X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Show of Strength Theatre Company


Brock Norman Brock

The premiere production in 1990-91 was staged by the Show of Strength Theatre Company and directed by Mark Ravenhill.

Show of Strength Theatre Company

In three years they produced eleven play including two news works by Peter Nichols and the acclaimed The Wills' Girls by Amanda Whittington which was revived in 2003 and was also staged at the Dublin Fringe Festival.

They have produced over 60 plays and established several new performance venues including the Showboat pub (Horfield), the Hen and Chicken pub (Bedminster), Quakers Friars (Broadmead), the Tobacco Factory (Southville) and Paintworks (Arnos Vale).

The European premiere of Australian playwright Nick Enright's Good Works won the Guinness/Royal National Theatre Pub Theatre Award.

In 1994 they lost the use of that venue, but found a new home in part of the grade I listed building Quakers Friars in Broadmead where in the succeeding three years they produced new and lost work by writers ranging from Peter Nichols (Blue Murder) to Dion Boucicault (How She Loves Him).


Andrew Hilton

The company, Show of Strength Theatre Company, found the Hen & Chicken pub in the south of the city, in Bedminster, and inaugurated winter seasons there that were to last for six years and attract national attention.


see also