Shop Local, play local, dance exotic...

Focus entirely on Frome this week, with the Frome Shop Local day on Saturday ~ an exciting range of performances in nine different venues throughout the day. With puppetry, poetry, and fantastic music in shops and cafes throughout the town, totalling six hours of free entertainment for all. We had Pete Gage, Nikki & Griff, and Dexters' Extra Breakfast with our croissants and coffee, Vikki Burke's harp and Gina Allen singing up the hill, Eddie Martin rocked Raves from the Grave, Annie Aldam held the children rapt in Ellenbray, and here's Hannah Teasdale in Hunting Raven Books and Al O'Kane in Frome Wholefoods.  Big thanks to the town council, this was a great initiative which will hopefully be repeated next year even bigger and better!

Moving on to art: two exhibition openings The Binding Grid of Creative Connection from Bridport artist David Smith, promoted by Black Swan Arts, is featured at the Round Tower and represents for the artist 'a celebration of the affirming nature of my experience of Twitter' to collect work on the theme of 'black squares black lines and black magic.' Frome painter Amy Yates, in contrast, uses lucent & evocative colour for her images of Frome: her work is displayed in the Grain Bar throughout November, with cards for sale.

Local drama company Tic Tac Toe were at Frome's Merlin Theatre with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) ~ a lighthearted, often witty, sometimes very funny, deconstruction of the bard's themes & works that always entertains a young audience. For the more sophisticated, there was exotic dance at the Silk Mill with an amazing Bollywood routine.

Looking ahead theatrically, Nevertheless Fringe Theatre will be upstairs at the Cornerhouse with our new show Toxic Cocktails ~ 'contempory comedy with a toxic twist' on Dec 16 & 17. Hold the dates and watch, as they say, this space...

And finally, in international news:  one week after Frome Town Council won Council of the Year in the National Association of Local Councils’ Awards comes news that Frome, in its entirety, is now officially the greatest town in the country.  The Great Town Award 2016, identified by the Academy of Urbanism, looks for places with 'innovation and excellence in all aspects of urbanism' and Frome's list of achievements were recognised to include: progressive & caring work of the Town Council,  exceptional cultural & community opportunities, sympathetic blending of new with old (many listed)  buildings, lively events in the town centre (Frome Independent Market has been voted one of the best in the country by Observer Food Magazine), 'astonishing' commercial vitality & a vibrant independent retail sector, and 'impressive' response to environmental issues. No better way to end this post than in the words of Cllr Pippa Goldfinger, accepting on behalf of the town:
‘Many people in Frome have long felt that it is a great town but the secret is now out. This new award owes much to the spirit of community, innovation and enterprise in the town and I am certain that the people of Frome will be very proud that their efforts have received such national recognition.’

Autumn abundance

An artistic cornucopia in Frome this week, overflowing on Halloween night with witching costumes & happenings in cafes & shops around the town, an amazingly theatrical Haunted House-party (thanks Russ Ellingham, who'll also bring dark glamour to Cheese&Grain on Friday 13th) and a fiendishly good session at the Griffin by Captain Cactus and the spell-binding Screaming Harlots.

Two more of my favourite bands were also playing last week: We Used To Make Things, a brilliant indie-pop band from London, usually 8-strong though totally rocking the Cricket Club with just five. I particularly enjoyed their protest song 'What are we fighting for?' echoing around the flags... And local heroes Dexter's Extra Breakfast took to the busking stage at the Frome Independent penultimate Sunday market of the year. As always, this was a massively busy event offering every kind & colour of craft, costume and comestible. Writers were represented by the enterprising Frome Writers Collective with a stall on the hill and by Julian Hight's book-signing of his World Tree Story at Hunting Raven.

'Words at the Black Swan' always meets in the gallery on the afternoon of the market to explore the current exhibition as poetic inspiration, and the diversity of the Arts Open offered engaging stimulus.
It's well worth a visit but don't expect razor-blade art like the work of Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy I saw last week ~ a treat from my amazing friend Hazel Carey ~ which sears unforgettably. Here's 'Straight' - comprising 150 tons of steel rebar taken from the site of the earthquake that killed 5,000 children, truth about which the artist believes has been covered up by the Chinese government. Ai Weiwei was arrested & imprisoned for 80 days: he's also made an extensive installation to record the experience, with models of his captors.

