Category: Student placement at the Theatre Collection

This academic year we have welcomed two 3rd year Theatre students to the Theatre Collection. They have each been researching in the archives in order to create an original script. This latest blog is by Keir, who has been inspired by the work of artist, performer, artistic director, and self-proclaimed ‘Art Gangster’ and mischief maker, Ian Smith.

As my placement with the Theatre Collection has progressed, my research has begun to take a more focused and creative direction. Building on the archival work I began in the first month, I’ve now started developing a clowning script inspired by Ian Smith’s darkly comic piece Christopher Chappell Kill to Live.

Smith’s work, subtitled ‘A Project Exploring Credibility of Cult Dogma’ was devised during his Expressive Arts course when he was a student at Brighton Polytechnic, so it’s a very early example of him working out his own practice of subverting genres. It was presented as a live pseudo-documentary with slides and music; the audience sat in the gallery as if they were the jury and Smith playing a murderer (Chappell). Smith used anecdotes based on composites of real events to maintain the premise of credibility even though the character was completely fictitious. The Ian Smith Archive contains evidence of his preparatory work, such as slides, documentary style notes and a project sketchbook, but there is no dramatic script as such. Smith’s characters relied on improvisation and his work emerges in equal parts surreal, subversive, and satirical. It struck me immediately as a compelling foundation for creative reinterpretation.

Using the different archival aspects of Smith’s 1980s performance, I chose to approach his work through the lens of clowning. This has meant embracing exaggeration, physicality, and the absurd in order to explore the piece’s darker themes of violence, disillusionment, and fanaticism in a way that is both playful and unsettling. The central character, now reimagined as Christopher Gigglegrave, blends Smith’s interest in cult leader charisma with my invented grotesque clown logic. This has allowed me to draw from traditional clown archetypes while responding to the specific tone and themes in Smith’s work.

Working with the archive has been more than a source of inspiration, it has become a dialogue. I’ve found myself questioning how to ‘respond’ to the material rather than replicate it. For instance, how do you adapt the rhythm and tone of Smith’s writing for a modern clowning context? How can archival materials be used to trigger moments of physical comedy, or inform the tempo and structure of a scene?

This process has also made me consider how the clown can act as a vehicle for confronting uncomfortable truths. In the world of Christopher Gigglegrave, laughter and violence sit side-by-side; a tension I’ve leaned into through both the writing and proposed performance style. The clown’s naivety and conviction allow space to explore dangerous ideas without endorsing them, using humour to create critical distance.

As my script continued to evolve, I became excited to keep mining the archive for ideas – whether it’s a throwaway line in a performance note, a stage direction that sparks an image, or an old flyer that suggests a tone. The placement has shown me how archival work can be a catalyst for new performance-making, not just a source of information, but a playground of possibility.

This academic year we have welcomed two 3rd year Theatre students to the Theatre Collection. They have each been researching in the archives in order to create an original script. This latest blog is by Madalena, who has been researching the letters of the Bourke family in the nineteenth century.

Hello! Since my last blog post I have spent most of my time making my way through the Bourke letters, specifically boxes BTC80/2 and BTC80/3. Within these is a treasure trove of letters from the 1860s and 70s from Annie Bourke’s admirers, friends, family, costumiers, photographers and more. The collection is described as containing letters addressed to Annie, her sister Jessie and their cousin Eva, however, all three of the five boxes I have explored so far have only been addressed to Annie, with Jessie and Eva occasionally mentioned. I have loved delving into Annie’s life and learning about her from the perspective of other people. It is so interesting to learn about a person’s life without seeing things from their own perspective, it’s like trying to piece together a puzzle without knowing the picture you’re creating.

The narrative of her life reveals itself bit by bit with every new letter I read. She worked as a burlesque* actress at the New Royalty Theatre in Soho while living in Kentish Town, London, but spent plenty of time touring the country and working in many theatres including at Bristol, Plymouth, Durham, Dublin, Lancashire and more. She often met with her admirers at the stage door after a show, and they frequently took her out for meals. She grieved the death of her friend and fellow actress Nellie, who is listed in newspaper advertisements alongside her; she helped raise money for the Royal General Theatrical Fund, and in the 1870s she lived in Vienna with her husband.

I started to build a loose narrative for my screenplay including all these elements, thinking I would focus on her time meeting with admirers in London, when an exciting discovery was made. I finally found one letter written by Annie herself. After reading so many letters addressed to her, reading one written by her felt like hearing from a friend for the first time in years. Though, what was even more interesting was the content of the letter. Addressed to her husband, the letter expressed disappointment and hurt towards him for leaving and not contacting her for a month, including lines such as ‘for the last fortnight I have made myself ill with wondering what could have happened to you’ and ‘I do hope you have not got tired of me, and wish yourself free of me’. Suddenly there is a new interesting narrative to follow involving issues with her husband in the 1870s, and my storyline became less clear.

