Culture of Bristol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bristol is a city in South West England. As the largest city in the region it is a centre for the arts and sport. The region has a distinct West Country dialect.

Contents

[edit] Sport

Fun runners taking part in the 2006 Bristol Half Marathon.
Fun runners taking part in the 2006 Bristol Half Marathon.

The city has two significant football clubs: Bristol City F.C. who play in the Football League Championship and Bristol Rovers F.C. who play in Football League One, as well as a number of non-League teams including Brislington, Bristol Manor Farm, Mangotsfield United F.C. and Hengrove Athletic. The two women's clubs are Bristol Academy Women's Football Club, based at Filton College, and Bristol City Women's Football Club. The city is home to to five teams in the Gloucestershire County League— DRG Stapleton, Henbury Old Boys, Roman Glass St George, Sea Mills Park, and Totterdown POB. It hosts the Somerset County Football League's Shirehampton, and several teams in the Bristol and Suburban Association Football League, Bristol Premier Combination, Bristol and District League, and the Bristol Downs Football League.

Bristol is home to a Rugby Union club known as Bristol Rugby, who are now playing their third season since returning to the Guinness Premiership.Guinness Premiership. Clifton RFC and Dings Crusaders also compete in the national leagues. Bristol also has a Rugby League Conference side, the Bristol Sonics, and an BARFL Australian Rules Football side, the Bristol Dockers.

Bristol hosts first-class cricket side, Gloucestershire C.C.C. for which W.G. Grace famously played. The club's Country Cricket Ground has also hosted One Day International matches, most recently when England beat Australia in June 2005. Somerset County Cricket Club also play some of their games at the Imperial Tobacco Ground in South Bristol.

There is a growing and now thriving basketball community in Bristol with a host of men's and women's local league sides playing in the West of England League. In addition to these the city is home to the English Basketball League clubs Bristol Storm Basketball Club based at the City Academy in the centre of Bristol, and in South Gloucestershire the Bristol Academy Basketball Club [1] based at the Filton College WISE campus.

There is an annual half marathon held around the city centre, and in 2001 the city hosted the 10th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships. Since 1993, the city council has also organised an annual charity bicycling event, Bristol's Biggest Bike Ride, which attracts around 4,000 participants.[1][2]

American Football team Bristol Aztecs are in the premier division of British American Football League. There are also two University American Football sides: The Bristol Barracuda from the University of Bristol and the Bristol Bullets from UWE which both play in the BUAFL.

[edit] Events

In summer the grounds of Ashton Court to the west of the city play host to the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, a major event for hot-air ballooning in Britain. The Fiesta draws a substantial crowd even for the early morning lift that typically begins at about 6.30 am. Events and a fairground entertain the crowds during the day. A second mass ascent is then made in the early evening, again taking advantage of lower wind speeds.

Ashton Court also plays host to the Ashton Court festival each summer, an outdoors music festival which used to be known as the Bristol Community Festival.

The annual Bristol Harbour Festival features displays of ships and musical performances.

The St Pauls, Bristol carnival also takes place in Bristol during the summer and features a procession and late night music.

[edit] Theatre

The Old Vic.
The Old Vic.

The city's principal theatre company, the Bristol Old Vic, was founded in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic company in London. Its premises on King Street consist of the 1766 Theatre Royal (400 seats), a modern studio theatre called the New Vic (150 seats), and foyer and bar areas in the adjacent Coopers' Hall (built 1743). The Theatre Royal is a grade I listed building and was the oldest continuously-operating theatre in England. The Bristol Old Vic has been closed since the 1st of August 2007.[2] The Bristol Old Vic also runs a prominent Theatre School. The Bristol Hippodrome is a larger theatre (1981 seats) which hosts national touring productions, while the 2000-seat Colston Hall, named after Edward Colston, is the city's main concert venue.

Bristol's theatre scene includes a large variety of theatre companies, an organisation called Theatre Bristol runs a website which aims to develop the theatre industry in Bristol, [3] this website lists 82 different theatre companies operating within the city.[4] There are also a number of organisation within the city which act to support theatre makers, for example Equity, the actors union, has a General Branch based in the city [5] and there is an organisation called Residence which provides office, social and rehearsal space for several Bristol based theatre and performance companies.[6]

[edit] Music

The music scene is thriving and significant. From the late 1970s onwards it was home to a crop of cultish bands combining punk, funk, dub and political consciousness, the most celebrated being The Pop Group, close friends of The Cortinas, who led the City's punk scene from 1976. Bristol's premier fanzine from this time through until early 1978 was Loaded. It featured all of the Bristol bands as well as those who visited the city, some of whom were promoted by the magazine.

