Bedlam Theatre

The New North Free Church originated in the New North Church, which, at the time of the Disruption of 1843, was meeting in the chapel at Brighton Street in the Bristo. In November 1842, prior to the Disruption, the church's minister, Charles John Brown, joined other evangelical ministers in promising to leave the Church of Scotland if state interference in the national church was not ended. After the Free congregation left the New North Church in May 1843, it first met at an independent chapel nearby in Argyle Square. The established congregation having returned to its historic home at St Giles', the free congregation worshipped again in Brighton Street from November 1843. When the building was sold to an Evangelical Union congregation in 1846, the Free congregation moved to the United Secession Church in Potterrow. The church's building was constructed on the site of the city poorhouse at a cost of £7,000, opening June 1848. That year, New North Free counted 650 members. In 1852, the congregation assumed responsibility for a Free Church mission in the Cowgate, which, from the following year, met at Mary's Chapel. Under Brown, the mission proved a success and was elevated to a full charge in 1859. The church's district (equivalent to a parish) was thereafter moved to cover the Bristo and, in 1880, the congregation purchased a former dance hall on Marshall Street to serve as mission premises. Brown's death in 1884 greatly affected the congregation, as did the deaths of nine other senior office holders between 1885 and 1891. By 1893, membership had declined to 470; though, during the ministry of John Kelman from 1897 to 1907, this revived somewhat, standing at 560 in 1900. The church also had a long connection with student life that continued into the early 20th century and Kelman established a special students' service. Both Kelman and his successor, John P. Sclater, were celebrated preachers of the liberal evangelical tendency. In 1900, the Free Church united with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church. Like most Free congregations, New North joined the new denomination. 1843–1884 Charles John Brown 1860–1867 Andrew Crichton 1866–1897 Robert Gordon Balfour 1897–1907 John Kelman 1907–1923 John Robert Paterson Sclater 1923–1928 William Wallace Gauld 1928–1941 Duncan William Park Strang ==Bedlam Theatre==

History After the congregation vacated the building, the University of Edinburgh used it as a chaplaincy centre from 1957. In this period, the building was the site of a teach-in on Northern Ireland in 1969, during the early days of the Troubles. After the completion of a purpose-built space within the Potterrow Student Centre in 1973, the chaplaincy vacated the former New North Church two years later and the university used the building as a store. Contemporary suggestions for the building's use included a library for nursing students. After the chaplaincy vacated the building, it was occasionally used for student dramatic performances and as an overspill venue for the Traverse Theatre during the annual Edinburgh Fringe. One notable production in this period was Bradford University Dramatic Society's ''Satan's Ball'' (an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita) at the 1977 Fringe. The university supported a project to convert the building into a thrust stage theatre named in memory of Tyrone Guthrie. To this end, an appeal for £150,000 was launched in 1979 but proved unsuccessful. The university instead offered the building to the Edinburgh University Theatre Company (EUTC). Adrian Evans, EUTC's president for that year, suggested the name Bedlam in reference the city bedlam, which stood immediately south of the building. Internal rearrangements of the building have been carried out on occasions including a 1990 production of Pericles and a 1998 production of Hamlet. In March 2002, the council rejected revised hotel plans, which would have excluded Bedlam while involving the demolition of a collection of 18th-century buildings to its rear. In this context, the Friends of Bedlam formed in 2003. The friends are an association of EUTC alumni which supports the theatre. Backed by an investment of £500,000, the friends supported the first comprehensive internal and external renovation of the building from 2008. Work commenced in 2012 with the cleaning and restoration of the external stonework and the reintroduction of railings around the building, the originals having been removed for scrap during the Second World War. Today The auditorium can accommodate 90 patrons. The theatre also has a bar and cafe. The building is the United Kingdom's oldest fully student-run theatre and one of Edinburgh's leading smaller (but nevertheless mighty) venues. In addition to around 40 productions staged each year by EUTC, it can host up to eight shows a day during the Edinburgh Fringe, when it is numbered Fringe Venue 49. Since 2012, the theatre has been part of Creative Carbon Scotland's Green Arts Initiative and has promoted awareness of environmental issues through shows as well as using sustainable practices. Work with the initiative has included, in 2013, Dramatic Impact: a green theatre festival. In 2015, the theatre adopted e-ticketing as an environmental measure. ==Building==

With the Disruption, the Free Church moved to erect buildings as quickly as possible with comfort and safety being the only requirements. In this context, Thomas Hamilton emerged as an arbiter or architectural taste for the new denomination. At the New North Free Church, he was pitched against David Cousin and George Smith in a competition to choose the design of the church. After his design was accepted, Hamilton argued unsuccessfully for the addition of a spire to the building. The resulting building is, in the words of the Buildings of Scotland guide to Edinburgh, "a thinly detailed early Dec rectangle". The church consists of a wide nave under a pitch roof. At the exterior side walls, heavy buttresses divide the nave's five bays while a shallow parapet runs along the top. A course of moulding divides each bay into two storeys, with a simple traceried in the top storey and smaller twin lancets in the bottom. A shallow, polygonal apse defines the building's southern end. The front elevation at the northern end consists of twin, two-storey, semi-octagonal stair towers on either side of a projecting porch. Heavy buttresses support the lower storeys of these towers while the upper storeys are decorated with blind tracey, which is continuous with an openwork screen above the arched doorway. The wide gable of the north elevation contains a traceried window and is flanked by octagonal turrets with pinnacles. The apex of the gable includes a niche and is capped by a pinnacle. The interior retains its gallery, supported on cast iron columns; while the apse still contains the organ loft and Gothic screens. Over the nave is a single-span timber roof. The theatre has been protected as a Category B listed building since 4 July 2001. Church historian A. Ian Dunlop described the building as "small, inconvenient and in no way architecturally pleasing". Architectural historian Joe Rock stated the simplicity of Hamilton's Gothic church designs was best complemented by exteriors of rough masonry: as at Free St John's and Roxburgh Free. Rock argued that, in contrast to these, the ashlar of New North Free is "not so successful". ==References==