Bristol Old Vic’s 250th year: what you’ll see

Pictured above: Jeremy Irons, Lesley Manville and Sir Richard Eyre launching Bristol Old Vic’s 2016 production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night

This year Bristol Old Vic becomes the first British theatre in history to survive 250 years. Highlights of this anniversary year include, in the autumn, a brand new musical to be directed by artistic director Tom Morris – alongside strands from each of the centuries in which the theatre has been operating, from the 18th to the 21st, as well as a play by Shakespeare for whose work the theatre was designed in 1766. On the theatre’s birthday weekend in May, meanwhile, Bristol Old Vic will be taken over by the people of Bristol.

This summer will mark the return of one of the key figures in the theatre’s (recent) history. Timothy West returns to Bristol in June as King Lear, in a poignant reworking of Shakespeare’s great (greatest?) tragedy. Adapted by Tom Morris and in collaboration with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School – who celebrate their own 70th birthday this year – the show will see West and three other veteran stage actors leading a cast of young graduating students from the Theatre School. 

West first worked with the Bristol Old Vic Company in autumn 1967, going on to lead the company throughout the 1980s and 90s, as both actor (The Master Builder, Uncle Vanya, Long Day’s Journey into Night) and associate director.

This year’s impressive programme also includes a co-production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s great Georgian comedy of manners The Rivals (Sept), produced with the Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse. Premiered in 1775 and drawing on his romantic experiences in fashionable Bath, Sheridan’s elegant comedy revived the comic spirit of the Restoration.

The 21st century, meanwhile, will be represented by The Grinning Man (Oct), a new musical based on Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs, directed by Tom Morris and written by Kneehigh Theatre’s Carl Grose (Dead Dog in a Suitcase, Tristan and Yseult). At the city fair, a grotesque oasis of entertainment, a strange new act has arrived. Soon everyone from the gutter-rats to the new queen has fallen for the hand-made freak Grinpayne and his hideously beautiful face. But who is he really? Together with an old man, a blind girl and a wolf, Grinpayne has a surreal story to tell – we’re promised a musical like no other, complete with darkest desires and destinies entwined.

Other highlights include a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s great play Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Mar 23-Apr 23), featuring Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville and directed by Richard Eyre; a return for Owen Sheers’ sensational verse play Pink Mist (Feb 16-Mar 5); The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary! (Apr 26-May 7), co-created with veteran comic theatre troupe Peepolykus; and The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk (May 27-June 11), a new collaboration with the inimitable Kneehigh. And, before all that, Sally Cookson’s adaptation of Jane Eyre returns to the theatre (Jan 21-Feb 6) after a triumphant run at the National Theatre.

One of the anniversary programme’s most striking elements, meanwhile, is a series of Bristol-wide projects which reaches its peak over the May bank holiday weekend (and the theatre’s 250th birthday weekend, May 28-30) when the Theatre, foyers, Studio and the street beyond will be handed over to the people of Bristol for a weekend of entertainment created by Bristolians of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

Says Tom Morris: “The 250th Birthday Weekend aims to harness the creativity that runs through the city and present all the fantastic things the people of Bristol create – as long as you have a performance, something you’ve made, an idea or a story which connects to the theme of Bristol’s creativity, all will be welcomed onto the stage.”

As so many have been over the course of the past quarter millennium…

For info on these and other shows in Bristol Old Vic’s 250th anniversary year, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk