Bristol Old Vic

The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre complex and theatrical company in the centre of Bristol, England. The complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre, offices and backstage facilites. It also incorporates the eighteenth-century Coopers' Hall as its foyer. The Theatre Royal is a grade I listed building, while the Coopers' Hall is grade II*. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the London Old Vic theatre. It also runs the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, a well-regarded school for both actors and technicians.

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School now operates under Principal Christopher Denys as an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama with some courses validated by the University of the West of England. It has its own premises in Clifton, bought with proceeds from the London success of Salad Days. It previously had working links with the Drama Department of the University of Bristol, which still holds many papers of the Bristol Old Vic in its Theatre Collection. For many years it presented regular student productions in the Department's experimental Drama Studio converted from an indoor tennis court off a corridor in the Wills Building behind the University's famous Bell Tower at the top of Bristol's fashionable Park Street. Students from the School and the Drama Department shared many of each others' formal lectures and a number of the Department's graduates went on to continue their studies as full-time students at the School.

Related Topics:
Christopher Denys - Conservatoire for Dance and Drama - University of the West of England - Clifton - University of Bristol

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Having struggled with limited resources until the 1960s, the School now has access to a number of performing venues, including the private Redgrave Theatre at Clifton College. (The theatre was named after the actor Sir Michael Redgrave, who was an old boy of the College.) It also takes productions on tour to various locations in the nearby West Country, a tradition dating back to the 1950s when for several years students moved to Dartington Hall in South Devon for two weeks each spring where they rehearsed and presented a public production in the Barn Theatre. While the School was able to use broadcasting studio facilities at the University Drama Studio for radio drama training in the 1950s and also ran occasional courses in conjunction with the BBC at their Bristol Studios in Whiteladies Road, in 1996 it was able to acquire its own suite of fully-equipped former BBC studios in Clifton.

Related Topics:
Clifton College - Sir Michael Redgrave - West Country - Dartington Hall - Devon - BBC

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The School began life in October 1946, only eight months after the founding of its parent Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company, in a room above a fruit merchant's warehouse in the Rackhay near the stage door of the Theatre Royal. (The yard of the derelict St Nicholas School adjacent to the warehouse was still used by the Company for rehearsals of crowd scenes and stage fights as late as the early 1960s, notably for John Hale's productions of Romeo and Juliet starring the Canadian actor Paul Massie and Annette Crosbie, a former student of the School, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac with Peter Wyngarde. Students from the Theatre School frequently played in these crowd scenes and fights.)

Related Topics:
Romeo and Juliet - Annette Crosbie - Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac - Peter Wyngarde

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The School continued in these premises for eight years because of the Old Vic's lack of funds in the post-war decade until 1954 when the Company produced a small-scale end-of season topical musical for the entertainment of regular patrons and to allow the actors to let their hair down after a season of mainly serious productions.

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This musical, Salad Days by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds, proved very popular with Bristol audiences and was subsequently transferred to London's West End where it was an instanteous hit and played for more than four years, making it the longest running production in West End history at the time. Since then it has never been out of production somewhere in the world and has become part of theatre history. £7,000 from the Salad Days profits ? a large sum in those days ? was given to the School towards the purchase and conversion of two large adjoining Victorian villas at 1 and 2 Downside Road in Clifton. In 1995 the enduring benefit to students of that donation was formally recognised when a new custom-built dance and movement studio in the School's back garden was named the Slade/Reynolds Studio.

Related Topics:
Salad Days - West End

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Many distinguished members of the theatrical profession have taught at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Perhaps the best known was the legendary Rudi Shelly, who joined the teaching staff only two weeks after the School opened in 1946 and was still working, conducting a master-class from his hospital bed, just hours before his death at the age of 90 in May 1998. Former students from around the world gathered in Bristol for his funeral at which the eulogy was delivered by former student Stephanie Cole. Apart from students of the School, over the years many established actors from around the world sought out Rudi Shelly's master classes when visiting or working in England.

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At the time of the School's move to its current premises in Downside Road, Clifton, in 1956, the Principal was Duncan (Bill) Ross, who had succeeded the first Principal, Edward Stanley in 1954. After guiding the School through seven difficult years that are nonetheless still regarded by his former students as a golden age, Ross left in late 1961 to take up a teaching post in the USA. Soon after the departure of this much-loved principal, other key staff members resigned, including Daphne Heard and Maggie Collins, and Paula Gwyn-Davies, the School Secretary.

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After a short interregnum under the actor Richard Ainley, the post of Principal was taken by Nat Brenner, a distinguished actor and theatre technician and, at that time, General Manager of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. Brenner's stewardship was regarded by students of the time as another golden age. He remained in the post until 1980, when he was succeeded by the current Principal, Christopher Denys.

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The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, as its name suggests, is not simply a school for actors. It provides comprehensive training courses for all theatre, radio, film, and television professionals and its graduates are to be found in key positions as actors, directors, set designers, costumer designers, lighting designers and stage and company managers througout the world.

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Among the many hundreds of distinguished actors on the School's list of alumni are

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• Miranda Richardson - Best Actress Academy Award nominee
• Daniel Day-Lewis - Best Actor Academy Award winner
• Greta Scacchi
• Jeremy Irons - Best Actor Academy Award winner
• Patricia Routledge CBE
• Patrick Stewart OBE
• Annette Crosbie
• Patricia Brake
• Milton Johns
• Robert Lang
• John McEnery
• Brian Blessed
• Tim Pigott-Smith
• Norman Rossington
• Amanda Redman
• Julian Slade
• Jane Lapotaire
• Gene Wilder