25 Years of Bedlam a History of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company: 1979-2004

Home , Alex Greenwald, Bedlam Theatre, David Reed (comedian), Kevin McKidd, Mitch Benn, The Pleasance

(EDINBURGH: 2016)

Anna Sophia Watts, "Edinburgh: The All Singing, Dancing, Acting City", Study in the UK (2012) [studyinuk.universiablogs.net/2012/03/27/edinburgh-the-all-singing-dancing-acting-city].

25 YEARS OF BEDLAM A HISTORY OF THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY THEATRE COMPANY: 1979-2004

BY FERGUS DEERY UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH School of History, Classics & Archaeology B024197

With thanks to…

Anthony & Susan Deery

Dr Trevor Griffiths

Alex Greenwald

Jon Webster

Alastair Broom

Chris Fleming

Chris Cooke

Owen Dudley Edwards

Dr Roger Savage

Thom Dibdin

Adam Alton

Emily Ingram

Patrick Evans

Ben Twist

Richard Hogg

Lizzie Barrett

Christabel Anderson

Natalie Adzic

Megan Lu

Joe Christie

Alvaro Jurado

Niall Walsh

Tabitha James

Andrew Loudon

Thom Tuck

Christopher Sladdin

Idil Sukan, for first sparking the idea...

… and everyone else who has made Bedlam so.

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Contents

Introduction: Rise of the Bedlamites ...... 4 Chapter One: Talent without ceiling ...... 12 Chapter Two: Blood, sweat, or tears? ...... 20 Chapter Three: Death of the Fat Cat, and new life ...... 29 Conclusion: Half-finished ...... 38 Appendix 1: Timeline of EUTC Presidents in the Bedlam era ...... 41 Appendix 2: Timeline of key dates ...... 43 Bibliography ...... 44

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Introduction: Rise of the Bedlamites

A historian should always be able to justify his worth to the man at the bus stop.

- Dr Trevor Griffiths, Historian and bus stop-frequenter (September, 2015).

In 1973, the Edinburgh University Drama Society moved into the Crown Theatre at 19/20 Hill Place, dropped the second half of its title in favour of ‘Theatre Company’, and adopted a new mascot-cum- logo in the form a fat cat – based on a picture taken from the back of a cereal packet – to herald the change. Here the Edinburgh University Theatre Company (hereafter ‘the EUTC’, or ‘the Company’) resided happily for six years, until licensing complications meant it needed once more to be rehoused by spring 1979. How the EUTC then came to find itself in the University of Edinburgh’s (hereafter ‘the

University’) Old Chaplaincy, located at the end of George IV Bridge, is in part the subject of this study; for now, though, it suffices to say that the Company had, by August 1987, consolidated its position, under the terms of a Buildings Agreement which guaranteed that it would only ever be made to leave

Bedlam Theatre (hereafter ‘Bedlam’) – as the building was now known – should an equal or superior venue become available. And so, for the next 13 years, Bedlamites came to call their eponymous house a home, and so flourished in their surroundings that the Edinburgh University Student Association

(EUSA), which oversaw the EUTC and all other University societies, awarded the Company ‘Society of the Year’ in 1997.1 It was all the more shocking, then, when the University announced its intentions to sell the EUTC’s home of two decades just three years later, so that the building might be demolished and rebuilt as a hotel by ESK Properties (hereafter ‘ESK’); and only after a three-year struggle which embroiled multiple parties across the city and beyond did the debacle finally end. Ultimately, though,

25 years after its establishment, Bedlam, in its novel glory as the only entirely student-run theatre in

Britain, lived to tell the tale, and have a tale or two told about it in turn.

1 ‘Bedlamite’ denotes both past and present members of the EUTC.

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To be sure, novelty does not necessarily predicate significance, but nor has the EUTC’s reputation endured by simple virtue of its quirks. Certainly, its license agreement is special; and granted, its democratic administrative procedures are alien to most modern theatre owners; but the Company’s history is, at the crux, important precisely because it operates independently of industry norms. As such, this humble contribution to the nascent discipline of Scottish theatre history intends therefore to demonstrate how the same essential end-goal of running a venue can and has been achieved under unorthodox circumstances, underpinned, all the while, by exceptional aims. To do this, it explores the ways in which the EUTC’s artistic, administrative, and financial trajectory has been determined, over several generations, by the Company’s exploitation, development, and occasional transformation of

Bedlam.

The building is, after all, central not just to the EUTC, but the arts industry as a whole – its long- cultivated, unceasing charm having been remarked upon by an eclectic mix of those who ought to know. Ex-Bedlamite Greg Wise, who has since grown accustomed to the sets of the West End and

Hollywood, maintains that ‘It would be a crime’ to get rid of Bedlam since ‘there’s so much history oozing from the walls’;2 during his tenure as Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (hereafter ‘the

Fringe’), Paul Gudgin was similarly ‘struck by [Bedlam’s] energy and by the unique atmosphere’;3 and

The Guardian ranked the theatre as one of Edinburgh’s top ten performance venues as recently as

2011.4 And unlikely as it sounds, this interminably cold de-consecrated church is held in equal awe by aspiring young artists, many of whom have been drawn to the University of Edinburgh precisely because there was a student-run theatre.5 Jon Webster, editor of the Company’s inaugural and thus- far only published history, Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre, marvelled in 1991 that the ‘fanatical dedication’ of Bedlamites ‘led many to give up their courses at university, and concentrate on

2 Greg Wise, in The Sunday Times: Home (August 10th, 2014), p.2. 3 Paul Gudgin, in Friends of Bedlam, Paul Gudgin Testimonial (Video) (2014) [www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG- p5TfeU20]. 4 "10 of the Best Theatre and Performance Venues in Edinburgh", The Guardian (2011) [www.theguardian.com/travel/2011/oct/12/10-best-theatre-venues-edinburgh]. 5 Friends of Bedlam, Bedlam: The Documentary, Part 1/2 (Video) (2009) [www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHcR5m9lmA0].

B024197 theatre.’6 Since then, Bedlam has remained a second home to amateur theatre-enthusiasts who find themselves in the festival city out-with festival season. The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize winner

(2011) Andrew Mulligan accordingly jokes that his parents ‘cursed the Bedlam’ for derailing his geography degree,7 and 2001-2 EUTC President Paul Margrave once went so far as to quit

Mathematics for Philosophy so as to free up time to direct his first full-length play.8 Safe to say, then, the EUTC represents more than mere entertainment – the Company has become one of Britain’s largest and busiest training grounds for future leaders of the arts industry and beyond.

Webster aptly laments that ‘It is sadly impossible to mention all the productions and all the individuals who collectively represent the spirit of Bedlam,’9 but the Company’s ever-vast and diverse membership is embodied at least somewhat by its prolific output down the years.10 By 2000, the

Company led most drama colleges and professional repertory companies for volume of stage hours, with 670 productions to its credit over the previous two decades – in other words, it had averaged a staggering 32 plays per annum since moving into Bedlam, most of which went up multiple times.11

Along the way and since, there has been the odd exceptional piece: Toby Gough’s International

Student Drama Award-winning Grimm: The Telling of Tales (1992), Linford Cazenove’s Fringe First- winning 1996 adaptation of James Joyce’s Dubliners, and Ella Hickson’s Eight (2008), to name but three.12 Equally, there has been the occasional ‘Pongid’,13 but meditating overmuch on either the

6 Jon Webster, “Drama Society to Theatre Company”, in Edinburgh's Bedlam Theatre, 1st ed., ed. Webster, Jon (Edinburgh: 1991), p.10. 7 Andrew Mulligan, in Friends of Bedlam, Bedlam Testimonials (Video) (2014) [www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOZhRQkbLkI]. 8 Paul Margrave, “Friends of Bedlam”, on Paul Margrave: Blog (2014) [pargrave.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/friends-of-bedlam/]. 9 Webster, “Drama Society to Theatre Company”, p.10. 10 Available archives suggest that between 1979 and 2004, the Company had approximately 250 members in its worst year (2003-4), and approximately 500 (1990-1) in their best. Edinburgh University Theatre Company Archive (hereafter EUTCA), Minutes: Committee meetings (December 4th, 2003). Jon Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, in Edinburgh's Bedlam Theatre, p.35. 11 Friends of Bedlam, “Welcome,” (2013) [friendsofbedlam.co.uk/]. 12 Not only did Eight win a Fringe First, but it was then published, and transferred to Broadway. 13 A term derived from the EUTC’s original show Rise of the Pongids (1985), for which enthusiasm was so muted that director Tom Harwood had to use cardboard cut-outs to represent the places in the cast left unfilled. So ‘awful’ was the production that a ‘decent-sized’ audience had been reduced to just two by the denouement, one of whom was Harwood. As such, a ‘Pongid’ came to denote a ‘dreadful’ show. Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, pp.32-3.

B024197 success or shortcomings of individual shows is to entirely miss the point. Crucially, the EUTC’s relatively low-pressure environment ‘teaches you to have a go, to fail, to work in a team, to be amongst friends, to try new things, to test yourself, to push yourself, and you grow phenomenally from the experience.’14 So insisted Wise, now an actor and producer, who nonetheless ‘directed, designed sets, fixed the chairs, [and] made the soup’ during his time with the ‘weird, grown-up gang’ that are Bedlamites.15 A grown-up gang which also, lest we forget, takes collective charge of programming the year’s schedule, maintaining the building, promoting the Company brand, and, come August, forming most of the senior management at Bedlam’s Fringe incarnation, ‘Venue 49’.

