A TOWN IN THE WEST COUNTRY
Bristol Old Vic
Writer Don Hale : Designer Sally Crabb : Musical Director Gary Yershon : Director Paul Unwin
This was one of the most fulfilling projects I ever worked on. When Paul Unwin took over the artistic directorship of the Bristol Old Vic (BOV), he wanted to shift its reputation as a West End transfer house by rooting it more in the city. A Town in the West Country, about how Bristol endured the Second World War, was his means of signalling this shift to local audiences.
Paul commissioned a script from a Gloucestershire-based writer, Don Hale, which was based on extensive research. Paul decided on a promenade production, so that the audience could move within the action. To that end, the resident designer, Sally Crabb, abolished the distinction between BOV’s 18th century auditorium and the stage by building a floor over the stalls. For those that wanted a more traditional vantage point, the upper circle seating remained in place, although there were always cast members popping up in the aisles. The balcony was used by the cast, among other things to start the sound of an aeroplane swooping down on the city; cast in the upper circle then took over the sound, then cast on stage level. It really was the most extraordinary effect.
We got permission from John Betjeman’s estate for me to set his lovely poem Bristol, to use as a kind of theme song. It took quite a while to get the cast confident in it, but eventually they got there. And there was loads of other music. After the weeks of rehearsal and the half-dozen performances were over, I slumped, exhausted but happy, into a deckchair which had been set up in the New Vic, the BOV’s studio-style auditorium, which had been turned into an installation space for something that I can no longer recall. Soon afterwards, I went to Cornwall to visit my friend Tim, who generously drove me to where Betjeman was buried, and I paid my respects to him for his wonderful work.
I still have the t-shirt that the theatre gave us to mark the production.
