol Old Vic watching Tristan & Yseult as re-envisioned fourteen years after Kneehigh's original production. It's become their most renowned show, touring the world for five years and then revived in 2013 for another international tour. Several of the original team have reconvened for this latest tour, and expectations at Bristol Old Vic this week were sky-high. Mine were anyway. Director Emma Rice recalls her original reluctance to tell this Cornish legend of a medieval love triangle, until she found its 'personal profound, and deeply relevant collective heart.'  This aspect is emphasised throughout: all the action is watched by the lonely Lovespotters who peer through binoculars like twitchers, witnessing passion and betrayal with envious longing and bopper head-bands. There's a bit of everything here, not just musically ~ several subplots and the denoument are straight from Shakespeare, but the story isn't really important: it's the ensemble effect, the wild dancing, circus-style fights, the sense of everyone playing in a giant invisible bouncy-castle as stand-up comedy mingles with tingling erotica, blood-soaked violence with sheer pantomime. Two contrasting moments I'll remember: the auditorium filled with floating balloons (obediently inflated by the audience), and the poignant post-coital speech of the maid, Brangian, abused not by her master but her mistress's terrible command. Nial Ashdown, who plays this role as well as Ysault's swiftly murdered brother,  has astonishing stage presence throughout. Dominic Marsh and Hannah Vassallo are sensational in the title roles, and Kyle Lima's dancing is amazing. The set looks a bit like a Cornish tin mine or abandoned playground, and also supports their aerial gymnastics. It's on till 15 July, get a ticket if you can. Images Steve Tanner

A visual art trio to conclude this post:

Pete Gage, best known around town as lead musician in a crowd-pulling band, was a friend to many legends of the 1960s & 70s. One who deserves to be better known is David Evans, a prolific watercolourist who died sadly young, and whose extraordinary paintings of places & the 'human spectacle' are now published together in collection launched at Hunting Raven Books on Tuesday. Pete, who knew the artist well and has a chapter in the book, showed us his own extensive personal collection of David's work, sharing a moving intimate picture of the artist which felt genuinely a privilege. You can see more about the book here.
Frome Festival art exhibitions are now, wisely, anticipating tomorrow's formal start.

At Silk Mill there's a stunning exhibition of 'The Amahuaca of the Amazon' by Katherine Needles, who followed in the footsteps of Magnum's Cornell Capa to show how this community still lives and thrives. The pictures all have accessible captions: here the photographer stands between 'a feisty three year old with a stick' and a woman decorated with 'ouita', a fruit-based dye to ward off evil spirits.
Over at the Grain Bar, Ann Harrison-Broninski launched her sketches with a delightfully friendly 'Meet the Artist' evening.
So now we're on the brink of the 2017 Frome Festival, an event so massive, varied, wide-ranging &  generally inconceivably superb that my reportage will inevitably be inadequate. Enjoy whatever you choose, festival pickers! Here's a non-advertised addition for anyone who enjoys walking, countryside, rivers, wild swimming, poetry, or just intrigued by a slightly strange summer picnic...

Ecumenical matters and why bingo was cancelled

David Haig is so good in the role of gentle, jaded vicar in Racing Demon currently at Theatre Royal Bath perhaps he should have his own TV series, a kind of 'Yes Reverend Minister' showing the ungodly rivalries that writhe beyond the rectory. David Hare wrote this play in 1990 as part of a trilogy taking a deep and critical look at the three central pillars of public life: church, law and politics.
Inevitably each of the posse of South London clerics has to represent some aspect of the problems that beset the Church of England in 1980s: Rev Lionel is jaundiced by realism, Rev Tony (Paapa Essiedu mesmeric) is terrifyingly evangelical, Rev Harry (Ian Gelder) has tendencies making him open to blackmail, while Rev 'Streaky' Bacon (Sam Alexander ~ my favourite actually, with touch of Teddish Dougal) just loves margaritas...
What with all their shenanigans and a couple of Bishops too there's not much role for women, who have a token presence to represent sidelining and abuse but only Tony's discarded girlfriend has much to say: Rebecca Night looks lovely but doesn't seem to have discerned a real character within her lines. Admirably focused direction by Jonathan Church, and Simon Higlett's design is excellent, creating multiple locations each identifiable from minimalist set change and clever lighting (Tim Mitchell) This is a solid and entertaining production, no twists but a plangent reminder why church attendance continues to dwindle, and there are some very funny lines. And if you google that title, it's a card game where the aim is to find the hidden demon in the pack... clever, eh.  Images Nobby Clark

Back in Frome after a few days visiting my northern brother (and btw Virgin Cross-Country trains go about the speed fingernails grow) into a busy week as Festival approaches.