And yet, this wealth of unprecedented and unending responsibilities is not itself the EUTC’s defining feature; rather, it is the skills the Company directly and indirectly teach, and which members then put into practice outside of Bedlam’s famous big red doors. Romantic Novel of the Year Award-winner

(2013) Jenny Colgan, who ran for University Rector in 2003 predominantly so that she could save the

Bedlam,16 recalls that ‘I’d come so young from school, and a terrible school, that this whole idea of these people being creative, and doing creative things, and people were writing plays was so amazing to me that it just changed something really fundamental about the way I thought about what was possible.’17 Three Weeks founder Chris Cooke adds that ‘being dropped in at the deep end trying to do all those things taught me how to think on my feet, how to look like I know what I am doing or talking about when I don’t, how to make something magnificent out of nothing, how to work through the night to meet impossible deadlines, and how anything can be made better by applying a lick of paint and some gaffer tape. These are all invaluable lessons if you want to run your own business, and

I bet they don’t teach you any of it at business school.’18 Essentially, the EUTC provides its members with a head start over most students in the country on a whole number of fronts, from technical

14 Greg Wise, in Bedlam Testimonials. 15 Wise, The Sunday Times. 16 Jenny Colgan, "It's a Fine Lie Between Election and Rejection", Scotsman (2003) [www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/it-s-a-fine-lie-between-election-and-rejection-1-598834]. 17 Jenny Colgan, in Bedlam Testimonials. 18 Chris Cooke, in "Q&A with Chris Cooke - Friends of Bedlam,” int. Alton, Adam (2015) [friendsofbedlam.co.uk/qa-chris-cooke/].

B024197 repairs, to lighting design, to large-scale marketing, to financial and man-management.19 Malcolm

Gladwell has demonstrated that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to reach genius level, and whilst it clearly cannot be said that any EUTC member attains all 10,000 necessary hours during what very rarely amounts to more than five years with the Company, they are offered the unparalleled opportunity to access without restriction a fully-functioning theatre each September through May, thus placing them at a marked advantage over other university graduates later seeking work in (even loosely-)theatre-related industries.20

Indeed, Gudgin remarked that ‘There’s [so] many people involved in the arts today, often at very senior level, who had their start’ with the EUTC that ‘our profession has a lot to thank the Bedlam for.’21 It is impossible to contain within a page – even less a paragraph – the list of alumni who have at some stage scaled the heights of their professions, but suffice to say Trainspotting’s Kevin McKidd,

The News Quiz’s Miles Jupp, Olivier Award-winning playwright Lucy Kirkwood, Grid Iron’s founder

Judith Doherty, celebrated novelist Duncan McLean, world-renowned lighting designer Simon

Wilkinson, and photographer and producer Idil Sukan represent a mere fraction of the crème of the crop. That the alumni are, in turn, grateful for the skills they were taught is evinced in their continual warmth towards and close connections to the Company after leaving: in 1999, following Cazenove’s tragically premature death in a car accident, his family donated a bench to the theatre in recognition of the fond regard in which he held Bedlam to the end; in 2003, alumni network Friends of Bedlam was established to satisfy demand for better communications with generations present; and in 2014,

McKidd made headlines by unexpectedly knocking on the big red doors in hope of a trip down memory lane. And, most famously of all, EUTC members past and present rallied together in a successful bid

19 The exceptions are those taking theatre-specific degrees. But even then, dedicated EUTC members are not left far behind, and come out with a degree in something else on top of all their practically-acquired theatre- based knowledge. 20 Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (New York: 2008). 21 Gudgin, in Gudgin Testimonial.

B024197 to save Bedlam at the turn of the millennium, ensuring the theatre safely saw out its 25th anniversary, and (quite literally) securing the foundations for generations to come.

It is these first 25 years on which this study focuses, specifically the term-time periods during which the theatre has been run by unpaid staff charged predominantly with facilitating EUTC shows. It may, on the surface, seem paradoxical to dwell retrospectively on a Company that deals wholly in forward- thinking and innovation, especially since Bedlam for so long ‘knew not whence it had emerged and cared less.’22 And yet, the events of the past 36 years demonstrate precisely how a lack of interest in the Company’s successes, misjudgements, and raisons d'être can compromise or else wholly derail generations present. Moreover, in an era in which historians are rightly taking interest in Scotland’s ever-expanding and world-renowned arts scene, it is vital to document the triumphs and tribulations of one of the largest, most versatile, and fondly-thought-of companies of all.23

The building being so critical to the manner in which the EUTC functioned post-1980, the first chapter examines the Company’s temporary acquisition of the Old Chaplaincy amidst the backdrop of a thriving Scottish theatre scene, before exploring how far the austerity measures of the 1980s, coupled with Bedlamites’ waning administrative competence but endlessly inventive productions led them to permanently consolidate Bedlam and acquire a full-time administrator by 1987. The second chapter then examines Webster’s celebratory conception of the early 1980s relative to his pessimistic portrayal of developments thereafter, analysing the EUTC’s daringness of ideas and cultivation of networks amidst the alleged pressures of commercialisation. Then, in light of the Company’s work between 1987 and 1998, the third chapter asks how it found itself nonetheless threatened with homelessness by 2001. Here, the University’s deteriorating financial condition, long-standing contractual clauses, and the historical significance and consequent contemporaneous importance of

22 Owen Dudley Edwards, Untitled, in Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre, p.36. 23 Randall Stevenson and Gavin Wallace, Scottish Theatre since the Seventies (Edinburgh: 1996), and Bill Findlay and Adrienne Scullion, A History of Scottish Theatre (Edinburgh: 1998) provide particularly helpful overviews of our period. More recently, Ian Brown, Scottish Theatre (Amsterdam: 2013) affords a fresh perspective.

B024197 the Bedlam site are core components of what amounts to a fascinating case study in the conflict between modernisation and historical preservation.

As for my own battle for preservation against throbbing filing cabinets without keys, stacks of documents without order, and a richly historical subject without historiography, I can only hope this study defies the odds. To be clear, the EUTC archives are as untamed as they are bountiful, and my findings would surely have been far fewer were it not for the diligence of Friends of Bedlam’s Founding

Chair Alastair Broom, who, along with Chris Fleming and Cooke, gave order to a substantial portion of past publicity, reviews, and minutes over the course of the 2000s. The direction of incumbent Friends of Bedlam President Adam Alton, Honorary Fellow of the University History Department Owen Dudley

Edwards, and former Honorary Vice President of the EUTC, Dr Roger Savage – each of whom are enviably knowledgeable on different parts of the Company’s history – was similarly invaluable; as was the trust afforded to me by the EUTC’s 2015-16 Archivist, Alex Greenwald, who allowed me to take box upon box of materials home to make sense of in the wee hours. Most of all, though, I am indebted to Webster and the ‘many hands’ who contributed to his original text – their interpretations of the facts aside, it provided an invaluable touchstone against which to check and develop my own timeline of events.

I deeply regret that the minutes from the Company’s first seven years at Bedlam, along with sporadic years thereafter, were long ago lost or destroyed, especially since this seems sometimes to have been no accident, but an instead cynical effort to cover certain culpable Committee members’ backs. Thanks to the move, in 2009, to digitalise all minutes immediately after their being typed, future researchers studying future periods of EUTC history will not, hopefully, be bereft of the insights by which I myself have been eluded. Nevertheless, I hope herein to capture the Company’s important history with a history of importance, as opposed to what could otherwise be deemed Bedlam’s greatest Pongid to date. But whatever the case, it has been a pleasure and a privilege researching and speaking to some of the protagonists of times gone by, and wishing I could speak to so many more. Therefore, and above

B024197 all, I sincerely hope that the would-be dispassionate content which follows nevertheless does justice to a quarter-century’s worth of impassioned and unerring dedication and imagination.

Chapter One: Talent without ceiling

They are a speciall cause of corrupting Youth, conteninge nothinge but unchast matters, lascivious devices, shifts of Coozenage and other lewd and ungodly practises… They are the ordinary places for vagrant persons, Maisterless men, thieves, horse stealers, whoremongers, Coozeners, Coneycatchers, contrivers of treason and other idle and dangerous persons to meet together… They maintain idleness in such persons as have no vocation and drove apprentices and other servantes from their ordinary workes.

- Petition to the University of Edinburgh Privy Council regarding stage plays (circa 1585).

