Things have changed for ever at King Street, Bristol. Shirley Brown offers an insight into the complicated history of the Bristol Old Vic and the steps now being taken to ensure a sound future for theatre in the city .
And now the good news – the Bristol Old Vic has already re-opened!
It will take several months to effect the essential repairs and refurbishment of the King Street buildings, to establish a new producing company and to put on shows, even in other venues. At best, the studio will re-open in the spring of 2009, and the Theatre Royal the following year. But the BOV has already emerged from its darkest hour and reconnected with the people of Bristol, who turned out in their hundreds at January’s open public meeting to demonstrate their support and concern for the theatre. Within a week of the meeting, the BOV website (www.bristol-old-vic.co.uk) was re-launched, re-opening a much-missed direct channel of communication between the company and its audience, and offering a range of information from historical anecdotes to topical updates.
The morale-boosting arrival of Dick Penny (pictured left) as Executive Chairman has happily dispersed the depressing atmosphere of secrecy and obfuscation after last summer’s sudden closure, radical retrenchment and redundancies.
Despite having more generous support from the Arts Council than ever before – more than £2 million of extra funding towards a ‘Stabilisation and Recovery’ process since 2001, in addition to annual revenue grants that rose from £610,000 in 2000 to more than £1 million a year since 2004 – the BOV’s recent management not only lost its way financially but also lost touch with its Bristol roots. By November 2007, only three of the paid personnel had been part of the Vic in the twentieth century, and none of those were in positions of power; most of the dozen-or so ‘skeleton staff ’, and all but one of the six remaining Trustees, had joined the organisation after 2004 and only a few BOV supporters knew either their names or their faces. By contrast, man of the moment Dick Penny is so well-known and respected in the city that he attracted unanimous support from both practitioners and audience, politicians and funding bodies, even before he accepted an official BOV role or offered any detailed proposals. Approachable and adaptable, with a passion for Bristol and theatre, Penny has a proven track record as an arts manager, including a two-year stint as the Bristol Old Vic development director in the late 1980s. The new incarnation of theatre management in King Street will operate in a very different way, adjusting to changed circumstances and overcoming crises as managements have somehow managed to do for over two centuries.
Kathleen Barker’s definitive history of The Theatre Royal, Bristol, 1766-1966 – long out of print, but accessible through the Bristol Central Library or the University’s Theatre Collection – provides much entertaining detail about the vicissitudes of ‘Britain’s oldest theatre building with a history of continuous use as a playhouse’. That description applies only to the Georgian auditorium, not to the Bristol Old Vic which, though often inaccurately described as Britain’s oldest working theatre, is neither a theatre, nor very old. It is a theatre company, set up in February 1946 as a regional offshoot of the London Old Vic Company, and operating independently since the original Old Vic became the National`Theatre in 1963.
The confusion between King Street’s creative company and the building it occupies dates back to 1972, when the Theatre Royal was incorporated into a much larger complex, proclaimed as ‘The Bristol Old Vic Centre’ in silver letters above the display cases on the new brick frontage. Alongside modernised backstage facilities, offices, workshops, and a stateof-the-art studio space, the 1970s redevelopment also gave the theatre its appropriately grand eighteenth-century entrance through the neighbouring Coopers’ Hall, built in the 1740s. Though closely associated with the name of the Bristol Old Vic, none of the King Street buildings belong to the BOV Trust. The title deeds to the Theatre Royal and the early 1970s extensions are held ‘on behalf of the nation’ by the Charity Commission’s Official Custodian, and the Coopers’ Hall is owned by Bristol City Council. The entire complex has been Grade 1 listed since December 2000.
The Theatre Royal Trust (which was set up in 1942, and pays the City Council a nominal peppercorn rent for Coopers’ Hall) acts as landlord to the BOV Trust, which, under the terms of its long lease on the complex, accepts responsibility for repairs and maintenance. Most of the Theatre Royal’s Trustees are nominated by organisations with a vested interest in its preservation, though they act as individuals not representatives. The Council for the Preservation of Ancient Bristol, Bristol City Council, Bristol University, Bristol (Municipal) Charities, The Georgian Group, and the Merchant Venturers retain the right to nominate, but the Arts Council, Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and the National Trust have withdrawn. At January’s open meeting, Denis Burn, current Chairman of the Theatre Royal Trust, announced that the two Trusts are investigating the possibility of merging. He believes: ‘There is a willingness to make changes if this will help develop a strong and sustainable result,’ he says. ‘The Theatre Royal Trust has been an
over-forgiving landlord and the Bristol Old Vic Company has been a cash-strapped tenant, and that’s not a good arrangement for either,’ adds Dick Penny. ‘On a conventional balance sheet the Theatre Royal is probably a liability. But in its unique nature, its timbre, its history, it’s a massive asset for making and sharing theatre. Joining the governance of the building and the company would underline the need to take responsibility for raising money to animate the place as well as to keep it functioning.’
The new role of BOV Executive Chairman already marks a pragmatic change in the way the King Street operation is run. Most charitable trustees are unpaid volunteers with responsibility for appointing and strategically advising the management, but not running the business. In special circumstances, the
Charity Commission sanctions the appointment of an individual not only to chair the Board but also to be a paid executive of the company. ‘We’ve got to go through a period of reinvention during which the Board – and critically the Chair – needs to be more engaged in day-to-day decision making than it would be in a calmer environment,’ explains Dick Penny. ‘Taking a leadership role, as well as a governance role, creates an environment where we can be more open to new ideas and innovation. There won’t be the same pressure to be safe. In any reinvention being safe would be death. It’s got to be about new ideas.’
Behind the euphoria of finding an eleventh-hour saviour, and persuading the Arts Council to continue backing theatre in King Street, what we once knew as the Bristol Old Vic Company has gone forever. Dick Penny is committed to producing theatre, but the new working model will not return to the previous pattern of in-house and co-productions. Instead it will deploy its resources in a much broader way to promote theatre culture in Bristol. ‘The process we’re going to go through – with all of it, the artistic vision, everything – is a series of discussions, provocation papers, workshops and consultations that will gradually evolve into the next step forward,’ says Dick. ‘But that won’t be carved in stone because the step after that might modify it. It will be transparent, but I don’t know what jobs there are going to be at the moment. We absolutely need to look at the range of aspirations and see what we can ultimately deliver and whose needs we can meet.’ Some of this reinvention process will be specific to King Street: reshaping the refurbishment project to make the most of the available funds and re-open the building as early as possible; recruiting new Trustees with an appropriate set of skills; planning and implementing the new business model; instigating new productions with local, national and international artists; and supporting the BOV Youth Theatre, which continues its work with over 400 young people in 17 weekly sessions. The Bristol Old Vic is also playing an integral part in the consultation process run by networking forum Theatre Bristol (set up by the Arts Council in 2004), which was already developing proposals for a theatrical infrastructure within which creativity can flourish, and an environment that encourages the widest community to participate.
Meanwhile, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School goes from strength to strength under its own new management following the retirement last year of Christopher Denys, who had been Principal since 1980. He oversaw the transformation of the School into a financially separate business governed by its own charitable trust since 1989, and its development into an Associate School of the University of the West of England and affiliate of the prestigious Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. The Bristol Old Vic Theatre Club is also an independent organisation, regularly hosting events to maintain loyal interest in the Company during the closure, as well as fund-raising for the refurbishment. If you want to support the BOV’s next stage, find out more about the club via bovtc@tiscali.co.uk.
Shirley Brown is author of The Bristol Theatre Royal -The Continuing Story 1966-93 (1994) and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School –The First 50 Years (1996).