So, a week of creativity in town, but as the artistic glitterball of Frome is surrounded by glorious countryside ~ not waxing too lyrical, am I? ~ these mild sunny days brought opportunities to relish the awesome colours of autumn too, in forests parks and gardens. This is the iconic Stourhead view..
I'll end with a quick look ahead: Frome Shop Local next Saturday: nine free performances throughout the town in shops and cafés - cancel everything and come along!

1215 - 2015... plus ça change?

It's exactly 800 years since the fundamental principles of this realm were signed and sealed, allegedly adhered to ever since.  The two directors of Salisbury Playhouse came up with the brave & brilliant idea of celebrating this historic anniversary with The Magna Carta Plays: four short interpretations of the political resonance of that famous, largely unknown, deal between the barons and the king on behalf of the people of England. "Bold, funny, and provoking" warns the programme, and they're also by turns acerbic, absurd, puzzling, profound and sad. It's an impressive achievement: four very different takes on the impact of this ancient legislation, with some terrific political polemic ~ most strikingly in Kingmakers by writer & activist Anders Lustgarten ~ and salutary future-imaging, most chillingly in We Sell Right by Timberlake Wertenbaker. These two were my favourites but in this production the whole is greater than the sum of the quarters.  Director Gareth Machin, designer Ellan Parry, and the entire creative team deserve praise, and the multi-roleing cast are all superb.

Kingmakers uses a mix of Shakespearean verse, contemporary terms, & street slang to create a Mad-Hatters' mediaeval teapartyful of ruthless barons conniving with young Henry, King John's successor, to subdue those annoyingly restless peasants who complain "we take men's tithes and nothing give the nation." Their solution is to distract them, using a very English device still in vogue today (I've avoided a spoiler here, but 'tis true although there were some sharp intakes of breath in the stalls and 5 people quit from my row at the interval) leaving the everyman narrator to lament "Why do we do it when we know full well the rich are turds? They laugh at us from their yachts."
Sally Woodcock, writer of the second play, set Pink Gin in Africa using the analogy of Clause 47, relating to the return of appropriated land to the people, to create a story about a Disney-style forestry development. And there's another take on the continuing relevance of the charter in Ransomed by Howard Brenton: an entertaining sleuthing parody with a Sarah Lund lookalike detective, a Russian spy and a self-flagelating canon, set in the fictional city of Melchester. Below the patterned-jumper spoof there's a darker thread: who are the barons nowadays? and who will write our next charter...

We Sell Right time-travels us more than 800 years forward from the original charter into a dystopian future, creating an uneasy atmosphere of fractured communication from the start. No spoilers for this moving piece about why, in the writer's words, 'this ancient document is still very, very alive today.'
On till November 7th, recommended (by me that is, the content will make it controversial to some reviewers)

images Richard Davenport

Urban myths and rural idylls: Bedminster Bigfoot & Last Tree Dreaming

After the legendary Bedminster crocodile, another urban myth arises from Bristol’s river and woodland: a wild and powerful goddess to give the city’s dispossessed what their human leaders deny them – humanity, and care.  Mark Breckon’s new play The Bedminster Bigfoot is a magical fantasy told with fast-paced humour and reality-based anger, a Charlie-Brooker-sharp political parody and an absolute must-see show. The twilight world of the countless ‘have-nots' in peril of hunger and homelessness (‘life’s natural victims, weaker stock who deserve oppression’ to the ‘haves’ in control) – is vividly evoked with verbatim quotes, media clips, & politician face-masks, but there’s never a drab moment in this kaleidoscope of dramatic cameos moving swiftly between savagely funny satire and powerfully moving drama. 