Ten years later, Bristol was the birthplace of a type of English hip-hop music called trip hop or the Bristol Sound, epitomised in the work of artists such as Tricky, Portishead, Smith & Mighty and Massive Attack. It is also a stronghold of drum n bass with notable bands like the Mercury Prize winning Roni Size/Reprazent and Kosheen as well as the pioneering DJ Krust and More Rockers. The progressive house duo Way Out West also hails from Bristol. This music is part of the wider Bristol Urban Culture scene which received international media attention in the 1990s and still thrives today.

Other forms of popular music also thrive on the city's scene. In the 1980s the city gave birth to thrash metal band Onslaught who became the first non-American thrash band to sign to a major label. Other notable rockers from Bristol include folk rock outfit K-Passa, Stackridge, Vice Squad, Wushcatte, The Claytown Troupe, Rita Lynch, Herb Garden, Doreen Doreen, The Seers, Pigbag, and The Blue Aeroplanes. More recently a new wave of Bristol-based bands have been promoting themselves across the UK underground, including New Rhodes,Santa Dog, Big Joan, You and the Atom Bomb, Riot:Noise, Two Day Rule, Alien Stash Tin, Osmium, Hacksaw, Bronze Age Fox and Legends De Early.

There is also a leftfield/ experimental music scene in Bristol, which has built on the tradition of Bristol bands like The Pop Group, Third Eye Foundation and Crescent. These musicians are supported by record labels such as Invada, Farm Girl, Blood Red Sound and Super Fi, and promoters such as Qu Junktions, Illegal Seagull, Let the Bastards Grind, Noise Annoys and the, now defunct, Choke (music collective). Despite regular performances and the success of many of its members [7], this scene tends to be passed over in the national press' view of Bristol music which focuses on Trip Hop[8], which represents only one aspect of the city's musical culture. Active bands include Gravenhurst (Warp), Team Brick (Invada), The Heads (Invada), Fuck Buttons (ATP - now moved to London), Hunting Lodge (Yosada), SJ Esau (Anticon, Twisted Nerve), Bronnt Industries Kapital (Static Caravan), Aut (Fällt) and Geisha (Crucial Blast).


Bristol is home to many live music venues including Colston Hall which can attract big names, the Carling Academy Bristol which is part of the national touring circuit for rock bands, the Thekla, The Croft and the Louisiana.

The city also has a popular jazz and blues scene with The Old Duke pub being a popular venue for bands such as Fortune Drive. Internationally recognised jazz and blues musicians active in Bristol include Eddie Martin, Jim Blomfield and Andy Sheppard. Other notable supporters of jazz include the Bristol Jazz Society, the Be-Bop Club and the East Bristol Jazz Club. St George's Hall, on Brandon Hill, is notable for its jazz along with classical and world music performances.

[edit] Museums

The Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery houses a collection of natural history, archaeology, local glassware, Chinese ceramics and art. The City Museum also runs three preserved historic houses: the Tudor Red Lodge, the Georgian House, and Blaise Castle House. Watershed Media Centre and Arnolfini, both housed in disused dockside warehouses, exhibit contemporary art, photography and cinema.

[edit] Fine Art

The first art gallery in Bristol was financed by a donation of £2000 in the 1849 will of Ellen Sharples.

The Royal West of England Academy, which has a variety of Fine Art exhibitions was established in the early nineteenth century by a group of artists in Bristol, known as the Bristol Society of Artists, these were mostly landscape painters and many were well known such as William James Müller, Francis Danby, J.B. Pyne and John Syer. In 1844, when the Bristol Academy for the Promotion of Fine Arts was founded, the Bristol Society of Artists was incorporated into it. At this time the President and committee was predominantly its patrons, rather than its artists. In 1914 a major extension to the front of the building, including the dome and Walter Crane lunettes, was completed and in 1915 King George V granted the Academy its Royal title, with the reigning monarch as its Patron. During World War II the Academy became the temporary home of various organisations including the Bristol Aeroplane Company and the U.S. Army. Immediately after the war ended the Council applied for the release of the galleries but was informed that they would be occupied by the Inland Revenue until further notice. It wasn't until 1950 that the building was returned to its original function after the intervention of the then Prime Minister, Clement Atlee. [9] The building is a grade II* listed Building. [10]

[edit] Architecture

Main article: Buildings and architecture of Bristol

Bristol's architecture includes many examples of mediaeval, gothic, modern industrial and post-war architecture. Notable buildings include the gothic Wills Memorial Building, and the tallest building in the city, St Mary Redcliffe. The city is noted for its Victorian industrial architecture of the Bristol Byzantine style, characterised by deep red and polychrome brickwork and Byzantine style arches.

Examples of most of the stages of the Architecture of the United Kingdom from the Medieval era onwards, initially from the defensive history of the fortified city and castle, although little of this remains, and churches from around the 12th century. The Tudor period saw several large mansions and estates being built for wealthy merchants outside the traditional city centre. Almshouses and public houses for the rest of the population remain mixed into areas of more recent development. In the period of Georgian architecture several squares were laid out for the prosperous middle classes in the expanding suburbs which grew to take in many of the surrounding villages. The development of Bristol Harbour provide a focus for industrial development and the local transport infrastructure including the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Temple Meads railway station and its predecessor which is now used as the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum were designed or built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The twentieth century saw further expansion of the city with the growth of the University of Bristol buildings and the aircraft industry. During World War II the city centre suffered from extensive bombing during the Bristol Blitz and redevelopment of shopping centres and office buildings still continues.

Bristol's skyline at sunset, from Bedminster
Bristol's skyline at sunset, from Bedminster

[edit] Media

[edit] News and magazines

Bristol is the home of the regional morning newspaper, the Western Daily Press, a local evening paper, the Evening Post and a weekly free newspaper, the Bristol Observer. A Bristol edition of Metro is distributed for free on buses in the area. The local listings magazine, Venue, is now published weekly after many years as a fortnightly publication and comprehensively covers the city's live music, theatre and arts scenes.

Smile Census (%)
Bristol 70
Glasgow 68
Exeter 54
Manchester 54
Wrexham 42
Cardiff 41
Liverpool 41
Norwich 35
Newcastle 32
Birmingham 31
Southampton 24
London 18
Nottingham 12
Edinburgh 4

In 2003 several local publications reported Bristol the "smiling capital of Britain" due to a study being conducted by the BBC before Red Nose day on March the 14th. Psychology students from universities in the cities surveyed, found that 70 out of every 100 Bristolians returned a smile from Comic Relief researchers. This put Bristol first in their "smiles per hour" census, the table makes interesting reading with Londoners only returning a smile 18% of the time. Bristol comedian Tony Robinson said: "We do smile a lot in the city, but sometimes it is not really a smile - we are just a little bit constipated."

Bristol has a flourishing independent media scene, including The Bristolian, Bristle magazine and a local Indymedia website. The Spark Magazine (est 1993) pub quarterly covers the surging interest in all things green, ethical and complementary. It celebrated its 50th edition in Autumn 2007 and is the biggest free alternative magazine in the UK.

The Bristolian news sheet achieved a regular distribution of several thousand, pulling no punches with its satirical exposés of council and corporate corruption. The Bristolian, 'Smiter of the High and Mighty', even spawned a radical independent political party that polled an impressive 15% in Easton ward in 2003. In October 2005 it came runner up for the national Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism[11]

The anarchist-oriented Bristle, ‘fighting talk for Bristol and the South-West’, was started in 1997 and celebrated its twentieth issue in 2005. Its pages especially feature subvertising and other urban street art to complement news, views and comments on the local activist scene as well as tackling issues such as drugs, mental health and housing.[12]

1970s women’s liberation Feminist movement paper Enough, was succeeded in the 1990s by the environmental and pagan Greenleaf (edited by George Firsoff), West Country Activist, Kebelian Voice, Planet Easton, the anarcho-feminist Bellow and present-day punk fanzine Everlong, all of which have been published in Bristol.

The Bristol Indymedia website [3], like the wider Indymedia network, provides a mix of news and articles that often tend towards a left-wing, progressive or anarchistic perspective. Bristol Indymedia volunteers have also produced films[13] and run community media days[14] (often at the Cube Microplex).

[edit] Local broadcasters

The BBC Local Radio station is BBC Radio Bristol.

Urban radio projects such as the 1980s pirate, Savage Yet Tender and Dialect Radio (ceased October 2004)[15] have proved to be more short-lived.

Bristol is in the ITV West and BBC West television regions.

In 2007 BCFM (Bristol Community fm) [4] started broadcasting on the 93.2fm wavelenght. This cutting edge volunteer run station caters for the cities minority communities and provides a music output that focuses on local talent and genres not covered by other broadcasters in the city.

[edit] Film and television production

Statue of Cary Grant in Millennium Square, Bristol, England.
Statue of Cary Grant in Millennium Square, Bristol, England.

Stop frame animation films and commercials painstakingly produced by Aardman Animations and high quality television series focusing on the natural world have also brought fame and artistic credit to the city. Aardman films Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Creature Comforts and Robbie the Reindeer were all produced in the city, and their premises in St Phillips Marsh hit the news in 2006, when a fire destroyed many of the sets from past productions.

Bristol is where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has its regional headquarters, and BBC Natural History Unit. Many natural history TV programmes have been produced at the BBC Natural History Unit (NHU) in Bristol. These include Life on Earth, The Living Planet, The Trials of Life, Life in the Freezer, The Private Life of Plants, The Life of Birds and The Life of Mammals. The NHU also produced Animal Magic, many episodes of which were filmed at Bristol Zoo.

Popular television programmes including BBC hospital drama Casualty, Channel 4 comedy dramas Teachers and Skins all involving local actors and residents as extras, ITV drama Afterlife, and the game shows Brainteaser and Deal or No Deal are all filmed in the city. Past series to be filmed here include Shoestring (1970s) and The House of Eliott (1990s). The sitcom Only Fools and Horses was filmed in Bristol, despite being set in London as was The Young Ones.

In film, Bristol has been the location for:

Bristol is also the birthplace of the actor Cary Grant. In 2001 a statue was erected in his honour in Millennium Square (Bristol) next to At-Bristol in Canons Marsh. [16]

[edit] Dialect

Older Bristolians and those that live in areas which have had less influence from students and immigration, such as Southmead and Hartcliffe, speak a distinctive dialect of English (known colloquially as Brizzle or Bristle). Uniquely for a large city in England, this is a rhotic dialect, in which the r in words like car is pronounced. It is perhaps this element of the dialect which has led outsiders to dub it "farmer speech".

The most unusual feature of this dialect, unique to Bristol, is the Bristol L (or Terminal L), in which an L sound is appended to words that end in a letter a. Additionally, -al is drawn out as -awl, and an l may be added within a word with an aw. Thus "area" becomes "areawl", "cereal" becomes "cereawl", "drawing" becomes "drawling" etc. This may lead to confusions between expressions like area engineer and aerial engineer which in "Bristle" sound identical. Other examples include 'Americawl' and 'Canadawl', and, when unsure, the answer 'I have no ideal'. In the same way, the Swedish Ikea is known by some as "Ikeawl", and ASDA supermarket as "Asdawl". This is how the city's name evolved from Brycgstow to have a final 'L' sound: Bristol.[17]

Another feature is the addition of S to verbs in the first and third person. Just as he goes, in Bristle I goes and they goes. As with other west country accents, H is often dropped from the start of words, th may become f, and -ing become -en.[17] Bristolians often add a redundant "mind", "look" or "see" to the end of sentences: "I'm not doing that, mind." A redundant "like" may be placed in the middle of a sentence, a feature that has become more common throughout the country.[17] Another Bristolian linguistic feature is the addition of a superfluous "to" in questions relating to direction or orientation. For example, "Where’s that?" would be phrased as "Where’s that to?" and "Where’s the park?" would become "Where’s the park to?". Interestingly, this speech feature is very predominant in Newfoundland English, where many of that island's early European inhabitants originated from Bristol and other West Country ports. They lived on the island in relative isolation in the centuries to follow, maintaining this feature. These linguistic features can also be heard in Cardiff.

[edit] Graffiti

There are several graffiti artists active in Bristol, probably the most known is Banksy, who produced the album cover for Think Tank by britpop band Blur. Other Bristol based graffiti artists include FLX,rowdy, mr jago,cyclops,feek' paris,TCF crew,cheba,cheo,sickboy,sums the paw,prankz Ponk, and Yaka.

Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja was also active as a graffiti artist with the nicknames of "3D" and "Delge" in the early 1980s. He appeared in the UK documentary called "Bombin’" alongside Wolverhampton artist and later DJ and producer Goldie.

[edit] External links


[edit] References

  1. ^ Bristol City Council, Bristol's Biggest Bike Ride
  2. ^ BBC Bristol, Get biking in Bristol
  3. ^ About Us. Theatre Bristol. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
  4. ^ Theatre Companies. Theatre Bristol. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
  5. ^ Bristol and West General Branch. Equity. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
  6. ^ About. Residence. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
  7. ^ List of releases on Geoff Barrow of Portishead's Label Invada: http://www.invada.co.uk/, Pitchfork interview with Fuckbuttons: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/48016-fuck-buttons-start-ihorrrsingi-around-on-lp-tour, Hunting Lodge listed on BBC Radio 1's Festive Fifty: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/huw/festive50.shtml
  8. ^ Bristol Time: The return of a trip-hop legacy - Features, Music - The Independent
  9. ^ History of the RWA. Royal West of England Academy. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
  10. ^ Royal West of England Academy. Images of England. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
  11. ^ Bristolian Gets Runner Up Award - Bristol Indymedia
  12. ^ http://www.bristle.org.uk Bristle Website
  13. ^ Example BIMC Video: DSEi solidarity demo in Bristol
  14. ^ http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/articles/article_indy2003.htm Mixed Media: A Report Back on the Community Media Day in Bristol (14th June 2003)
  15. ^ Anarchist6[zero]6
  16. ^ Cary Grant Statue. Visit Bristol. Retrieved on 2007-05-26.
  17. ^ a b c Harry Stoke & Vinny Green, 2003. A Dictionary of Bristle. Bristol: Broadcast Books.