Breakfast With Bristol24/7: Emma Rice

On a recent Tuesday morning, I arrive at Spike Island Cafe a few minutes before the time I have arranged to meet Emma Rice. I order a coffee and a bakewell slice for myself and then right on cue, I spot Emma and her gravity-defying mop of white hair stroll by the window from the direction of Underfall Yard.

For someone whose professional life has had the theme of rule-breaking, Rice goes against the rules of Breakfast With Bristol24/7.

She has already eaten breakfast at her home in Hotwells and now despite my protestations allows her assistant to buy her cup of coffee, an assistant that half an hour later informs Rice that her next meeting is due to start and politely wraps up our conversation.

Rice has lived in Bristol for the last seven years, currently in Hotwells, but her roots go back longer than that. Her father, who grew up in Horfield, was a jazz musician who regularly played in the Old Duke. Her grandfather gave free tours of the city before he died. “He used to do it for anybody who wanted,” Rice recalls. “I think almost nobody did! But I’ve got Bristol in my bones.

“Because of this strong Bristol connection, I always thought that something big for me would happen in Bristol. First of all I tried to go to drama school here but didn’t get in. Then I thought I’d meet my future partner here but I didn’t. But isn’t it marvellous that I then landed here seven years ago. It’s home and I love it.”

Emma Rice at Spike Island Cafe – illustration by Anna Higgie

The venue of this Breakfast has been chosen because Spike Island is also the home of Wise Children, the theatre company founded by Rice which is bringing its debut show, also called Wise Children, to the Bristol Old Vic this month.

Spike Island was a deliberate choice for where Wise Children could be based when Rice was putting together her bid to Arts Council England after departing from her role as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London after only two years because the powers that be did not like her unconventional use of sound and lighting.

She didn’t want Wise Children to be attached to what she calls “the usual suspects” and didn’t want to be part of a theatre, “but to be in a world that is a bit more conceptual, surrounded by artists and process”. Their offices are now at the front of the building above the word ‘Spike’, overlooking the New Cut.

“It does feel independent, which I feel I most profoundly want to be at the moment. There’s an art gallery to walk around at lunchtime and it’s unbelievable the number of artists housed under this roof. It’s perfect,” Rice says.

Now a major part of Bristol’s theatre scene, Rice gives shout-outs to everywhere from the Hippodrome where she saw Billy Elliott, to Mayfest, Ferment and the Wardrobe Theatre (“which is putting on some of the best things in Bristol”). “We’ve got everything here that we would want,” she says.

So how does Wise Children fit into that ecosystem? And does it?

“Well first of all we are a touring company,” says Rice, taking a sip of her coffee. “We don’t require a building so by nature we are slightly floating by the decision to be touring. But it’s really important for me that I have a notion of home. I always think that if you want to tour and travel, you always need to know where you’re coming back to. By having Bristol as both my home and the company’s home, we have that profound sense of being rooted.”

Wise Children, based on Angela Carter’s great last novel, comes to the Bristol Old Vic after a hugely successful premiere at London’s Old Vic, but where the next shows from Rice’s company will be performed are not prescribed, other than they will always be in Bristol and the South  West.

“I love the idea that one day we might come to one of the sheds, or we might build a theatre on Queen Square, or do a small show at the Wardrobe. Who knows? There’s something independent being a touring company. We never know where we might land.”

Wise Children is on at Bristol Old Vic from January 23 to February 16 2019. For more information and tickets visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/wise-children

Illustration of Emma Rice by Anna Higgie: www.annahiggie.co.uk

Read more: Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Doug Francisco