Lest we forget that long before ‘Bedlam’ was appropriated as a synonym for chaos, the term – derived from ‘Bethlehem’ – denoted sanctuary from the ungodly outside world. And between August

13th 1846 and November 7th 1937, the EUTC’s future home served as precisely that: at first, the New

North Free Church, and thereafter, the University’s Old Chaplaincy. How, then, did the Company come first to acquire, then consolidate its hold over the building? The University, after all, had a great many more pressing concerns than student theatre, and significant impetus, on the eve of Thatcherite austerity, to somehow capitalise on the geographically-optimal site for which they had had no use other than to store chairs at since the New Chaplaincy Centre’s completion in 1974. Certainly, the fact that the building lay idle helped, but it is only by considering the cultural climate in which Scottish theatre was suddenly thriving, and the impact of the consequent co-opting of the building for theatrical purposes, that we can reach a well-rounded understanding as to how the way was paved for the EUTC to first enter through the big red doors on January 31st 1980. Similarly, we can only truly appreciate the stimulus and purpose of the revamped Buildings Agreement of 1987 within the context of the 1980s, in light of all of the Company’s artistic accomplishments and administrative shortcomings during this time. B024197

We must begin, though, by asking what there was before there was light? The answer to which is, appropriately, darkness. The 1950s and 1960s were, after all, ‘drab times’ for Scottish theatre,1 during which the cultivation of artistic talent was ‘slow, broken, and disturbed.’2 It is, indeed, one of the great ironies of the EUTC’s history that a de-consecrated kirk portended its invigoration, since the nation’s

Presbyterian churches had, for the previous century, ‘drained away Scotland’s dramatic potential in a direct way – by supressing theatres, or designating them temples of Satan’.3 The seeds of ‘renaissance’ were sewn between the early-1960s and -1970s: an age of ‘excavation, rediscovery, and re- examination’ of Scottish history, coinciding with a ‘surge in Scottish self-awareness and developing self-confidence.’4 Totemic of this were such milestones as the opening of the Traverse Theatre

(hereafter ‘the Traverse’) – Britain’s first professional studio theatre – in 1963, the establishment of the Scottish Society of Playwrights in 1973, and, most significantly of all, the endorsement of a free- thinking future of limitless expressions represented by the abolition of theatre censorship in 1968.

This augmented awareness, in the early 1970s, ‘that the theatre didn’t have to take place exclusively in traditional proscenium houses,’ and fed the prevailing sense that ‘the most interesting stuff was happening anywhere but.’5 Companies such as 7:84, who preferred to deliver their politically-charged work to the audiences of church halls, shop floors, and working men’s clubs thrived under such circumstances; indeed, their magnum opus, The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (1973), won such critical acclaim that it was later adapted into a BBC film. And Stewart Conn’s The Burning (1971),

Hector MacMillan’s The Royal Visit (1974), and Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head

Chopped Off (1977) enjoyed similar international acclaim – feats which at once made possible and were made possible by increases in arts funding which outstripped inflation up to 25%.6

1 Stevenson and Wallace, Scottish Theatre since the Seventies, p.8. 2 Edwin Morgan, in Ibid. 3 Ibid., p.14. 4 Ibid., p.85. 5 Ibid., p.51. 6 Findlay and Scullion, A History of Scottish Theatre, p.280.

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To accommodate a growing national appetite for impressive, impressively-funded theatre, traditional requisite facilities improved yet further with the renovation of the Royal Lyceum, the completion of the New Festival Theatre, and the extension of the Traverse, which also acquired some new properties. And during festival season, Edinburgh became the cultural capital of the world, as the

Fringe grew to new and impressive proportions. In 1969, the Festival Fringe Society had hosted 57 groups, but by 1981, 494 groups performed, leading to a proliferation in the number of make-shift venues.7 The city’s theatre culture had never, therefore, been more vibrant than it was in the late-

1970s; the possibilities, never so boundless. And it was within this climate of unfettered expansionism that the Traverse first demonstrated the Old Chaplaincy’s theatrical potential, hiring the venue for several summers running to premiere the work of names so notable as David Greig8 and Billy

Connolly.9 But that is not to say the Traverse demonstrated the building’s capabilities best; for neither

Greig nor Connolly caught the eye of Dr Roger Savage quite so much as Fanyia Williams, Director of the Bradford University Drama Group. Married to successful Fringe writer Richard Crane, she definitively carved her own name into Fringe folklore with a hugely ambitious adaptation of his Satan’s

Ball in 1977, for which she converted the Old Chaplaincy’s interior into a twenties Russian

Constructionist set, onto which the audience looked from gallery level, whilst themselves overlooked by a naked actor playing Christ, who hung crucified from the highest organ pipe.10

Before summer 1977, Savage himself had intermittently used the Old Chaplaincy in term time for non-stop dramatic readings of texts such as Paradise Lost. The University had variously entertained ideas of converting the space into a community night centre for those with problems, or a new library for Nursing Studies, but neither suggestion having come to fruition, his ‘theatrical eyes [suddenly] glinted’ on seeing Williams’s show.11 As Convener of the University Theatre Advisory Sub-Committee

7 "A History of the Edinburgh Festivals", BK - This and That (2014) [bkthisandthat.org.uk/a-history-of-the- edinburgh-festivals/#fringe]. 8 Stevenson and Wallace, Scottish Theatre since the Seventies, p.44. 9 Findlay and Scullion, A History of Scottish Theatre, p.275. 10 Dr Roger Savage, “A Mixed Marriage”, in Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre, p.4. 11 Ibid., p.3.

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(TASC) since its formation in January 1972, Savage was charged with observing and catering for ‘the expanding activities of student dramatic, operatic and film societies’ and ‘the growing number and ambitiousness of language department plays’ within the ‘barely adequate but intensively used’ theatrical facilities on campus (specifically the ‘dual-purpose and structurally inept’ Adam House and

George Square).12 Having initially discussed the prospect of transforming the Old Chaplaincy into a full-time theatre with representatives of the University Development Committee in 1975,13 he increased pressure on the University following Fringe 1977 by commissioning a sub-sub-committee to draw up conversion plans.14 This ‘semi-independent off-spring’ of TASC was christened the Guthrie

Project,15 and envisaged an end product befitting of the spectacle by which it had been inspired: there was to be a real, permanent, intimate thrust-stage at gallery level, around which the existing seating would be wrapped. The ground floor, meanwhile, would be divided into a foyer, bar, backstage and storage areas. The Guthrie Theatre, as it would be known, was to be owned by TASC, who would make it ‘as widely and equably available to worthy University groups as possible.’16

By June 1st 1978, the University Court, convinced of a third University theatre’s merits, approved the plans, but noted that the Guthrie Theatre could not open for at least another 18 months.17 Thus they granted TASC a 12-month reservation of the building so that the Sub-Committee could amass the

£150,000 needed to realise their grand conception.18 And yet, despite an appeal to private individuals, commerce, industry and public bodies’ that was, in February 1979, prosecuted vigorously, conversion

12 EUTCA, University Theatres Advisory Sub-Committee (TASC) correspondences & reports, Dr Roger Savage, “TASC Report to the Works and Buildings Committee, 1973-4” (April 1st, 1974), p.1. 13 EUTCA, TASC correspondences & reports, “TASC Report to the Works and Buildings Committee, 1975-6” (October 21st, 1976). *Absence of a page number denotes a single-page document. 14 EUTCA, TASC correspondences & reports, “TASC Report to the Works and Buildings Committee, 1976-7 & 1977-8” (June 1st, 1978), p.1. 15 The project took its name from the late local director Tyrone Guthrie, who had ‘dragged Britain into the thrust-stage age’ with his 1948 production of Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites at the Assembly Hall. Savage, “A Mixed Marriage”, p.5. 16 EUTCA, “TASC Report, 1973-4”, p.1. 17 EUTCA, “TASC Report, 1976-7 & 1977-8”, pp.1-2. 18 Savage, “A Mixed Marriage”, p.5.

B024197 funds proved hard to come by.19 With no rival campaigns to take over the building, the University were happy to extend TASC’s reservation of it; but with the EUTC having been forced from its home of six years, the Crown Theatre, due to licensing complications, there emerged an impetus to temporarily rehouse the Company in the Old Chaplaincy.

It may, on first viewing, seem strange that a company which had long endured a ‘somewhat stormy’ relationship with the University should suddenly find itself afforded the unprecedented privilege of its own building, but then the EUTC, in its previous incarnation as DramSoc, had not been all bad: in 1951, the Society’s production of The Spanish Tragedy won great acclaim at the Fringe; in the 1960s and early-1970s, it produced such alumni as actors Liza Godard and Ian Charleson, and playwright Sharman

Macdonald; and by the end of the 1970s, it remained one of the most prolific producing companies in the United Kingdom.20 And so it was that, under the first Buildings Agreement of 1980, the EUTC were granted permission to convert the building into a temporary, useable theatre, on the understanding that they would be ‘decently accommodated elsewhere’ once TASC had raised the necessary funds to commence its conversion, and that they would, in the meantime, meet the cost of bills; maintain and repair the building’s interior; and provide, maintain, and replace all furniture.21

The EUTC’s 1979-80 President, Adrian Evans, took it upon himself to christen the building, and in a nod to the city’s long-demolished mental asylum which had once stood on its ground, ‘Bedlam’ was born. Evans could not, of course, know how apt an epithet this name would prove to be for the political circumstances of the ensuing decade, as spending restraints caused arts funding to fall to levels which were not even ‘adequate to maintain the standards of existing drama companies,’ allowing Savage no outlet towards which to turn once it became clear, in the mid-1980s, that he would be unable to amass

19 EUTCA, TASC correspondences & reports, “TASC Report to the Works and Buildings Committee, 1978-9” (October, 1979). 20 Jon Webster, “Forging Links”, in Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre, p.15. 21 EUTCA, Buildings Agreements, “Minutes of the meeting of the Finance Committee” (January 21st, 1980), p.1.

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£150,000 by appeals to generosity alone.22 And so the Guthrie Project – at least for the short-term – died a death.

