The Brewery Theatre Opens

Suit Yourself Magazine arrives at the Tobacco Factory Theatre on a mild evening at the end of the summer in search of the launch night of a curious new theatre called “The Brewery”. We are politely re-directed down North Street and told to lookout for the old garage on the left covered in graffiti.

They say you can’t miss it and sure enough you can’t, The Brewery coyly sitting across the road from the budget supermarket, looking like a burnt-out warehouse, scrawled in all sorts of colourful faces and patterns – the remnants of this year’s Urban Paint Festival. We enter this curious building from the back yard and are astounded by what we see within. Behind The Brewery’s cold brick walls and derelict exterior lies a stunningly professional dance studio/rehearsal room (complete with banks of polished mirrors and sprung floor), a full stocked one-man bakery, a cosy front of house foyer, and, most importantly, a superb, intimate, 90-seated theatre venue with the feel of a truly wonderful art-house cinema.

Tonight is the opening party, a celebration of the months of hard work that have gone into providing the Tobacco Factory with a second, sister venue. The place is truly a wonder to behold and it’s hard to believe it’s the same building which only months before was striped bare and full to the brim with painters and graffiti artists doing what they do best at UpFest 09. However, as I find out when talking to Tobacco Factory Theatre Manager, David Dewhurst, the project hasn’t all been clear sailing…

“It all happened quite quickly actually and ended in a very busy summer of building work. The Tobacco Factory Theatre has been growing steadily over the past few years and when George Ferguson took on a lease of an old tyre and exhaust garage just 150 meters over the road, we jumped at the chance to create a second auditorium. The building had been empty for about a year and was an exciting derelict space; seeing it for the first time brought back a few memories of the early TF days.

“The whole licensing process took a while and we had a very nervous wait in case we had any last minute objections to our plans. From there it was really working out the layout of the rooms, seating and lighting and sound installation – not to mention the new walls, doors and windows, the plumbing and the heating. We recycled an old bar prop for use in the foyer and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School kindly donated a seating bank (even though the wrong one was collected and assembled!). The final push was to get it opened on time which was no easy task - even now there’s some last minute painting going on.

“There were always going to be a few hiccups along the way but the funniest was tonight when our theatre director Ali Robertson’s wife went into labour about 4 hours ago! Ali was due to launch the new theatre himself but he’s running his very own, very different welcoming party right now instead.”

What were your motivations behind the new venue and what does the space offer that the current Tobacco Factory Theatre and other venues in Bristol don’t?

“The space is a great companion to the main TF Theatre. It’s an opportunity to run smaller shows for longer runs - the kind of shows that we can only give one or two night to in the larger auditorium - allowing companies to develop new work and for word-of-mouth and press reviews to impact on ticket sales. We’re also toying with the idea of screening films in here. The rehearsal room too is another fantastic space and is proving very popular with companies from Bristol and beyond; the Nation Youth Theatre will be holding their auditions in The Brewery early next year!

“There are some exciting future plans afoot for the rest of the building. We already have a working bakery next to the theatre, hopefully a cheese-maker will open an office next door and the front of house area backs onto the award winning Bristol Beer Factory brewery. We’re going to have brewing equipment and samples on display and tours of the Beer Factory will be up and running soon.

“It’s been a pretty exciting summer really. We’re still the same Tobacco Factory but we now have twice as much going on as we used to! The two new spaces are a great way for us to help develop new work whilst continuing our high-quality, diverse program. Air conditioning has just been installed in the main auditorium too and we have a new brochure out in November.”

It all sounds wonderful and although half of these ideas are still in motion, seeing what these guys have managed to do with this building in merely a few months, I have faith that in no time I will be able to enjoy an evening’s theatre here with a beer that was brewed 20 metres away, eating cheese and a pastry made next door, watching a show that was conceived and developed in the theatre over the road and rehearsed in the room opposite.

The Brewery opened its doors to the public for its first show on the 29th August and has already played host to nearly 50 shows in 2 months. Talking to some of the staff at the venue, they told me how there was a real buzz around the new space and every single night they were having groups of people popping their heads in on the way past to find out what was happening inside. It’s a fascinating venue with a great story and with the ideas and drive behind it as they are, it’s something you should definitely go and check out yourselves soon.

www.tobaccofactorytheatre.com

Matt Whittle
Photos by Farrows Creative, Graham Burke and Kathryn Gatt