Small joys among turbulence. Lets hang on to them.

A quiet week, unless you count horrific international belligerence and national gales plus a sleet-storm here in Frome. Let's begin more cheerfully, with current and upcoming exhibitions; 

Eddie Martin is probably best known as a well-respected blues musician, with specialism in slide guitar and harmonica, but his newly-opened exhibition at the WHY Gallery reveals his painting skills too. Mostly on paper rather than canvas, these still-life images in vivid colours have a vibrance that is, as Eddie agrees, almost musical. He draws the outlines initially in black paint with a fine brush, and says 'It's the first take that has the energy- just like music.'  

A pre-launch now, as the museum prepares its upcoming exhibition to celebrate some of the 'Celebrated Women of Frome' throughout history. Scheduled to start on International Women's Day - March 8th this year - and to continue until the end of the Frome Festival, this promises to raise awareness of several amazing women including four pioneers who feature in my book Frome Unzipped, from Prehistory to Post-Punk. Credit for this major initiative goes to historian David Lassman, seen here discussing the popularity, in her day, of poetess Elizabeth Rowe with the portrait of this lady which has now been beautifully restored by Rosario Trivellini.  who joined the celebratory soiree at the museum on Saturday.

Theatre spot:  An Hour and a Half Late by Gerald Sibleyras with Jean Dell, at Theatre Royal Bath.  In the 1980s series The Young Ones, as oldies may recall, there’s an episode which begins with Rik Mayall raging “Five minutes before the most important party of my life and the house is destroyed by a giant sandwich!” and that, sort of, is the impulse of the plot, so to speak, of this drama.  In a living room that is the epitome of affluent good-taste, a couple are about to go out for a dinner at which they will eventually arrive an hour and a half later. He is Peter, celebrating his early retirement; she is Laura, indulging her late mid-life crisis. They will run the gamut of recriminations, accusations, confessions, laments and longings, and then - as we know from the title - finally, go out to dinner. 

As always with Theatre Royal Bath, the set is splendid: designer Fotini Dimou perfectly evokes the style, taste, and income of such households while also allowing for a wide range of visual shenanigans as the tempo of the debate rises in diverse directions. Both Griff Rhys Jones and Janie Dee seem to relish the opportunities for parody in their characters’ life-styles, as well as their disparity in future visioning. While Peter hasn’t really thought this through - his big aim seems to be indulging a childish passion for tuck-shop-style treats - Laura has gone all out for free-ranging overthinking: past, present, and future are all in the mixer for her, and most of the living-room gets embroiled in emotional chaos too. Belinda Lang adapted & directed this happy-ending story of an non-event crisis in a well-off household. 

Music!  Rosco Shakes, whose Frome visit had sadly clashed with Wednesday's theatre, provided another chance to enjoy their brilliant high-energy performance at the Bell Inn in Bath's Walcott Street on Sunday afternoon. 

This talented line-up (bass, singer/drummer, guitar, percussion, sax) led off with a funky St James Infirmary Blues and kept the bluesy vibe strong, enticing dancers of varying ages. A great way to end a week of storms and trepidation, and with sunshine outside too..

 

Ending this week with an image of some of the magnificent Turkey Tail mushrooms on the flat stump of the much-mourned lost copper beech in the churchyard of St Johns in Frome, looking like a resting murmuration of butterflies.  This is where we all say, Isn't Nature Wonderful... because it is.

 

Art thrice, poetry twice, and some witchery.

The Whittox Gallery opened five years ago, after this old chapel was converted to a thriving eatery plus an art gallery in the balcony area: RISE has already hosted fourteen stunning exhibitions, and on Friday their celebratory 'Retrospective' exhibition opened in party style. The variety of previous shows created an impressive diversity of pieces, from the 'playful Renaissance devotional imagery' of Leslie Glenn Damhus (R) to the We Feed The World exhibition from the Gaia foundation. As always, great hospitality from Ed and Sarah, and the wonderful backdrop of the massive organ in its starry alcove.