Director Marc Geoffrey has a terrific team – set, lighting, and sound brilliantly enhance the show – and all four actors are superb: Paul Currier as the callous Job Centre manager  ('It’s about reaching targets and the target that matters now is sanctions'),  Joanna Smith as the tenant penalised by her kindness, Ben Crispin fantastic as the ex-soldier at war with the entire system ('No decent country runs a forced labour scheme!') and Adam Lloyd-James as the boy who sets off on this very modern hero’s journey.  It’s on at the Alma Tavern until the end of the month – go if you can, tell your friends to go if you can’t. 

Mythical creatures with magical powers must be the zeitgeist this autumn: Kingdom of the Icebear, from the Theatre West season of plays by local writers, was on at  Bath's nice little Rondo theatre. Adam Cridland plays the boy who longs for this beast and there are evocative poetic monologue moments in this saga of a Somerset family failing to put aside their differences on Carnival night. Moving to the Hen & Chicken in Bristol after the weekend till the end of the month.

Now back to Frome for a quintessentially Fromie celebration as two new benches arrived in Rodden Meadow last week inscribed with thoughtful adages: cider & sausage rolls for all and brief speeches from Charlie Oldham the generous bench-carver and wordsmiths John Payne & Tim O'Connor.  Epigrams on benches, as Tim reminded us, are often about loss so it's nice to have one encouraging a look around at what's happening now.

On then to Vallis Vale woods for the Last Tree Dreaming Community Day, an idyllic event with  Helen Moore of Shared Earth Learning introducing us to a range of forestry activities from spoon carving to storytelling & poetry, with soup on the campfire and marshmallows for the children to toast.  Julian Hight was there to show his fabulous new book World Tree Story with amazing tales from 39  countries - Julian rates himself as a cottage industry now as publication was entirely crowd-funded through the Heritage Lottery.  His official Frome launch will be 11.30 next Independent Market Sunday, at Hunting Raven Books.

Musical finale this week comes from The Griffin, where Blue Midnight shared their 'space-folk-dub-brass-fiesta' sound, showing why they regard themselves as a"musical Monty Python" ~ a fabulous set from a band we should hear more often: buy their album White Moon to see why.

Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry - lechery 19thC France & 17thC US

Lust is endlessly malleable in theatre, as in life. Monsieur Popular at Ustinov Studio theatre in Bath offers an absolutely delightful production, a confection of delicious frolicking from the dancing intro to the pantomime finale. As the red velvet curtains part to tinkling piano they reveal a set like a painting by Albert Guillaume, whose 19th Century cartoon characters were as absurd as the plot of Eugène Marin Labiche's farce, directed by Jeremy Sans in his own new translation: fast-moving and very funny, picking out innuendo & polishing up simile ~ I particularly enjoyed the loyal friends sticking to our hero like snot on suede. The plot, such as it is, is an outrageous confession to audience of emotional exploitation for sexual gratification... but no-one seems to mind, so why be picky? The sets are superb (there's a Monet lily pond in their country garden) and every member of this cast deserves praise, but I'll pick out Stephen Matthews' savvy manservant, Gregory Gudgeon and Howard Ward as the two cuckolded husbands longing to bromance their appalling friend, and M Popular himself: Raymond Coulthard, who discovers after taking extraordinary liberties with his friends' wives that the only way to break a friendship is to ask for money... On till 7 November, recommended. image from website

A bit of a leap, then, to Arthur Miller's long tragedy The Crucible the following night. I attempted a matinee of the NFT screened London Old Vic production last summer & left at the interval, blear-eyed from peering at cuffs & candles through gloom and exhausted from all the linen-folding, chopping, sweeping and bread-cutting, so I sent myself along to Bristol Old Vic as a kind of penance. Instead, this was three and a half hours of superb and thrilling entertainment: director Tom Morris's best production at this theatre by far, and - as this would be the playwright's 100th birthday, a powerful reminder of the timelessness of great drama.