Conversely and happily, the popularity of Scottish theatre continued to grow. Between 1976 and

1986, attendances at subsidised theatres had risen from 570,000 to 700,000, excluding the expanding community sector.23 And when Bedlam was not itself booked up for use by outside hires, its resident company was producing an array of ambitious, thoughtful, and well-received work, chief amongst which were Peter Grainger-Taylor and Adrian Johnson’s 1983 production of Phantom of the Opera, and Ben Twist’s 1984 production of Revenge, which ‘had all the best people’ from the EUTC involved.24

However, in 1985 there emerged a feeling amongst the University management that all was not well, and it was no coincidence that a second Buildings Agreement was soon after reached. Up until 1984, the Company had retained a ‘healthy balance’ financially, taking over £5,000 per annum from productions;25 but thereafter, the EUTC continually ran a deficit, due in part to declining audience numbers, but predominantly to reckless expenditure.26 And after losing over £1,000 between 1986 and 1987,27 most of the Committee meeting minutes suddenly ‘disappeared’, in an attempt by some to avoid ‘political or other complications’ of irresponsible and allegedly fraudulent activities.28

This already serious problem was, in the University’s eyes, compounded by the fact that it desperately needed the Company to return a profit so that it could maintain the theatre in accordance with the Agreement of 1980. As one theatregoer recorded in an albeit comically understated letter to

EUSA:

On Friday, 2nd September, 1983, at about three-thirty p.m., I was drinking a cup of tea in the café

of the Bedlam Theatre when a portion of the ceiling approximately one-and-a-half metres square

22 Findlay and Scullion, A History of Scottish Theatre, p.293. 23 Ibid. 24 EUTCA, Interviews, Ben Twist (January 15th, 2016), p.1. 25 EUTCA, Complaints & correspondences, Lorna Davidson, “EUSA Letter to Martin Croome” (January 25th, 1985), p.1. 26 Webster, “Forging Links”, p.16. 27 The previous year’s deficit was listed in EUTCA, Financial Reports: Company (1987-8). 28 Webster, “Forging Links”, p.15.

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collapsed and fell directly on top of me. I estimate the weight of this to have been in excess of four

kilogrammes.29

Hereafter, EUSA’s Permanent Secretary, Dr Charles Fishburne, made sufficient funds available to stop the building from crumbling, but before spring 1987, there existed neither the restraint, prudence, nor strategy to amass enough to truly renovate the Bedlam. It was, then, a combination of acute ethical and hard infrastructural concerns, counterposed with an essential, enduring belief in the overall advantage of keeping the EUTC at Bedlam which caused EUSA to answer under-scrutiny 1986-

7 President David Gray’s request for a clerical worker with more wide-ranging proposals to unite the

EUSA and EUTC bank accounts, thus guaranteeing every Company cheque as well as providing it with a part-time administrator. This would-be ‘special relationship’ in turn obliged future EUTC Committees to submit a proposed budget to the Theatre Company Executive Committee each October, authority over which, once approved, would be delegated by the Association Finance Committee to the

Company’s Business Manager. Particularly controversial, in later years, was the clause that ‘Any surplus on the budgeted net expenses of the Theatre Company will be added to accumulated funds of the Theatre Company account within the Association’s account, and any deficits will be deducted from the Theatre Company’s accumulated funds.’30 But when 1987-8 President David Pounder picked up where his predecessor left off, and signed over all the Company’s assets and liabilities to EUSA as of

August 1st 1987, his mind was most firmly on Bedlamites’ contractual consolidation of the building, the impending arrival of full-time administrator Elizabeth Ogg (hereafter ‘Mrs Ogg’, as she became known to Company members), and the prospect of a more secure future in which to innovate.31

The EUTC had – largely for better, and only occasionally for worse – come a long way since 1979 by paradoxically staying put. With the Scottish theatre scene blossoming, venues as unlikely as the Old

Chaplaincy transcended their accepted purpose and expressed their artistic potential. Convinced more

29 Unnamed theatre-goer, in Webster, “Drama Society to Theatre Company”, p.13. 30 In 2014, Business Manager Christopher Sladdin resigned due to the Committee’s unpreparedness to put the matter of the EUTC’s ongoing arrangement with EUSA’s financiers to a Company vote. 31 EUTCA, Buildings Agreements, “Buildings Agreement” (August 1st, 1987), p.1.

B024197 than ever by Williams’s Satan’s Ball that this building should be remade as the Guthrie Theatre, Savage used his position as TASC Convener to force through an agreement with the University. Having secured, by 1979, the University’s consent, but not the necessary £150,000, the homeless, troublesome, but historically productive EUTC were given temporary access rights, which became inadvertently, unofficially permanent once it grew clear that there would be no Guthrie. After seven years of greater productivity, and, in the latter stages, greater troublesomeness than ever, the

Company was forced to appeal to EUSA for administrative help, and EUSA was, in return, eager to monopolise control over the non-artistic side of the Company so as to eradicate future troubles, and keep its artistically flourishing students financially solvent. How far the 1987 Building Agreement represented an artistic watershed is for the next chapter to determine, but it was at very least a crucial step towards making the building watertight. And the EUTC, having been faced with homelessness only eight years previously, was not about to let another roof slip from above its head: on the contrary,

Bedlamites came ultimately to accept that with great art came great responsibility.

Chapter Two: Blood, sweat, or tears?

Non-professionalism is not a reduction of standards. It is in an attitude, and a freedom, which commercial theatre is denied by its mercenary and consumerist overlords.

- FebFest 1993 Workshop Programme (November, 1992).

Jon Webster’s Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre provides richly detailed accounts of the most famous

(and infamous) productions of the 1980s, the ideas behind which would surely inspire (or helpfully forebode) any interested theatricians of today. And yet, his largely unsubstantiated claim that in tightening ties with EUSA, the EUTC’s ‘activism… became defused… and costing and budgets started to dominate Committee thinking’ fundamentally shapes the reader’s perception of the Company’s evolution for the worse.1 Granted, Webster was simply echoing the sentiments of many departing members of the era; granted also, he was specifically lamenting the deteriorating fortunes of the

Company up until – and not beyond – 1991 – the year in which his text was published. And yet, the finality with which he speaks about the 1987-1991 period clearly implies that, to his mind, the EUTC’s sense of initiative and ambition, in the years immediately thereafter, was irrecoverable.

Admittedly, on first glance, Webster’s forecast squares convincingly with ensuing developments: in

1998, EUTC Business Manager Will Handford reported to the Committee that ‘Dr Fishburne and the people in [EUSA] Finance are very happy with us, as we have gone from being the most financially appalling Society eight years ago to being the best… hence our Society of the Year nomination.’2 The

EUTC was here recognised not for its artistic activism, but for instead ‘being a more tightly run ship.’3

But this was not to say that it had abandoned ‘the pioneering excitement that one used to feel at the

Bedlam’ in the process; nor, indeed, could the Company have so significantly swelled its coffers

1 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, p.26. 2 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 11th, 1997), p.3. 3 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, p.35. B024197 without the activism required to augment its three chief sources of revenue: ticket sales, fundraising, and membership fees.4 This being the case, the following chapter will therefore examine whether a supposedly prevailing obsession with costings and budgets caused Company activism to deteriorate after David Pounder signed over financial control of the EUTC, or whether those concerned with costings and budgets actually owed their success to activism itself.

Two fine examples of EUTC production teams’ appetite for adventure bookend our period of study.

In April 1989, Colin Teevan and Roddy McDevitt marshalled 16 directors, 50 backstage staff, and over

100 actors for a non-stop, world-premiere adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which played out on the Bedlam stage over the course of 33 hours and 31 minutes. Likened by The Guardian to some sort of ‘glorious sixties happening,’ the show remains the Company’s longest to date, and also one of the most profitable; but the Company took no interest in the £1,000 raised, instead donating it to Friends of the Earth.5 Admittedly, the even-more-impressive £2,000 profit made by Adam Speers’s 1997 adaptation of Mort in the Pleasance Courtyard went straight into the EUTC purse, but this was merely a happy by-product of a hugely ambitious artistic process on which no expense was spared.6 Featuring

Death on stilts, and multiple sets between which the audience moved amidst an unlikely mid-spring snowfall, the 32 performers and 53-person crew made the producers’ jobs straightforward only in the sense that they created an exciting and unique show to sell.7

To be sure, £2,000 in profit was a sum with which only Theatresports could hope to compete in the

1990s. And yet Theatresports, much like Mort and Ulysses, was totemic above all else of the

Company’s desire to explore new theatrical realms. Exporting the show’s competitive, short-form format from his former university, McGill – the institution which is widely credited for first developing

4 Ibid. 5 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, p.31-2. 6 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 11th, 1997), p.3. 7 "Archive Entry: Mort", Bedlam.Valleyt (1997) [bedlam.valleyt.co.uk/shows/00228.php].

B024197 the concept – founding Director Toph Marshall proposed, in 1989, to perform an hour of improvised comedy once a week throughout term time with his team of players.

