The Wardrobe Ensemble will celebrate their 10th anniversary with an ambitious new theatre festival running from August to October. Pop-up venue The Mix, designed by Studio Three Sixty, will become The Theatre on the Downs at Breaking Bread on The Downs. This new venue in Bristol will celebrate the local theatre scene as The Wardrobe Ensemble strive to create opportunities for South West artists and provide a community-focused hub in the city for audiences to enjoy after a year inside. The first shows are now on-sale with more theatre, circus, poetry, family shows to be announced!
Kicking off the festival will be world premiere of The Wardrobe Ensemble’s WINNERS. In their own inimitable style, this exciting new show explores capitalism and tracks the shift of labour in the history of food from farming to fast food. Directed by Jesse Jones (Death Drop, West End) and Helena Middleton (Education, Education, Education, West End), WINNERS is a rollicking and fantastical look at manipulation, monopoly and money, capitalism and currency.
The Wardrobe Ensemble comments, We started talking about this idea at the end of last summer as we imagined what might come next for theatre. We knew that the thing we wanted to do the most was to make a new show and perform it to live audiences, and we thought that other companies in the South West might want that too. So, we created this very ambitious project which has had many different permutations along the way as we tried to wrangle it into being. We are so excited (and a little bit scared) to finally announce it and make it happen.
This is the biggest thing The Wardrobe Ensemble has ever tried to pull off and we still need help. Please do get in touch if you feel able to support us. And if you are a South West artist with something that you think might work at The Theatre on the Downs, let us know – we are still programming the space and want to fill it with as much exciting work as possible!
As part of The Theatre on the Downs, The Wardrobe Ensemble are offering a brand-new commission of £10,000 for an artist or company based in South West England to develop a new piece of theatre. Alongside the commission, the successful artist or company will have the option of a programming slot in September and receive one-to-one sessions with members of The Wardrobe Ensemble to support the next steps. Applications are open here: theateonthedowns.co.uk/commission
There are still more opportunities to be part of the programming – for more information, check the website: theatreonthedowns.co.uk.
The Theatre on the Downs is kindly supported by The Wardrobe Theatre, Arts Council England, Backstage Trust and WECA. Ticketing in association with Bristol Old Vic.
The programme is as follows (with more exciting new shows to be announced soon!):
Opening Night at The Theatre on the Downs
by The Wardrobe Ensemble | thewardrobeensemble.com
Saturday 7th August, 7.30pm
A launch party spectacular featuring game show The Wardrobe Ensembwheel of Fortune, along with top secret special guests, free prizes of the highest quality and lots of fun and games. Come celebrate the opening of Bristol’s newest theatre venue!
WINNERS
by The Wardrobe Ensemble | thewardrobeensemble.com
Tuesday 10th – Saturday 28th August
Tuesday – Saturday, 7.30pm
Thursday 26th August, 3pm
Press Night: Wednesday 18th August TBC
My whole life is about winning. I don’t lose often. I almost never lose. Donald J Trump.
Lights, sequins, burgers, hot fries and thick shakes, join us for a fast-food filled theatrical extravaganza. Our boss is a washed-up zombie clown who’s been dying to tell you what life is like for the winners in this world. And then there are the workers, just trying to earn a buck. Strap in for a time travelling thrill ride that rattles through the ages, bursting from the fertile ground beneath our earliest ancestors and crash-landing on the burning carcass of the planet itself. A fantastical look at manipulation, monopoly and money, capitalism and currency, we dare you not to enjoy it.
A brand-new show and return to live performance from the multi-award winning company who brought you Education, Education, Education, 1972: The Future of Sex and RIOT. Supported by Arts Council England.
The Star Seekers
by The Wardrobe Ensemble | thewardrobeensemble.com
Wednesday 18th – Saturday 21st August, 3pm
Have you ever dreamt of flying to the moon?
Visiting a space station?
Becoming an astronaut?
Inspired by childhood wonder of the universe, this is a unique theatre experience for children. Passing on awe for the limitless majesty of galaxies, the solar system, shooting stars and planets to the next generation, it also delves into one of greatest unanswered questions of the universe: what do astronauts really have for dinner?!
