Crystal Theatre of the Saint

Company name: Crystal Theatre of the Saint

Founders: Paul Basset Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, Terence Roe, Liz Ackford, John Schofield

Established: 1971

Reason: From a desire to produce experimental theatre, inspired by the innovative theatre work in Britain and Europe at the time

Current Status: Disbanded in 1981 through mutual agreement of its members

Area of work: Experimental

Policy: Crystal Theatre of the Saint sought to explore a theatrical experience that went beyond academic and formal drama practices. The company playfully engaged with a cross-disciplinary approach towards performance that saw the use of light-technologies and live music among other disciplines. ‘ [Our concern is] discovering for ourselves and our audience the oldest principle of drama, whilst at the same time advancing the art of theatre with modern technology. We believe that far from being on the ‘fringe’, experimental work is central and essential to the further development of drama.’ (Publicity, 1978)

Structure: Cooperative. Crystal Theatre was composed at times from a core of 4-5 members to up to 15 members. After Bradley Winterton left the company in 1975, the creative core of Crystal Theatre was composed of Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Liz Ackford, Mortimer Ribbons, Dave Borthwick and Dixon Howe, who took over the lighting after Dave Borthwick left, plus Pete Sykes, sound engineer. In 1977, Andy Leighton was recruited as the company administrator. Up until 1979, the company worked with various musicians to play live in their productions, along with some company members, who later evolved in the punk band Shoes For Industry.

Based: From 1976, at the, ‘Otherperson Hotel’, a squatted Bristol warehouse at 121 Victoria Street. From 1979, at Worcester Terrace, Worcester House, Clifton, Bristol.

Funding: Self-subsidised until 1976. After that date, Crystal Theatre received small project grants from the Arts Council. ‘When we became established [in 1976] the Arts Council began to give us small project grants for each project, and then after we had been in existence for ten years [1981] they finally said to us: ‘We are considering giving you a grant’. We said: ‘Forget it, we are finished’. (Paul B. Davies, 2013)

Performance venues: From small, unconventional venues to established theatre venues. Crystal Theatre toured to London (including Oval House and the ICA), Holland (including the Melkweg, De Lantaren, and the Exit Club) and Germany. The company also took part in festivals in Holland and England, and were regularly seen at the Ashton Court Festival in Bristol from 1974 when it first opened.

Audience: From passers-by and witnesses of Crystal Theatre’s street performances, to friends, supporters and established fringe venue-goers. ‘Sometimes there was nobody there but us, sometimes it was just us and our friends, sometimes we would be in a place that was more like a theatre.’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013)

Company Work and Process:
Paul B. Davies and Bradley Winterton founded Crystal Theatre of the Saint in Bristol, 1971. The company grew from their shared interest in experimental theatre and mutual disenchantment with formal drama practices. Paul had just been kicked out of his first year at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School: ‘I wanted to explore the more obscure, more surreal, more challenging, what was called the Avant Garde at that time’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013). Bradley had quit his teaching job in the spring of 1971 and spent a few months travelling in Europe reviewing experimental theatre festivals for Time Out. During this time, he joined Robert Wilson’s company Byrd Hoffman School of Birds for four weeks, and brought back to Bristol the experience of performing in slow motion. Paul and Bradley recruited Mortimer Ribbons and the three together developed their first play, Gibbous Moon (1971), which premiered at the Anson Room of the University Union in Bristol. The cast included John Schofield, Liz Acford and John Spink, and the play was composed of three sections developed respectively by Paul, Mortimer and Bradley.

Crystal Theatre distinguished itself from other companies through its commitment to experimentation, and a fresh, multimedia approach to drama. Performances were staged both indoor and outdoor, and the productions were often adapted to incorporate original elements of the venue.