Still with art: having found that the new Frome Gallery opened by Ray Jones had a twin (or possibly elder sibling) in Woolverton, it seemed a good idea to take a look there too. Most of the paintings in this excellent collection show the same love of vivid colour and story-telling, like this landscape by Moira Hazel.  Here too, in contrast, is a tree-painting from Frome artist Alexandra Howell, "I’m quietly obsessed by light and shadow, colour and texture and constantly inspired by the natural world," the artist says. (These impressive pieces aren't scrunched together like this in the Gallery btw, but this blog's formatting won't let me show two images together any other way... tips gratefully accepted)

And Alexandra's tree painting segues nicely to these two new works from Frome artist Clive Walley. Rewinding to last October, the Somerset Open Studios had included Clive's atmospheric paintings which evoked for me the arborial foliage along the path beside the river walk. I sent him a copy of my photo, and Clive has now created two versions of this view, intriguingly seen behind an imagined netting between the viewer and the foliage, which not only adds slim lights to the shadows but also evokes an emotional connection with feelings about stolen land, as evoked in books like Trespass, and Who Owns England? Here's Clive with both these beautiful, powerful, paintings. 

 

Poetry now, with poet & writer Julie Mullen who runs The Word Cafe on radio from Totnes and invited me to participate on Thursday. Among the excellent poets, main guest George Szirtes read from his new collection with Bloodaxe, Fresh Out of the Sky ,and talked about his work. My contribution (at 1:08) was a phone chat with Julie in anticipation of What's It Like For You? soon to be published by Caldew Press. This is a collaboration with poet Hazel Stewart which we developed on Zoom during lockdown, recreating our performance personae as Live & Lippy. You can hear the title piece of this collection near the end of this recording of the show - with apologies to Hazel for my terrible Scots accent when reading her lines. And big thanks to Julie!

Back in Frome, Monday's poetry workshop at Black Swan Arts, ably led by Wendy Perry, had a theme to suit the date, with valentine emblems as triggers for writing and some favourite love poems shared. You can see some of the outcomes on the Words at the Black Swan facebook page here. 

Still with words, as three Zoom options clashed this week & after a difficult choice, my pick was an online seminar on Witchcraft, Magic, and Society in C19th  Somerset by Professor Owen Davies, from the Regional History Centre &  Bristol M Shed.  Rural Somerset was apparently obsessed by fears of bad magic in times when farming was the main wealth: failures in dairy produce were attributed to spells, and people travelled miles to use the mysterious services of the 'cunning folk' to identify culprits. Here's Billy Brewer, 'Wizard of the West', the most renowned of such witch-detectors. According to Prof Davies most supposed 'curses' were just consequences of bad luck or malice; the 1736 Act repealed laws against witchcraft while ironically imposing imprisonment on the 'magical' folk who claimed to counter their power. A fascinating talk, perhaps with antecedents to the current 'blame' culture in the UK... who knows.

And with stormy winds unabated, here's hoping you stay safe!

Striking art, funky music, & other entertainments...

Regular followers of this blog may recall that one of my much-lamented covid losses was the Ida Applebroog exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Bruton. This box has now been ticked, and exploring this extraordinary work on Thursday afternoon gave, probably, a better viewing experience than the party on opening night could have allowed. Both galleries are filled with Ida's bizarre 'scavenging' art style, involving repeated themes of pain, gender politics, and family relationships. There's a lot of violence and violation, expressed in story-telling that varies from comic-book jokiness to savagery: it's extraordinary to realise that this boundary-breaking woman was born in 1927 and has been producing challenging artwork for half a century. 

The current exhibition is curated really well, and visitors can take home a 'goodybag' set of reproductions of some of Ida's key works - a really generous touch, especially as the show is free to enter (though you do have to pre-book and choose a time, to ensure no overcrowding.) Showing till May, lots of time to book see it, and the ever-lovely gardens too.

