What’s the time, Mr Wolf? – The Cornerhouse, Frome

THE theatrical highlight of this year’s Frome Festival was played in the breath-defying heat of the upstairs room of the Cornerhouse last week, as Ben Tinniswood gave his hour long solo show about a misfit and a loner who police presumed was the most likely perpetrator of a murder.

When they could find no evidence to link him to the crime, they set a policewoman to pose as a would-be girlfriend turned on by talk and letters about sexual perversions and violence.

The audience watches as Conrad talks about his life, his paganism, his vegetarianism, his fear of gravity and his love for his dog, all done as a confessional rant against the society in which he is lonely and confused.

By the end of the evening, 18 months on, he has been incarcerated on remand, released for lack of evidence, realised the brutality of the police in their determination to get a conviction no matter what the cost, and left alone again. Even his dog has died.

It’s a scarifying performance that wowed the audience at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe and at festivals around the country.

It returns to the Alma Tavern in Bristol next week from 22nd to 27th July before a short London season. GP-W

 

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