Last seen at the National Theatre in 2018, this out of this world family show is back! Join The Wardrobe Ensemble and The Wardrobe Theatre on a journey through the stars where you take the steering wheel.
Beach Baby
by WILDERBEAST | twitter.com/wldrbeastheatre
Friday 27th – Sunday 29th August, 11am and 3pm
It is summer time. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and butterflies fill the air. The garden is full of colour and warmth. It’s time to cool down with an ice-cream and a swim. We fill the car with toys and games, a bucket and spade and our favourite picnic. Have you packed the sun cream? We’re going to the beach!
Join WILDERBEAST for this enchanting new summer show for 0-3 year olds, following their hit show Ice Ice Baby. A beautiful 30-minute theatre experience suitable for babes in arms and toddlers, accompanied by carers. Discover the sights, sounds and textures of the beach in a playful sensory exploration.
Wild Swimming
by FullRogue | fullroguetheatre.com
Tuesday 31st August – Saturday 4th September, 7.30pm
Nell and Oscar meet on a deserted beach in Dorset. It’s 1595…or maybe it’s 1610. Oscar has returned from his first term at university and Nell is doing f*ck all. They will meet here, again and again, on this beach, for the next 400 years. Stuff will change, as it does with time. They will try to keep up.
Wild Swimming is an interrogation of gender and privilege and a wilfully ignorant history of English Literature. After playing to sold out houses in Bristol and Edinburgh in 2019, and following the cancellation of its international transfer to New York last year, FullRogue bring Wild Swimming back home to Bristol.
Beauty & The Beast
by Living Spit | www.livingspit.co.uk
Tuesday 14th – Saturday 18th September, 7.30pm
Saturday 18th September, 3pm
The classic French tale of Beauty and the Beast tells of a bright and beautiful young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle. She learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realise the kind heart and soul that lies within.
The enormously popular Living Spit stars Howard Coggins and Stu McLoughlin. Howard is beautiful. There’s no escaping that. But then so is Stu. In fact, Living Spit is widely known as the most physically attractive two-man musical comedy theatre company in the South-West. However, in this tale as old as time one of them will have to portray an ugly, foul-tempered beast. But which one will it be?
From the creators of the Offie award-nominated Six Wives of Henry VIII, the perennial Christmas favourite Living Spit’s Nativity and the “beguiling rib-tickler” (The Times) Living Spit’s Frankenstein The Musical comes a brand-new, monstrously-musical, Disney-defying version of this classic French tale about what it means to be truly beautiful in the 18th century.
Theatre Bristol Assembly: Mistake Boutique
by Theatre Bristol | www.theatrebristol.net
Wednesday 15th September, 10am – 12pm
Join Theatre Bristol’s Artist Support Activist Amy Mason (The Islanders, Mass) as she discusses the many (MANY) mistakes she’s made over her 10-year career for the next Theatre Bristol Assembly.
Amy will be joined by experienced fellow performers to talk falling out with venues, forgetting to do any marketing, and going on tour when you’re 9-months pregnant. This will be a chance to face up to the moments we’d all rather forget, to take stock, build bridges, and share the lessons learned the hard way.
This event will be held as an in person at The Theatre on the Downs on Clifton Downs. He Wardrobe Ensemble are committed to holding a programme of both online and in person events over the next year. There will be four freelancer bursary places available for this event.
Bicycle Boy
by Helen Eastman and Alex Silverman | www.bicycleboy.co.uk
Wednesday 11th – Sunday 15th August, 11am and 2pm
Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th August, 4pm
An outdoor bicycle-powered eco-musical, packed with humour, Bicycle Boy is perfect for children 6-10 and their families. This engaging, pedal-powered performance is themes of sustainability.
Our hero, Sam has 24 hours to clear out his grandad’s old bike workshop; it has been a difficult time and the business has to close. He remembers granddad teaching him to ride – and playing with him, pretending to be superhero Bicycle Boy. It seems grandad may have left Sam a present somewhere in the workshop, and some clues to find it. But there’s no power and Sam needs electricity to unlock the messages. He needs our help. If we can connect up enough bikes and pedal like mad, we can make generate enough power for Sam’s journey (and the show).
The Theatre on the Downs runs from Saturday 7 August – Saturday 2 October.
