The Thekla, Bristol's Floating Harbour

The Thekla, Bristol's Floating Harbour

The Thekla, Bristol's Floating Harbour
Image by brizzle born and bred Thekla is a music venue on board the ship of the same name, moored in the Mud Dock area of Bristol's Floating Harbour. Originally brought to Bristol as the Old Profanity Showboat, it was a late 1982 middle-of-the-night brainchild of novelist Ki Longfellow-Stanshall, the wife of Vivian Stanshall. The showboat was based on the idea of creating, owning, and running a theatre on a sea-going ship and using it to showcase music of every sort (limited only by the size of the hold), including cabaret, comedy, plays, musicals, and poetry events. The ship also contained an art gallery. The living quarters were home for Vivian, Ki, their daughter, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall, and Ki's daughter, Sydney Longfellow, as well as a few key personnel. During the 1990s, under new management, it was run as a rent-a-nightclub. In more recent years, the ship has been returned to its original working name of The Thekla. Before its continuing incarnation as a showboat, the Thekla (built in Germany in 1959 and powered by a U-boat engine left over from the Second World War), was used for more than twenty years to transport timber to and from various ports of the Baltic Sea. Once conceived, the project was rapidly set into motion. Funds came from The Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, whereby a bank lends the money, and the UK government guarantees the loan. Rusting away for seven years after running aground at Gravesend in Kent, a German built "Coaster" named Thekla was discovered in the half-abandoned docks of Sunderland on the eastern coast of England. The SS Thekla was considered ideal. The last of the riveted ships, she was 650 tons unladen, measured one hundred and eighty feet long from stem to stern, and thirty feet wide, with an eight foot draft. The Thekla was capable of circumnavigating the globe. Because she'd carried a cargo of primarily timber, her hold was vast, open, clean, and lined with one of the hardest woods in the world, red jarrah from Australia. Everything had to be refurbished from the U-boat engine (left over from the Second World War, as mentioned above), to the leaky hydraulics to the winch for raising and lowering the anchors. In the summer of 1983, she set sail for Bristol on the opposite side of Britain, a city chosen because Vivian had once played there as frontman for The Bonzo Dog Band, and because Ki liked the site and sound of the place. Fresh out of dry dock with her bottom scraped, she was covered in a new coat of black paint and white paint over her original colors of pale blue and white, with red chosen for the stack. With all the ironwork and welding accomplished, the SS Thekla sailed 732 nautical miles (1,356 km) to Bristol in six days and six nights. From the open sea, the Thekla entered the Severn on August 4, 1983 and navigated its waters until it arrived in the Floating Harbour of the city of Bristol, and where it is still currently moored. There are now signs created by the City Council of Bristol for the orientation of tourists that sport a small symbol indicating Thekla's position in the docks. She had sailed without ballast, without registration, without insurance, and without mishap, save for the half day the crew spent mending the engine. Her conversion, sailing, docking, finishing touches, and opening night on May 1, 1984 was filmed as an Omnibus BBC 1 documentary by writer and film maker Tony Staveacre of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He called it The Bristol Showboat Saga and it was broadcast for the first time on September 30 of that year. For the next two and a half years, The Old Profanity Showboat put on over 240 theatrical productions, staging the varied efforts of theatrical troupes from all over Britain, plus the work of the students of the nearby Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. It was one of the first venues to stage Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye's Moby Dick the Musical to packed houses. To support its theatre and cabaret (which seldom paid for itself), the Old Pro also provided a stage for every kind of band then playing. Some of her band nights were not only well-attended, they were terrifying. Within a year, the Old Pro was the West Country's premier small theatre, jazz venue, folk club and cabaret. Across her stage came hopefuls who became "names," and often unannounced "names" who wanted to once again experience the intimacy of their first foray into show business. In no small part due to Vivian, most of Britain's best and brightest comedians either played there, or stayed there. But in virtually no time, the ship's own reputation attracted the best. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the Thekla was taken over and run as an underground nightclub. It quickly became one of the cornerstones of Bristol's drum & bass music scene. Over these years some of Bristol's best known artists (including Massive Attack, Portishead and Roni Size) began by playing in the Thekla's hull. The artist Banksy was also a regular. His work can be seen stencilled over the bulkheads inside the club as well as his much larger work on the outside of the hull at the waterline. This original piece was painted over by the harbour master, much to the annoyance of the club's owners, who threatened the council and harbour master with legal action. Banksy returned to paint it again. www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5863644997/in/ph... A major refurbishment of the ship was completed in October 2006 after being purchased by Daybrook House Promotions, owners of Rock City, Rescue Rooms, Stealth and The Bodega in Nottingham. She remains at the moorings in central Bristol where she was first positioned in 1983 and continues to function as a music venue and nightclub. Artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The New York Dolls, Pete Docherty, Tokyo Police Club, Santigold and numerous local bands from Bristol and Bath have played at the Thekla since DHP purchased the venue. The ship was repainted from black to cream and dark green. In May 2009 the Thekla celebrated its 25th anniversary with a day and night long event featuring bands carefully selected to represent the best of what is currently happening on the diverse Bristol music scene. See Links Below www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/2062913300/ www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/2076873743/