Back in Frome, where a new art gallery is always exciting: This one at 22 Christchurch Street West is called simply The Frome Gallery, and is a sibling of the Woolverton Gallery, displaying work from several of the same artists and also curated by artist Ray Jones. Here (above) is Ray with one of his trios of famous faces. Strong colours are important to him when selecting work to exhibit: he has some wonderful pieces from highly regarded local names like Amanda Bee, Moira Hazel, and David Wilkie - who created this painting She Sold Me Magic - and several others.

Still with visual art: the National Gallery in London has released more its excellent - free - short online talks about the treasures in its collection. Among various options, there's a fascinating surmise of Bart Cornelius, curator of Dutch & Flemish paintings, about the  real story of Rembrandt's painting of 'A Woman Bathing in a Stream.'

Moving on to music now - and yes, it's wonderful Rosco Shakes again at Bar Lotte - the full team this time: (L-R) Josh, Dom, Ned,Tim, and Steve all on fabulous form. These lads either rehearse every waking moment or they're intuitive geniuses - there never seems any doubt who's doing what when - and their sound is instantly exhilarating, so there's dancing in the bar from the start.

 

Also accompanied by energetic audience action, the annual Frome Punk Festival at the Cheese & Grain offered an evening of popular local live bands.  Here's the ever-wonderful Raggedy Men, recreating the incendiary sounds of the late-70s with a few added riffs - lighting in the hall, as evidenced here, was more for mood than clear illumination, but that didn't matter to the avid audience and dancers.

Theatre now, as New Old Friends deliver Crimes, Camera, Action, their spoof tale of a hard-boiled private-dick negotiating murder and blonde bombshells in golden-era-Hollywood.  Most of the entertainment is provided by the ever-more-elaborate negotiation of props and costumes in ever-more-unlikely crime scenarios, and while some of it incomprehensible, a lot of it is very funny indeed.  Great to see a full house at The Merlin, & a young audience clearly enjoying the show. Here's a sneaky shot of one device they used to boost the (apparent) number of performers, in one of the most hilarious moments. 

Frome's Proof Pudding Book Club, the brainchild of Hunting Raven Bookshop's inspirational doyenne Tina Gaysford-Waller, met on Sunday to review & discuss new imprints - and eat cake - at River House. It's a great format: small group discussions, plus a final feedback to share the most interesting titles. And we keep our proof copy! My lucky random choice this month was Who Are We Now? by Jason Cowley, a non-grabby title for a profoundly felt & well-argued analysis of post-Brexit Britain - how it happened, and what next.... 

Ending this edition with a view from the sunnier start of the week: the field beyond the beautiful church of Mells. This lovely little village tracks its fascinating history from Mesolithic days (c. 6000 BC) and that quaint circle of trees, according to a local historian, is the remains of a round barrow, one of only a few of these Neolithic burial places still surviving. 

 

Out & about! Vienna, Belfast, & a phantom landscape

Bristol Old Vic director Tom Morris pulled off what many will consider an impressive coup when Mark Rylance agreed to develop his own personal project with this theatre company: the result is Dr Semmelweis, the true story of the doctor who found a way to fight the virus killing women in childbirth in the 19th Century. With hindsight it seems quite extraordinary that hundreds of women died because the experts in charge hadn't thought that washing their hands after dissecting cadavers before thrusting them into the bodies of women in labour might be a good idea, but this was the revolutionary and life-saving concept that Dr Semmelweis came up with before sadly parting company with his sanity, along with his wife and reputation.  This is a stunning production and we in the southwest are privileged that Mark Rylance brought his personal project - which actually predates the current pandemic - to Bristol Old Vic.  News is out now that Tom Morris is stepping down as artisic director of the theatre he steered to high international reputation during the last 12 years - I can't believe it's actually that long since I persuaded Tom to a breakfast meeting at the quayside to talk about his plans for Plays International. Under his steerage, Bristol Old Vic has been transformed physically as well as artistically: this production, with its emphasis on essential innovation against all odds, is curiously apt despite the personal tragedy of Dr Semmelweis himself. 