At the Bristol Dance Academy, the company made full use of the mirror walls to create a surreal and playful version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, entitled To Zoe, A Daughter (1972/73): ‘We used candlelight, all reflected in mirrors, which made it extraordinary’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013). After Paul met Dave Borthwick in 1972, light projections were introduced into the shows, replacing traditional scenery: ‘He was a very creative man, doing rock-light shows that were on in the early ’70s. The kind of things that had been done for the Grateful Dead concerts in California. There were people doing light shows with big colour wheels, projections and liquids, making it very psychedelic. It was crossover, they were using it for rock music shows, but at the same time it overlapped with the art scene’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013). Light technologies proved to be an economical and resourceful tool for experimentation: ‘[With] projections, it [the effect] was both realistic and surreal. … It wasn’t really about suspending disbelief, because the belief was immaterial. People entered willingly into another world’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013). Dave created the light shows and projections from photographic slides, which he either sourced or developed himself.

The winter of 1972/73 saw the production of Malice Through the Looking Glass. Starting from Bradley’s idea of developing a play in episodes in the style of TV soaps, the company created four different plays lasting two hours each, all linked by themes that would evolve from one episode to the next. The episodes were developed and rehearsed during the week, one at a time, and performed at the weekend at the Bristol Dance Academy. ‘It was a kind of marathon and we did it as a challenge. We wrote the first episode and we said, right, we have got a week to create the next episode’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013). The play was then performed in its entirety at the Bristol Arts Centre, at the Bristol University Theatre and at Hoxton Hall, London. Malice Through the Looking Glass toured Holland in the summer of 1974.

In October of 1974, Crystal Theatre started a one-year residency in Rotterdam at the invitation of Rom Boonstra of De Lantaren. As soon as Crystal Theatre entered the European theatre scene, it gained attention and support from the Arts Council in Holland and established theatre venues like the Melkweg, De Lantaren, and the Exit Club: ‘I realised that the work we were doing was not treated as being on the fringe, it was treated as being at the front of something. It was advanced’ (Paul B. Davies 2013). In Britain the company only started receiving support from the Arts Council in 1976: ‘Either we did jobs or we lived on social security benefit.’

Productions were created by company members collectively. Paul was responsible for most of the Crystal Theatre scripts, either as a writer or editor, while Dave and Dixon Howe were in charge of the lighting: ‘When you have collaborative activities, you do find certain people become the ones driving or directing it. A lot of our shows would probably have been much better if we had someone properly directing it. But we never did. We were always very committed to the ideal that we directed ourselves’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013).

In 1979, Crystal Theatre collaborated with Jeremy Sanford on Fatted Calf, a production about prostitution that premiered at the ICA in London. Sanford had worked with the Prostitutes Alliance to produce a book on the subject, and provided Crystal Theatre with his research material, whilst assisting Paul in devising the script. The show turned out to be very provocative and the poster was banned.

For Radio Belzeebub (1979), the company developed and performed their own music live. For Paul, John Schofield, Andy Leighton and Steve Lonnen, this theatrical experiment soon turned into a parallel project, the punk band, Shoes For Industry: ‘We started as a theatrical provocation, and then we started getting confident. We made some records, then toured and became very popular in Germany. We did two John Peel sessions, an album, two singles. It turned into something that became real. We certainly brought a theatrical sensibility to the band but we never really combined those two sensibilities.’ (Paul B Davies, 2013)

‘The last show we did was The Protector. It had a big set, which Forkbeard built. It was a big revolving thing, which became the Houses of Parliament, with all of those puppets, really weird little puppets. The show was under prepared, we didn’t rehearse it enough, it wasn’t really ready when we performed it. For once the magic didn’t rescue us. By that time we thought it was time to stop. The Holland tour was cancelled and we kind of sabotaged ourselves.’ (Paul B. Davies, 2013)

Personal appraisal and thoughts:
Paul B. Davies:
‘The day after I got thrown out from theatre school (1971), I phoned Bradley and he had just walked out from his job. … ‘Why don’t you come to Bristol and we will start that theatre company we talked about?’ And literally he got the train … and came to stay with me. It was just me and him, and we met a guy that I knew, who had just left university, drama course, called Mortimer Ribbons and we started talking about doing some theatre.’