A large part of Theatresports charm was that the technical team improvised along with – and in the early days, on stage, alongside – the players, and technological developments meant that the more eccentric demands of Marshall, his successors, and, indeed, other EUTC directors could increasingly be appeased by the magic of computers over the course of the 1990s – Orpheus and the Angel having pioneered video projection in 1992. When the technical team’s contributions would not, however, suffice, it fell to the stage team to adapt, and sometimes convert, the auditorium.8 Indeed, there were three conversions between 1988 and 1991 alone, most notably for James Wallace’s 1989 production of Pericles, during which all seats were removed and painted black, everything else in the auditorium was painted white, and the thrust stage was transformed into the round, making for a striking visual spectacle, and transcending member’s conceptions of how the Bedlam space could be used.9

As for when a stage conversion would not suffice, the option remained open to take shows to George

Square Theatre, as Conal Morrison did with his 1988 King Lear. Alternatively, if a show’s initial Bedlam run was especially well-received, it stood a chance of being picked up by the Traverse, or even the

Royal Shakespeare Company, as was respectively the lot of Donald Main’s A Dutiful Easy (1989)10 and

David McCreight’s A Play About a Chair (1996).11 Strong links were being fostered with the Traverse at this time: between 1992 and 1993, one of its Directors, John McGroarty,12 undertook to direct an

EUTC Mainterm,13 and in 1993, a deal was made that the Traverse would transfer the best three

8 "Welcome - Friends of Bedlam", Friends of Bedlam (2013) [friendsofbedlam.co.uk/]. 9 Friends of Bedlam YouTube Channel, Pericles (Video) (2014) [www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRZ7oJXXdAY]. 10 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, p.28. 11 EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “FebFest Programme 1998” (Edinburgh: 1998), p.11. 12 EUTCA, Newsletters, Anita Sullivan (October, 1992). 13 ‘Mainterm’ denotes a production of three or more performances.

B024197 original shows, as determined by a Traverse-appointed panel, from the Company’s annual FebFest onto its professional stage.14

But although the EUTC was Edinburgh-centric by name, it was not always so in nature: Alex Robert’s

1988 production of Oh What a Lovely War toured to Heidelberg; his Nickelopera (1990), and Toby

Gough’s 1991 production of Rat in the Skull toured to Pennsylvania;15 and the latter’s, Grimm: The

Telling of Tales, toured the post-Soviet Eastern bloc in 1992, performing in Moscow, Kiev, and then St.

Petersburg.16 In turn, Bedlam hosted troupes from as far afield as Dublin, Prague, and Pennsylvania

(in a reciprocal arrangement with the University of Pennsylvania’s theatre company) during term time, as well as the 1988 and 1992 Scottish Student Drama Festivals.17 The building was, indeed, always in demand, and company members constantly strived to accommodate a broad range of visiting (often paying) hire companies during and out-with Fringe season.18

On the issue of Fringe, however, there is some truth to Webster’s contention that financial concerns superseded and repressed artistic ones. It is not a paradox to say that the EUTC’s engagement with hire companies affirmed its activism, since profits could be made only on the condition that Bedlamites energetically exerted themselves. And if Company members’ participation in Bedlam Fringe was waning by the turn of the decade, this was only because summer unemployment benefits had been withdrawn in 1988, meaning students no longer had recourse to ‘do four shows at Bedlam and still survive.’19 But post-1987, an overriding desire to professionalise by concomitantly commercialising

Venue 49 also caused Venue Hire Managers, and then specifically-elected Fringe managers, to reduce the amount of apparently unprofitable EUTC shows exhibited from four in the 1980s,20 to just two by

14 EUTCA, “FebFest Programme 1998”, p.18. 15 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, pp.33-4. 16 EUTCA, Newsletters (October, 1992). 17 Ibid. 18 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings, see (1991-2, 1993-4, 1995-8). 19 EUTCA, Videos, “Interview: Al Broom” (21st March, 2016). 20 The Student, “EUTC Fringe ‘83” (March 3rd, 1983), p.3.

B024197

1998, one of which was always The Improverts.21 Venue 49’s reputation was, without doubt, ‘very high’ as a result, with the EUTC’s remaining productions often scooping awards, and the rest of the programme selling out; but this came at the considerable cost of more-than-halving the amount of opportunities Bedlamites had to produce and perform shows at world theatre’s most celebrated festival.22

On the whole, though, it did not stand that costings and budgets straitjacketed EUTC ambition, and if the Company was developing an increasing commercial consciousness, it was only so that its upcoming productions might be better funded, and thus more inventive. Shows began to sell advertising space in their programs to great success, with Charlie Barron’s production of Equus taking

£92, and Colin Teevan’s Murder of Lorca (both 1989), £96.23 And more crucial yet to the Company was advertising itself. The growing sophistication of the Theatresports/Improverts publicity proffers an informative case study, having shifted slowly from the self-effacing slogan ‘Crap Gags, Dirt Cheap’ in

1993 to the self-confident claim to offer ‘Improvised comedy at its best’ by 1997.24 Also in 1997,

President Christabel Anderson and Marketing Manager Chris Cooke began issuing press releases for every upcoming show; publishing a monthly newsletter, Members Only, to keep people informed about upcoming events; and promoting the Company in publications such as Wallplanner and

Newsweek, as well as on the EUTC’s new website. 25

These initiatives were, however, as much designed to engage new participants as they were to attract paying spectators; for despite deceptively high membership figures throughout the era, the number of active members was often small. In a similar vein to Anderson and Cooke, the 1991-2

21 EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “Fat Cat News” (April, 1998), p.1. 22 EUTCA, Minutes: General Meetings, Philip Cotteril, in “Open Meeting (Round Two)” (December 1st, 1997), p.5. 23 EUTCA, Memos, “Murder of Lorca Advertising” (1989). 24 EUTCA, “FebFest Programme 1993”, p.7, and EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “Spring Programme 1997” (January, 1997), p.4. 25 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 11th, 1997), p.1.

B024197

Committee had incorporated a Lunchtime Convener,26 charged with helping start-outs put together production teams; 1992-3 President Anita Sullivan led a campaign to install wheelchair ramps, so as to encourage more disabled artists to participate in shows; and throughout the period, anonymous questionnaires were sporadically sent to members to help them speak out ‘without fear of the lynch mob.’27 The fact that two Open Meetings addressing the issue of limited active membership took place in 1997 demonstrates that despite the Company’s best efforts, the problem was never fully overcome, but it does not follow that the EUTC can be therefore deemed inactive; rather, the number of people who chose to actively participate was just less than the Committee would have liked, and it is, in truth, a tribute to the hardy minority of dedicated members that output did not suffer as a result of limited input.

Moreover, two things ought to be clarified before going further. The first, that there existed the exact same perception that a dedicated minority monopolised the Company before 1987, something for which 1982-3 President Ben Twist remembers being criticised by a fellow Committee member.28

The second, that it was predominantly the unglamorous jobs such as Committee work, staffing, and building maintenance that failed to gauge interest. For instance, some of the most hotly debated issues of the era were whether or not members should be made eligible to propose a Mainterm only after they had produced a Lunchtime, so as to guard against over-enthusiastic, under-qualified newcomers squandering the EUTC’s most lucrative slots;29 and whether or not the number of

Mainterms per term should be increased to four, to accommodate evident interest.30

To cater for ongoing enthusiasm for writing, Donald Main and Stefan Jansen established Derivatives in 1989, which brought to life short new pieces of work on the Bedlam stage. Once Main and Jansen

26 ‘Lunchtime’ denotes a show of one or two performances, traditionally held at 1:30pm on a Wednesday. 27 EUTCA, Newsletters (October, 1992). 28 EUTCA, Interviews, Ben Twist. 29 EUTCA, Will Handford, in “Open Meeting (Round Two)”, p.5. 30 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 8th, 1991), pp.1-2.

B024197 left, such showcases long ceased to occur,31 but this was small matter, in the short term, since FebFest

– co-founded by Webster and Chris Hoban in 1991 – offered newcomers like a young Simon Stephens the chance to exhibit their work in a miniature-festival environment.32 Typically producing 20 new shows each festival, amounting to 50 performances over the course of 10 days, so fierce was competition for slots that large script-reading teams were put together so as to cope with the quantity of submissions.33 But even those whose scripts were rejected, or who had not submitted scripts in the first place, had great cause to support the festival all the same, since Bedlam’s highly diverse workshop programs included masterclasses from actor Brian Cox, director Philip Howard, and playwright Mike

Leigh.34 Having offered up an irresistible opportunity, by 1994 ‘over 400 writers, directors, and performers travelling from all over Scotland’ made the pilgrimage to the EUTC’s home each year, guaranteeing Bedlamites a spell of huge stress, but equally huge rewards.35

Perhaps the imbalance of interests had some impact on the activism of Committees after 1994, though this would be contrary to Webster’s claim that a ‘shift from writers, performers, and techies, to directors, producers, and committee officials had begun.’ 36 In 1992, the Committee began the year without an Outside Companies & SSDF Rep, and in 1993, without a Secretary; meetings on important issues such as the Company’s Fringe selection panel were ‘badly attended’;37 Mrs Ogg and the Public

Health Department were often ‘very unhappy about the revolting state of the theatre’; 38 and the only existing copy of the Constitution was, in 1995, temporarily lost.39 Evidently, then, there were periods in which the Committee was worryingly lackadaisical; but there were also many moments at which it

31 The concept was eventually revived as Candlewasters in 2004, with short scripts from Tom Latter, Idil Sukan, and John Wilkinson. At the time of writing, Candlewasters is in its 12th year, producing two showcases with over ten scripts each semester. 32 Stephens went on to win two Olivier Awards, one for his script On the Shore of the Wide World (2005), and the other for his adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2013). 33 EUTCA, “FebFest 1993 Programme”, p.1. 34 EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “Autumn Season: Bedlam” (October, 1993), p.8. 35 EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “FebFest 1995 Programme” (Edinburgh: 1995), p.1. 36 Webster, “More Threads in the Tapestry”, p.26. 37 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 7th, 1996). 38 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (February 7th, 1992). 39 EUTCA, “Interview: Al Broom”.