It's not a straight-foward hurtle from obstetrics to madness, however: there is much reverie and wafting dance, mostly by dream images, en route, and some violent rows as the pioneering Hungarian doctor is obstructed by the hostility of his superior (Alan Williams) and by his own unfortunate manner: an incoherence mingled with arrogance and, sadly, the approaching insanity which finally claims him. Mark Rylance is mesmeric in this role, managing to hold the audience's hopes that he may battle through his own crazy notions just as he battled through those of the hospital authorities', and come through somehow in the end. The set, conceived by Ti Green, effectively evokes an alien clinical environment while also providing balconies where the ghostly mothers, murdered by bad science, dance around in the mind of tortured, obsessive, Dr Semmelweis. (Choreography Antonia Franceschi, diaphanous costumes by Ti Green.) Oh, and a big shout-out to Ewan Black, playing 'off book' so seamlessly he had special applause at the end.

Ethereal dance-drama without spoken exchanges now, as Mark Bruce Company premiered their new production Phantoms at Frome's Merlin Theatre. This triple bill delivers all the intense atmospheric imagery and phenomenal skill in movement and mood that we've come to expect from this company. This was a triple bill, opening with two shorter pieces: Green Apples featured music by White Stripes as two dancers relate intensely to each other, and Folk Tales evoked quirky narratives of loves, betrayals and handed-on stories from the tapestry of our past. The final piece in this triology, Phantoms, opens in a landscape of beasts & strange savagery as well as extraordinary beauty in movement and connection. Ever-changing lighting effects & set details enhanced the mood of a dream - or a nightmare - of startling intensity. Phantoms will be touring nationally: we're privileged to have hosted the first performance in Frome.

 On to the movies now, and I have to admit I was disappointed in Belfast. It's set in 1970, just at the start of the the Troubles I remember well - living with a toddler and a baby in the centre of a city suddenly overtaken with civil war isn't something you readily forget - and this story opens with a barrage of street conflict as catholics in a 'mixed' street are assaulted with firebombs. So far, so nightly news. After that it goes a bit cute and goey. The boy is supposed to be nine, I discovered later, having taken him for much younger throughout. He's mad about the movies so we get snippets of popular 1970s films in full colour, to contrast with the monochrome of the backstreets - a set, not the actual streets, because Branagh was filming throughout the pandemic, which might explain the vaguely un-city-like feel of much of it. "Anybody who turns to “Belfast” for a delve into the roots of the Troubles in Northern Ireland will be frustrated," warns the New York Times, and it's true. Anyone who hopes for more insight into Branagh's formative years than a sentimental youthful crush and a passion for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be disappointed. What annoyed me most was the failure to show just how much Northern Ireland is another country, with a language & values that have little in common with the mainland. For an instance, young Kenneth & his cousin discuss how hard it is to know who's Catholic in their Protestant street. Excuse me?  That's like having a couple of south London kids discussing how to work out which of their mates are Caucasian and which Jamaican. Trust me, they know.  "A syrupy memoir offering little insight into a turbulent time," is one trenchant observation on  Rotten Tomatoes, though the Daily Mail thought it was 'an absolute joy.' 

For a more realistic view, also through unaware eyes, you might want to read The Price of Bread, the true story of a young family living in central Belfast when the Troubles erupted, as seen through the eyes of an English girl who came to live in this conflicted city with no idea of the ingrained realities and only hopeful hippy idealism to counter the terrifying hostilities exploding on the streets. You can get a copy from me, or Hunting Raven Books in Frome, or my publishers Hobnob Press - or any other outlet. It's about what it was like when the city streets were filled with blockades, when it wasn't safe to take children uptown, when red-white-and-blue were painted along the kerbs of the backstreets as a  warning, and the colour of your coat could mean the difference between an attack and a safe passing. That's the Belfast I remember. 

