14 – 17 January

Some background: founded in 1994 by Sally Cookson and Heather Williams, the Bristol Old Vic Young Company (BOVYC) has been making two shows a year ever since. From 2024 a new group of students from ages 23-30 has been added to a cohort that starts as young as 3. The Young Company graduate scheme has been running for 15 years offering a broad base of theatre making skills including back stage, writing and directing. In total more than 21,000 people are taking part in engagement activities every year – an enormous boost to Bristol’s cultural life.

Taking its title from the final question put to David Cameron by The One Show host Matt Baker in 2011, How Do You Sleep at Night? touches a common nerve at a time when world politics, the long tail of Covid and the cost of living stalk the hinterland of our minds, more pressing at night when the distractions of the day recede. 15 trainee actors have come together with Director Paige Stevens to create an hour-long stream of cameos that explore what sleep is for, what we can be like without it, what stops us sleeping and what can be tried to seek its embrace, in a way that connects to the audience through shared experience.

For the in-the-round acting space of the Weston Studio set designer Katie Evans has fashioned a tiered, soft ‘Lego’-like acting area dominated by a double bed. But she has also implied a world that is slightly off-kilter: a wardrobe sits at a crazy angle, mattresses and pillows defy gravity on the back wall. In the first scene, a sleep-inducing tape plays while a lone actor twists and turns in bed, unable to connect with the smooth-talking invocations to relax on a faraway island with golden beaches and forest pathways.

The importance of the bedroom as personal universe not to be invaded was explored along with the intrusion of headspace from an internet loaded with junk cajoling you not to think. A sleep auction begged the question – how much would you pay for a good night’s sleep?

‘Things parents say’ was a funny if unforgiving deviation into other teenage experience before a notably successful passage of theatre making – the sense of being next to the void at night, in which players in shadow seemed to flit like abstract creatures and ghouls surrounding the occupant of a bed with a light on under the covers.

Working very much as an ensemble, the stage fills with other players introducing a scattergun of reasons they can’t sleep: exams, Gaza, Ukraine, nuclear bombs, mobiles, boyfriends, Keir Starmer, or just being a teenager being shouted at for leaving the bedroom like a tip. Sound designer Stan Glendinning has had fun compiling a pulsing backing track to the angst – Teenage Dirt Bag particularly hitting home. Later, Beat It in a rousing call of resistance, allows the full company the opportunity to express themselves in dance. Yes, the world might have gone to shit, but we’ve got the energy and the will to do something about it is the subplot here.

There was much to admire in this production – timing and movement were all on point and ideas both witty and poignant. Sometimes lines could have been projected with more strength, especially when competing with backing music, but there were strong performances delivered here. I encourage you to catch them.

★★★★☆  Simon Bishop, 15 January 2026