B024197 actively strived to make a difference. Introspection was always encouraged, and on top of the open debates about image problems, how to raise the Company’s profile within the city, and eligibility for

Mainterms, public meetings scrutinised the merits of professionalization, and the means by which proposed shows’ artistic merit was judged.

Furthermore, the building may frequently have been left in a state, but when it came to it, Company members would put their lives on the line to protect Bedlam: the most infamous example of which came when six students from the Arts College broke through the back door at 1am on October 14th

1991, threw paint across the carpets, and were then forced out by several EUTC members, only for a fist fight to erupt on the street, during which Andrew Mulligan ‘received an unprovoked blow to the temple and was knocked down, suffering from concussion.’ 1991-2 President Donald Reid described the unprovoked attack as ‘disgusting;’ but as for the defence, it must surely go down as activism of the upper-most ardency.40

The decade following the 1987 Buildings Agreement was therefore characterised by blood, sweat, and tears. During this period, the Company did not, of course, get everything right; but Bedlamites’ fundamental ethos was to attempt, with certifiable success representing a desirable but inessential outcome. And it was an ethos which remained largely unsubverted by the Thatcherite sentiments of the age. Ulysses, Mort, and Theatresports profited handsomely on their own terms, and joined the rest of the Company in pushing EUTC technicians and stage teams to their upper-most creative limits in order to produce truly novel, well-rounded work. Work which, lest we forget, was exhibited the world over, and which was in turn informed by the many companies and individuals who travelled the world to perform at the increasingly famous Bedlam. Diminishing Fringe-time opportunities admittedly meant that less senior members could produce EUTC shows at the world’s biggest theatre festival, but the swelling term-time opportunities that FebFest brought in its train gave great incentive

40 EUTCA, Complaints & correspondences, Donald Reid, “Letter to ‘Sir’” (October 17th, 1991).

B024197 to the less- or completely-inexperienced to join and contribute to the Company. Of course the EUTC wanted to make money; but this period is more appropriately defined by members’ relative neglect of the bureaucratic intricacies which Webster so bemoans, in favour of a heart-on-sleeve brand of creative activism that neither investor nor invader could destroy.

Chapter Three: Death of the Fat Cat, and new life

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

- Eagles, ‘Hotel California’ (1977).

Having so long been ‘a Bedlam which knew not whence it had emerged, and cared less,’ the new millennium heralded drastically increased historical interest in both the EUTC and its home.1 For in

November 2000, the University first received plans from local developers, ESK Properties, to buy and demolish the theatre, and the University, in turn, expressed a desire to sell, thus sparking an impassioned campaign to ‘Save the Bedlam’ which encompassed Company members past and present, as well as admirers, archaeologists, and local activists. It is, indeed, a period which has ever- after been shrouded in myths, a great many of which must herein be debunked; and yet the critical, indisputable fact stands that Bedlam survived this period unscathed, and continues to serve as one of the most important theatres in Edinburgh – even the UK – to date. To fully comprehend why, by 2004, the prospect of Bedlam’s demolition (or else complete internal transformation) had so definitively diminished, we must first, however, ask why the University were initially so eager to oust one of their largest and – as previously demonstrated – most active societies from their home of two decades.

Contrary to claims first perpetuated by the University itself, Bedlam was not costing ‘a lot of money it cannot afford,’2 with its Estates and Buildings Department having actually spent very little on repairs since 1998.3 The real reason the University wanted to sell Bedlam was that it was in serious debt, and had become most enamoured by the prospect of the £100,000 the ESK sale promised.4 It being the

University’s foremost responsibility to adequately cater for its students, it would not do simply to expel a thriving society from a building so fundamental to its operations for the cold chink of cash

1 Owen Dudley Edwards, Untitled, p.36. 2 EUTCA, Minutes: EUTC-EUSA-University meetings, “Buildings Meeting” (January 25th, 2002). 3 EUTCA, Minutes: General meetings, “Save the Bedlam” (January 28th, 2002), p.3. 4 EUTCA, Minutes: General Meetings, “Extraordinary General Meeting” (June 13th, 2001), p.1. B024197 alone; but an additional part of the problem was that the University remained – quite innocently, but nonetheless problematically – oblivious to how prolific and respected the EUTC was. In fact, somewhat staggeringly, the University staff charged with negotiating a deal thought that aside from outside hires and Fringe, Bedlam hosted only three shows per year.5

It was fortunate, then, that the University did not have the power to simply evict the EUTC; for one decidedly good thing to have emerged from the turbulent tenure of David Gray was the 1987 Buildings

Agreement, which stipulated that the Company would not move from Bedlam unless or until a commensurate or superior venue, into which it could move under agreeable terms, was offered.6

Therefore, as ESK and the University set about finding the EUTC an alternative space, the fact remained that so long as the Company wanted to stay put, and so long as it could demonstrate the inadequacy of the alternative sights the University proffered, nothing could change, however hostile things became.

‘It was pointed out that nostalgia must not become Bedlamites’ main reason for wanting to stay in its present location,’ since this could ‘jeopardise the strength of our voice in deciding on the

‘equivalence’ of new premises.’7 But the Company’s response to the University’s first formal proposal at the EGM of June 13th 2001 had nothing to do with nostalgia, nor, indeed, with changing location; for the original idea was that ESK Properties would build a hotel on the Bedlam site, complete with a basement studio theatre, accessible from Bristo Place, in which the EUTC could continue to ply its trade. ESK’s plans, though, depicted a theatre shell of only 19 metres x 17 metres, thus requiring the

Company to significantly downsize from their current space of 15 metres x 27 metres. Furthermore, the new stage would be only three metres in depth; the tech box, wings, and dressing room, obsolete;

5 EUTCA, “Interview: Al Broom”. 6 EUTCA, “Buildings Agreement” (1987), p.1. 7 EUTC-EUSA-University meetings, “Buildings Meeting” (2002).

B024197 and the Company’s sightline to the Royal Mile, forever lost.8 And to compound problems, Stephen

Greer pointed out that:

The lack of storage would lose us Fringe profits since we could not house as many shows, and

we also need storage facilities for the running of the company, which set back companies like the

Savoy Opera about £3,000 a year.9

As such, and without any representative present to defend the developer’s plans, they were deemed unfit for purpose, and unanimously rejected by the 32 voting members.

Shortly thereafter, the EUTC consolidated its grip on the building by having it B-listed, in a manoeuvre that left the University ‘really unhappy’ once it eventually found out.10 The Bedlam site had, of course, once housed an actual lunatic asylum, until the untimely death of resident and formerly-famed poet Robert Ferguson in 1774 caused it to close.11 Demolished almost a century later in 1871, ‘labourers excavating its foundations [then] uncovered an ancient forgotten cemetery where they found coffins and bones buried six feet below the surface.’12 All this, on top of the fact that

Bedlam was the only remaining piece of Gothic architecture in the area, meant that the existing site remained hugely historico-architecturally important; and so, once the Company pointed out to local conservationist group, the Cockburn Association, in January 2001 that the building was currently only

C-listed, the Association worked swiftly and secretly to ensure the theatre’s status was, by July 4th, upgraded.13

Because the building was a high-maintenance liability, the B-listing meant that the University now faced the prospect of statutory notices from the council. More frustratingly still, Bedlam’s newly protected status struck a stunning blow to any future redevelopment plans. Henceforth, prospective

8 EUTCA, “Extraordinary General Meeting” (2001), pp.1-2. 9 In Ibid., p.2. 10 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (September 25th, 2001). 11 Webster, “Drama Society to Theatre Company”, p.8. 12 The Scotsman, "Will Sweeping Changes Result in Bedlam for University Theatre?" (March 11th, 2002) [www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/will-sweeping-changes-result-in-bedlam-for-university-theatre-1-946654]. 13 EUTCA, Graeme Timms, in “Extraordinary General Meeting” (2001), p.2.

B024197 developers would be unable not only to demolish the building, but even modify its exterior, thus rendering ESK’s plans for a new hotel in its current form ‘virtually impossible.’14 Desperate to be rid of a building it ignorantly deemed underutilised, and by which it now felt more burdened than ever, the

University must have therefore been happily surprised to discover ESK remained interested in acquiring the site. The timely confirmation of Bedlam’s status upgrade, immediately after the EUTC’s rejection of the basement studio, had admittedly extinguished some of the developer’s early creative energy, and broken the momentum of its demolition campaign. But because ESK already owned a property on Bristo Place, and because it still intended to buy, bulldoze, and redevelop the rest, the theatre remained valuable to it even in internally-renovated form.15 Thus, despite the set-back, a planning application was submitted to the Edinburgh City Council in November 2001.

In light of this, the EUTC grew increasingly close-minded. To be sure, nostalgia remained firmly to one side; and it was, instead, a growing realisation of the impracticalities of relocating, coupled with an inflamed distrust of those trying to drive through a deal, which inspired the Company’s second wave of obstructionism in early 2002. Mrs Ogg feared a move would make it ‘impossible to recapture the building’s unique atmosphere,’ whilst producer Anna Hanford berated the University for being ‘so desperate to get money,’ in comments which formed part of a much larger second press campaign that February and March.16 Having been informed of recent developments by the EUTC, The Edinburgh

Evening News, and eventually its parent-paper, The Scotsman, galvanised and gave voice to all those averse to the Bristo Place project.17 Pressure was applied to the University from all angles, with

Cockburn Association Director Martin Hulse warning that the building ‘might not be as valuable as they think,’18 leading conservation experts denouncing the prospective hotel as ‘cheap and nasty,’19

14 EUTCA, Minutes: EUTC-EUSA-University meetings, “Buildings Meeting” (2001). 15 Ibid. 16 Both in The Scotsman (March 11th, 2002). 17 Between February 18th and March 26th alone, The Edinburgh Evening News and The Scotsman produced five articles covering and supporting the Save the Bedlam campaign. 18 In Edinburgh News, "University Acts to Sell Off Bedlam" (February 18th, 2002) [www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/university-acts-to-sell-off-bedlam-1-942736]. 19 In The Scotsman (March 11th, 2002).