Everyone knows Arthur Miller used the near-incredible events of Salem as a metaphor for McCarthyism and the hysteria at the heart of every outbreak of prejudice, but there's a human story here too: the 'lechery' of John Proctor - triggering the whole crazy revenge story - that his wife can't forgive, and the passion both he and she share for the 'name' of goodness which is to be prized above life itself. It's harrowing to watch, certainly, as audience presence onstage and raised lighting in the auditorium for the trial both enhance awareness of our own complicit voyeurism while that tsunami of accusation rolls on in... but this is sheer enjoyment: an absolutely fabulous production, impressively staged, lit, costumed, and directed, with some unforgettable performances: Daniel Weyman as the Reverend Hale, cracking up unevenly as events unfold, Rona Morison as terrible Abigail, Neve McIntosh as stony Elizabeth, and above all Dean Lennox Kelly as John Proctor, all stood out from a brilliant cast.
A week of salutary reminders of how women historically have been both trivialised & demonised ~
distractions in sophisticated Paris, harlots in the more rigid community of Massachusetts. And if you'd like a crib before going to see this amazing production (you must - before 7 November) you could check out shmoop for the lowdown on Miller's personnel: Parris, for example, is such a snake he should live in Slytherin, a snivelling parasite, there is nothing we like about this dude. If only Deputy Governor Danforth had known before he hanged those 20 women... image Geraint Lewis.

Mostly art, includes some puppetry

We have to be proactive with our culture and support each other or it risks disappearing - not my words tho I wish they were, spoken by drummer Miles Pereira & quoted in the editorial introduction to Encompass, the new arts magazine devised and created by a talented local team comprising Hennessy Slick, Sean Powell, Tchad Findlay & Charlie Jones-West.  The first issue is out, available in all good coffee houses around Frome, looking fabulous and crammed with interviews and photos from all areas of the arts. I'm glad to see 'words' features poetrix Muriel Lavender offering haiku and reflections on male beards: I like them big, long and thick.

Somerset Art Weeks is a massive project, with 116 Open Arts studios and galleries across the county including, despite Frome being virtually a Peoples' Republic with our own arts trail in the festival, three galleries in our town.  The wonderful Step in Stone 'multi-stranded artscape' at the Black Swan is part of this, also with walks, talks & workshops at the quarries involved.  Rook Lane has photographs of empty buildings entitled Forsaken by Kirsten Cooke plus Creation, lines in dream time by painter Andrew Palmer. At Silk Mill there's a stunning diversity of media in Songs from the Land, including paintings, installation, stained-glass, pots and artisan clothes ~ a wonderfully joyful collection so do go, you have till Saturday...

If you like your political parody surreal and cartoonishly bizarre, Green Ginger has just the show for you: Outpost, co-produced with Tobacco Factory Theatres & Nordland Visual Theatre, has returned from their European tour and is on at the Brewery until 24th October.  Clever puppetry by three actors and a dreamlike set tell the tale of two border guards propelled by fallout from an exploded television into an underworld where the cruel absurdity of boundaries is starkly revealed... A fable of the folly of borders, shopping channels, and loyalty to an evil psychotic leader with a stiff hairdo & a handbag. A bit late for the last, sadly, but a clever piece of theatre reminding us, if you ever need reminding, that the hills were here before us.  image Adam DJ Laity

