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Old Profanity Showboat (Thekla)
Encyclopedia
Thekla is a music venue on board the ship of the same name, moored in the Mud Dock area of Bristol's
Floating Harbour
. Originally brought to Bristol as the Old Profanity Showboat, it was a late 1982 middle-of-the-night brainchild of novelist Ki Longfellow
-Stanshall, the wife of Vivian Stanshall
. The showboat
was based on the idea of creating, owning, and running a theatre on a sea-going ship and using it to showcase music of every sort (limited only by the size of the hold), including cabaret
, comedy
, plays
, musicals, and poetry
events. The ship also contained an art gallery
. The living quarters were home for Vivian, Ki, their daughter, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall, and Ki's daughter, Sydney Longfellow, as well as a few key personnel. During the 1990s, under new management, it was run as a rent-a-nightclub. In more recent years, the ship has been returned to its original working name of The Thekla.
Before its continuing incarnation as a showboat, the Thekla (built in Germany
in 1959 and powered by a U-boat
engine left over from the Second World War), was used for more than twenty years to transport timber to and from various ports of the Baltic Sea
.
government guarantees the loan. Rusting away for seven years after running aground at Gravesend
in Kent
, a German
built "Coaster" named Thekla
was discovered in the half-abandoned docks of Sunderland on the eastern coast of England. The SS Thekla was considered ideal. The last of the riveted ships, she was 650 tons unladen, measured one hundred and eighty feet long from stem to stern, and thirty feet wide, with an eight foot draft. The Thekla was capable of circumnavigating the globe. Because she'd carried a cargo of primarily timber, her hold was vast, open, clean, and lined with one of the hardest woods in the world, red jarrah
from Australia
. Everything had to be refurbished from the U-boat
engine (left over from the Second World War, as mentioned above), to the leaky hydraulics
to the winch
for raising and lowering the anchors. In the summer of 1983, she set sail for Bristol
on the opposite side of Britain, a city chosen because Vivian had once played there as frontman for The Bonzo Dog Band
, and because Ki liked the site and sound of the place.
Fresh out of dry dock with her bottom scraped, she was covered in a new coat of black paint and white paint over her original colors of pale blue and white, with red chosen for the stack. With all the ironwork and welding accomplished, the SS Thekla sailed 732 nautical miles (1,356 km) to Bristol in six days and six nights.
From the open sea, the Thekla entered the Severn on August 4, 1983 and navigated its waters until it arrived in the Floating Harbour of the city of Bristol, and where it is still moored.
She had sailed without ballast, without registration, without insurance, and without mishap, save for the half day the crew spent mending the engine. Her conversion, sailing, docking, finishing touches, and opening night on 1 May 1984 was filmed as an Omnibus
BBC 1 documentary by writer and film maker Tony Staveacre of the BBC. He called it The Bristol Showboat Saga and it was broadcast for the first time on 30 September of that year.
. It was one of the first venues to stage Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye's Moby Dick the Musical
to packed houses.
To support its theatre and cabaret (which seldom paid for itself), the Old Pro also provided a stage for bands.
Within a year, the Old Pro was in use as a small theatre, jazz
venue, folk
club and cabaret. Across her stage came hopefuls who became "names," and often unannounced "names" who wanted to once again experience the intimacy of their first foray into show business. In no small part due to Vivian, most of Britain's best and brightest comedians either played there, or stayed there.
Co-written by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall, Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera
was a three-hour long musical comedy (Vivian called it a "comic opera
"), produced by Ki, directed by Vivian (working with both actors and orchestra at the same time), and performed on the Old Pro over a two-week run up to Christmas
in December 1985. Stinkfoot's cast and orchestra
consisted of the employees, as well as regulars who'd graced Thekla's stage. Its set made use of Thekla's curious layout. Its conception was based on a series of tales Ki wrote about a New York City
alley cat and on Vivian's life as a Bonzo frontman. In its final form, it was a surreal and dazzling cross-cultural mix of music hall
, Broadway
, and Thirties screwball comedies
. But mostly, it was "just being itself," as Vivian would say. It played to sell-out audiences every single night of its run, attracted people from Scotland
to the USA
, and it garnered wonderful, if slightly puzzled, reviews from not only the Bristol press, but The Guardian
and The Times
.
Staged a second time in late 1988 at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London
, it lacked the cockeyed appeal of Thekla's unusual setting, and the hand-picked Bristol cast and orchestra (for which much of the material was specifically crafted). It terminally lacked Vivian's unique hand on the tiller.
