Old Vic Company

The Old Vic Theatre and the Old Vic Company

The Old Vic is a theatre in the Waterloo area of London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. It was also the name of a repertory company that was based at the theatre, and provided the basis of the Royal National Theatre company.

The theatre was founded in 1818 by the actor William Barrymore as the Royal Coburg Theatre. In 1833 it was renamed the Royal Victorian Theatre after the heir to the throne Princess Victoria. In 1880, under the ownership of Emma Cons, it became The Royal Victoria Hall And Coffee Tavern and was run on "strict temperance lines"; by this time it was already known as the "Old Vic".

With Emma Cons's death in 1912 the theatre passed to her niece Lilian Baylis, who emphasized the Shakespearean repertoire. The Old Vic Company was established in 1929, led by John Gielgud. Between 1925 and 1931, Lilian Baylis championed the re-building of the then-derelict Sadler's Wells Theatre, and established a ballet company under the direction of Ninette de Valois. For a few years the drama and ballet companies rotated between the two theatres, with the ballet becoming permanently based at Sadler's Wells in 1935.

The Old Vic was damaged badly during the Blitz, and the war-depleted company spent all its time touring, based in Burnley, Lancashire at the Victoria Theatre during the years 1940 to 1943. In 1944, the company was re-established in London with Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier as its stars, perfoming mainly at the New Theatre until the Old Vic was ready to re-open in 1950. In 1946, an offshoot of the company was established in Bristol as the Bristol Old Vic.

In 1963, the Old Vic company was dissolved and the new National Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Laurence Olivier, was based at the Old Vic until its own building was opened on the South Bank near Waterloo Bridge in 1976.

After the departure of the NT, the Old Vic continued as a home for classic and new drama, and was significantly restored under the ownership of Toronto department-store entrepreneur 'Honest Ed' Mirvish during the 1980s. In 1998, the building was bought by a new charitable trust, The Old Vic Theatre Trust 2000. In 2000, the production company Criterion Productions was renamed Old Vic Productions plc, though relatively few of its productions are at the Old Vic theatre.

In 2004, the actor Kevin Spacey was appointed as new artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre Company receiving considerable media attention. He was in role until stepping down 2015 following allegations of sexual harassment and assault. He was followed by Matthew Warchus (2015-2026) as Artistic Director. Rupert Goold will succeed Warchus as the next Artistic Director of The Old Vic.

The Old Vic Company and South Africa

The Old Vic Company, headed by Irene Worth and Paul Rogers, paid a historic visit to South Africa in a season of Shakespeare in 1952, under the joint auspices of NTO and African Consolidated Theatres.

On 22 May 1952, members of the Old Vic company set sail on the SS Pretoria bound for South Africa. The 40-strong company (including Jane Wenham and Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, Joan Plowright, Margaret Lane, Pat Downie, Dorria Noar, Ruth Lawrence, Sonia Graham, Jennifer Burre and Avril Conquest and Joan Plowright) was due to spend 14 weeks touring South Africa and Rhodesia. The company's repertory consisted of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tyrone Guthrie [1], Othello and The Other Heart, directed by Michael Langham, and Macbeth, directed by Hugh Hunt.

Under the Apartheid regime, the Old Vic company was only allowed to play to White Audiences, so they arranged to play on Sundays, taking the entire productions, minus scenery, to the township slums of Johannesburg, where they received a most enthusiastic reception.