B024197 and archaeologists reiterating that not just Bedlam, but the entirety of Bristo Place, was ‘invaluable to

Edinburgh.’20

The archaeological argument in particular informed the Council’s decision, on March 20th, to reject

ESK’s plans, its proposal having been deemed ‘Contrary to the advice on Memorandum of Guidance on listed buildings and conservation area 1998 and the Central Edinburgh Local Plan,’ which protected against ‘loss of historically important buildings forming character of [an] area.’ Additionally, the proposed development was ‘not considered to be of a scale design or quality to justify demolition.’

The Council’s concerns could, they said, ‘be addressed in an amended proposal’; but this short-term rebuff had irrecoverably scuppered the University’s plan to sell quick and worry about finding the

EUTC a replacement home later.21 Moreover, it emphasised to ESK that it would be well-advised to exclude the Bedlam site from future applications, or else appease the EUTC with a replacement venue that the Company could first enthusiastically embrace. Failing that, its members would surely see that future development plans were similarly derailed.

So it was that the University, in a bid to balance the books, sold Roxburgh Place Halls that spring instead, yet still invasion fever did not quell; conversely, the EUTC and the University’s mutual distrust scaled unprecedented heights. A ‘Save the Bedlam’ campaign appeal decried the ‘dark uncertain cloud

[which] hangs over the future of the building, with a [continually] cash-strapped University on one side, and a cash-hungry developer on the other.’22 As such, the awareness-raising presentation the

Company decided to hold on May 4th 2002 was essential not just to further tightening its grip on the building, but to simultaneously beginning the peace-making process. Hosted by Bedlamite-turned-

MSP and University of Edinburgh Rector Robin Harper, the evening aimed to demonstrate the EUTC’s contribution towards fulfilling the University’s mission statement to enhance the ‘cultural vision of

20 The Scotsman, "Hotel Plan for City Lunatic Asylum Site” (2002), [www.scotsman.com/news/hotel-plan-for- city-lunatic-asylum-site-1-944909]. 21 Edinburgh City Council, Omega Development (Edinburgh: March 20th, 2002). 22 Bedlam.Valleyt, "The Save the Bedlam Campaign” [bedlam.valleyt.co.uk/content/Archive/36].

B024197 society as well as its economic well-being.’23 £1,000 of Company cash, plus £400 donated by Harper,24 was invested into everything from a projector, to sky lights, to flames;25 Alastair Broom travelled to

London to collect alumni testimonies for a video which Peter Lowden then edited together; the press,

EUSA, and Estates & Buildings all turned up; and the presentation itself was comprehensively delivered by 2002-3 President Natalie Adzic, who detailed the EUTC’s history, prolificacy, and links to the community, as well as its role as an ‘unlikely training ground for most of the skills needed to work in modern business.’26

Having been genuinely enlightened by this impressively-orchestrated and -supported spectacle, the

University’s tunnel-visioned approach thereafter changed. To be clear, its desire to sell the site never completely died: in 2003, Marketing Manager Lizzie Barrett leaked that it was still in secret talks with

ESK. But the very fact that such discussions had now shifted to the shadows illustrates how far the

University’s newfound awareness of the EUTC’s multifarious and worthwhile endeavours had reduced its unsympathetic urgency to be rid of the Company. In summer 2002, ESK submitted a redesigned application to the Council which excluded Bedlam, and proposed to build its new complex within the pre-existing buildings on Bristo Place. And by December of the same year, its plans were approved, it having been determined that the revised development would now contribute to the character and appearance of the conservation area.

At last, then, Bedlam’s future seemed secure, but that did not stop Broom from making sure that should any further conflicts of interests arise, there would be ‘a network of alumni on hand to help current EUTC members,’ as well as a ‘large noisy crowd waving placards’ stood waiting ‘when the JCBs appear.’27 On February 22nd 2003, under Broom’s Chairmanship, the Friends of Bedlam network was therefore constituted, with a view to throwing parties for the alumni each year, at which people would

23 In EUTCA, Pamphlets & programmes, “Save the Bedlam Programme” (May 4th, 2002), p.5. 24 EUTCA, Minutes: General meetings (November 20th, 2002). 25 EUTCA, “Interview: Al Broom”. 26 EUTCA, “Save the Bedlam Programme”, p.6. Adzic’s full speech is enclosed within the archived edition of the programme. 27 EUTCA, “Friends of Bedlam” (May, 2004), p.1.

B024197 be encouraged to donate money to future EUTC projects, and memories to the updated Company history Friends of Bedlam intended to write.28 Ultimately, this organisation ‘placed [the EUTC] in a far stronger position if any further discussion about the future of Bedlam Theatre should occur’ by firmly reiterating the ‘strong feeling for the building amongst its alumni.’29

Thereon, the University knew that the Company would only relocate if given exceptional reason to do so; and to the University’s credit, its second and final concrete offer, in November 2003, was substantiated by some intriguing persuasions. The proposed Old Kirk site was, after all, located in

Holyrood – an area towards which the University axis was supposedly shifting in the wake of its absorption of Moray House, and construction of St. Leonard’s Land, on top of the establishment of the new Scottish Parliament.30 More still, the site would be just around the corner from the hugely popular Pleasance hub come Fringe. This in mind, the Committee agreed to be given a tour of the building. Certainly, there were found to be problems: converting the kirk into a fully operational theatre was going to cost ESK – who the University expected to foot the bill – a lot of money, after which ‘a lot more work’ from the EUTC team would be needed to get things working.31 There was also the risk of some downtime while the Company moved. But the benefits were, in the end, judged to outweigh the costs, and so 2003-4 President Rebekah Stackhouse told EUSA that the Company would be willing to give the move ‘serious consideration’ were ESK to commit the necessary funding.32

How ironic, then, that ESK – with whom the whole affair had begun – itself scuppered this long- awaited positive breakthrough. Adjudging the costs of the theatre conversion to be more expensive than beneficial, it declined to meet the EUTC’s list of demanded improvements;33 the EUTC, in turn, refused to cede ground; and so, by June 2004, the Old Kirk idea fizzled out. Worn out by the past three fruitless years, the University, for its part, let it happen. Besides, the EUTC had not just illuminated its

28 EUTCA, “Interview: Al Broom”. 29 Rebekah Stackhouse, in EUTCA, “Friends of Bedlam” (May, 2004), p.1. 30 EUTCA, Interviews, Richard Hogg. 31 EUTCA, “Friends of Bedlam” (May, 2004), p.11. 32 EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (November 6th, 2003), p.7. 33 EUTCA, “Friends of Bedlam” (May, 2004), p.11.

B024197 past significance during this time, but continued to demonstrate its present relevance on a weekly basis. The Company was profiting handsomely from both Fringe and term-time productions; and spurred by the indefatigable inventive spirit of 2003-4 Marketing Manager Idil Sukan, Bedlamites now received regular and prominent publicity everywhere from Hype to The Scotsman.34 Sukan also uniformised the Bedlam and EUTC logos as part of a broader rebranding project which at last amalgamated building and Company into one, meaning that just as the dreams of many a real-life fat cat died, so too did Bedlam’s mascot of the last quarter-century. It was not the break with the past that many had shortly-before envisaged, but one which seemed perfectly to capture the renewed sense of rootedness and invigoration with which members now went about their business.

To reiterate, the Company had not, by any means, been in dire straits before ESK’s intentions were first declared in late-2000. Granted, the building was in need of renovation, but it did not follow that the logical next step was therefore demolition. On the other hand, the University’s financial status and appreciation of the EUTC’s worth left much to be desired, and it is against this background that the

University’s drive to sell must be understood. To be clear, neither the University nor ESK ever attempted anything underhand, in admitted contrast to the Bedlamites who pushed through the B- listing without first notifying the building’s legal owners. But beyond the Estates & Buildings department, this manoeuvre was seen solely as a necessary measure in the wider war to save an icon.

A war in which, lest we forget, the University and ESK shot themselves repeatedly in the foot through a combination of ill-devised blueprints, inadequate offers of alternative venues, and an ultimate lack of funding once the Committee finally found somewhere else with which they were happy. Like all great wars, historicity provided the essential underpinning, and the Bedlam site’s rich past – so heavily perpetuated by the media, local conservationist groups, and archaeologists – was of foremost importance in informing the Council’s planning rejection of March 2002. But none of this would have come to light, nor would the ensuing rhetoric have been so emotive, had it not been underpropped

34 Sukan appears to have presented a fresh idea, or else scrutinised her colleagues’ comparative conservatism at almost every Committee meeting, as can be seen in EUTCA, Minutes: Committee meetings (2003-4).

