Wardrobe Ensemble to perform Riot for Made in Bristol anniversary

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Bristol Old Vic’s Made in Bristol (MIB) programme, The Wardrobe Ensemble – the scheme’s very first graduates – are reviving their debut show, performing RIOT for the first time in six years at BOV this weekend.

‘Spill’ from 2015 Made in Bristol graduates Propolis Theatre.

The MIB scheme nurtures 12 people aged between 18 and 25 in the arts of theatre-making and workshop facilitation. Participants spend two days a week developing their skills, with help from industry professionals (previously the likes of Sally Cookson and Emma Rice) and collaborative projects in the wider Bristol community.

Lucy Hunt, engagement director at Bristol Old Vic, said of the scheme: “Made in Bristol is a year in residence for a group of emerging theatre makers to explore, play, make mistakes and create in an environment that provides the space, time and resources to do so.”

The current cohort came together in September 2019, and will perform a devised show this June as a fledgling theatre company. Previous graduating shows have included Propolis Theatre’s Spill, a verbatim show about sex featuring a musical number about orgasms, and INKBLOC Ensemble’s Lego Beach, which uses an accordion, some puppets and a lot of lego blocks to explore themes of greed and community.

‘Lego Beach’ from 2017 Made in Bristol graduates Inkbloc Ensemble. Pic: Paul Blakemore

On the scheme’s 10th anniversary, there are now more than 100 Made in Bristol graduates at large, many of whom are continuing to make their mark on the Bristol theatre scene. Some work in the Bristol Old Vic engagement department, others lead workshops for children’s theatre supremos Travelling Light or sustain emerging theatre companies – and many are in evidence during Ferment Fortnight, where productions developed with the help of Bristol Old Vic are showcased for a biannual two-week period in July and in January.

Hunt said: “It feels to us like there is an ex-MIB member in every creative nook and cranny in Bristol.”

Two MIB graduates, Jesse Jones and Jesse Meadows, carved out their own cosy nook in 2011 when they founded the Wardrobe Theatre, a venue widely considered to be the keystone of the Bristol theatre fringe. Jones and Meadows are members of the Wardrobe Ensemble, one of Bristol’s most dazzling and prolific creative exports who blossomed from the MIB programme’s first cycle in 2010.

“The success of The Wardrobe Ensemble is the story of everything we are trying to achieve at Bristol Old Vic – not for ourselves, but for the artists who we think can make theatre brilliant in the future,” says Tom Morris, BOV’s artistic director. “The fact that this company has become a powerful element in the UK’s theatre ecology, and blazed a trail for each following Made In Bristol company – that’s a very special thing for us.’

The company have ticked off every item of your average starry-eyed thespian’s bucket list, having performed on the West End, at the National Theatre and been a recipient of the highly-coveted Fringe First prize. Their shows span a range of content – shows about sex, shows for kids, shows about schools and grief, shows about lethal stampedes in furniture stores in North London….

Pitched to the company by director Tom Brennan as a mash-up between Day of the Dead and BBC home improvement show Changing Rooms, RIOT tells the true story of the outbreak of violence at IKEA’s Tottenham store on the night of its grand bargain-boasting opening back in 2005.

Keen proponents of ‘the DIY approach’, the Wardrobe Ensemble turn IKEA into an epic setting for a tragedy, using set that can fit inside a car in a show lit exclusively by IKEA lamps.

The Wardrobe Ensemble explained their choice of material: “We were attracted to it as a situation that everyone has experience of but taken to an extreme. When we made it, it was quite a mad unusual news story, but unfortunately it now feels more common.”

In the ten years since the MIB program threw them together ‘like a manufactured pop band’, the Wardrobe Ensemble have resisted the fates of One Direction and countless other vintages of the Cowell-conveyor belt, and are still creating work as a group – 15 shows and counting.

Their advice to future MIB graduates? “Don’t be afraid to ask for help, from buildings, companies, individuals, massive organisations. There are lots of people out there who are willing to help, you just have to remind them you’re out there.”

RIOT is at Bristol Old Vic from February 7-9. To book, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/riot. For more information about the Made In Bristol Scheme, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/take-part/made-in-bristol.

All photographs courtesy of Bristol Old Vic.

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