Welcome to the Year of Artists | Bristol Old Vic 2020
Our 2020 Programme celebrates the creative instinct in all of us, from the newest child in our Young Company to the most startling writer in Bristol Ferment; from the global creative star to the fire of imagination in the hearts of you, our audience.
Made in Bristol
Meet the current and past participants of our extraordinary, award-winning project, Made in Bristol.
For more, see: bristololdvic.org.uk/mib
Aardman create unique animation for Bristol Old Vic
Inspired by the rich history of Bristol Old Vic, which has been lovingly preserved by Bristol Archives and University of Bristol Theatre Collection, Aardman and Limbic Cinema present 'The House is Open'
Bristol Old Vic 250
The stage is set…
2016 represents an extraordinary moment in British theatre history as the oldest working theatre in the country will celebrate its 250th birthday.
Much has changed since our theatre first opened its doors in 1766. Technically illegal, the theatre had to disguise plays as concerts and was forced to hide its entrance from public sight. Today, Bristol Old Vic enjoys national and international recognition as a theatrical powerhouse, housing ground breaking theatre whilst nurturing unique and individual talent and serving as a cultural beacon for the city and the South West.
The anniversary year will see the building begin the final phase of its redevelopment, set to transform the front of house spaces to bring its history to life and create a warm, welcoming and accessible venue for the whole of Bristol.
The Bristol Hotel, Bristol
Sitting pretty on the quayside of the Floating Harbour, this luxury Bristol hotel is surrounded by the best of Bristols Old City and maritime history: Bristol Old Vic and the beautifully restored Queen Square, Bristol Cathedral and Explore@Bristol across Peros Bridge and of course The Arnolfini, Bristol's celebrated contemporary arts centre, right next door. For all these reasons, The Bristol Hotel is hard to avoid, even by visitors who are staying elsewhere. Those who do stay at our hotel in Bristol get to experience our great location, the fresh, modern luxury of our bedrooms, and the chic cuisine and quayside ambience of The River Grille and Shore Café Bar.
BRISTOL ......OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
UWE PROJECT NONE FOR PROFIT ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Princess & The Hustler - Audience Feedback from Bristol Old Vic
For Princess & The Hustler 2019 UK tour dates and to book tickets, click here:
by Chinonyerem Odimba
Directed by Dawn Walton
An Eclipse Theatre Company, Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre co-production
“My name is Phyllis Princess James. I will wear this crown every day. I will never take it off even when I am asleep.”
Meet Princess. A cheeky 10-year-old, with a plan to win the Weston-Super-Mare Beauty Contest. Trouble is, her mum is busy working several jobs, her brother, a budding photographer, won’t even take her picture and then – The Hustler returns.
In 1963 Bristol, as Black British Civil Rights campaigners walk onto the streets, Princess finds out what it really means to be black and beautiful.
Princess & The Hustler is the second national tour born from Revolution Mix – an Eclipse movement that is spearheading the largest ever delivery of new Black British stories. The first Revolution Mix story was last year’s sell-out production of Black Men Walking.
“Funny, moving and characterful.” ★★★★★ Bristol Live
Richly textured, passionate and enormously affecting. Beautiful.” ★★★★ The Times
“Heartfelt and timely...” ★★★★ The Stage
The Bristol Old Vic Refurbishments 2012
England's oldest working theatre, Bristol's Old Vic, reopens this year, 2012, after refurbishments to make it a modern theatre. Andrejz Blonski Architects leads the refurbishment for the client, Bristol's Old Vic Trustees. This video publicly asks Should spectators sit permanently on both sides of this theatre's stage floor now, in line with other successful modern theatres? It's the view of this author that this question is crucial to ensuring Bristol's Old Vic main house sustains its current success for the long term. It's also crucial to making this refurbished theatre space work successfully for play performances. This author believes it will be a serious mistake to make the theatre's new stage front flexible, for the reasons Iain Mackintosh, questions the validity of other flexible U.K. theatres in his book Architecture, Actors and Architecture (London & New York Routledge, 1993, reptd 1998, 2000, 2003.). More importantly, professional directors have rediscovered the benefits of having spectators there for play performances. Having spectators on three sides challenges actors to be more imaginative in their use of movement and voice than they need to be when spectators sit only to the front. This is why more three-sided stages are being built in professional theatres in the UK, Australia and America. Significantly, as Mackintosh shows, UK theatres had spectators on stage until at least the 1850s (when the new Olympic Theatre opened in the West End, with spectators on three sides of its stage front and with dimensions almost matching Bristol's Old Vic). In 1892, Parliament banned spectators from the stages of all UK professional theatres. The Lord Chamberlain's Surveyor of Theatres gained responsibility for enforcing the proscenium arch in all UK theatres. Thus, the same office responsible for banning free playwriting from 1737 to 1968 gained control, from 1892, of the way plays were acted. Fortunately, the 1880s also saw the rediscovery of Aarend van Buchel's copy of Johnannes de Witt's sketch showing the Swan Theatre (c.1596) had a deep three-sided stage. This, in turn, inspired performance-practice researcher William Poel to publish the first articles exploring the qualities and benefits of acting Shakespeare's plays with spectators on three sides. Poel's research and play performances led to the U. K. revival of modern theatres with spectators on three sides from c1968, the year the Lord Chamberlain lost Parliamentary control of free playwriting and performances.
