With just five weeks to go to the Frome Festival – the countdown starts and those difficult decisions begin.
Of course many events don’t need booking. The Food Feast on Saturday 4th July, which promises to be bigger and better than ever; an amazing array of Open Studios over both weekends, with some open during the week too; a Story-makers Workshop on Tuesday 7th at the Black Swan, Family History for Beginners at the library on both Saturdays, Printing Activity Day at the Museum, the Embroiderers Guild Open Day at Christchurch Hall on Saturday 11th, and the Children’s Festival in Victoria Park on Sunday 12th.
This year’s headlining comedian Romesh Ranganathan has now sold out, but if you’d like to catch some comedy there are still tickets available for both the Cheesy Grin Comedy Club on Tuesday 7th and Submarine Comedy Club on Thursday 9th.
As usual the Frome Tunnels Festival tours have all sold out but the Tunnels team have laid on a few additional tours (See the Facebook Frome Tunnels Project Group).
There are also still tickets available for the Festival’s music headliners at the Cheese and Grain, a four hour DJ set with Dance legend Mr Scruff on Friday 3rd finishing at 2.00am, the Hoosiers (with Irwin Sparkes – lead vocals, lead guitar, Alan Sharland – drums, Martin Skarendahl – bass, backing, Sam Swallow – keyboards, backing vocals) on Friday the 11th and the Sugarhill Gang, Hip Hop’s first superstars, on Saturday 12th.
If you want to see this year’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte at Cooper Hall tickets for Friday 3rd have now sold out but there are still a few tickets left on Sunday 5th. If these sell out quickly it may be worth trying Cooper Hall directly.
Fancy getting creative or trying out something new this Festival? There are still workshop places available. Quirky Birds in Wire has sold out as has the first session of Glass Bauble Making on Sunday the 12th, but there are a few places remaining on popular workshops such as Stone Carving on Sunday 5th, Jam Jar Posies on Tuesday 7th, Felted Pods with Gladys Paulus on Sunday 12th and the second Glass Bauble Making session on Sunday 12th.
There are also still places on the Beginners Jewellery Making days on both Sunday 5th and 12th, Perfume Making and Indian Head Massage on Saturday 4th, Meditation with Elaine Ewens on the 5th, the Ukulele workshop on Friday 10th and Lip Balm making on Saturday the 11th.
Free informal Afro-Jazz workshops are at the Bath Arms on the 4th and 5th, and a Blues to Guitar Workshop with Ronnie McCrorie of Guitar Weekends will be held at the Full Moon at Rudge on Saturday 4th.
Tickets to bands at the Granary Frome FM/Festival club are going fast with Snowapple the Dutch all female Folk band in the lead. There is a huge variety on offer at the Granary this year with reasonably priced tickets, and some free events where a donation is requested, including Elise Yuill on Saturday 4th, The Frukes on Saturday 11th, Geniology on Sunday 12th.
Events at the Merlin still have tickets available including ‘The Trouble with Women is Men’ on Sunday 5th with Olivier award winner Sara Kestelman; ‘The Second Best Bed’ with Liz Grand starring as Anne Hathaway on the 9th and Michael Pennington reads from his autobiography ‘Let Me Play the Lion too’ on the 12th.
For literary events everyone is spoiled for choice this year. Ivan Cooper’s talk ‘An Accidental Pilgrimage to Tibet’ on Tuesday 7th is proving very popular and has now been moved to the children’s area of the library – tickets are still available. You could compete for the Festival Poet Laureate at the famous poetry café or compete for the Bard of Frome in the Playwriting Competition at the Three Swans on Monday 6th.
The Open Air site specific theatre at the Dissenters cemetery will host ‘Midsummer Dusk’ on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th by Nevertheless Productions and the Frome Writers collective has a whole array of workshops on Sunday 12th at the library where the Short Story Competition awards will be presented. See highlighted literary events in the brochure.
There are still tickets to the town walks where you could learn about the history of Frome, or alternative walks discovering hidden nooks and crannies and of course the Hidden Gardens Map which will guide you round the town and allow you to take a peek into gardens normally hidden from view, (open from Friday 10th – Sunday 12th July).
As the Frome Festival celebrates 15 years, organisers hope the sun keeps shining.
For tickets and further information see: www. fromefestival.co.uk, box office 01373 455420