And finally... the absolute joy of packing up the jigsaws that cover the floor and rejoining the real world! A bit wobbly - a little bit woah! & a little bit wha? - but definitely in that lovely land called Beyond Covid.  Huge condolences to everyone who had it worse than me, massive thanks to everyone for their gifts & kindness. Here's a Frome market stall in Saturday sunshine, where Tom from Bristol Fungarium is selling chinese-inspired tinctures from mushrooms. Being a Leo, with an affinity for lion imagery, it wasn't surprising that the lion mushroom was the one that chose me: this amazing fungus looks like a massive exploded brain, but if it helps me get my house back to some kind of order and cleanliness, that will be magic indeed.  

The week that wasn't

 So this has been the week my luck in swerving the thin red flow-test line ran out, leaving me dutifully isolating amid a litter of cancellations, with only Boris' Partygate debacle and jigsaws for entertainment. So here are the excitements that would otherwise be filling this week's bulletin: 

In pride of place, press night at Bristol Old Vic for Dr Semmelweis, developed from an idea by, and starring, marvellous Mark Rylance. No-one who saw this actor in Jerusalem will ever forget his powerful stage presence, and the theme of a doctor struggling to save lives - albeit in a very different situation from our present one - is bound to chime. This is one cancellation I will definitely replace as soon as it's safe and legal to do so.

Also an immense disappointment was sacrificing my ticket to view BELFAST at the Westway in Frome - Kenneth Brannagh's memory of the Troubles of the late 1960s and early 70s in Northern Ireland. These disturbances are the theme and backdrop to my last novel The Price of Bread, based on my own experience of those fearful and violent days - if the movie stirs you up and you want another angle, you can get my story from Hunting Raven Books or me...      Meantime, that movie is going right back on my to-do list!

Sadly not replaceable is my planned trip to see the Red Dress in Somerton, as it will be en route to its next show-place next week. There's a film here about this impressive project, started in 2009, which has involved hundreds of women decorating the dress with emblems of their culture and their stories. It looks wonderful from the glimpses online - here's one small section of this full-length, voluminous, vivid, luxuriant dress textured with stories of women all around the world. 

Also struck from my diary: the opening night of a new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth on Friday night: Ida Applbroog, a feminist pioneer now in her nineties - the work looks fascinating & I had tickets to be there at the party....You can see the whole tour on this link - but at least this event is on for a while...

Also deleted: meetings with friends, my writers' group, a precious lunch date with my son and his family, a party, and a Burns Night event, with vegan haggis, bashed neeps and tatties followed by cranachan - portions kindly carried over to my house by hostess Emily, but I missed the poetry readings, including our annual favourite:  Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall.  

Still, all in all, what with arrivals of flowers, food, chocolate, wine, jigsaws, offers of provisions and messages of condolence, being incarcerated in Frome isn't a bad experience. If only it were so mild for everyone...

A dramatic week: absurdity, tragedy, & some poetry...

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Who said February was a dull month? This week has been crammed with performance and creativity. Let's start with live theatre:The Late-ivity. Yes, it is the nativity story from the bible, Jim, but not as we know it.  Living Spit, unabashed that January is trudging onward, has brought their version of the arrival on earth of the Son of God to Bristol’s Wardrobe Theatre at the end of its short revival tour - revived from December’s performances when it was called The Nativity, that is.

The Wardrobe has fantastic audience atmosphere, especially for comedy, and Howard Coggins & Stu McCloughlin are absolutely on top form here - I speak as one who has followed them for over a decade of fantasies and histories, always steeped in absurdity. Here, Howard’s bored God picks a random woman (Howard) to impregnate, so Stu dashes around as an exasperated Gabriel, and both of them morph into shepherds and kings, skimming hilariously through the familiar tale to their own undoubted highlight: Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, recreated by audience participation as scores of dolls were chucked at us to dismember and hurtle back. The stage by the end looked like party leftovers from a cannibal feast. Sadly next week is the end of the run for this show: if you can’t get tickets, keep your fingers crossed for The Later-ivity - this one could run & run.

