Theatre / Features
Old Vic at 250: a look at some of the alumni
Peter O’Toole
Best known as the flaxen-haired, blue-eyed lead in classic films like Laurence of Arabia and Goodbye, Mr Chips, Peter O’Toole actually launched his career on the Bristol Old Vic stage. The Hollywood movie star, who died in 2013, remembered his time at the Old Vic fondly, calling it “the loveliest theatre in the world.”
is needed now More than ever
His legacy remains at the Old Vic thanks to The Peter O’Toole Prize, an award given each year to two young actors from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Daniel Day Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis owes his three Oscars to Bristol. The renowned method actor trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later joined the Bristol Old Vic Company in the autumn of 1967, performing in plays such as 1979’s Old King Cole and 1980’s Class Enemy.
The actor’s film career began to flourish in the 80s, and the name Daniel Day-Lewis became synonymous with immersive, high quality acting after his chameleon-esque performances in films such as There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York, My Left Foot and Lincoln.
Joseph Langdon
While serving time at the Ashfield Young Offenders’ Institute, Joe participated in a weekly satellite programme with the Old Vic. From there, his passion for theatre helped him turn his life around, and the young actor went on to perform in six Old Vic shows and set up his own professional company, Guilty Party. His performance in Pigeon English landed him at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013.
Joe is now a professional actor and has a full-time place at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, leaving his troubles with the law entirely behind him.
Catherine Johnson
The playwright may be well known now for her ABBA themed musical Mamma Mia!, but in 1988 she was an unemployed single mum looking for her big break. Thanks to the Bristol Old Vic, she got it – the theatre was the first to stage Catherine’s work and continued to help her develop as a writer.
Post-Mamma Mia! the writer crafted Suspension, the Old Vic’s first show after its reopening in 2009. She continues to use the Old Vic to develop her new work.
Sarah Siddons
A legend in her own time, Sarah Siddons was the most well-known tragic actress in eighteenth century Britain. She was most famous for her reportedly unparalleled portrayal of Lady Macbeth.
Despite dying in 1893, some say Siddons is still involved with the Bristol Old Vic – as a ghost. One of three spirits said to haunt the theatre, Siddons supposedly makes her presence known to young actors as they wait alone backstage.
Lara Simpson
Lara Simpson in Pigeon English with the Bristol Old Vic Young Company.
While participating in a Prince’s Trust project in 2011, Simpson, who was living in sheltered housing at the time, found she had a inborn talent for performing.
After the Bristol Old Vic offered her a bursary place and, later, a position with Made in Bristol, Simpson made a name for herself with shows like I Would Not, which played for the National Theatre’s Inside Out Festival; The Life After and Pigeon English, which sold out at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival. She now works at the National Theatre.
Kwame Kwei-Armah
Kwame Kwei-Armah, OBE – playwright, performer and artistic director of Maryland’s state theatre, Center Stage – staged some of his earliest plays at the Bristol Old Vic.
His searing first play, A Bitter Herb, based on a riot he witnessed at age 13, debuted on the Old Vic stage in 1998. Kwei-Armah also performed onstage at the Old Vic, acting in Blues Brother Soul Sister in the 1990s.
Timothy West
Thanks to his upcoming performance as King Lear as part of the Bristol Old Vic’s anniversary programme, Timothy West’s overwrought face wallpapers billboards all over Bristol. This isn’t the first time he’s headlined at the 250-year-old theatre, though – the star of stage and screen (and husband to Fawlty Towers’ Prunella Scales) most notably led the Bristol Old Vic Company throughout the 80s and 90s.
The CBE not only starred in lauded productions such as Long Day’s Journey into Night, but also worked as an associate director and joined the board of trustees at the Old Vic.
To celebrate the Old Vic’s 250th birthday weekend (May 28-30), the oldest theatre in the English-speaking world will put on series of Bristol-wide projects when the Theatre, foyers, Studio and the street beyond will be handed over to the people of Bristol for a weekend of entertainment created by Bristolians of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.