Posted by By Susie Weldon
Romeo and Juliet as elderly lovers, more experimental Bristol-based performance and guest works “of dazzling brilliance” were some of the offerings promised by the Bristol Old Vic last night in a public meeting to launch its spring programme.
In a programme designed to emphasise Bristol Old Vic’s role at the heart of the city’s most vibrant, creative and exciting performance, artistic director Tom Morris said it was impossible to underestimate the extent of the city’s artistic talent.
Old Vic: Theatre has great 'pulling power'
“Bristol is a cultural magnet and the pulling power of this theatre is quite extraordinary,” he said. “There is a creative maelstrom happening here and part of our job is to facilitate these artists.”
As well as encouraging Bristol-based talent, he was also inviting some of theatre’s leading names to collaborate on longer-term projects.
These included former National Theatre director Richard Eyre, who credits watching Peter O’Toole playing Hamlet in Bristol for inspiring his theatre career, and Mamma Mia director Phillida Lloyd who “remains in love with the place” since her days as associate director in the 1990s.
Bristol Old Vic’s pulling power even extended to those with no connection to the city, he said. “Rufus Norris, who is the most sought after director in London, came here like a shot,” he said.
“We can collaborate with artists of that calibre. We aim to inspire you and catalyse this community with shows by artists of global stature conceived for this city and these spaces.”
Tom Morris’s first production at the Bristol Old Vic, Juliet and Her Romeo, opens on March 10. “It’s all of Shakespeare’s text with a few cuts, but Romeo and Juliet are in their 80s and they fall in love as if for the first time in their lives,” he explained.
“This time it’s not the parents trying to prevent their love but their children. We all worry about who will look after our parents, who will pay for their care, how much control, if we’re honest, they should have over their own lives. This is a live issue.”
In May Bristol Old Vic associate director Simon Godwin will direct Caryl Churchill’s “extraordinary apocalyptic” play, Far Away, which caused a sensation in 2000 and, with its evocation of the end of the world, is seen as more timely than ever.
Other key elements of the spring programme include:
- Bristol Ferment – an opportunity for artists to develop works in front of an audience, often performed in unusual spaces such as the Old Vic’s huge backstage paint shop, along the lines of last month’s Bristol Jam;
- Winter Song – live music at the Bristol Old Vic. “It’s a beautiful theatre but it’s also an amazing acoustic space – a brick horseshoe lined with wood which, if you play it right, will resonate like a violin,” said Tom Morris. “So we’ve invited some extraordinary singers to come and try it out.”
- These include June Tabor – “the velvet-voiced queen of the ballad” – and junk folk big band Bellowhead. Richard Thomas, author of Jerry Springer The Opera, will also preview the score for his new show, Shoes, in Bristol;
- Visiting productions “so extraordinary we could not fail to invite them” include Kirsk (produced by Sound and Fury who all grew up in Bristol) about a British nuclear submarine which happens to be in the Baltic when the Russian Kursk is stranded on the sea floor; the Royal Court production of Random; and Bijan Sheibani’s Bristol debut, Eurydice.
- Family-oriented theatre will include Carl Heap’s “brilliant” hour-long commedia staging of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; Bristol’s Firebird Theatre’s “joyful reinvention” of Shakespeare’s The Tempest; and The Forest by award-winning company Fevered Sleep.
- In March Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company (made up of nearly 500 young people aged from seven to 25) will produce Two, about the magic of pairs. The Young Company will also be working with the playwright Phil Willmott who is creating a romantic new musical about the story of the Bristol housewife who passed herself off as an exotic foreign princess in Weston-super-Mare.
- Mayfest – Bristol Old Vic will once again take part in the city’s festival of new and developing work as well as “delightedly joining in” with other Bristol festivals.
- Bristol Old Vic is also inviting people to share their recollections and experiences in The Memory of the Theatre project, aimed at creating an interactive digital work of art for future generations.
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