The recent remake of West Side Story, which has been popular with both reviewers and the public, has been showing at the Westway, Frome's charming little independent cinema: the combination of Spielberg and Sondheim, plus wild passion and hot nights, is clearly unmissable in a chill January, and the Westway has added attractions like icecreams on offer from a tray during the intermission, and a foyer bar. Adding to these small delights, this movie has been very well reviewed by both critics and audiences - and rightly so. This version is, as you'd expect, careful to get ethnicity correct, and also to establish a credible social context for the aggressions of the deprived teens.  Choreography & agility in the dances is as brilliant as you'd expect, and that clever, funny, song Gee Officer Krupke works particularly well as a private ensemble number rather than an unlikely challenge to real authority. It's great, altogether.

Still with drama: a chat in The River House with Frome's writer/performer Hannah Kumari whose one-person show ENG-ER-LAND will be touring the UK from February. As well as celebrating her own passion for football, Hannah says it's an exploration of her own mixed race identity, and what it means to be English. "I wanted to write a play that was fun and uplifting, whilst also confronting big issues," Hannah says. The play is coming to Frome in March, with a showing at the Football Club as well as the Merlin theatre.

This was a rich week for poetry too: Words at the Black Swan ekphrastic poetry group met on Monday to respond to the extraordinary Slow Time exhibition in the Long Gallery which opened last weekend. This fascinating project proved really stimulating to all ten workshop participants- do take a look at the website in the link, there are some extraordinary and beautiful responses to these pinhole landscapes extending Cartier Bresson's concept of a 'decisive moment' into an infinity of time. One of the group, Mike Grenville, also made a film you can view here.

Then Thursday evening Rainbow Fish Speakeasysession on Zoom led by by Frome's wonder-girl Liv Torc included some wonderful words, mostly crafted from heart-felt personal experience, with brilliant guest Rebecca Tantony also movingly personal in her poems: there's a sample of her work here. 

And after a couple missed Wednesdays, here's your musical blast from wonderful Bar Lotte! Saxophonist Iain Bellamy was with Nick Pini on bass, guest guitarist Denny Ilett, and drums this time from Marc Whitlock. I know nothing about jazz, but I do know that these sessions are fabulous.

And your final footnote this week is a recommendation for all those who for various reasons don't get up to the talks at the National Gallery in London: this is another of their short free-to-view exhibition promo films, this time Albrecht Dürer. It's a fascinating revelation of Dürer's huge impact on artists ever since.

Fast dance, slow art, & Boxes - a week of permitted joys

We live in interesting times, don't we? This is allegedly a Chinese curse but 2022 is taking it literally. Parties and protests, operation Big Dog/ this is the background to January's blog, as Julie Andrews might not have trilled in 1965. However this is an arts blog, so ignoring protest marches & the bumper batch of bulletins about ludicrous misbehaviour in the corridors of power, let's go direct to Frome's Merlin Theatre for a double bill of talent and innovation on Saturday night. First aKa dance theatre presented a speechless solo show of brilliant parody, dance, mime, and mimicry all exquisitely synched to a clever topical soundtrack.  A Real Fiction (do check this link) had the circle of audience transfixed by stunning moves and surreal comedy, including an 'intermission' where we all got jellybabies and concluding with a short series of 'out-takes'.  Next, the fable of Pandora's box was given a new twist with puppetry and current context by Kerchief Theatre in their short performance Boxes - basically a simple piece of story-telling made enchanting by the rapport between the two women performers, Esme Patey-Ford and Maddy Herbert, emerge from boxes with different perspectives which are increasingly highlighted throughout their drama, ultimately resolved not by 'hope' as an  abstract injunction but by their playful Tiktok. There's more about this delightful production here.  

