Bristol Old Vic

Bristol Old Vic, prestigious British regional theatre production company, based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, the country’s oldest working theatre. The building opened in 1766. Over the years, the theatre has undergone substantial alterations and therefore the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, though a more recent building, gives a better historical impression of Georgian theatre architecture. The Bristol Theatre Royal was granted Royal Licence by George III in 1778. The auditorium was enlarged in 1800 and during the 19th century many famous performers appeared there, including Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, and Joseph Grimaldi. However, by 1942 the theatre and its locale had declined and the venue was only saved by the intervention of the Council for the Preservation of Ancient Bristol. A trust took over the ownership of the building, which was leased to the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) making it the first theatre to benefit from state subsidy, and after extensive renovation the Theatre Royal reopened in 1943 with a production of She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, starring Sybil Thorndike, staged by the London Old Vic company.

In 1946 the London Old Vic company, with support from CEMA (later to become the Arts Council), established a repertory company in Bristol, named the Bristol Old Vic. The new company staged classic, contemporary, and new drama, gaining an international reputation for its productions, many of which, including Salad Days (1954), starring Dorothy Tutin, and The Killing of Sister George (1965), transferred to London’s West End. When the National Theatre company under Laurence Olivier took over the London Old Vic in 1963, the Bristol Old Vic continued independently, although links between the two companies remained close. Further expansion saw the Bristol Old Vic take on a second venue, the Little Theatre in Colston Hall; and in 1970 the Theatre Royal closed for redevelopment, reopening in 1972 with enhanced facilities in the nearby Coopers’ Hall, a former warehouse and auction room, and a new studio theatre space, the New Vic.

Recession in the 1980s led to the company’s withdrawal from the Little Theatre and the curtailment of its performances in the New Vic studio. However, in subsequent years the output of the theatre has featured successful collaborations with both commercial and subsidized partners, locally and nationally, on such diverse productions as Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1995) with Out Of Joint, Twelve Angry Men (1996) directed by Harold Pinter, A Busy Day (2000) by Fanny Burney, and the epic community theatre project, Up the Feeder, Down the ‘Mouth and Back Again (2001), which chronicled the history of the Bristol Docks.

A theatre school was also founded in 1946, whose alumni include Miranda Richardson, Jeremy Irons, and Daniel Day-Lewis. Actors and directors who have worked with the Bristol Old Vic company include Peter O’Toole, Timothy West, and Adrian Noble. The main house of the Bristol Theatre Royal seats 647.