Jane Eyre Trailer
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me...
A bold and dynamic re-imagining of Brontë's timeless masterpiece presented in two parts with an ensemble cast of actors and musicians.
A Bristol Old Vic production
Written by Charlotte Brontë
Devised by the Jane Eyre company
Directed by Sally Cookson
Until 29 March 2014
For tickets, call 0117 987 7877 or visit bristololdvic.org.uk
Trailer by Icon Films
Bristol Old Vic in 2016 - a virtual tour
Take a look at how our foyer, public spaces and Studio theatre might look come 2016 - our 250th birthday.
Ffi and to support the project, see: bristololdvic.org.uk/supportus
Bristol Old Vic's new foyer revealed
The historic theatre's auditorium can now be seen from King Street for the first time in its 250-year history
Bristol Old Vic 250 Years on BBC Inside Out West
John Charles Saunders Looks into 250 Years of the Bristol Old Vic and are Bristol residents aware that a small part of there council tax is contributing towards the upkeep of one of Britain's oldest theatres.
Bristol Old Vic's Tom Morris responds to the 'Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital' Report
Bristol Old Vic's Tom Morris responds to the 'Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital Report' which was published today.
bristololdvic.org.uk
You can read a transcript of Tom's response here:
You can read the report here:
Jeremy Irons Video Message from the BRISTOL OLD VIC theatre
PLEASE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL!
DRAMA SCHOOL AUDITION EXPERIENCE 2019: Bristol old vic theatre school
Outside the 'Bristol Old Vic' Theatre
Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a financially independent organisation in the 1990s. Bristol Old Vic runs a popular, and highly successful Young Company for young people aged 7–25.[1]
The Theatre Royal, the oldest continually-operating theatre in the English speaking world, was built during 1764–66 on King Street in Bristol.[2] The Coopers' Hall, built 1743–44, was incorporated as the theatre's foyer during 1970–72. Together, they are designated a Grade I listed building by Historic England.[3] Daniel Day-Lewis called it the most beautiful theatre in England.[2]
Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.[1][2] In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.
The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including today painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media.
Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, or advertising,[3] it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential—in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example.
Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts.[1][4] Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences.
United States:
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America (/əˈmɛrɪkə/), is a federal republic[16][17] composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 6] Forty-eight states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.[19]
At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2)[20] and with over 324 million people, the United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area,[fn 7] and the third-most populous. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city is New York City; twelve other major metropolitan areas—each with at least 4.5 million inhabitants—are Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Riverside.
Shakespeare's Rose & Bristol's Old Vic compared
Video shows how Shakespeare's Rose compares with Bristol's Old Vic as performance spaces. Its 250th birthday in 2016 sees the release of evidence in my book identifying Bristol's Old Vic as, perhaps, the oldest professional public playhouse in the world, that's rarely ever closed.
The Bristol Hotel.wmv
THE BRISTOL HOTEL
Anyone spending any length of time in Bristol is likely to come across The Bristol Hotel (formerly Jurys Bristol Hotel). Sitting pretty on the quayside of the Floating Harbour, this luxury Bristol hotel is surrounded by the best of Bristol's Old City and maritime history: Bristol Old Vic and the beautifully restored Queen Square, Bristol Cathedral and Bristol across Pero's Bridge and of course The Arnolfini, Bristol's celebrated contemporary arts centre, right next door.