In late 2008, interest in restaging the show, never flagging, became a reality. The comic opera, trimmed by Ki from three hours to two, is now in pre-production for a British revival, hopefully in 2010/2011. A "Stinkfoot Showcase" played the Thekla (where it was written and first staged), on July 20, 21, 22nd, and 24th of 2010. This was a showcase of Stinkfoot's songs backed by a full band and selected cast members (including Nikki Lamborn
and Vivian and Ki's daughter Silky Longfellow-Stanshall) plus special guests. Tony Slattery
narrated and sang. Though open to the public, the showcase was intended to attract backers for the revival of the full musical. It attracted the attention of major press (The Word magazine, Mojo
magazine, BBC
London & BBC Bristol), and theatres like the Bristol Old Vic
.
By early 1986, even though the ship had survived the expense of staging Stinkfoot, and even though there was a plan to sail the Thekla at least to the port of New York City
to try her artistic mettle there, Ki had become exhausted by the day to day running of such a huge venture. Vivian, buoyed by the experience of Stinkfoot, was eager to renew his recording career, Ki to continue her career as a novelist. (See External links.) Ki was also experiencing ill-health due to the constant stress of managing something so complex and time-consuming as The Old Profanity Showboat. Announcing closure of the ship, there came a deluge of protest by artists and customers whose home it had become. Accordingly, the Old Pro continued to showcase theater and bands until August 1986 but it was decided no one could go on any longer without risk to their sanity.
Ki, Vivian, and Silky retreated to the Bristol home of an Old Profanity regular, the actor David Rappaport
(who appeared in the film Time Bandits
).
Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the Thekla was taken over and run as an underground nightclub
. It quickly became one of the cornerstones of Bristol's drum & bass music scene. Over these years some of Bristol's best known artists (including Massive Attack
, Portishead and Roni Size
) began by playing in the Thekla's hull.
The artist Banksy
was also a regular. His work can be seen stencilled over the bulkheads inside the club as well as his much larger work on the outside of the hull at the waterline. This original piece was painted over by the harbour master, much to the annoyance of the club's owners, who threatened the council and harbour master with legal action. Banksy
returned to paint it again.
A major refurbishment of the ship was completed in October 2006 after being purchased by Daybrook House Promotions, owners of Rock City
, Rescue Rooms, Stealth and The Bodega in Nottingham. She remains at the moorings in central Bristol where she was first positioned in 1983 and continues to function as a music venue and nightclub. Artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The New York Dolls, Pete Docherty, Tokyo Police Club, Santigold and numerous local bands from Bristol and Bath have played at the Thekla since DHP purchased the venue. The ship was repainted from black to cream and dark green.
In May 2009 the Thekla celebrated its 25th anniversary with a day and night long event featuring bands carefully selected to represent the best of what is currently happening on the diverse Bristol music scene.
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
Floating Harbour
Bristol Harbour
Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of . It has existed since the 13th century but was developed into its current form in the early 19th century by installing lock gates on a tidal stretch of the River Avon in the centre of the city and...
. Originally brought to Bristol as the Old Profanity Showboat, it was a late 1982 middle-of-the-night brainchild of novelist Ki Longfellow
Ki Longfellow
Ki Longfellow is an American novelist, playwright, theatrical producer, theater director and entrepreneur. In Britain, as the widow of Vivian Stanshall, she is well known as the guardian of his artistic heritage, but elsewhere she is best known for her own work, especially the novel The Secret...
-Stanshall, the wife of Vivian Stanshall
Vivian Stanshall
Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, painter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.-The great...
. The showboat
Showboat
A showboat, or show boat, was a form of theater that traveled along the waterways of the United States, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers . A showboat was basically a barge that resembled a long, flat-roofed house, and in order to move down the river, it was pushed by a small tugboat...
was based on the idea of creating, owning, and running a theatre on a sea-going ship and using it to showcase music of every sort (limited only by the size of the hold), including cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
, plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, musicals, and poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
events. The ship also contained an art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
. The living quarters were home for Vivian, Ki, their daughter, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall, and Ki's daughter, Sydney Longfellow, as well as a few key personnel. During the 1990s, under new management, it was run as a rent-a-nightclub. In more recent years, the ship has been returned to its original working name of The Thekla.
Working life
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1959 and powered by a U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
engine left over from the Second World War), was used for more than twenty years to transport timber to and from various ports of the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
.
