Saving the Bridgwater Arts Centre for Future Generations

The first time I walked onto the stage at the Bridgwater Arts Centre I was a member of Bridgwater Youth Theatre. It was 1975. I was 49. (That’s not true). I gave a hilarious comedy performance as Lord Smethurst in ‘The Petticoat Rebellion’. Afterwards I looked in my comedy straw hat and found a shiny 10pence piece. ‘Ah the director Tony Collins must have thought I was good’. It encouraged me not just to keep up the acting but to get more involved in the Arts Centre. 10 years later I asked him and he said he hadn’t done it.  Oh. Well, it was the kind of thing he might have done….

The re-forestation of the town centre starts with Castle Street

I want to see what else the Art Centre had to offer. The manager Bob Ormrod had just put on the sensational South African jazz band Brotherhood of Breath and the centre was getting a reputation for cutting edge music thanks to his inspired programming. Radio Bristol came down and broadcast live from regular jazz sessions. I liked this jazz music, but what could I, a mere punk rocker, do? Bob said he had his own jazz band that rehearsed at the Art Centre every Sunday. Maybe I could play bass? Maybe I could. So I did.

All the bands you saw them days were cover bands that played in pubs. They didn’t really want you if you wrote your own material. I wrote my own material. And I knew lots of other musicians around town who wanted to write their own. So, we set up a series of gigs just for original and local bands. And that lasted for the next 10 years. The Arts Centre provided the space and the encouragement for that to happen. Soon we were putting on 4 original local bands every month there.

Inspiring

Andy Batten-Foster from BBC West come to the Art Centre to meet the Sheep Worriers 1981

In 1980 the Tory council cut youth theatre funding. Were we left high and dry at the Art Centre? No. We had the confidence to set up our own Theatre group. (Sheep Worrying theatre for nostalgists out there) and we did 3 major shows a year for the next 10 years all original and local and featuring more than 200 local people, largely young, but not exclusively, on stage during that time.

All the time I’ve known the Bridgwater Arts Centre it’s been an inspiring place where you can meet other creative people, watch professionals, learn and teach and develop. It is something that needs to be safe and secure for future generations

A new ‘top table’ at the Art Centre. Liz Bell, Jonet Middleton (Chair), Alona DeHaviland, Jan Elliott

The Art Centre is safe for future generations

This year as Leader of the Town Council I put forward proposals to make the Art Centre safe and secure as part of the Town Council. For years the enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers and members of the Arts Centre spent time and raised money to make sure the building was safe and secure. Now they just need to concentrate on the Arts and being creative. As the Arts Centre – the first in the country – was always meant to be about.

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