For all these reasons, The Bristol Hotel is hard to avoid, even by visitors who are staying elsewhere. You can experience a great location, the fresh, modern luxury of their bedrooms, and the chic cuisine and quayside ambience of The River Grille and Shore Café Bar.
What better setting for fine food or a refreshing drink in good company than on the water's edge at this Bristol Hotel? A view across water calms the soul and offers a little sought-after tranquillity in the city.
At The Bristol Hotel you can unwind with afternoon tea or a glass of wine in the River Lounge, pop into the Shore Café Bar for a coffee or cocktail with friends, or experience the culinary pleasures of The River Grille.
The Bristol Hotel
Prince Street, Bristol BS1 4QF
Tel. +44 117 923 0333, Fax. +44 117 923 0300
E-mail. bristol@doylecollection.com
Web. doylecollection.com/bristol
BRISTOL
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007. It is England's sixth and the United Kingdom's eighth most populous city, one of the group of English Core Cities and the most populous city in South West England.
Bristol received a Royal Charter in 1155 and was granted County status in 1373. From the 13th century, for half a millennium, it ranked amongst the top three English cities after London, alongside York and Norwich, on the basis of tax receipts, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester during the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 18th century. It borders the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, and is also located near the historic cities of Bath to the south east and Gloucester to the north. The city is built around the River Avon, and it also has a short coastline on the Severn Estuary, which flows into the Bristol Channel.
Bristol is the largest centre of culture, employment and education in the region. Its prosperity has been linked with the sea since its earliest days. The commercial Port of Bristol was originally in the city centre before being moved to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth; Royal Portbury Dock is on the western edge of the city boundary. In more recent years the economy has depended on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries, and the city centre docks have been regenerated as a centre of heritage and culture. There are 34 other populated places on Earth named Bristol, most in the United States, but also in Peru, Canada, Jamaica, Barbados, and Costa Rica, all presumably commemorating the original. People from Bristol are termed Bristolians
Introducing Junkyard
The cast and director of 'Junkyard' introduce the inspiring true story behind the Lockleaze junk playground know as 'The Vench', created over 30 years ago and still in play today.
It's 1979, rubbish is on the streets of Lockleaze, and growing up is tricky for Fiz, Higgy and Ginger. Rick remembers what it's like to be a teenager. So when he decides to build a junk playground, he's pretty sure he has the charisma to get a bunch of reluctant kids involved. He's wrong.
Written by award-winning writer and Bristolian Jack Thorne ('This Is England', 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'), directed by Evening Standard award-winning director Jeremy Herrin ('Wolf Hall') and with music from Academy award-winning composer Stephen Warbeck ('Shakespeare in Love'), this is a story about Bristol, for Bristol, created from some of the best from the West End.
Junkyard
24 Feb-18 Mar
Theatre
7.30pm, 2.30pm (Sat mats)
£30-£9.50 (plus booking fee)
Age 14+
TICKETS:
Book & Lyrics Jack Thorne
Music Stephen Warbeck
Director Jeremy Herrin
Designer Chiara Stephenson
Lighting Designer Jack Knowles
Sound Designer Ian Dickinson
Musical Director Akintayo Akinbode
Movement Director Polly Bennett
Casting Director Lotte Hines
Assistant Director Michal Keyamo
Costume Supervision Ed Parry
Associate Costume Supervisor Annelies Henny
Music Preparation Andrew Green
A Headlong, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Theatre Kingston and Theatr Clwyd co-production.
Video filmed and edited by Camilla Adams
Image Feast Creative
Bristol Old Vic | The Spooky Ship 2018 | Haunted
146 years ago, SS Great Britain's Captain Gray vanished, never to be seen again. Or did he? Step aboard Brunel’s SS Great Britain after-dark this Halloween to find out, and settle in for a good old-fashioned Victorian fright-fest.
Following the previous success of The Spooky Ship, this year’s all-new event promises to be even more intense. Be prepared for a nightmare to remember as you follow your ghoulish guide around the darkest nooks and crannies of Brunel’s 175-year-old ship. But be careful you don’t wander off, as lost souls lurk in dark corners waiting to share their chilling tales with you…
The Spooky Ship takes inspiration from the dark parts of SS Great Britain’s history, bringing the ship vividly to life as professional actors roam the decks and spectres hide around every corner.
Book Now:
31 Oct - 3 Nov | Brunel's SS Great Britain
£14-£9
Suitable for ages 8+
#SpookyShip | @BristolOldVic