University of Bristol Theatre Collection

27/05/2026

🌱This spring, the Theatre Collection collaborated with the Wellspring Alive Gardening Group and artist Jude Hutchen on a series of creative workshops exploring the Fox and Gill Archive 🌿

In our new blog, Project Coordinator Athene Long Bain takes us behind the scenes of the workshops and reflects on how the project was inspired by John and Sue’s belief in the power of art and community as a transformative source of wellbeing and connection 🍂🌼🤲

Huge thanks to our funders without whom this project would not have been possible.

✨Link: https://theatrecollection.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2026/05/27/dead-good-guides-pathological-optimists-in-the-garden/

18/05/2026

It's International Museum Day! 🎉 Did you know that as well as being an archive, we are also an accredited museum? So for this month's Programme of the Month, we are being a bit cheeky and using our own current exhibition guide 😊
Our exhibition space is open Tues-Fri 9:30-17:00 and is free to access. Our latest exhibition opened less than a fortnight ago. It looks at the work and ethos of Welfare State International using material from the newly catalogued archive. Why not come along and have a look for yourself? 🧐

16/05/2026

🎭 Happy Music Hall & Variety Day! 🎭

We hope you love this image of Harriet Vernon as much as we do! She was one of the leading music hall stars of the 1880s and 1890s.

Proof there's no such thing as being overdressed 🙂‍↕️💅

15/05/2026

New blog alert! 🚨
Our Forkbeard Fantasy Project Archivist has written a new blog about how the wide variety of activities that Forkbeard took part in is messing with her nicely laid out cataloguing system 😂 Read the blog to discover an excellent new insult, the strange things Penny built in her barn, and what happens when 15 million people attempt to join one video call...
Link in bio.

01/05/2026

UoB Theatre Collection and Fantasy are delighted to announce that the recipients of the 2026 Forkbeard Fantasy Award are Deanna Rodger and Emma Powell!🎉🎉

Emma and Deanna’s project is called Magical Gloop (Oi! Not AI), and explores our innate, embodied and sticky human intelligence. Inspired by the Forkbeard Fantasy archive, they will manipulate technology and objects, explore ways to transform the body, and how to make things go “bang”!

Deanna uses poetry to connect, discover and transform. She is a Pervasive Media Studios Resident, and Clore Fellow. Her work has travelled the world, and she has been commissioned by organisations including Amnesty International, Merlin, and Disney. Her reimagined version of ‘If’ was read by Serena Williams and she featured on BBC’s The Art That Made Us. She designs and delivers educational programmes and is an Early Career Writer at Bristol Old Vic.

Emma is an award-winning inventor and creative director. After more than a decade making puppets and animatronics for stage and screen, she co-founded the creative robotics studio Air Giants, exhibiting installations worldwide. In 2025, she led Air Giants in designing the summer exhibition for Manchester Museum, which had 70,000 visitors and is currently nominated for a Museums + Heritage award.

Congratulations to Deanna and Emma! 😀

30/04/2026

It's the last day of April, which means we've just about enough time to squeeze in this month's Object of the Month! 🎉🚨
For this month's objects, we have three different ways of planning a play. Which would you prefer:
1) a storyboard?
2) a script?
3) an impression of some characters to improvise around?

Forkbeard Fantasy used all three, depending on the production! The storyboard above was used for their play The Barbers of Surreal, after their many attempts to write a more traditional script ended in frustration. For Invisible Bonfires, they did have a script - although you can tell from the document title that this writing process was also a matter of great frustration! Finally the character sketches were created for an outdoor event celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2002. The schedule for the day listed a film interlude. In reality it was these three trying to make the big screen work 😂

Ref nos: FF/1/76/1/5, FF/1/85/3/4, FF/3/4/5/5

24/04/2026

✨ Applications are now OPEN for the Kevin Elyot Award 2026 ✨

We are delighted to announce that we are now welcoming applications for the Kevin Elyot Award 2026 to support a writer-in-residence at the Theatre Collection.

The Kevin Elyot Award is made in memory of actor and writer, Kevin Elyot (1951-2014) - an alumnus of the University Drama Department - and the influence he has had on writing and the Arts. This year the award amount is £5,000.

Comprising scripts, correspondence, manuscripts and publicity material, the archive details Elyot’s working process from initial idea to finished product. ✍️The award holder will use the Kevin Elyot Archive to inspire a new dramatic work or other creative, curatorial or academic outcome.

🚨The deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 31st May.🚨

👉 Visit our News page for full details and how to apply: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/theatre-collection/news/2026/ke-award-2026.html

17/04/2026

13/04/2026

✨Programme of the Month✨

'The Mousetrap' by Agatha Christie is the longest-running West End show, reaching it's 30,000th performance on the 19th March 2025! It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, in October 1952.

In 1956, the film rights to 'The Mousetrap' were purchased with the stipulation that a film could be made once the West End production had been closed for 6 months...however, that has never happened! This is one production that you can only experience on the stage.

It's a classic whodunit, and we think it fits perfectly with this month's theme 🔎 crime 🔍

05/04/2026

Happy Easter from Oliver Messel, Eric Jones Evans, the Bourke sisters...and everyone else here at the Theatre Collection! May your Easter also be filled with family, flowers...and enormous squirrels!

Ref nos:
EJE/1385
OHM/2/16/5/13
EJE/1384
OHM/2/13/36/37
BTC80/4 (temp)
EJE/1036