Biking & farming & writing that makes you go Wow

BIKE was on my must-see list for several reasons: a new play by southwest writer Katherine Mitchell, developed under the Original Drama programme at Salisbury Playhouse, staged in the exciting theatre space of the Salburg studio. If I watched more telly I'd have known to add that it's performed by Lucy Thackeray, who is simply marvellous as the girl: she can show every age from child to middle-age wearing the same teeshirt & leggings and convey a three-sided conversation with no more than a nanosecond to change from angry woman to wounded husband to irritatingly empathetic therapist. Her comic timing ~ this is definitely a comedy despite dark themes ~ is superb, and so is the synchronised sound and mood-enhancing lighting. She has some strong material in this tautly scripted monologue, which uses 'bike' as an image of independent travel, a slang sneer, and a symbol for structure in life. Like Fanny Hill, this girl narrates her chaotic life with a mix of joy, defiance, and pathos: left emotionally adrift by her family she discovers what anyone could have told her (well I could, anyway) that "Having sex feels a lot like being loved" and relationships are more difficult. Ultimately this is a morality tale, but the telling is fast and funny. It's on till 17th October, recommended.
Also on till 17th October, and top tip from The Guardian, Bristol Old Vic studio theatre is showing And Then Come The Nightjars.  'The bloodbath of the foot-and-mouth crisis' (also the funeral pyre of ten million cows) didn't sound an appealing theme, but the play was developed through Bristol Old Vic Ferment and written by southwest writer Bea Roberts and according to the buzz on the dramatic street this is also a don't-miss, so I went, and the buzz is right. It's immensely moving to see that mass slaughter from the intimate perspective of this story of a friendship and a farm that survives against all odds. David Fielder is utterly convincing as Michael the solitary farmer, with Nigel Hastings as Jeff the vet who helps him with calving and comes again to kill the herd in a scene that evokes not only England 2001 but also scenarios the world over where powerless individuals face state control. "They're not sick." - "It doesn't matter. They just put rings on the map." - "But this is my farm!" - "They've called out the army, you'll be arrested and they'll come in anyway." Tight powerful writing, in places very funny as times change and the barn becomes a potential asset. "It's a cow-house, not a spa!" Michael spits, but Jeff is right about land being 'real estate' now (Babbington House cowshed 'Cowgroom' treatments start at £80 for an eyebrow tidy) and the play ends with rapport between the two men, even an awkward though warm bromance. Strong acting, atmospheric set and lighting, highly recommended.  (image Jack Sain) 
And great to see two talented women writers supported by local initiatives to develop their scripts to this standard ~ big thumbs up to Bristol Old Vic and Salisbury Playhouse.

Finally this week, Jon Amor at the Grain Bar Roots session, with a fabulous double set. Here's a sample: 

The Rules  and Just Another Stitch In Your Party Dress, dedicated to tiger-girls and cougar-women everywhere. 

'An age when we treat art as autobiography' and blog our diaries...

To live is the greatest thing in the world ~ most people merely exist.

Oscar Wilde is probably the most quoted playwright after Shakespeare, though not many know his passionate plea for reform in an England he saw as repressive of individualism and morally hypocritical: The Soul of Man Under Socialism.
Many of his best known maxims and bonne mots are found in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. bringing both an opportunity & a problem to any stage adaptation: how to string these pearls of familiar wit together without sounding more like a parlour game than a dramatic relationship.  European Arts Company brought their highly-praised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray to Merlin Theatre, with some cast changes, in the final month of their long tour.  It's a terrible story: a young man possessed of everything superficially valued ~ youth, beauty, & wealth ~ looks at a painting of himself and impulsively wishes he could be always perceived that way, thus accidentally initiating a Faustian pact he can never reverse. Under the influence of a jaded aristocrat he falls into increasing decadence, but the ravages caused by his corruption and crimes are all held secretly by the painting in the attic until the dramatic climax.  (A slightly bizarre set came into its own for that haunting moment.)

Lord Henry of course has the best lines, expressing Wilde's own view that We are in the native land of the hypocrite as well as cynical maxims: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."  There's humour too in the staging, with four actors taking on eighteen roles ~ Ben Higgins particularly entertaining as a dowager duchess and sleazy theatre manager. Guy Warren-Thomas is the motherless youth doomed by a moment of vanity, Helen Keeley plays Sybil, first step on his downfall. Adaptation by Merlin Holland and John O'Connor, directed by Peter Craze.

Back at Merlin Theatre, and still in the 19th Century, on Saturday for very different saga from Angel Exit Theatre: The Ballad of Martha Brown, the story of the last woman hanged in Dorset, is quite simply the most enthralling show I've seen for a while. Immensely slick physical theatre, great live music, superb lighting, amazing set, props & costumes, imaginative direction, tight script without a syllable of unnecessary exposition, and five actors who swung the mood from furiously funny to shocking savagery in seconds. That's quite a list, and to that you can add great foyer dressing creating a macabre fairground atmosphere from the start. The public hanging of Martha Brown made headlines in 1867 and attracted a huge audience, including 16 year old Thomas Hardy who later wrote I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back. Like all good plays, when the entertainment is over it leaves you reflecting on the extraordinary human capacities for cruelty, and love.

