My Bristol Favourites: James Peries

James Peries develops new plays and musicals at Bristol Old Vic via their West Country writer talent search The Open Session. This year, the theatre is supporting some of those finds into production – starting with Henry Darke’s play Booby’s Bay at the Wardrobe Theatre from March 1-3.

Here are James’ top-five Bristol favourites:

Bristol’s waterfront

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“Or should that be the ‘harbour’ or ‘docks’? It’s been all of these, and now a creative social hub. My dad worked for Bristol shipbuilder Charles Hill & Sons and in 1976 I went to the launch of their last ship, Miranda Guinness – the world’s first purpose built beer tanker! Times change. The play we’re bringing to the Wardrobe Theatre, Booby’s Bay, asks what happens when there’s less froth being whipped up by seafaring vessels than on your cappuccino.”

John Wesley’s New Room

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“In 1739, John Wesley built the New Room, a sanctuary of charity and thought. It had a free medical dispensary and Methodist anti-slavery campaigning emanated from here. The shops of Broadmead engulf it now, but it wasn’t always calm. In Wesley’s day, the lack of ground floor windows was to prevent mobs attacking the Methodist worshipers. I grew up near Pill, which Wesley described as ‘a place famous from generation to generation, even as Kingswood itself, for stupid, brutal, abandoned wickedness’. I’m saying nothing.”

Bristol Hippodrome

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“I only joined the Cub Scouts to get a chance to be in The Gang Show – a yearly variety show at the Bristol Hippodrome. That’s a lot of reef knots and three-fingered salutes just to sing and play guitar on that stage. Like many in Bristol, I got hooked by seeing pantomime here at a young age. It’s all Ronnie Corbett’s fault! Frank Matcham’s design makes a big place feel like the audience’s front room. Then I discovered Bristol Old Vic and the many other things that theatre can be. I love them both.”

Alfred Fagon’s statue

“Alfred Fagon found his talent for writing in Bristol. Shockingly, he was given an anonymous ‘pauper’s cremation’ in London in 1986. Police errors overlooked obvious signs of his identity when he died while out jogging. Today we’d call it institutional racism. When his death was discovered by his friends and family, they devised two creative tributes in place of the funeral he never had: a play writing award in his name and a bust on the corner of Ashley Road and Grosvenor Road in St Paul’s. When I joined Bristol Old Vic, I had the privilege of making a compilation show of his writing, with the kind blessing of his family.”

UWE Glenside Campus

“I knew nothing about this place until the writer Mary Ingoldby sent her play Stanley At The Beaufort to Bristol Old Vic’s yearly writer talent search. The artist Stanley Spencer volunteered at the Beaufort War Hospital when it was on the site in 1915. (Find out more about its history at the Glenside Hospital Museum) Pre-war it had been the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, and some of the former patients stayed on, mixing with recovering soldiers. Last year, Bristol Old Vic performed a site specific performance of the play here, exactly where Spencer had found so much inspiration for his later paintings.”