From hi-energy drama to silent art, as Black Swan Arts has re-opened the Long Gallery after its long break for Slow Time, a fascinating exhibition of pin-hole camera photographs taken in Somerset on long settings - a week, a month, or longer. This project began as a creative response to lockdown, inspired initially by Steve Poole & Jannette Kerr who provided neighbours and friends with pin-hole cameras created in cans, and a brief to leave them in any situation for long enough to register the changes of light over time. With support from John Gammans of Somerset Arts Work, this project developed into a fascinating collection of images that in their distorted stillness seem to chime with the strange life-reorientations of our community during these times of stillness imposed by the pandemic. Here's Steve showing me a typical pinhole camera, and one of the images created by months beside an immobilised concrete works when the passing of daylight was its only illumination. (workshops available - check Black Swan site.)

Other than that, my week has had a focus on written word: two live writers' group meetings, now that we're allowed indoors, a meeting of Hunting Raven's Proof Pudding Book Club at River House on Sunday, plus a zoom discussion with Hazel Stewart on the progress of our twin-twin poetry collection (two writers, two reading routes) now that our commissioned cover imagery* has been delivered to our publisher. What's it like for you? and Dance for Those Who'd Rather Not are both pamphlet-length collections jointly devised, exploring & expressing our personal themes as well as our long friendship: we're both beyond thrilled that this Caldew Press, who recently published John Hegley's collection A Scarcity Of Biscuit, has now added us to his stable of quirky poets. *images available soon!

Patchy sun this week has allowed for some very pleasant local walking too, so to conclude this chat on disparate topics, here's Nunney Church looking particularly lovely as the snowdrops in the graveyard start to flower.

Rainy with a chance of Blues

To begin at the end of the week, the undoubted highlight of the year so far was Sunday's gig at The Bell in Bath, with an incredible line-up of top class blues musicians: Jon Amor (guitar & vocals), Pete Gage (keyboard & vocals), Tom Gilkes (drum & percussion), Jerry Soffe (bass) and Eddie Martin (guitar, harp & vocals). 

These musicians are all top class creatives with huge audience-impact in their presentation - I haven't the skills for anything like a coherent review of their musical techniques but their performance together is sensational. The Bell is a great music pub too: raised stage and space for dancing, and an avid audience.

Also with the music, Eleanor Talbot, Frome's international broadcaster on wide-ranging topics, aired another of her popular  'Trash or Treasure' sessions. This was recorded in Ellie's living room last week, with her cats, fizz and cakes, and with Rosie Eliot & me as adjudicating guests. Great fun to participate, and fascinating to listen to such an esoteric mix, expertly guided by Ellie's extensive knowledge of the music world. My personal list would be less esoteric: current 'treasure' is Wet Leg, currently following their brilliant Chaise Longue song with Too Late Now and hopefully heralding a year when bonkers productions are in vogue, as this would be useful for me and Hazel when our double poetry collection What's it Like for You?/Dance for Those who'd Rather Not comes out with Caldew Press this spring. Our awesome cover design is still in progress with ON FIRE so instead here's Wet Leg in their current video 

No theatre shows this week, but the good news that Plays International has gone online, under the editorship of Jeremy Malies, which means my reviews will be immediately available, rather than in 3-monthly chunks which doesn't always help to promote the show. There's a historical archive too, where i'm pleased to see my piece about my father is currently resting...

Finally, an artsy tip for those still unsure of travel: The National Gallery is sharing short 'taster' films about their exhibitions paintings free online: this week's subject was Durer, who appears to have had a healthy respect for his own -undoubtedly magnificent - talent as both a print-maker and a painter. 

Other than these highlights, it was a quietly pleasant week for me: meeting friends and fellow writers, cat-sitting, a meal at Frome's excellent Italian restaurant Castello, and a lot of writing... the  promised snow didn't arrive but at least the bin-men did, clearing away the last of the festivities as rain settled in.  And Stephen Mangan won the House of Games weekly quiz challenge hosted by Richard Osman.