There are many affectionate letters from one particular admirer, Henry Benson Stuart, who seemed to feel very intensely towards Annie, even describing his dreams about her and in many of his letters mentioning something about buying her nice new shoes and kissing her feet. The archive box contents then later jumped to the 1870s, with letters from her husband, which were often difficult to read and seemed irrelevant to all the correspondence she had had with admirers in the 1860s. However, in one exciting moment, it became clear that Henry Benson Stuart was her husband! These two men in the narrative I had been piecing together suddenly became the same person, giving all of his affectionate letters to her an entirely new meaning, and a connecting theme for a potential storyline.

I have absolutely loved looking through this collection so far, and it pains me to say that I will not have the time within my placement to make it through the final two boxes. I will have to create my storyline using what I have uncovered in the first three boxes, though I will long to know what other events and scandals remain to be discovered in the final two.

*Victorian burlesques were light-hearted satirical versions of well-known operas and plays.

 

This academic year we are welcoming two more UoB students, Keir and Madalena, to undertake the annual Artist-in-Residence placement with us. This entails learning more about how archives work, and engaging with in-depth archival research to create a piece of work inspired by the Theatre Collection holdings. Below are the first of their blogs, as they navigate researching in the archives and developing their ideas into proposed scripts.

Keir:

As a third-year Theatre and Film student, I am currently undertaking a placement with the Theatre Collection as part of my Professional Development in Theatre and Performance module. This Artist in Residence placement has provided a unique opportunity to engage with archival materials and explore how historical resources can inform contemporary creative practice.

During the first month of my placement, I have had the privilege of immersing myself in the archives of esteemed theatre practitioners. My research has spanned figures such as Ian Smith, Nola Rae, and The Kipper Kids, each of whom has left a distinctive mark on the world of clowning and physical theatre. Engaging with their materials – ranging from performance notes and annotated scripts to photographs, recordings, and personal correspondences – has provided a fascinating window into their creative processes, performance philosophies, and the broader theatrical landscapes in which they worked.

These archival explorations have been instrumental in shaping my initial ideas for a script, allowing me to consider how historical clowning techniques and comedic traditions can be adapted for contemporary audiences. Clowning, in its many forms, has a remarkable ability to transcend language and cultural barriers, and I am particularly interested in how archival research can illuminate the enduring power of physical comedy. My current focus is on developing a comedic script that blends historical influences with a fresh, modern approach, exploring how the essence of clowning can be reinterpreted for today’s theatre landscape.

Beyond script development, this research has sparked broader questions about the role of archival material in creative practice. How can performance archives serve as active tools for contemporary theatre-making rather than simply as records of the past? How might forgotten or overlooked elements of clowning history inspire new modes of performance? As I continue this placement, I am eager to explore these questions further, experimenting with ways to bring archival discoveries to life in new and unexpected ways.

 

Madalena

Hello, I’m Madalena and I am also working as an Artist in Residence at the Theatre Collection for my Professional Development in Theatre and Performance module, alongside Keir. As a final year Theatre and Film student, I wanted to find a way that I could incorporate my love of film while still being involved in and inspired by theatre. So, I am grateful that this placement has provided me with the opportunity to explore the theatre archives and use my research and inspiration to write a screenplay.

I have a particular interest in culture and fashion during the 1840s to 1870s. I first looked through some letters that were written during Henry Irving and his wife’s separation, but was more attracted by the idea of reseaching less well-known theatrical figures. Archivist Jill Sullivan very helpfully pointed me towards a collection of five uncatalogued boxes (BTC80) detailing the careers of sisters Annie and Jessie Bourke, and their cousin Eva Watson in the 1860s and 70s. Within this collection are over a thousand letters written to the actresses from admirers, and I have only scraped the surface by reading plenty of those that are in box one! Learning to read nineteenth century handwriting has proven to be quite a challenge; sometimes individual letters are written very differently to how we would write them now. So it definitely has been a learning curve getting used to the writing, but once you are acquainted with it, the content of the letters can be quite rewarding and even entertaining to reveal. For example, in the small amount that I have been able to decipher so far, there are plenty of men who sent multiple short letters to Annie, asking to meet with her, only to follow up with one asking why she wasn’t replying to them and what they had done to anger her.

Though there are many more letters than I may have the time to read, it has been insightful getting an idea of the specific type of language and wording that was used in the nineteenth century, as I aim to write the dialogue of my script in the same way. I do not yet have a narrative in mind for the screenplay, but the content of the letters I have read so far has inspired me to possibly include verbatim extracts from them, perhaps in a comedic montage.

There is much more exploration of BTC80 that I would like to do, to begin conceptualising a narrative, and I am looking forward to seeing what I may discover within the collection.

 

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.

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 university that I have called home for the last three years, as well as being the end point of my artistic-orientated research. I spent the best part of four solid days working very closely with the University of Bristol Theatre Department technicians to fully rig the space, construct from scratch the structure which had been in my mind’s eye for so long, and to calibrate the projected videos to perform in their intended way. After such a gruelling and physically exerting process, the installation was complete and finally ready to open to members of the public.

Throughout this project, I have personally reflected on the relationship that artists share with archives in the creation of new work. However, this period of time highlighted something which I feel needs drawing particular attention to: the relationship effected by archives on artists. More specifically, how artists serve as a conduit which connects the archive and its need for precision and accuracy with the pragmatic nature of technicians, producers and those who may work on a project like this one in some capacity but, having not done the research directly, might not understand the need of the artist for things to be done in certain ways.

For others who walk a similarly intertwined path between these two elements, don’t underestimate the need for clarity and the distinction of open communication with those who you are working with.

The installation itself comprised two central elements: the projected space and a scrapbook which featured a response photographic series taken by me, which, when combined, asked its audiences if the destruction of something was more artistically beautiful than something which has been preserved.

Each of the elements had been directly extracted from my detailed research in the archive. The projected images, now turned into videos to accentuate their decay, were high resolution scans from John Vickers’ original 1920s glass plate negatives. The series of photographs taken by me were all initially monochromatic until double exposed with replicas of the mould-infested structures from the same series by Vickers. Each of these elements, interwoven together, served as a thought-provoking site for my question and for the exploration of my overall interest during the course of this placement: the relationship between the artist and the archive.

On entering the curated space, audiences were met with work that one visitor described as a “stunning use of the archive”, but which also served as “an extra dimension to the preservation and decay interrogation” (audience comments book). For me as the creator, it was really encouraging and enlightening to see people coming up to me with questions and becoming genuinely engaged and enthused by the materials in such similar ways to how I was first drawn to the series in the archive. I felt incredibly proud of what I had created, of course, but also an added sense of pride that I was able to bring John Vickers and his work from out of the depths of the archives again, after so many years, and to breathe new life into it again; for his photos to hold and similarly captivate as they did during his lifetime.

Beginning this process of learning, I felt lucky to have had prior experiences with using archives. At the end of this artist-in-residence placement, I feel a great privilege to have been taught the value of the archive even more so, but to a point where I feel I have formed a working relationship with John Vickers. I’ve learnt that age and time really are just constructs in this kind of work, and that incredible work may just simply be another shelf away, wrapped neatly with archival tape, in an unsuspecting box.

On a final note, I would like to say a massive thank you to Jill Sullivan, Laura Dow, Nigel Bryant, Julian Warren and all the other members of staff at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection for welcoming me into your organisation and being some of the most well versed and knowledgeable people I have had the pleasure of working with. A massive thank you to Dr Kirsty Sedgman, James Lisk and Beth Bransome from the University of Bristol Theatre Department; without your attention, support and incredible capabilities, none of this would have been possible. Thank you to Becky Coster, Ines Sallis, Tommy Tang, Athena Gibson-Diamond and Jesse Prince for volunteering on this project, your support has meant the world, you’re all very dear to me. Finally, I wanted to say thank you to all those who managed to make it to the installation space! It was my pleasure to welcome you and the responses I collected will stay with me for the rest of my professional career.

Bobby

If you want to learn more about this process, or view the materials related to this project, all my physical and digital exhibition work has been donated to the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.

 

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. Alongside this, I have been working closely with Assistant Keepers Jill Sullivan and Laura Dow, who have provided me with invaluable expertise in the world of archival research and analogue photography. Although carefully catalogued and stored within the safety of the John Vickers archive, the re-discovery of this glass plate series has caused quite a buzz in the Collection as the incredible details and colours of the mould-fill glass plate negatives have come back into the light.

After such an intense and well-needed exploration of the glass plates in the archive, I have now entered into my experimental phase: a period of time where I try out a range of ideas and concepts. In any project that I work on, this period of time is both incredibly exciting but also quite unnerving, especially working with such a wealth of source materials. My time in this placement has really allowed me to reflect on some of my own practices as an artist and to be critical about how I engage with elements like problem solving and generating ideas. It’s something that would not have been nearly as poignant to me if it wasn’t for this connection that I feel for the archival materials that inspire me.

Moving forward into a more hands-on production phase, I’m bringing in ideas and plans to encompass the world within this series of photographs. There are ideas of bold splashes of colour in the form of mould, once on the photographs and now going to be digitally presented in the installation to emphasis its beauty and incredible composition. I plan to bring in projections to display Vickers’ work in a much larger scale and, after careful curation from myself and the incredible video editing talent of another freelance artist, I will show this photography series in a completely new light.

 

I’m incredibly proud and excited of the work that has been going on recently to begin to tie everything on this project together and to reinvigorate glass plate negatives that are over 100 years old, so that you can also see the beautiful images that originally captivated me. I have every assurance that the big ideas that I am bringing to this project can be realised with the support of the incredible technical team in the Wickham Theatre, and the continued guidance from the Theatre Collection.

The last month hasn’t been without its twists and turns, but the journey has been really positive and productive, moving me ever closer towards curating a powerful installation that will be open to the public very soon.

In my last blog for this project, I will reflect on my placement and offer my final thoughts about my work with the Collection. But, in the meantime, I hope to see you at my installation in the near future!

Bobby