Frome Open Studios art trail launch party at the WHY Gallery had samples of some of the impressive work that will be showing at 29 venues around the town and outlying villages. Pictured with the mayor are Kate Cochrane and Amanda Bee, and Rosie Hart (R) is also one of the organising team, with nearly 80 participating artists working in a wide variety of media ~ there's an interactive brochure here.
Also anticipating the festival, Ann Harrison-Broninski is showing her sketches at the Grain Bar and David Goodwin has an impressive exhibition of portraits of musicians at La Strada.
Quote of the week comes from ex-manager of Cheese & Grain Martin Dimery, on the last night of his role there, walking into a massive surprise farewell party: "Did you cancel the Bingo?" The surprise was especially successful as it included a performance from brilliant Bad Sounds ~ their drummer is Martin's daughter ~  soon to be playing at Truck Fest Main Stage along with Franz Ferdinand: here's Martin joining them in a number from his own (ex)group Sergeant Pepper's Only Dart Board Band, appropriately Come Together.

And then the week went a bit Demsters Diary with a party every night & two on Saturday.

There were jigs and reels at the Bennett Centre on Friday, and for me a catch-up with Rosie Jackson who recently won first prize in the prestigious Cookham Festival Poetry Competition, then on Saturday the sun shone on the all-day Party in the Park organised by Frome FM with brilliant live music on the bandstand ~ I especially enjoyed Magic Tractor's garage rock, ending with Nick Lowe's song: What's so funny about peace, love & understanding...
On, then, to the extensive garden party organised by Andrew Ziminski, anthropologist & author, with optional swimming in the pool. It's beginning to feel a bit like summer!

All over the place like the barometer

This week has been a cluster of diversities, starting with Word Play, a new show from Visual Radio Arts: Four performance poets, Liv Torc, John Christopher Wood, Moira Andrews & me, gathered in the studio on Saturday to be interviewed by David Chandler and perform a set ~ it all went out live and now there's a classy remix version on the website here!

Words at the Black Swan, the poetry workshop linked to each new exhibition in the Long Gallery, reconvened after a long break with a strong stimulus in the work of Ricky Remain. Despite the temperature on Monday afternoon rising over 30° this was a really good session, with thoughtful discussion leading to some powerful pieces of writing.

And then for a complete change of focus, I was a time traveller for three days with Feet First, walking the story of the universe with Annabelle Macfadyen. We start 4.6 billion years ago and pace the earth's story from stardust to 2017 in 5-million-year steps, through catastrophes and the recoveries to the realisation that only in the last half-pace of our long journey does Sapiens appear. Every group of children ~ we did the walk for five groups, in three different Somerset venues ~ buzzed with fascinating questions afterwards, and their enthusiasm was awesome.

It's been a great week for parties and music. Here's Bonne Nouvelle performing at the Silk Mill, a venue which also proved superb for showing the paintings of David Moss in the exhibition which opened on Thursday ~ vibrant and visceral images inspired by nature, using landscapes, events and memories.

Our regular music events Roots Sessions at the Grain Bar and Jazz at the Cornerhouse both had something special this week: Howard Vause was guest singer for Graham Dent's jazz trio, bringing a cool sensuous ballad mood to a warm Sunday afternoon, and the folk/pop sounds of the Jupiter Owls were a definite hit on Wednesday night.
And as a Friday night bonus, the legendary Pete Gage Band rocked Sam's Kitchen ~ not one of my usual haunts as I'm not of a fan of their faux-industrial decor and inflated bar prices, but a fantastic quartet like this makes a visit compulsory. Pete's amazing voice creates uniquely vibrant shades of blue in the blues, and Paul Hartshorn's guitar playing is breathtaking.