‘We decided that the best thing to do was to book a space at the University [The Anson Room at the Bristol University Union, December 1971] think of a title and then write a show [Gibbous Moon]. The first people who were part of that show was a guy that lived upstairs from me [John Schofield], who I had met only few weeks before, and his girlfriend [Liz Acford], who Bradley also knew, and someone else who I just met [John Spink] or was living in the same house. It was literally that, it was a very hippy time…you just accepted that serendipity was the most important force in your life.’

‘We went to do one gig [Yeti, Summer 1974] … at the Melkweg … when we there, Rom Boonstra from the Lantaren was at that festival and was very interested in our work. … Rom came to Bristol and we collected him from the train station all in costumes. We had made a show called Malice Through the Looking Glass based on Alice in Wonderland, … four episodes that were long two hours each. We did the whole thing. … It was very bizarre. He just sat there completely silent by himself, while ten of us did a massive performance. And then he just said: I must go back to London. He got on the train and we thought: what was that about? Then the next week, or the next day he phoned us up and said: I’d like you to come live in Rotterdam. We just left in October 1974. We stayed there for a year, but then we kept going back to Europe every time we did a new show.’

‘What I realised by about 1976-77 [was that other theatre companies] created a show and then toured for a year and they did it everywhere, while we would create a show, and do it for maybe one hundred people, and then do two nights in Rotterdam, and then we just created another show. We didn’t realize we were meant to keep it, exploit it and take it to all the arts centres. If we had a gig, we would make a show. If the show was good we would do it somewhere else… We were too amorphous, too fluid, we came and went… and changed. We very rarely went back to a show. A lot of shows weren’t recorded. … It was as though it was meant to be ephemeral. …It was a very distinctive, magical atmosphere. But almost at the price of creating that very unique atmosphere was, that you couldn’t record it, you couldn’t repeat it, and you couldn’t standardise it. ‘Cos if you did, it was no longer the theatrical event.’

Reviews:
Malice Through the Looking Glass
‘Quite extraordinary. Their theatre is the theatre of myth and ritual, and their aim is to provide a vehicle to expand the consciousness of their audience. They are one of the bravest, most original theatre groups in the country ’ (Bristol Preview)
‘Malice Through The Looking Glass is like stepping inside a Magritte or a Dali dreamscape, with their curious juxtaposition of actual and impossible. … It’s a brilliant and imaginative world, illuminated by marvellous lighting and intriguing sounds effects.’ (David Harrison, Bristol Evening Post 1973)
‘One of the most striking developments in experimental theatre… as in a dream, Malice presents a series of more or less unrelated scenes and moods that seems to float like clouds across one’s subconscious.’ (John Bott, Bristol Evening Post 1973)
Room
‘Like a version of the Addams family scripted by Magritte, the performance is an extraordinarily theatrical experience, full of that ‘magnetic field imagery’ which Artaud considered the essence of drama.’ (Alan Stevenson, The Guardian 10th April 1975).
Beware: Pirates!
‘The way in which the play jumps dreamily, fluently through time and space is conveyed with all the uncanny naturalness of a dream, and the logic is similarly chopped… Light gleams on a semicircle of swaying, interlocked and wordless sailors as waves crash and terrestrial noises sound and echo. It is such examples of total theatre rather than the motifs of betrayal, menace and loss …which suggests the quality and nature of the play. It is a work which finally and faithfully leaves us stranded with the boy in another century: some magic indeed.’ (Nicholas De Jongh, Time Out, 26th December 1976).
‘The show is full of irony and sardonic humour, and so visually stunning and well performed that it leaves you exhilarated, even though a bit exhausted. With masks, revolving walls, fiery monsters, mixers, dimmers, phasers, sound or light devices, dozens of tape decks, a quadrophonic system and no Arts Council subsidy during the company’s five year existence, the explorations which come across with great precision are different, difficult and exciting’ (Colin Chambers, Morning Star 21st Aug 1976)
Radio Beelzebub
Radio Beelzebub … develops further the Crystal’s somewhat eccentric preoccupation with radio, and the station of the title hums with their apparent limitless energy, unexpected imagery, crazy talk and even crazier action.’ (Helen MacKintosh, Time Out 24th November 1978).
Man of Stone
‘ [Man of Stone] is that unique and heady mix of startling visual imagery and freewheeling verbal cadenzas for which this most elusive of groups have gained the now near legendary status.’ (Luke Dixon, Performance Magazine, 1981).

