Bristol Old Vic is taking A Brit?ish Museum and Dead Air out of its King Street home and into 19 of the city's secondary schools this autumn, at no cost to the schools, as theatre leaders warn that young people's access to live performance is running out.
Both new plays will be performed by MIB260, the current cohort of the theatre's Made in Bristol company, and every visit comes with workshops on the ideas in the work and on how a production is put together, from the script through to the technical side. The theatre expects the tour to reach more than 1,000 young people.
The timing is deliberate. Squeezed budgets are making it steadily harder for schools to pay for trips or bring performers in, and fewer new plays are now being written with school audiences in mind, so some pupils risk leaving education without ever having seen a live show. Sector leaders have gone as far as calling it an "emergency" for access, as The Stage reported in 2025. Rather than wait for those pupils to find their way to the building, Bristol Old Vic is taking the work to them.
Both scripts come from writers on the theatre's Five Year Commitment to new writing, and both grew out of conversations with young people in Bristol schools. Muneera Pilgrim's A Brit?ish Museum, pitched at Years 7-9, follows two friends on a visit to the Brit?ish Museum and uses the outing to open up questions of friendship, belonging and what it means to be British.
Sam Parker's Dead Air, written for Years 10 and 11, imagines a Bristol from which the adults have vanished and where children disappear on turning 18. A group of teenagers keeps an unlicensed radio station going from an empty school, and when their lead presenter, MIC, reaches 18, they begin preparing a last broadcast.
The two productions are directed by Lisa Gregan, the theatre's Literary and Directors' Associate, and Rikki Henry, its Associate Artistic Director. For the company the tour is also a training ground: Made in Bristol is a free programme for Bristol-based theatre makers aged 18-25, and this year's group, named for the theatre's 260th anniversary, gets hands-on experience of making, touring and performing new work for young audiences.
Rebecca Dawson, Executive Director of Bristol Old Vic, said:
"This tour is about ensuring a young person's opportunity to experience theatre is not decided by their postcode or the pressures on their school budget. Schools are facing extraordinarily difficult choices, and creative subjects, trips and live performance can be among the first things to disappear. If young people cannot come to us, we have a responsibility to take exceptional theatre to them.
Bristol Old Vic aspires to be a theatre for the whole city, which means working beyond our building. We want every pupil we meet to feel theatre is relevant to them, that their voice belongs within it and that creativity can be part of their future."
The tour opens on Monday 21 September 2026 and closes on Friday 16 October 2026, stopping at one school a day:
- Monday 21 September: Fairfield High School
- Tuesday 22 September: Nailsea School
- Wednesday 23 September: Abbeywood Community School
- Thursday 24 September: St Mary Redcliffe and Temple
- Friday 25 September: St Bede's Catholic College
- Monday 28 September: Oasis Academy John Williams
- Tuesday 29 September: Bristol Cathedral Choir School
- Wednesday 30 September: Kings Oak Academy
- Thursday 1 October: Yate Academy
- Friday 2 October: Cotham Academy
- Monday 5 October: Oasis Academy Brislington
- Tuesday 6 October: Ashton Park School
- Wednesday 7 October: Brimsham Green School
- Thursday 8 October: Bristol Free School
- Monday 12 October: Brunel Bristol Academy
- Tuesday 13 October: Bedminster Down School
- Wednesday 14 October: City Academy
- Thursday 15 October: St Katherine's School
- Friday 16 October: Montpelier High School
The project sits within the theatre's 260th anniversary year. Led by Artistic Director Nancy Medina and Dawson, the King Street company describes itself as the UK's longest continuously running theatre, and runs one of the largest learning and engagement programmes in British theatre alongside its year-round slate of new work.
