Oliver Messel was Britain’s leading theatre designer from the 1930s to the mid 1950s. A gay man, he spent part of the war years in North Somerset. The University of Bristol Theatre Collection now holds the archives of Messel and have created a number of online resources allowing you to explore his life and work in more detail.
The online Oliver Messel Archive includes a 360-degree virtual tour of their 2018/2019 exhibition Wake Up and Dream: Oliver Messel – Theatre, Art and Society, an illustrated bibliography, online Schools’ Resources, and access to the complete online catalogue for the Archive.
You can also view a performance of ‘I went to a marvellous party’, commissioned and co-produced by the Theatre Collection and written and performed by Tom Marshman. The work, part installation/part performance, was based on Oliver’s Archive and shown at various locations around Bristol in February and March 2019.
