Hull History Centre

 

Hull Truck Theatre Archive Project: The Prologue

Welcome to the first blog of the Hull Truck Theatre Archive Project! Hull University Archives (HUA) was recently awarded funding through the Archives Revealed grant programme to catalogue the archives of Hull Truck Theatre. The programme is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives. The grant has enabled HUA to employ a Project Archivist (me!) to catalogue the full collection and will also support various outreach activities, including an end of project exhibition highlighting the fascinating history, people, and stories of Hull Truck.

Hull Truck Theatre began in 1971, founded by Mike Bradwell, using a house in Coltman Street as its base of operations. From humble beginnings with only a very small group of actors, the company steadily grew and in 1983 moved to Spring Street Theatre. A year later John Godber became artistic director and in 2010 the purpose-built Hull Truck opened on Ferensway.

Truck has always championed local writers and local stories, such as John Godber’s rugby league play ‘Up ‘n’ Under’, whilst also providing an extensive variety of productions including classics, Shakespeare, comedies, thrillers and more. Since its early days, the company has also produced plays for children and over the decades its Youth Theatre has performed many wonderful productions, providing early acting experience for a number of future film and TV stars.

Hull Truck Theatre’s Archive reflects this varied and fascinating history. Full of production files containing scripts, stage plans, costume designs, administrative papers and more, offering an unparalleled opportunity to explore the creative work of such a locally and nationally significant theatre company. Alongside the production files, there are hundreds of photographs, posters, and a range of audio-visual material.

How it started…

Unsurprisingly, given Truck’s long history (over 50 years!), the archival collection is extensive, at over 90 linear metres. The collection arrived in a variety of large, standard office boxes and work is already underway to list and repack the material into archival quality non-acidic boxes and folders. Once an initial list has been compiled, the records can then be catalogued in detail enabling access to any interested researchers.

The project is still in its early stages, so do keep an eye on the Hull History Centre blog for future updates on the project’s progress and highlights from the collection!

How it’s going…

 

Verity Minniti

Hull Truck Theatre Project Archivist