Robin Hood revamped for Christmas

Bristol Old Vic has an illustrious history of conjuring a special kind of theatrical magic at Christmas. Memorable productions from the last decade include Swallows and Amazons, Peter Pan and A Christmas Carol, but as artistic director Tom Morris reflects, the theatre’s reputation for putting on festive entertainment for families stretches back a great deal further. “We love Christmas at Bristol Old Vic.

“Since the golden age of King Street Pantos in the 1870s, people of every age and from every part of Bristol have come to the theatre together, often with three or four generations in a single booking. This creates the most wonderful atmosphere throughout the building, and it’s inspiring for artists too, who create some of their most magical work.”

This year’s Christmas production of Robin Hood: Legend of the Forgotten Forest has an added significance. Presented by The Wardrobe Ensemble, who first formed out of the Bristol Old Vic Young Company in 2010, it represents a full circle completed, and an emotional arrival on the main stage – for the biggest family show of the season.

“Christmas shows at Bristol Old Vic are some of our first memories of theatre, so being given the chance to create a new one is an absolute dream come true,” says Hannah Smith, producer for The Wardrobe Ensemble. “We are so excited to get into the rehearsal room and get started. We’ve got an amazing team of old and new collaborators all working their socks off to make Robin Hood a Christmas show for the ages.”

During the late summer of 2021, The Wardrobe Ensemble created the smash-hit success pop-up venue The Theatre on the Downs, which across a two month period became home to 6,550 audience members, 34 visiting companies – including Living Spit, Action Hero, FullRogue and Ad Infinitum – and multiple shows, including the premiere of their own brand new devised piece, WINNERS.

Known for their incredible creativity, dynamism and fun, they are bringing their own unique spin to the swashbuckling adventures of Robin Hood:

When a 21st-century kid discovers a dusty book at the back of his local library, something miraculous happens. Reality cracks and he’s thrown into the middle of an epic fight between good and evil. It’s Sherwood Forest. The 12th century. An uneasy time of cunning thieves, dastardly villains and karaoke-singing monks. Sound familiar so far? Not all is as it seems…

Robin Hood company in rehearsals – photo: Jack Offord

For the inside story on the show, Bristol 24/7 joined cast members James Newton, who plays the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Tom England, who plays Will Scarlet, as they sat down to lunch:

How are rehearsals going?

Newton: “Good. We just lost a week and a half to Covid and spent a week rehearsing on zoom, but we’re grateful now to be back in the room and doing it for real.”

England: “We’re at the point where we’re piecing it all together now, and getting the movement sequences right, so it’s really exciting to be back in the room, getting a sense of what the show is becoming.”

To what extent is the process collaborative?

Newton: “We’re a devising company, so actually the first part of the process for us is a lot about working out the structure of the show itself, the story, and fleshing out the characters – so you’re always writing at the same time as learning.”

England: “The process this time is slightly different from usual, in that we came into the room with a whole script that directors Tom Brennan and Helena Middleton have written. So we’re not devising perhaps as much as we ordinarily would, but it’s still a key part of our approach.”

Newton: “We wrote a new scene for the sheriff on Friday which I’ve been learning this weekend; we came up with a new running gag for Tom’s character yesterday, so I’d say you’re constantly getting to know the play better and then helping to make it that much richer.”

England: “Yes, and I think that’s what’s fun about our process. You’re always free to chip in new ideas, and it keeps you on your toes. You’re constantly able to keep the thing alive, right up until press night, and even in previews we’ll be changing things and adding stuff in to see what works in front of an audience.”

James Newton in rehearsals as Sheriff of Nottingham, photo: Jack Offord

So is that how you would sum up the ethos of the Wardrobe Ensemble, and the characteristics of your work overall?

Newton: “Yes, it’s all we really know. Our ethos is that we have a horizontal structure. We do have directors and performers, but within that everyone’s ideas are valid, and we all have an equal say in the direction and content of the show, which is really important.”

England: “I think most of us in the company wouldn’t consider ourselves as solely actors; we would describe ourselves as devised theatre makers, performers, and writers too. In many ways that takes the pressure of the performance as this sanctified thing; rather it’s actually very much about the collaborative process, which is really thrilling.”

What was your personal experience of the Theatre on the Downs this summer?

Newton: “I think the thing I’m personally most proud of was commissioning two new shows. After 18 months of the pandemic, and not being able to do anything, that felt like a massive statement to come out and say ‘this is what we want to offer to Bristol’.”

England: “It was wonderful for us. It was the first time we’d ever done anything like that, so to be able to welcome so many people to a space that we were in control of was an incredible learning experience. I think we’d love to do something similar again. We had a lot of family work, and loads of things we otherwise don’t get a chance to support so it felt great for us as a group.”

Newton: “What we take from this is the knowledge that we can do things on our own terms, and we don’t necessarily have to rely on the established institutions to make things happen.”