B024197 by the unflinching enthusiasm of an EUTC confident in its self-worth. It was Bedlamites who critically dissected ESK’s plans, who rallied the voices of the necessary disgruntled parties, and who eventually illustrated that the University had as much to lose as to gain from a sale. Quite right, then, that the

Company at last ceased to invoke superstitious mascots, for it quite clearly made its own luck.

Conclusion: Half-finished

The past is getting bigger.

- David Reed, Actor and 2002-3 EUTC Archivist, at an EUTC Committee meeting (November, 2002).

2004 marked a watershed for many reasons. With neither the University nor the EUTC any longer foreseeing circumstances under which the Company would move on, there was a new and concerted effort towards renovating the theatre. Then, in 2005, Mrs Ogg finally left the Company after 17 years of service, and since modernisation meant that either the Committee or their computers could now bear much of her administrative load, no replacement was sought. Having fought so hard to defend their home, and left a much-celebrated legacy, the next generation of Bedlamites were not about to let their predecessors’ work go to waste. A new, healthier relationship with the University was slowly forged, Bedlam Fringe continued to turn over enviable profits, and certain shows continued to capture the unfettered activism which had so characterised the Company until that point.1

How far Committee concerns – under a revised 2003 Constitution which afforded office holders unprecedented powers – came to outweigh artistic ones is not for this study to determine, though there is compelling evidence to suggest that Webster’s forebodings of the early 1990s might more appropriately be applied to the post-Fat Cat age. In fact, so comfortable did the Company seem to become that members ceased almost-entirely to take their ideas elsewhere, nor did they any longer reach out to venue hires out-with Fringe season. Disinterested in performing at the National Student

Drama Festival, disconnected from the professional venues with whom they had once enjoyed warm relations, and content to keep BedFest – the Company’s eventual replacement for FebFest – as a showcase for Edinburgh- (especially campus-)based artists, perhaps the higher powers had finally,

1 The 2007 production of The Cosmonauts Last Message created an interactive flying set by physically suspending two actors from the Bedlam ceiling; Ella Hickson’s Eight’s (2008) experimental, ever-changing sequence of monologues deservedly won the Carol Tambor Prize at that year’s Fringe; and on top of their weekly Bedlam slot, The Improverts began to perform at the Pleasance Theatre, and venues across London. B024197 inadvertently tranquilised Bedlamites’ creative drive? Perhaps also, the EUTC came to stifle itself?

These are points on which I would gladly be disproven, but if I cannot be, let it be said that the relative artistic apathy of the post-Fat Cat generation is not, at the crux, their fault. For the large majority join the EUTC by grace of being on campus in their capacity as students, and at a time when university costs more and means less by the day, it is more important and yet difficult than ever to strike the balance between extra-curricular activities and studies.

Whether or not the academic year just passed delineated another turning point is again for future analysts to decide. What can, however, be said with certainty is that 2015-16 witnessed the revival of the long-dormant Children’s Project under Ross Baillie; the appointment of the Company’s first official

Writer in Residence, Jacob Close; and the rekindling of relations with other university theatre companies via Tabitha James and Joseph Mcaulay’s coordination of the 2016 Inter-University Drama

Festival, hosted at Bedlam. Relations with other local companies also improved, with student start-up

Neon Eye converting the Bedlam stage into a diner as part of their eventually First Act Film Award- winning short, Russian Dolls, starring Bedlamites Adam Butler and Heather Daniels. This after the new

‘Big Projects’ initiative had already enabled Elske Waite to convert the entire auditorium into a barn for her production of The Crucible, an EUTC show which, for the first time in years, sold out weeks in advance of its first performance. President Joe Christie and Grace Lyle-Condon’s BedFest took the shape of the old FebFest programs, featuring workshops with multiple industry professionals, and exhibiting an ambitious range of historically-important but often overlooked scripts, on top of several original productions. And to round off a year of great optimism, the 2016-17 Presidency fell into the experienced hands of Megan Lu, who had already served as Secretary and Business Manager.

A year of optimism which was, importantly, bookended by the transformative tenure of Henry

Conklin as Fringe Venue Manager. Aside from entirely redecorating the front of house, opening up more opportunities for Bedlamites to perform on home turf come August, and eventually splitting his role into two positions – an Administrative and Artistic Director – Conklin concerned himself with

B024197 pushing for a redevelopment project which would see the theatre finally converted into the gallery- level thrust Dr Roger Savage long-ago first envisaged. A rejuvenated idea which, it should be added, was made possible by a substantial donation from an anonymous member of the EUTC alumni, in a gesture which speaks more vociferously than ever to the integral importance of Bedlam to Bedlamites, and emphasises the necessary, intimate reciprocity of the relationship. There is no more fundamental a prerequisite to running a venue than keeping it alive, and this the Company has demonstrably done to date in every sense of the word, under the most highly-unorthodox circumstances, underpinned by its overriding aim of gifting knowledge and opportunity – for better or worse – to all those who enter through its doors.

Now, in the theatre’s 36th year of existence, there is clearly a great deal more history to be written.

From the future researcher’s perspective, it would be most helpful if the Company came finally to take the position of Archivist seriously by incorporating it into the main Committee, so that the trials, errors, and elations of generations past and future can begin to be properly documented, and – insofar as is ever possible with history – learnt from. But such happy circumstances permitting, future researchers will not, even then, be able to capture the true essence of the EUTC nor the building in their totality, since there exists a veritable smorgasbord of perspectives that can never conclusively be quantified. To say that I hope the history of the theatre and its company remains forever half- finished is in part, then, an appeal for further historical investigations on the understanding that none will ever tell the whole story. But it is at once a refusal to foresee a historical terminus for this still- only half-finished building, and an expression of hope that long after any individual is gone, the EUTC collectively continue to dare both within and beyond the walls of Bedlam, its most fittingly named home.

Appendix 1: Timeline of EUTC Presidents in the Bedlam era

*Unless otherwise stated, all tenures denote 12 months. Presidents have typically been elected in February, and formally taken over in April.

1979-80: Adrian Evans

1980-1: Virginia Sumsion

1981-2: John Stalker

1982-3: Benjamin Twist

1983-4: Julia Morrice

1984-5: Martin Croome

1985-6: Sally Bates

1986-7: David Gray

1987-8: David Pounder

1988-9: Timothy Daniels

1989-90: Stefan Gleisner

1990-1: David Hunter

1991-2: Donald Reid

1992-3: Anita Sullivan

1993-4: Ros Leonard

1994: Sam Joseph February – September

1994-5: Ben Schaffer September – February

1995-6: Chris Cooke

1996-7: Will Handford

1997-8: Christabel Anderson

1998-9: Phil Buck February – September: Acting President September – February: President

1999-2000: Claire Magee

2000-1: Melody Vaughan

2001-2: Paul Margrave

2002-3: Natalie Adzic B024197

2003-4: Rebekah Stackhouse

2004-5: Matt Gray

2005-6: Miriam Raines

2006-7: James Mutton

2007-8: Lucy Jackson

2008-9: Lauren McLeod

2009-10: Fran Walker

2010-11: Camille Acosta

2011-12: Inga Rudzitis

2012-13: Faith Jones

2013-14: Carolyn Doyle

2014-15: Ailish George

2015-16: Joe Christie 2016-: Megan Lu

Appendix 2: Timeline of key dates

*Listed dates are as specific as the archival materials allow.

January, 1972: Savage convenes the University Theatres Advisory Sub-Committee.

1973: Edinburgh University Drama Group vote to change their name to the ‘Edinburgh University Theatre Company’, and adopt the Fat Cat as their logo.

August, 1977: Bradford University Drama Group perform Satan’s Ball at the Old Chaplaincy.

30th January, 1980: The EUTC formally move into the Bedlam Theatre.

August 1st, 1987: The EUTC sign over control of their accounts to the Edinburgh University Student Association, in exchange for a full-time administrator, Elizabeth Ogg.

April, 1989: The EUTC perform a non-stop adaptation of Ulysses for 33 hours and 31 – their longest show to date.

1989: Toph Marshall founds Theatresports.

1991: Jon Webster publishes the inaugural history of Bedlam, Edinburgh University’s Bedlam Theatre.

1992: The EUTC host the tenth Scottish Student Drama Festival at Bedlam.

1993: The EUTC disaffiliate from the Scottish Student Drama Festival.

May, 1997: The EUTC perform Mort in the Pleasance Courtyard.

May, 1997: The EUTC are awarded Society of the Year by EUSA.

September, 1997: Theatresports formally changes name to ‘The Improverts’.

November, 2000: The EUTC receive notification of ESK Properties’ plans to demolish Bedlam, and replace it with the Omega Hotel. The University express their desire to support the plans and sell the building.

June 13th, 2001: The EUTC vote to reject plans to relocate their theatre to underneath the proposed Omega Hotel.

July 4th, 2001: Historic Scotland award Bedlam a B-listing, thereby preventing developers from demolishing the building.

March 20th, 2002: Edinburgh City Council reject ESK Properties’ plans to redevelop Bedlam and demolish and redevelop the rest of Bristo Place.

4th May, 2002: The EUTC invite the University, EUSA, and Company alumni to a presentation designed to raise awareness of the Company’s historic and ongoing significance.

December, 2002: ESK Properties’ successfully apply to redevelop the rest of Bristo Place.

February 22nd, 2003: Friends of Bedlam are established in Doctors pub, Edinburgh.

June, 2004: ESK Properties are unable to meet the conditions under which the Committee theoretically consent to relocate to the Old Kirk. Bibliography

Primary Sources: