A test of Tory wills over academies in Bath

A fascinating insight into the tensions inherent in the coalition government is playing itself out in Bath. Oldfield School, a successful girls' foundation school, had declared its plans to apply for outstanding academy status even before the ink was dry on the coalition agreement. Its head Kim Sparling had tried to become the poster girl for Michael Gove's new academies.

But there was a rather big snag in her ambitions: Conservative-run Bath and North East Somerset Council had plans to turn Oldfield into a co-educational school, closing a less successful boys' school in the process. The Tory council, with the support of Liberal Democrat Bath MP Don Foster, made vigorous representations to Gove. The result was that Oldfield did not appear on the list of 32 new academies announced earlier this month, to the fury of Sparling, who has been firing legal letters into the DFE. The school itself has even been advertising as an academy in the local press, even though it is not (yet) one. And now the council has told Oldfield that if it doesn't agree to go co-ed by 5pm today, it will close the school and reopen a coed school on the same site.

This all seems a mite curious. After all, the whole point of Gove's Academies Bill was that outstanding schools would be automatically designated as academies, wasn't it? In fact, what has happened in Bath suggests that far from sidelining local authorities, the coalition has become even more sensitive to their objections. And a host of amendments forced onto the Academies Bill by the Liberal Democrats in July greatly strengthened the power of local authorities to slow down planned academies. The Local Government Association is said to have unprecedented access to ministers, and a coalition of local interests can clearly outweigh a determined head teacher.

In truth, there is also a degree of pragmatic good sense in all of this: at a time of cuts, a degree of strategic planning is necessary to avoid deadweight costs. There is a logic to the council's plans for the authority as a whole, though the whole affair has stopped their wider plans for reorganisation too. And it remains likely that many more good schools will opt for academy status without much objection - but at their own pace.

But what are the cheerleaders for a radical overhaul of the school system to make of it all? This one can't really be blamed on the teaching unions, can it?

UPDATE: Bath's council has won the battle of wills: Oldfield School will admit boys with extra capital funding to provide suitable extra facilities. In return, the council has removed its objection to the school becoming an academy. All of which shows who really has the upper hand in the practical application of the coalition's freedom for outstanding schools.

The Rivals

To see a splendid production of Sheridan's The Rivals, his Bath-based tale of rivalry and comic misunderstanding, at the refurbished Theatre Royal last night. Penelope Keith was simply splendid as the wary aunt, Mrs Malaprop, enhanced by the sheer pleasure of absorbing so many of her malopropisms. She was ably supported by Peter Bowles as the Sir Anthony Absolute, played with timely moderation, and a fine cast, notably Gerard Murphy as the blustering stage Irishman Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Robyn Addison as the languid Lydia and Tony Gardiner as Faulkland. But this was very much an ensemble performance, under Sir Peter Hall's incomparable direction, that served to remind the capacity audience at Bath of the wonderful wit of this 1775 play (with its operatic echoes). Sheridan was just 23 when he wrote it, though his first effort extended to four hours, mercifully halved for later audiences. The reunion of Keith and Bowles is an added pleasure in this excellent start to a new Bath season.

The Good Soldier

Bath Theatre Royal's summer offering at the Ustinov - while the Main House is closed for a revamp - is Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, based on a novel written just before the outbreak of the First World War. The story revolves around an American prude John Dowell and his flirtatious wife, Florence, and their friends Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a British couple whom they met at a German spa resort.

The cast is excellent in a fine adaptation by Julian Mitchell that makes great use of the limited space in the Ustinov, with many of the actors playing several roles. Edward is a seemingly good soldier - outwardly - whose mix of extavagant unaffordable charity and serial philandering provides his long-suffering, but calculatingly cold wife Leonora - played superbly by Flora Montgomery -with a full-time job rescuing the family finances and saving her caddish husband from himself and his romantic urges.

The relationship with the Americans provides a backdrop for a longer series of flashbacks and revelations that are delivered with extraordinary energy and pace by the cast. But for all their exuberant enthusiasm - and a very fine adaptation - the story itself is ultimately unredemptive. Fine novel it may have been - and championed by Graham Greene - but one is left wondering after a dizzying two hours what it was all about, really.

Dyson should have government backing

Plans for a new skills academy in Bath, sponsored by the South West's leading inventor and entrepreneur James Dyson, have been called in by the planning minister, Baroness Andrews. The decision to support the new design and engineering academy, which is backed by local head teachers and business, was taken by Bath and North East Somerset council, albeit despite the objections of its planning officials and the Environment Agency. (As some have observed, this is not normally how Bath does business, so it was a welcome surprise although it is undoubtedly a controversial issue locally.) Despite efforts to involve Unesco, the building where it will be located is a disused (if old) cranemaker's works in the South Quays area which is in need of just this sort of boost (Bath is not simply an extended Jane Austen film set). As the picture shows, Dyson's design for the academy has elegantly sought to incorporate the Victorian facade to provide an unprecedented amenity for local young people. As with any riverside site, there is a flooding risk, but this will be covered in the design. The planning inquiry will delay the school yet further; the minister should set it a tight deadline. After all, if the government wants to trust local decision-making, surely this a great case in point?

Breakfast with Mugabe at the Ustinov

To see Breakfast with Mugabe, Fraser Grace's play (first shown at the RSC in 2005) in the newly refurbished Ustinov Theatre in Bath. It is a very fine production which worked well in the small theatre. Based on a reported incident in 2001 when Robert Mugabe was supposed to have turned to a white psychiatrist for help, the play imagines what happens with eminent and liberal-minded psychiatrist Andrew Peric (played with aplomb by Miles Anderson) meets the President (a fine and convincing performance by Nicholas Bailey, pictured), with his second wife Grace (Andi Osho) and ice-cool secret service bodyguard, Gabriel (Joseph Marcell) entertaining Peric as the President is late for his appointments. Set against the background of the 2002 elections, the play explores the ngozi - Shona demons - that haunt Mugabe. He is particularly troubled by Josiah Tongogara, the man destined to be Zimbabwe's first president who died in a mysterious car crash (that many believe was engineered by Mugabe) shortly after the Lancaster House talks in 1979. Had he lived, he would probably have led a more conciliatory course for the country, keeping Mugabe in check. (His replacement Rev Canaan Banana was an ineffectual check on Mugabe and later forced into exile having been charged with sodomy). The play also brings out the contradictions and tensions of the increasingly racially charged land confiscations and the conflicting emotions of a liberal white opponent of Ian Smith's racist regime. This taut, believable production is an excellent start for the new Ustinov. As for the theatre itself, if the refit has cost £1.5 million as Venue suggests this week, it is hard to see where the money has gone: there is a trendy bar, slightly better stage, new (but less comfortable) seating and a new balcony, with more space at the back for lighting and technical wizardry. But it is hard to treat seriously the ludicrous suggestion made in the programme that it is a 'major architectural re-invention.' It was a good second theatre for Bath before the refit, and remains one, despite the 're-inventions.' The play continues until 22 March.

The West's rail woes

Time for a bit of parochialism. The protest by anti-First Great Western campaigners seemed to have fizzled out by the time we got to Keynsham (where we live) and Bath stations this morning, my daily commute. But the protesters have done a splendid job in drawing attention to the failings of the West's rail services. Our train was not overcrowded but was ten minutes late today due to a 'mix-up over platforms' at Bristol; I arrived back from London to Bath on Thursday twenty minutes late, and five minutes after the hourly connection to Keynsham had left. And there is a lot in their arguments about the unreliability of the service; and the £140 peak return fare from Bristol to London is daylight robbery (it is £48 as a saver, and less if you book off-peak in advance). Some services operate with too few carriages. However, that is not the whole story. Much as it galls me to say anything good about FGW, their service from Keynsham and other smaller stations around Bristol and Bath is better than that offered by Wessex trains: there is (when it runs properly) an hourly service; there are reasonable connections; and there are more direct trains to places like Bristol Parkway, Cardiff, Gloucester and Swindon. Moreover, the local fares have not had the same crazed increases as the London services. All of this, I think, we can attribute to the campaign against plans to cut Keynsham services two years ago, which were greeted by 8000 individual protests. But then having spent fifteen years on London's Northern Line and my teenage years waiting 40 minutes for never-arriving Dublin buses, it is possible to have a sense of proportion about one's daily ten minute commute!