Someone call a doctor!

Mark Rylance is storming the stage here in Dr Semmelweis. The Oscar-winning actor certainly knows how to step into a character, and his stunning performance as the maverick doctor has brought back a few slightly painful memories for us.

Yep, being a 250-year-old building has brought its fair share of bumps and bruises with it. What’s good history without a bit of gore?!

We’ve pulled a few incidents out of our archive that would put an episode of Casualty to shame. So, without further ado, here are 5 times we *really* could have used a doctor here at Bristol Old Vic.

1. The Falling Ovation

Our theatre today seats about 500 people. Back in the day, however, the total disregard for health and safety procedures (a running theme in this post) and ticket regulation meant we would pack 1600 punters into the auditorium.

On one such night in 1769, a man was pushed and shoved so brutally that he was thrown from the Gallery to the Pit. 

He was taken to the green room where ‘having been bled and taken some restoratives’, he felt well enough to pop back in and watch the rest of the play. Unfortunately these 1760s ‘restoratives’ weren’t up to scratch, and he died a few days later.

2. The Carriage Crash

In 1771, our leading lady Mrs King was travelling to the theatre to open a show to her adoring audiences. The carriage equivalent of the M32 was pretty busy (we can only assume with people flocking to watch her perform), and in trying to navigate the traffic her driver crashed the carriage. She broke her arm and wasn’t able to perform for quite some time. 

3. The Trapdoor

A word of advice: DON’T leave trapdoors open willy-nilly. We learnt this the hard way back in 1840. Cornelius Bryan, organist at St. Mary Redcliff church and part-time actor, was rehearsing a play on our stage when he tripped and fell through an open trapdoor. He injured his spine and, sadly, died the next day. 

4. The Star Trap

That wasn’t our only trapdoor mishap. Apparently we didn’t learn our lesson. In 1881 we had a shiny new star trap installed.

How it works is, the actor stands on a small platform beneath the trapdoor (so far so good). Then, the platform shoots upwards at high speed, propelling our star turn through the trapdoor, appearing to burst through the solid floor like some kind of caffeinated ghost.

It’s pretty easy to lose balance and fall against the timbers at the sides of the moving platform, OR hurt yourself on the wooden flaps, OR land incorrectly once you’ve broken through the floor.

If you make it out of the star trap unscathed you have to go straight into the scene – and if you make it out with 3 broken ribs and a fractured collarbone… well, you’re stood on a lit stage with 500 people staring at you.

Anyway, we don’t use star traps anymore. 

5. The Rowdy Soldiers

Not all of the theatre related injuries have been completely our fault. Back in the early years of the 1790s, mobilisation of the militia for the Napoleonic Wars meant loads of soldiers were camped out on the Downs.

On one occasion, a dispute between two officers led to a full on duel outside the theatre.

Soldiers also threw apples and stones at the performers on stage, and during one performance one of them let off a pistol in the gallery.

Rowdy bunch, they were. Our Ushers would have none of that these days.