Details

a gala celebration that will put a range of answers to this question on the stage. It's an evening that explores the stories behind the amazing diversity of modern Bristol. More than two dozen acts will be filling the stage and bars of the Colston Hall, and in addition Playback Theatre will present instant dramatizations of audience members' stories. The event is sub-titled 'the routes of Arrival and fruits of Belonging' and it aims to capture the many strands that make up the city in an evening of huge variety and human interest. How did you come to Bristol? Were you born here? Or did you make your way from somewhere else? If you were born here, was your father or your grandmother? What stories do you remember them telling of arrival and the reasons that drove them? As an important port city, Bristol has always attracted 'in-comers' from the surrounding counties of the South West, from Wales and Ireland, and from more exotic locations like the Italian John Cabot and the second-generation Frenchman, Brunel. What brought us or our forefathers here to Bristol? The city's character is a rich mix of 89 nationalities and ethnic origins. Over the centuries Saxon and Norman, Welsh and Irish, Icelandic and Italian, Jewish and Huguenot have blended together, and been joined by more recent arrivals from every corner of Europe, Asia and Africa. A Passage to Bristol brings together as many of these strands as possible in a celebration of the wealth of ingredients that have gone into the mixing bowl of our city's identity. There will be a thousand different “journeys” sitting in the Colston Hall that night. All will have reached the same place at the same time, but each will have a different starting point and a different character. Your story may be surprisingly different to your next door neighbour's