Collegiate Theatre Bloomsbury Theatre |
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Bloomsbury Theatre
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Address |
Gordon Street London, WC1 United Kingdom |
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Coordinates | 51°31′31″N 0°07′59″W / 51.525278°N 0.133056°W |
Public transit |
Euston; Euston Square Euston |
Owner | University College London |
Capacity | 547 seats |
Production | Visiting performances |
Opened | 1968 |
Website | |
thebloomsbury.com |
The Bloomsbury Theatre is a theatre on Gordon Street, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, owned by University College London.
The Theatre has a seating capacity of 547 and offers a professional programme of innovative music, drama, comedy and dance all year round.
Funded by a UGC grant and a considerable private donation, the theatre was opened in 1968 as the Collegiate Theatre, and was renamed the Bloomsbury Theatre in 1982. Between 2001 and 2008, the theatre was known as The UCL Bloomsbury, to emphasise links with UCL, who use it for student productions 12 weeks a year. The Bloomsbury Theatre recently returned to the logo designed by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe which it had used for nearly twenty years until 2001.
The theatre building also provides access to the UCL Union Fitness Centre and Clubs and Societies Centre on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors. The basement also holds one of the three University Shops. A UCL Union-run café is on the Ground Floor. Access to the Main UCL Wilkins Building (Octagon Building) and the UCL Refectory is possible through the theatre building.
Amongst the many other artists who have performed at the theatre are; UCL alumnus Ricky Gervais has performed two of his standup shows in the theatre, where they were also filmed for release on DVD and was the venue for Crusader Norman Housley come-back lecture series: Contesting the Crusades, which he developed into a popular history book.
In 1982 UCL alumnus Fabio Perselli directed the British English language premiere of the multi-racial production of Pirandello`s `Liola`for Internationalist Theatre at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The translation as well as the musical composition were done by Fabio Perselli and Victoria Lyne [1]
From 2001, the theatre provided a residency for the New London Orchestra. Every Christmas, Robin Ince plays host to his Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, a festival of science, music and comedy.