The new exhibition at Black Swan, in the gallery and Round Tower, is Step in Stone, part of a six month project with the old & disused quarries surrounding Frome.  As succinctly put by Mayor Kate Bielby opening the show on Friday: "Quarries are part of our heritage and this project brings together the industrial history, natural landscape, and immense creative talent of this town." Immense in scope too: massive credit to Fiona Campbell and all the artists and musicians ~ it's a fantastic project involving art inspired by every aspect of quarry history from rock strata to wild life.  And on Sunday the resultant show inspired writing too: after the Independent Market (as usual a feast of artisan goodies with some great busking) the much-respected poet Stephen Boyce joined Words at the Black Swan group to lead an excellent session ~ results will be on our group webpage soon.

With events layering up like the fillings in Flora's signature bakes, I missed Leander Morales' concert on Saturday but did get to hear some great music this week, including the new Music Club on Tuesday in the Grain Bar (what do you mean, Frome doesn't need another music night? of course we do) ~ then back after the theatre on Wednesday for marvellous Feral Beryl at the Grain Roots Session. I arrived in time to hear their memorable a cappella version of your children are not your children, and Gemma White's stonking fiddle in Take Me To My Wake Before I Die. 

Then on Thursday ~ this is beginning to sound like an old Craig David song ~ Sara Vian launched her EP at the Three Swans, and the week ended at Cooper Hall (a fine concert hall & striking sculpture garden) with fantastic Frome band Dexter's Extra Breakfast supporting O'Hooley & Tidow, a terrific duo and 'one of British folk's mightiest combinations' according to Mojo, Radio 2, and even Billy Bragg.  They deserve their 5 star reviews and every accolade for their 'sublime musicality and cheeky northern banter' and for dedicating their song Like Horses to Tony Benn with the quote "If we can spend money to go to war then we can spend money to help people." Which neatly bring me back to Oscar Wilde's plea for socialism as a way to free every individual to personal fulfillment, so I'll end with SaraVian's echo of his belief we can all look to the stars: "Everyone has a gift within, we have to find it and go for it."

russet moon, golden sun

A Prism for the Sun was the theme for Frome's autumn Poetry Cafe as Rose Flint's new collection has that title,  happily appropriate too in this week's Indian summer. Rose's poems celebrate the natural world, its remorseless power as well as consoling beauty, 'piercingly alive': osprey, swifts, hounds, hares, sparrow hawk shadow and scythe / setting each moment of wild light flying in glory.  Our other superb guest was Mark de'Lisser from Bath, sharing personal spiritual insights ~ two very different poetic voices which worked extraordinarily well together. It was an extraordinary night throughout, full in every way, with fifteen open-mic poets and some amazing readings and performances, endless variety and a fantastic atmosphere. This was a prism indeed, with lucent love poems like Rosie Jackson's First Breakfast and Helen Frame's reflections on our shimmering unknowable future, tender thoughts of family, glimpses of local life, reflections inspired by art, and great evocation of Morpeth by Kevin Ross. As well as readings we had performances of spicy comedy from Muriel Lavender, a strong debut from Liam Parker, and witty bitterness from Hannah Teasdale... so much to entertain, charm, and delight, with too many special moments to list all. Many thanks to everyone who crammed into the Garden Cafe to read, perform, or listen.

Samuel Beckett was notoriously specific about directions for  performance of his plays and his estate has maintained that scrupulous monitoring, which is probably why Waiting For Godot nearly always works superbly ~ as it did in the LCT production at Frome's Merlin Theatre last week.
There are various esoteric interpretations of this play and one obvious one: existentialist despair at the incomprehensibility of life, expressed with a deep and dreary rage that would blend neatly into Dismaland.  Godot isn't God, if you were wondering, Beckett took the name from the French slang for boot and said he wished he hadn't when he realised all theorising thus caused. He isn't Pozzo either, and the two men are not identified as tramps although usually played that way, sometimes in Laurel-and-Hardyish comic style. Director Michael Cabot never ignores the pathos to play just for laughs, which paradoxically makes it funnier as well as more moving: Richard Heap as Estragon and Peter Cadden as Vladimir are both excellent, bickering and hugging with neither rancour nor comfort enduring for more than a moment. Michael Keane is a diminutive but brilliant Lucky, the slave of Pozzo, and his 'thinking' speech ~ a long nonsensical monologue ~ brought spontaneous applause from the audience when he was finally wrestled into silence.

