Timothy West: 'There’s something magical at Bristol Old Vic'

I spent the war years in Bristol and I remember it very well. Practically every Sunday night there was a bombing raid and we got used to hiding under the stairs, hoping that we would still be there in the morning. We were in Redland, and the damage there wasn’t anything like the damage in the old city. I remember waking up in the night and the ceiling in my bedroom was bright pink and thinking it was sunrise and I had to get up. But it wasn't, it was the whole city on fire.

My first performance at the Bristol Old Vic was in 1967 in an adaptation of Iris Murdoch's novel The Italian Girl and we took it to Wyndham’s Theatre in London and I didn’t then come back to Bristol until 1972. I returned in the opening production of the remodelled theatre, it was a musical called Trelawny.

The most valuable elements of London theatre have all come from outside the city

In many ways it was wonderful coming back to the new space, the technical resources were vastly improved, we were able to do amazing things scenically. But we did begin to see the downside of the enormity of the stage and how that was out of kilter with the unchanged and beautiful auditorium, and that’s how it stayed for many years. I came back to do both parts of Henry IV a year or two later and I’ve been back various times since then.

All actors used to love coming to work at the Bristol Old Vic. You didn’t get paid very much but you had really good directors, and wonderful designers and you’d get amazing costumes. We had a man’s tailor full time, which even West End theatres didn’t have. You felt really looked after when you went on the stage there and it has always been a lovely caring audience.

I’ve played King Lear three times, but this time it's very different, because we’re doing it with Bristol Old Vic Theatre School graduating students. Tom Morris, the director and the Bristol Old Vic's artistic director, had a very good idea: the basis of the play is two generations that have no sympathy or understanding of each other. It has certain echos in communities today. So Lear and Gloucester and the fool are people of a certain generation. Everybody else is really in their 20s and 30s.

I think Tom Morris has done a really incredible thing with the Bristol Old Vic, he’s looked after the remodelling of the theatre and brought it back to its original design, which has got lost a bit over the years. At the same time he is determined to use the theatre in imaginative ways. I am excited about the new space. When I first came here it had the old Victorian narrow, rather creepy and very cramped space. So it’s getting a welcoming look to the building entrance, which is important.

It’s absolutely vital to keep focusing on our local and regional theatre. There is a tendancy to think that if you don’t live work and sell you wares within the metropolitan area you haven’t really made it, which is rubbish. When you look around at the most valuable elements of the theatre in London it's all come from outside the city.

I love the floating harbour in Bristol. And there is always something new here. Bristol also seems to be a place where if you make friends they stay friends. I think Bristol Old Vic is one of the most important theatres in the UK. When you walk into the theatre it has a kind of kinetic energy that you can feel from all the 250 years of activity it has had on it. There’s something magic there, as though you’re on hallowed ground.

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