Finding and converting a ship into a showboat
Once conceived, the project was rapidly set into motion. Funds came from The Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, whereby a bank lends the money, and the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
government guarantees the loan. Rusting away for seven years after running aground at Gravesend
Gravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
built "Coaster" named Thekla
Thekla
Thekla may refer to:* The Thekla , originally a theatre based aboard a sea ship, now a music venue in Bristol, England* Thekla, suburb in Leipzig, site of a subcamp of Buchenwald* Thekla Lark, species of Lark...
was discovered in the half-abandoned docks of Sunderland on the eastern coast of England. The SS Thekla was considered ideal. The last of the riveted ships, she was 650 tons unladen, measured one hundred and eighty feet long from stem to stern, and thirty feet wide, with an eight foot draft. The Thekla was capable of circumnavigating the globe. Because she'd carried a cargo of primarily timber, her hold was vast, open, clean, and lined with one of the hardest woods in the world, red jarrah
Jarrah
Eucalyptus marginata is one of the most common species of Eucalyptus tree in the southwest of Western Australia. The tree and the wood are usually referred to by the Aboriginal name Jarrah...
from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Everything had to be refurbished from the U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
engine (left over from the Second World War, as mentioned above), to the leaky hydraulics
Hydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...
to the winch
Winch
A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the "tension" of a rope or wire rope . In its simplest form it consists of a spool and attached hand crank. In larger forms, winches stand at the heart of machines as diverse as tow trucks, steam shovels and...
for raising and lowering the anchors. In the summer of 1983, she set sail for Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
on the opposite side of Britain, a city chosen because Vivian had once played there as frontman for The Bonzo Dog Band
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band are a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960s...
, and because Ki liked the site and sound of the place.
Fresh out of dry dock with her bottom scraped, she was covered in a new coat of black paint and white paint over her original colors of pale blue and white, with red chosen for the stack. With all the ironwork and welding accomplished, the SS Thekla sailed 732 nautical miles (1,356 km) to Bristol in six days and six nights.
Sailing into Tumult
She had sailed without ballast, without registration, without insurance, and without mishap, save for the half day the crew spent mending the engine. Her conversion, sailing, docking, finishing touches, and opening night on 1 May 1984 was filmed as an Omnibus
Omnibus (TV series)
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings....
BBC 1 documentary by writer and film maker Tony Staveacre of the BBC. He called it The Bristol Showboat Saga and it was broadcast for the first time on 30 September of that year.
Old Profanity days
For the next two and a half years, The Old Profanity Showboat put on over 240 theatrical productions, staging the varied efforts of theatrical troupes from all over Britain, plus the work of the students of the nearby Bristol Old Vic Theatre SchoolBristol Old Vic Theatre School
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...
. It was one of the first venues to stage Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye's Moby Dick the Musical
Moby Dick (musical)
Moby Dick is a musical with a book by Robert Longden, and music and lyrics by Longden and Hereward Kaye.A mixture of high camp, music hall-style smut, and wild anachronism overflowing with double entendres, the show focuses on the anarchic and nubile girls of St...
to packed houses.
To support its theatre and cabaret (which seldom paid for itself), the Old Pro also provided a stage for bands.
Within a year, the Old Pro was in use as a small theatre, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
venue, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
club and cabaret. Across her stage came hopefuls who became "names," and often unannounced "names" who wanted to once again experience the intimacy of their first foray into show business. In no small part due to Vivian, most of Britain's best and brightest comedians either played there, or stayed there.
Stinkfoot
Many of the Old Pro's employees worked the bar or the box office or ship's maintenance in order to find themselves one day treading her stage. After two years of hopeful waiting, Ki felt they could wait no longer. No matter how much it cost to stage an original show, the time had come to reward their hard work and dedication.Co-written by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall, Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales written by Longfellow about Stinkfoot,...
was a three-hour long musical comedy (Vivian called it a "comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
"), produced by Ki, directed by Vivian (working with both actors and orchestra at the same time), and performed on the Old Pro over a two-week run up to Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
in December 1985. Stinkfoot's cast and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
consisted of the employees, as well as regulars who'd graced Thekla's stage. Its set made use of Thekla's curious layout. Its conception was based on a series of tales Ki wrote about a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
alley cat and on Vivian's life as a Bonzo frontman. In its final form, it was a surreal and dazzling cross-cultural mix of music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
, Broadway
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, and Thirties screwball comedies
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
. But mostly, it was "just being itself," as Vivian would say. It played to sell-out audiences every single night of its run, attracted people from Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
to the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and it garnered wonderful, if slightly puzzled, reviews from not only the Bristol press, but The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
.
Staged a second time in late 1988 at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, it lacked the cockeyed appeal of Thekla's unusual setting, and the hand-picked Bristol cast and orchestra (for which much of the material was specifically crafted). It terminally lacked Vivian's unique hand on the tiller.
In late 2008, interest in restaging the show, never flagging, became a reality. The comic opera, trimmed by Ki from three hours to two, is now in pre-production for a British revival, hopefully in 2010/2011. A "Stinkfoot Showcase" played the Thekla (where it was written and first staged), on July 20, 21, 22nd, and 24th of 2010. This was a showcase of Stinkfoot's songs backed by a full band and selected cast members (including Nikki Lamborn
Never The Bride
Never the Bride is an English rock band, founded before 1991, fronted by Bristol native Nikki Lamborn, who writes original songs along with the band's keyboard player, Catherine Feeney...
and Vivian and Ki's daughter Silky Longfellow-Stanshall) plus special guests. Tony Slattery
Tony Slattery
Anthony Declan James "Tony" Slattery is an English actor and comedian who has appeared on British television regularly since the mid 1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? As a film actor, both comedic and serious, his credits include The...
narrated and sang. Though open to the public, the showcase was intended to attract backers for the revival of the full musical. It attracted the attention of major press (The Word magazine, Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
London & BBC Bristol), and theatres like the Bristol Old Vic
Bristol Old Vic
The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
.
