Salle: Bristol Old Vic

The last night of the Bristol Proms was experimental. A full house at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre was greeted by artistic director Tom Morris to introduce this semi-staged version of Handel’s Messiah – last performed in the venue in 1782, when it was too sacrilegious for churches. Morris said that Handel was “a dramatist”, and to honour this, he took a more theatrical route with this performance.

The inaugural Bristol Proms are nearly over. Indeed, if you’re reading this any later than Saturday evening, they’ve been and gone. The festival, run by the Bristol Old Vic, has deliberately been unlike its London namesake.

As one of the headline acts for the newly established Bristol Proms, award-winning British violinist Daniel Hope played alongside the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra for the first orchestral performance on the Bristol Old Vic Theatre stage for over a century.