My week ended as it began, with live poetry: this time to the audience of Words & Ears at Chippfest, organised by Dawn Gorman as a charity event (Hospice Care and Moving on from Homelessness) at a pub barn embellished in Byzantine splendour. Good to re-meet poets with whom I've performed before ~ Patrick Osada, Peter Wyton & Sue Boyle, as well as Frome's Moira Andrew and Dawn herself, and fabulous to discover the poetry of Maggie Harris, who I've persuaded, I think, to come to Frome soon.

And on this lyrical note, don't forget the Frome Poetry Festival Cafe this year has, as well as a marvellous guest in the person of Deborah Harvey, the usual contest to crown a new Festival Poet Laureate. This prestigious title, currently held by Bath bard John Christopher Wood (who took the role seriously enough to write an Ode for Mayor Toby on the occasion of his running in the Frome Half Marathon) provides the recipient not only with kudos but a certificate and a bottle of bubbly donated by Frome Wholefoods.  This year for the first time contestants have a theme: as there are several other events in the festival honouring the centenary of southwest essayist and war poet Edward Thomas, it's That Adlestrop Moment, and we want short poems of personal epiphany, those glimpses of ordinary life that somehow illuminate something beyond the ordinary...




Here's the Edward Thomas poem which inspired the theme, but your poem doesn't have to follow that form ~ haiku, limerick, freeform all acceptable ~ and will probably be a moment in time located somewhere other than a railway station! 

Dramatic anarchy, protest art, wild music & Word Play...

Julius Caesar is arguably the most political play ever written and there could hardly be a better time than now for Bristol Old Vic's production of Shakespeare's tale of ambition and chaos in ancient Rome. We're still in Italy, true, but in a symbolic cityscape of dark skies and towering columns, slogan-scrawled & more like struts on a mighty motorway than marble pillars, where excited crowds invade the auditorium. Julian Glover's Caesar enters like a cross between a scary Godfather boss and the charismatic older leader of a popular contemporary party, and the timelessness of conflict is plangent in every aspect of director Simon Dormandy's thrilling interpretation.

As with BOV's excellent King Lear last year, the performance showcases the talents of graduating students from the Theatre School alongside the expertise of a small group of more experienced practitioners, and like last year this combination results in an unforgettable theatre experience. Among the young performers Freddie Bowerman is strong as reluctant conspirator Brutus and Ross O'Donnellan is superb as Mark Anthony, somehow making those famous impassioned words sound dangerous and new. Design is also a team effort in a collaboration that works well: sharp costume and great lighting enhance overall visuals and there are some great touches ~ the glittering chandelier a symbolic crown over Caesar's head, Mark Anthony's suit-carrier, and the house lights coming on for his rallying speech making all the audience complicit... On till July 1, highly recommended.

Still in Bristol, Tobacco Factory Theatres has a double bill of short plays developed from Bristol Ferment. Bea Roberts, a Devon writer whose previous play And Then Come The Nightjars I really loved, is now touring with Infinity Pool. Her previous play was about the ravages of foot & mouth which sounds tedious and grim but was totally engaging: this one is 'a modern retelling of Madame Bovary' which sounds saucy and satiric but is more of a retelling of Bridget Jones. There's a pleasing irony about a theatre show constructed entirely from projected digital imagery so that we have to imagine the story rather than watch it and though there are more jokes than insights Bea is a skilful and popular performer who is winning praise throughout this tour.

Following Bea's silent story of faltering online romance, a complete contrast as Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutas approach their audience smiling and ask us all to hold hands, an icebreaker so unexpected it actually works. Eurohouse seems at first a playfully friendly piece of physical theatre, but the mood darkens into trickery and bullying which escalates up to a shock reveal that their real agenda is to expose how life in Greece has been damaged by the terms imposed after their economy collapsed. Fellswoop Theatre hatched this provocative & powerful show with support from Bristol's Mayfest and it won an award for experimentation and innovation at Edinburgh last year.

