By Unit students Isabel, Seb and Keir  Youth Theatre There are many ways we can define youth theatre. With each different research topic, a new definition is created and developed, and while the definitions are endless and always relative, there are also general themes that appear throughout them all. Youth theatre is the creation of ..read more

By Dr Jan Wozniak, Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre, University of Bristol. Over the coming Teaching Block, I will be working with 24 students, Lucy Hunt from the Bristol Old Vic and colleagues in the Theatre Collection to explore whether people agree with Oscar Wilde that all art is quite useless! We’ll be asking participants ..read more

With thanks to Arts Matter for their consent to republish piece first posted in August 2024. By Damien McManus, Professor Martin Hurcombe, Dr Charlotte Faucher, Dr Federico Testa, Louisiane Bigot  August 2024 marks 80 years since the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation in the summer of 1944, a decisive and highly symbolic moment in World War II ..read more

Researcher Ruth Houghton visited the Theatre Collection in 2023 to examine the Herbert Beerbohm Tree Business Archive. This blog highlights her reading room discoveries around Tree’s 1899-1900 production of King John, which have led to her 2024 article, published in the journal Law and Humanities (full details below).   King John is probably best known ..read more

Hello again, sadly for the last time. Here we are, at the end of my time with the University of Bristol Theatre Collection and on the other side of my installation which showcased my artist-in-residence work in the Wickham Theatre back in early June. The installation poster featuring original work from the John Vickers series of glass plate negatives. Image credit: John Vickers / Bobby Joynes Looking back on this project, I am met with both immense fondness and sadness now that it has come to an end. The Where The Bonnie Heather Grows installation was my last practical installation in the univ ..read more

As the Kevin Elyot Award writer-in-residence at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, I have spent time researching the papers of the playwright and screenwriter Kevin Elyot (1951-2014). Here is my fourth article in response to Elyot’s archive, in which I discuss his third play – my favourite Elyot play – The Day I Stood Still. A general reflection on Elyot is here. My article on his debut Coming Clean (1982) is here. My article on his second and most famous play My Night with Reg (1994) is here.   It seems to me a lot o ..read more

As the 2023 Kevin Elyot Award writer-in-residence at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, I have written a series of articles on the original plays of the playwright and screenwriter Kevin Elyot (1951-2014). Here is my third, on his second and most famous play My Night with Reg. A general reflection on Elyot is here. My piece on his debut play Coming Clean (1982) is here. Rejection and triumph Kevin Elyot’s second play My Night with Reg took him twelve years to write. It made his name. Set in the 1980s, it is a tragicomedy ab ..read more

Hello again, it’s been around a month since my last blog post and I’d like to update you with what’s been going on in my artist-in-residence placement with the Theatre Collection, because lots of amazing things have happened! When we last left off, I spoke about the discovery of an incredible series of photographs taken by the photographer John Vickers. Upon finding them, I have undertaken extensive periods of research to specifically pinpoint the dates and locations of the work, all of which will serve as groundwork that I can build on artistically when creating my final public installation ..read more

DV or digital video tape is a format that was launched in 1995 and remained popular until the late 2000s. There are a few varieties of this type of tape but I want to discuss the consumer format known as MiniDV. 1 – VHS cassette and Mini DV cassette DV technology brought a considerable jump in quality from previous camcorder formats such as VHS and Hi8 with more compact and relatively affordable equipment. This made MiniDV a popular choice for arts organisations to document their work so we have a lot of these tapes in our more contemporary theatre and live art collections. During 2023/24 I wo ..read more

The Kevin Elyot Award is given annually to support a writer-in-residence at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, where the archive of the playwright Kevin Elyot (1951-2014) is housed. 2024 is the tenth anniversary of Elyot’s death, and the thirtieth anniversary of My Night with Reg, his most famous play. In response to my time in the archive as the recipient of the 2023 Award, I have written a series of articles on Elyot’s six original plays. Here is the first, on his debut Coming Clean. (I have also written a general reflection on Elyot here.) An actor w ..read more