England: “It’s difficult to predict what will happen in the future, but we feel able to adapt to change, so we’re definitely a lot more confident in being able to respond to situations. It highlighted to us as a collective that the collaborative way that we work allow us to support each other, back ourselves and make bold choices. Actually, as a group, we can do ambitious things and take a collaborative risk. It felt really fun.”

Tom England as Will Scarlet, Robin Hood, Bristol Old Vic – photo: Jack Offord

In the pandemic a lot of creative people were forced to pivot, and some really interesting things came out of it. Would you say these innovations have opened things up for a lot of performers and audiences?

Newton: “Definitely. As part of Theatre on the Downs we made a new show, WINNERS, and everything about that show felt so specific to having lived through the pandemic, in terms of the creative choices that we made being a lot riskier than we usually would be. We felt able to do that because we had this space that was our own, and everything was dependent on us.

“All through this summer I was really aware that this amazing thing would never have happened if we hadn’t been living through this unprecedented time. It makes you reevaluate your priorities.”

England: “I think the real positive thing to come out of a very difficult couple of years was that the pressure valve was released a little bit. Fundamentally we love devising and working together, and actually, it’s no risk to just pursue that and see what comes out of it. We have reinvigorated ourselves; personally I feel more excited than I have done for many years making work.”

Can you describe the significance of the Wardrobe Ensemble ‘coming home’, as it were? How does it feel?

Newton: “This is honestly a dream slot, and this is something we’ve been hoping for for years. In a five year plan we made at some point we wrote down that we wanted to do a Christmas show at Bristol Old Vic by 2022, so we’re a year ahead. This is where we all cut our teeth.

“I was 14 when I started in the Young Company, and when the building was being refurbished we were the only thing in this building, so we had free rein: we would rehearse on that stage, and the first shows we ever performed as kids were on that stage. So it feels incredibly special to come back and have a proper run in that space – and to be at home for Christmas as well, that’s massive. I can’t tell you how exciting it is.”

England: “Yes, it’s a real thrill. To be doing it after a really challenging period of time for people creatively and personally, it feels like a gift right to come back to a space you’re really familiar with. We’re rehearsing in a room that we know like the back of our hand; it just feels super exciting for us. To be able to invite our family is really exciting – our uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews are able to come just down the road to see us.”

Katya Quist (Marian), James Newton (Sheriff of Nottingham), in rehearsals – photo: Jack Offord

What are you particularly enjoying about playing your respective characters in Robin Hood?

Newton: “I play the Sheriff of Nottingham. He is your classic Sheriff: he’s the baddie, he’s after everyone’s taxes, but I’m also trying to find a more paranoid, underconfident, slimy sensibility to him. I’ve been watching Succession a lot, and I’m partly channelling the character Roman.”

England: “I’m playing Will Scarlet, and in this particular production he gets a lot of the light relief moments. Within the Wardrobe Ensemble, from one show to the next we rotate the responsibility of roles; so I was the main character in WINNERS, and now to have something over Christmas where I can just have a lot of fun with the character is brilliant.”

What is the balance of light and dark within the show?

Newton: “I think that we’ve intentionally gone quite extreme in every direction. It’s incredibly silly, it’s really funny, the dark stuff is actually fairly dark, but on top of that, because of working at this scale, the joy of this is that we’re going to be able to go bigger – in terms of set, special effects and set pieces – than we’ve ever gone before.

“So we’re going to have people flying from the ceiling, and hopefully real fire. Coming from a place where we were making shows for £500 and had to make everything out of a set of IKEA chairs, you have to keep pinching yourself.”

So you have the budget now!

England: “Exactly. Yes, it’s like ramping up all the core elements that we are really proud of, that we base our practice on, and asking how we can push every aspect of that to the nth degree, and how we can really revel in that. We pride ourselves on the silliness and energy of our work, so we really love making Christmas shows, and family shows, and that’s becoming increasingly part of our work.”

Newton: “For many people this is the first time they have come back into the theatre following the pandemic, and we just want to give them the best night’s entertainment that we possibly can.”

England: “And I think as a company, having time to reassess, and hone in on what we appreciate about the stuff that we do, I don’t think we would ever want to take ourselves too seriously. So when we’re given an opportunity like this, we’re careful not to be overwhelmed by it or feel like we have to change the way we work in any way, but to actually celebrate it, and just appreciate what we’re doing.”

James Newton as Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood, Bristol Old Vic – photo: Jack Offord

Finally, if you had to sum up the show in a sentence, how would you pitch it to audiences?

England: “I’d say it is an anarchic, silly, emotive, warm, family show.”

Newton: “And I would call it a ridiculous, medieval thrill ride, crossed with Ocean’s Eleven.”

Robin Hood: Legend of the Forgotten Forest is at Bristol Old Vic from November 27 to January 8 2022. Showtimes are 10am, 2pm and 7pm and vary between days (see website for details). There are socially-distanced performances on December 3, 7, 8, 15, 18 and 29 and January 2, 4 and 6. Signed, Captioned, Relaxed and Audio Described performances are also available. Tickets can be booked at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.

Main photo: Ben Robins

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