News

We’re delighted to announce our brand new Autumn/Winter season, which is fit to bursting with a sensational programme of theatre, puppetry, masked performance, comedy, Shakespeare, opera and family shows, including two magical new productions for Christmas.

Director, Ali Robertson says
“This season will see brilliant shows from Bristol’s finest talent and from some of the most significant companies and theatre artists in the country. I must urge you to clear a bit of space in your diaries in September when we have programmed three of the best works that have been at the theatre in the last couple of years:  Bristol-based Action Hero’s exceptional A Western, Tinkerting’s dark puppet show Hunger and Filter’s fabulous Twelfth Night. If you’re able to see any of them, I think you’ll have a good time; if you can see all three I genuinely believe it will help make your autumn special. I’m also hugely looking forward to the Beckett Trilogy – I saw one of the Trilogy eight years ago and it still stays with me – and to the first visit to the theatre of Northern Broadsides (with 1984), a company that has been engaging, inventive and hugely important for decades.”

Opening the season is the acclaimed Hit Me: The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury, which comes to Bristol direct from its second West End Season and explores the highs and lows of Ian Dury’s extraordinary career and inspirational life story. Next up is Vamos Theatre’s full-mask theatre production Nursing Lives. Ex-Trestle Theatre members have come together to create a show alive with visual inventiveness, evocative music and song, physical theatre and 1940s dance sequences.

The following three shows return to the Factory after previous sell-out performances - Action Hero bring back their wonderfully chaotic, sharp, and poignant performance of A Western, which went down a storm at last year’s Mayfest, the dark and provocative Tinkerting perform their twisted piece of puppetry Hunger, and Filter arrive in Bristol back by popular demand with their fast-paced Twelfth Night.

Towards the end of September the Gare Saint Lazare Players present The Beckett Trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable), a must for any serious theatre or literature lover. This remarkable tour-de-force comes to Bristol for the first time, having played every major theatrical capital in the Western World.

During Black History Month in October, Trestle presents Burn My Heart, a new stage adaptation based on the award-winning novel by Beverley Naidoo. This devastating and highly relevant story is set during the Mau Mau uprising in 1950s Kenya.

October wouldn’t be the same without Opera Project taking up residency for a few weeks in order to present their annual opera. This year the acclaimed company presents Verdi’s powerful love story La Traviata.

Performances by Stan’s Cafe, Slightly Fat Features and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School take us towards the end of November when we welcome Northern Broadsides for the first time. The acclaimed company presents 1984. George Orwell’s stark, uncompromising futuristic vision pulls no punches, resonating now more than ever. In a world of dodgy dossiers, rendition, torture, CCTV, Murdoch, spin and political corruption, truth has indeed become as strange as this chilling fiction.

Looking a bit further ahead to Christmas, we are very excited to welcome back the team behind 2008’s fantastic A Christmas Carol, with a new production of The Adventures of Pinocchio for children aged 6 + and their families. For little ones, Bristol-based Pins and Needles presents The Elves and The Shoemakers, one of the most enchanting fairy stories ever told in our sister space The Brewery. Other family shows on offer include Tall Stories’ Twinkle Twonkle and How The Koala Learnt To Hug.

The comedy programme features some of the best funny people around including John Shuttleworth, Rich Hall, Jeremy Hardy, Chris Addison, Russell Howard, Jenny Eclair and Hardeep Singh Kohli’s Nearly Naked Chef.

The Tobacco Factory’s sister space, the Brewery Theatre, is now a year old. Having the second venue has given the theatre extra capacity to develop and programme work and has been a hugely successful and beneficial addition for artists and audiences alike. The Brewery programme continues to support a range of local and national performing artists who want the opportunity run a show for a few weeks. This autumn includes work from local writer Shaun McCarthy with his play Beanfield, award-winning Ensemble 52 with their searing drama As We Forgive Them, Andy Burden’s stripped down version of Shakespeare’s Henry V , Fairground Theatre’s Bonnie & Clyde and Ministry of Entertainment’s Mrs Gerrish’s Rear Window.

It’s a packed few months ahead of us and we look forward to seeing you here!

Click here to see a list of everything on in the TF and Brewery Theatres from now till Christmas.
Want to hold it in your hands…? Email tickets@tobaccofactory.com with your address and ‘please send me your brochure’ in the subject line.
Our new season brochure is also available to download via the pink icon to the left of this page.