Closure
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to try her artistic mettle there, Ki had become exhausted by the day to day running of such a huge venture. Vivian, buoyed by the experience of Stinkfoot, was eager to renew his recording career, Ki to continue her career as a novelist. (See External links.) Ki was also experiencing ill-health due to the constant stress of managing something so complex and time-consuming as The Old Profanity Showboat. Announcing closure of the ship, there came a deluge of protest by artists and customers whose home it had become. Accordingly, the Old Pro continued to showcase theater and bands until August 1986 but it was decided no one could go on any longer without risk to their sanity.
Ki, Vivian, and Silky retreated to the Bristol home of an Old Profanity regular, the actor David Rappaport
David Rappaport
David Stephen Rappaport was an English actor, probably one of the best known dwarf actors in television and film...
(who appeared in the film Time Bandits
Time Bandits
Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film produced and directed by Terry Gilliam.Terry Gilliam wrote the screenplay with fellow Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin, who appears with Shelley Duvall in the small, recurring roles of Vincent and Pansy. The film is one of the most famous of more than...
).
1990s to present day
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
. It quickly became one of the cornerstones of Bristol's drum & bass music scene. Over these years some of Bristol's best known artists (including Massive Attack
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English DJ and trip hop duo from Bristol, England consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be of the trip...
, Portishead and Roni Size
Roni Size
Roni Size is a British record producer and DJ, who came to prominence in 1997 as the founder and leader of Reprazent, a drum and bass collective...
) began by playing in the Thekla's hull.
The artist Banksy
Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique...
was also a regular. His work can be seen stencilled over the bulkheads inside the club as well as his much larger work on the outside of the hull at the waterline. This original piece was painted over by the harbour master, much to the annoyance of the club's owners, who threatened the council and harbour master with legal action. Banksy
Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique...
returned to paint it again.
A major refurbishment of the ship was completed in October 2006 after being purchased by Daybrook House Promotions, owners of Rock City
Rock City (club)
Rock City is a club in the city of Nottingham, England that focuses on live music.-Overview:Rock City, based in Nottingham City Centre, has a capacity of 2451, and is known for its intimate atmosphere. It has been described by NME as "sweaty, but truly indie". Rock City is divided into two rooms:...
, Rescue Rooms, Stealth and The Bodega in Nottingham. She remains at the moorings in central Bristol where she was first positioned in 1983 and continues to function as a music venue and nightclub. Artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The New York Dolls, Pete Docherty, Tokyo Police Club, Santigold and numerous local bands from Bristol and Bath have played at the Thekla since DHP purchased the venue. The ship was repainted from black to cream and dark green.
In May 2009 the Thekla celebrated its 25th anniversary with a day and night long event featuring bands carefully selected to represent the best of what is currently happening on the diverse Bristol music scene.
Footnotes
- The Thekla is still moored in Bristol's Floating Harbour exactly where she was docked in 1983. Today she is used as a venue for various bands and club nights.
- No advertisements were ever placed anywhere. No one was ever actually interviewed and formally "hired." Thekla's people either came from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, or as customers ... and kept coming back and coming back until a place was found for them.
- The Bristol production of Stinkfoot was celebrated in print with Stinkfoot:An English Comic Opera by Sea Urchin EditionsSea Urchin EditionsSea Urchin Editions is a small, independent publishing house from Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It was founded in 2000 by Dutch artist Ben Schot and publishes works from the avant-garde and counterculture....
, with full script, song lyrics, cast, artwork by Vivian, and an introduction by Ki. - It was not, he insisted, about Christmas, or for Christmas, and it certainly was not a pantomimePantomimePantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
, a very British style of entertainment traditionally put on in theatres over the Christmas period. - Vivian called it his "awkestra"
External links
- Official Vivian Stanshall site and more about the boat
- Thekla site Current site with gig and club night listings
- The Thekla today
- Stinkfoot Stinkfoot page
- A slightly inaccurate but affectionate look at Stinkfoot, the Old Pro, and the Stanshalls
- Stinkfoot's publisher Click 'About Us' then on one of the three publishers
- The Bonzo Dog Band site
- SHARE The Vivian Stanshall Appreciation Society & Archive
- Memories of Moby Dick in Bristol (although the ship is not Swedish)
- Ki Longfellow's latest work
- Los Campesinos Rocking the Thekla