Barney Norris is another young playwright from the Southwest ~ he grew up in Wiltshire ~ and his work is massively acclaimed so I was sorry to miss Echo's End, a tale of young lovers, and keen to see his other new production While We're Here at Salisbury Playhouse. This tale of middle-aged not-lovers has been well received: one critic found a Chekhovian comic sadness in the exchanges, which translates as a bit like one of those banal conversations you overhear on a bus. The actors are both excellent. Tessa Peake-Jones, David Jacobs girlfriend from Only Fools & Horses, is the dim-but-cheery woman well and Andrew French the only black man in Havant, a town whose very name resonates a wistful sense of something absent. He wishes he was somewhere else, she doesn't know what to wish for apart from nice decor. Unacknowledged loneliness is a familiar theme, as is imagining the dreary lives of those older than us when we are young.  Norris says in his press release 'So much of England is made up of towns like Havant where people get by, and dream of more, and pass their lives in the leap between their realities and their aspirations.'  There are some good lines (“If the whole world exists and you’re living in Havant, that’s quite a life choice really" ) but like the sheep on Cumbrian hills to which the woman rather strangely likens herself, they don't go very far. Image: Mark Douet

Nunney Accoustic Cafe celebrated their 10th anniversary with a huge weekend party but I missed most if it (a very lovely wedding, so a much happier reason than the virus of which I have much spoken) though I did catch a couple of great acts on Saturday evening: Wychonsky's punk band belting out Babylon's Burning and the fantastic Al O'Kane with his band.

Sunday jazz continues at the Cornerhouse: Here's Kevin Figes quartet playing Nordic tunes in a Scandanavian themed jam session. And both my favourite bands were playing on the Silk Mill stage at Friday's Wild Whiskey Rebellion ~ at one point simultaneously, which was particularly impressive as there are six Back Wood Redeemers and Captain Cactus with his gorgeous Screaming Harlots are a 9-piece! A great night with much dancing.

Also on Friday, Black Swan Arts launched their new exhibition In the Absence of Truth. Dorset artist Ricky Romain is a Human Rights activist who uses art to reflect on political issues and themes of immigration, war crimes, torture and other injustices. Powerful and timely, this is also the show that will relaunch Words at the Black Swan drop-in workshops to respond to each new exhibition in writing ~ restarting Monday 19 June, 3-4.30 in the gallery. Here's Ricky, and there'll be a discussion & talk on June 29.

Ending with words, and I'm beyond pleased that the sunshine this week lured my voice back in time for a chat with Frome Fm's On-Air Book Group and a recording on Saturday at Visual Radio Arts. Phil Moakes, artistic director & main inspiration for this new venture, had the admirable idea of including poetry as well as music in his schedule. For this inaugural Word Play session I was joined by Liv Torc, Moira Andrew, and John Christopher Wood, David Chandler interviewed us and we each did a little set, and you can see it all HERE!

O brave new world...

These are difficult days for an arts blogger to keep politics out of the local picture, and I realise my red slip does show from time to time. This may be another of those times. Starting with a visit to 

Salisbury's International Arts Festival to hear Mark Steel, not doing stand-up but confined to an armchair interview by an LBC presenter, sadly no James O'Brien. From the opening question ('How do you manage to swear on stage and be a dad?') to his finale ('Satire is dead' - a familiar quip but an odd way to end a chat with a satirist) the interrogation was heavy-handed though Mark was excellent, conveying conviction as well as wit and good humour, and admitting 'the terrible thing is this awful feeling of lingering hope.'

Back to neutral topics:

Frome's monthly Independent Market mustered the usual crowds despite desultory sunshine, with the usual cornucopia of edibles, quaffables, and esoteric buyables, with lots of activities for the children. Music is always a strong feature:
This month we had lively trad/folk from Lost Revellers on the busking stage, folk/rock ballads from Partners in Crime at the Archangel, and Jazz Jam at the Cornerhouse to round off the day. That's how a market should sound!

Warminster Community Radio's grooving Monday afternoon host Kowalski invited me on to his show to talk about upcoming events in the writing world so I'll end this short post with a look ahead to the rest of this month for me: Words at the Black Swan writing workshops restarting on 19th with a free drop-in from 3.00-4.30, a guest spot at Chippfest on 24th, and three days of Time Walk shows in different locations for schools in Somerset. Fingers crossed I'm back to full-strength functioning for them all... smiley face!

And in the meantime, here's what Frome is doing tonight at the Silk Mill...