PRODUCTION NAMEVENUESDATES
Gibbous Moon
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink
Bristol1971
Foul Play
Devised and Directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Written: Paul B. Davies
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink
Lighting: Dixon Howes
Sound: Peter Sykes
Bristol1972
Crystal Clear
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink
Bristol, London1972
To Zoe, A Daughter
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink, Terence Roe, Pamela Winterton
Lighting: Dave Borthwick
Bristol Dance Academy1972/73
The Maze
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink, Terence Roe, Pamela Winterton
Bristol Dance Academy1973
Malice Through The Looking Glass
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Bradley Winterton, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink, Terence Roe, Pamela Winterton
Lighting: Dave Borthwick
Performed in Bristol (Bristol Dance Academy, Bristol Arts Centre), London (Hoxton Hall), Holland (Lantaren sci-fi festival)1973/74
Yeti
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Liz Acford, John Spink, Terence Roe, Pamela Winterton
Lighting: Dave Borthwick, Dixon Howe
Performed in Bristol, London, toured Holland1974
Gloria
Devised: Mortimer Ribbons
Directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Mortimer Ribbons, Rosemary Fitzgerald
Lighting: Dave Borthwick
Performed in Bristol, toured Holland1974
Rooms
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield, Terence Roe, Liz Acford
Designed: Dixon Howe
Lighting: Dave Borthwick

Devised in Holland. Performed in Bristol, London, toured Holland and Europe

1974
The Tourists
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Liz Acford
Holland1975
The International DeSelby Centre
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, Mortimer Ribbons, John Schofield
Lighting: Dave Borthwick
One day event in Rotterdam1975
Pyramid Show
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Terence Roe
Lighting and designed: Dixon Howe
Music: Pete Brandt, Roy Dodds & others
Holland1976
Ideas Are Animals
Devised: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield
Written: Paul B. Davies
Directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield
Lighting: Dixon Howe
London, Bristol, Bath, Holland1976
Pirates
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Paul Todd, Steve Lonnen & others
Lighting: Dixon Howe
Music: Paul Todd, Steve Lonnen & others
Bristol, Holland, London1976/77
The Secret Garden
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Steve Lonnen
Bristol, Holland, London1978
Fatted Calf
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Script: Paul B. Davies, Jeremy Sanford
Cast: Paul B Davies, John Schofield, Terri Bramah
Lighting: Steve Lonnen
ICA (London)1978
Radio Beelzebub
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Andy Leighton, Steve Lonnen, Keith Allen, Paul Hollywood, & others
Music: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
ICA (London)1978/79
Man Of Stone
Devised and directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Scholfied, Dave Cohen, Teri Bramah
Lighting: Steve Lonnen
Bristol, London1980
The Protector
Devised: Paul B. Davies
Directed: Crystal Theatre of the Saint
Cast: Paul B. Davies, John Schofield, Teri Bramah, Mitch Davies, Andrew Bailey, John McKenna, Mark Watson
Lighting: Steve Lonnen
Puppetry and scenic: Forkbeard Fantasy
ICA (London)1981

Interviewee reference: Paul Bassett Davies

Links:
Paul B. Davies blog, The Writer Type

Existing Archive Material: Andy Leighton, former Administrator of Crystal Theatre, is gathering archival material for a book.

Acknowledgements: This page has been written and constructed by Sara Scalzotto, with gratitude to Paul B. Davies and Andy Leighton. Material for this page has been drawn from Paul B. Davies’ Unfinished Histories interview (September 2013) and from Bradley Winterton’s written account of his Crystal Theatre of the Saint memories, which Paul B. Davies has kindly made available to us. Bradley Winterton’s account has been collected to be included in the book Andy Leighton is preparing for publication about Crystal Theatre of the Saint. November 2013.

The creation of this page was supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.