Theatre / Brian Blessed
A booming Brian Blessed on the roof of Bristol Old Vic
Brian Blessed can be heard before he is seen. High up on the roof of the Bristol Old Vic, the 81-year-old actor carefully climbs the last few rungs of the ladder and is briefed about why he has climbed up here.
Before his roles in Flash Gordon, Blackadder and now for a whole new generation of young fans, Peppa Pig, Blessed worked as a builder until enrolling as a student at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the 1950s.
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“You can always tell a plasterer because they have the most supple wrists for mixing,” he says after being informed that he will be laying the final piece of cement in the topping out ceremony to mark the theatre’s building work reaching its highest point.
Shaking both wrists to demonstrate his point, Blessed is in his element and has the gathered dignitaries in hi-ves vests stifling chuckles.
Blessed’s task also includes placing a sprig of yew for good before laying the final brick, performing the role with a theatrical flourish of a silver trowel which he somehow manages to break clean in two.
The ceremonial silver trowel before Brian Blessed broke it in two
The sprig of yew for good luck
Blessed was at the Bristol Old Vic for the first time in six decades as the theatre’s two-year reconstruction project reaches a milestone moment.
When the new front of house area opens in September, the theatre will be able to be seen from King Street for the first time in its 250-year-old history, there will be a new studio theatre and the Coopers’ Hall will be returned to its original Georgian splendour as a function space.
Old Vic chief executive Emma Stenning said: “For too many decades theatre has been seen as something elitist and often inaccessible to many.
“We work very hard out in the city to create opportunities for people who maybe don’t feel theatre is for them, but our public spaces were all about grand staircases and unreachable areas.
“Through this redevelopment, at long last we can show how Bristol Old Vic has kicked down the doors separating us from the city and make this a place that is genuinely and committedly for everyone to share and enjoy.”
Brian Blessed as First Robber in the 1957 production of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves at Bristol Old Vic, alongside Peter O’Toole as the Dame
Main photo: Bristol Old Vic artistic director Tom Morris, national treasure Brian Blessed and a broken ceremonial silver trowel
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