Beckett identified the set laconically (A country road, a tree) and said the action needs 'a very closed box', even suggesting 'a faint shadow of bars on stage floor'. Designer Bek Palmer has added instead a continual series of bubbles rising through dense liquid ~ I quote this from the programme notes as I took it for a mangrove swamp with driftwood lilypads, imposing constraints on movement which for me didn't work. (Bek however also designed their unforgettably amazing set for Betrayal two years ago, which shows something about creative risk-taking not pleasing all the people all the time...) Anyway that didn't significantly detract from a fine production with a strong cast and a some memorable highlights. And in the week the media sizzled with piggery-pokery it was especially entertaining to hear Pozzo rant  Up pig… as though I were short of slaves!   There's more political analogy too: I’ve given them bones, I’ve explained the twilight to them – but is it enough?

A dubious segueway to end this post via the pig mask (which nobody accepted) offered  by Captain Cactus and the Screaming Harlots at the Grain Bar Roots Session ~ a stupendous double set by a brilliant band. The harlots rendition of Fat Bottom Girls was simply superb ~ it's not on Youtube, but this one is. Enjoy!

Lives of un-quiet desperation

If you enjoy a bit of meta-theatrical in your drama  ~ and I do ~ you should definitely go along to the Tobacco Factory before the month is over to see Living Quarters, co-produced by the company with SATTF and directed by Andrew Hilton.  Writer Brian Friel believed script was sacrosanct and 'a good director hones into the core of the play and becomes self effacing in the process’: this story is controlled by such a director (Chris Bianchi) who allows no deviation from his ledger as the Butler family recall the tragic ending to a night of triumph. Attempts by the anxious cast to interrupt, and appeals to be shown in a better light, are disallowed, as is one character's attempt at a walk-on part (Eoin Slattery, all too quickly walk-off).

Written over 40 years ago, the central story is timeless: an older man with a much younger wife left alone and bored.  There’s the shadow of the domineering dead first wife too, and more than a whiff of Chekhovian ennui evident in the Donegal homestead, as well as quite a bit of Dostoevskian unique unhappiness. The structure works against overall naturalism so it's up to individual cameos to engross us, and there are several outstandingly moving moments. With a performance in the round, courtesy (and probably pricing obligations) necessitate quite a bit of rotation in posture and placing which can work against the development of emotional intensity and the lighting didn’t help. But the cast is immense ~ especially the soldier (Simon Armstrong) and his two younger daughters (Hayley Doherty and Martha Seignior), in a family tale which for all its moments of empathy fails to fully connect. Images: Camilla Adams

And now for something completely different: the incredible immersive theatrical experience of Dismaland, which I finally achieved on Monday after a mere 3 hours in the queue ~ which is where the dystopian experience properly begins. Airport-style barriers with unnecessarily-repeated loops to ensure extended sight of the lucky online-ticket buyers streaming past & dividing the haves from the have-nots inevitably evoke thoughts of other queues across Europe... and when you arrive with relief there's so much around to entertain, amuse, and distract that you almost forget about the run-down environment, puddles of rain, and angry graffiti ~ in fact these become part of the entertainment.
You can queue again to see gratuitous violence, you can sit in squalor and watch a film of a teddy-bear undergoing heart surgery (a perfect mix of macabre and sentimental) or a traditional wife-abusing Punch&Judy show, you can pay to fail at fairground games, you can sit in a bar (the only places where staff are jolly) or look round the Gallery at disturbing imagery, and you can take a selfie in the place provided, where nothing is happening but you still smile. And there's more, much much more, but you get the gist. Over all of this presides the image of our prime minister with a glass of champagne. Banksy is a genius.