Preview: A Thousand Seasons Past, M Shed

This summer, thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery, Young Roots and the site’s Umberslade, Bristol Old Vic Young Company and Travelling Light Youth Theatre have been working in collaboration with Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives to create a piece of theatre focusing on the heritage of the Wapping Wharf site as it approaches a new phase of its life.

Featuring young people from the Young Company, Travelling Light and Hanham Woods Academy, A Thousand Seasons Past will be performed this month in a new, specially created open-air auditorium on M Shed’s Museum Square. With a cast of 20 young people, the performance will look at the site’s eventful and sometimes grisly history from the New Bristol Gaol via the Bristol Riots of 1831 (which saw much of the Gaol demolished) to the harbour’s more recent industrial incarnation.

Information used in the performance has been researched by the young people themselves, during explorations through the Bristol archives. A Thousand Seasons Past will focus on some of the stories and characters associated with the site. Tragic teenagers (such as Hanham’s teenager John Horwood, the first person to be hanged at the Gaol), jilted lovers, cruel masters, the sad, the bad and the plain unlucky all have their tales to tell.

Says Georgina Trevor, Travelling Light’s Participation Director: “The Wapping Wharf project has been a fantastic opportunity for both Bristol Old Vic and ourselves to bring together young people from all corners of the city.”

For Travelling Light’s young people, the project offers a particularly special experience. “Travelling Light operates from Barton Hill which is an area of multiple deprivation, and all our youth theatre places are subsidised by at least 70% to make them accessible. We have never produced a youth theatre show on this scale before, and for many of the young people this is the first chance to shine on a bigger platform.”

Sian Henderson, Bristol Old Vic Young Company Producer, adds: “The opportunity to learn from each other, to work with a team of theatre and heritage professionals, and to perform in a specially created theatre near the Wapping Wharf site is a fantastic experience for the young people. What’s more, the material they have been uncovering so far is surprising, exciting and unexpected.

“Discovering that the first person to be hanged at Bristol Gaol was just 18, and the last was a 17-year-old girl, Sarah Harriet Thomas – this struck a chord with the young people researching the stories of the site. We’ve also learned that, during the Bristol Riots, half of the prisoners were never recaptured and just went back to their old lives. And we’ve discovered the extent of the hardships suffered by the Hanham and Kingswood mining communities that John Horwood came from. We’re seeing the area in a whole new light.”

A Thousand Seasons Past will be performed at the auditorium on Museum Square, outside M Shed from Wednesday,  August 5 to Saturday, August 8. Tickets are free but must be booked via the Bristol Old Vic box office on 0117 987 7877. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/thousandseasonspast.html