Murder, mystery, pirates & a reborn reprobate

Last year, you may remember, was the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, but you may not know it was also for Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu. The Confucius Institute felt the coincidence deserved a play-writing contest, which Bath writer Clare Reddaway won: she and her cleverly entertaining play The Red Court, produced by Rapscallion Theatre, will go to Shanghai later this year after a couple of local previews. I caught it at Burdall's Yard as part of Bath's Fringe Festival. The plot blends the true story of a 5-year-old political murder involving corruption in the Chongqing province with Macbeth, using Shakespeare's twin themes of ambition and betrayal plus a few direct quotes to bind the two stories succinctly together. Four actors take on all the key roles: Mayur Bhatt is impressive as ruthlesss Wu, with Michelle Wen Lee the wife who, like Lady Macbeth, was wicked but not quite so ruthless... and despite the sinister theme there are moments of comedy, mostly from Sarah Curwen as a brutal Mongolian Police chief with a Yorkshire accent, also rapidly switching from oriental fortune teller to narrator. Ashley Green is strong as both the US Embassy official and the English fixer-victim. Simple and effective setting and tight directing from Carolyn Csonka ~ the Shanghainese are in for a treat.

Visiting Bath was also an opportunity to catch the Brueghel exhibition at the Holburne Museum.  Here I learned Brueghel was not a painter but a dynasty ~ a mini-factory almost, as many of their paintings are versions of Pieter the Elder’s most popular ones re-composed from ‘cartoons’ of stock characters merry-making at festivals or rubber-necking at bible stories, all re-envisaged in Flemish surroundings. Most fascinating was a Pieter the Younger painting of The Procession to Calgary, a massive landscape scene painted with minute detail and almost photographic depth of field. Legends next to the paintings are cursory but I learned a lot from an informative volunteer who pointed out the strange composition, with the central focus on a nun giving alms to a beggar, rather than the struggling christ deep in the festive procession. Other anachronistic figures representing simple charity are dotted about too, and there's a solitary observer who looks like the artist... This 1602 version of his father's painting forty years before might hide a big secret: with Flanders violently divided between Reformation and Counter-Reformation, perhaps this particular Brueghel was out of sympathy with the Catholicism of his wealthy patrons. The not-so-hidden clues point that way.

Another double-purpose trip on Wednesday, to Bristol, for a Treasure Island Story Walk around the docks in afternoon sunshine with a swashbuckling pirate in another production from Show of Strength. Our 18th Century guide entertained his group of mainly families with lots of arrrrghs and some terrible pirate jokes but the children following this charismatic Pied Piper all seemed to grasp the plot whether they'd read Robert Lewis Stevenson's yarn or not. I was one of the 'nots', having as a child little interest in doubloons, but it was fascinating see the connections with the taverns and caverns of Bristol Docks.

And then to Colston Hall, to see Russell Brand in his RE-BIRTH tour. I'd love to tell you about it but you can't describe a Russell Brand show, it's a sort of hurricane of hilarity, vulgarity, and social critique, with moving moments and inspirational moments and a massive amount of prancing. The difference between this tour, he says, and his last one is his daughter, born at the end of last year, whose arrival has changed his life. There's also the fact he's off drink, and drugs, and is now monogamous, all of which have impacted on his life ~ and also inspired some wildly funny stage routines. Russell Brand's outrage at media and consumerism is well-known but I didn't expect him to show clips of his campaigning interviews, freeze-framing to ridicule his words and antics and to marvel at his naivety in trying to bring about social revolution. So what does Russell Brand want to do now, apart from performing to wild applause? Ending on a serious note, he talks about love, loving his daughter, and using love to make the world a better place for her to live, reminding us that in a hundred years time we won't be alive but our ideas will have shaped the future... My friend Esther Nagle (we met at the Polers'n'Poets event earlier this year) managed to get a hug and a photo in the interval when she gave him her yoga book, and he mentioned that gift as he closed the show. Not a night anyone there will forget, especially not Esther.

Regular readers may notice there's no mention in this post of The Lurgy. That's because, though it's still holding my larynx hostage and kicking my energy level down to the basement, I have devised a cunning plan to co-exist with it: viz, alternating days between active and inert. So I've still missed whole days of things but it's now a plan, a bit  like the 5:2 diet you could say. And I'm posting this early because both the Brueghel exhibition and the Treasure Island Story walk are only running till Sunday so this weekend is your last chance!