For all you big Thekla lovers, you’ll remember last year we celebrated 40 years of operating our beautiful venue in Bristol. While the boat hasn’t always been in our team’s hands (we’ve had the place since ’06), we’ve always felt a deep connection to those stewards who looked after the good ship before us.
The first of those people being Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow, an artistic couple who dreamed of converting a ship into a theatre for the Bristolian people. Over the years that dream developed to acquiring the Thekla and bringing it into Bristol’s harbour – a fantastic story that’s worth reading about (see The Complete History of Thekla that we released last year 😉).
While they had Thekla – their name for the place being The Old Profanity Showboat – the pair developed a play deeply engrained in British performance lore. Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera was a musical written for The Crackpot Theatre Company based on a series of tales written by Ki around a New York City alleycat, named Stinkfoot. The stories were realigned for the stage, and follows Soliquisto, a previously famed musician who now takes to small venues as fame eludes him following his star cat – the titular Stinkfoot.- going missing nine years prior.
The play was staged in the UK twice, originally aboard The Old Profanity (the Thekla that we all know and love today) in 1985 produced and directed by Ki & Vivian amongst a host of local artistes both in the cast and behind the scenes. Receiving wide critical acclaim especially in the local scene – Stinkfoot returned to the stage in 1988 at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London where it sold out its entire run and received in further national praise.
Backed by Stephen Fry – the second show lost the participation of Ki & Vivian, though still a sell-out, the miscasting and misdirection without the pair’s involvement led to the play falling behind it’s previous stagings.
Following the deaths of Vivian in 1995 and Ki in 2022 – the memory of Stinkfoot is survived by their children Sydney & Silky – who have arranged to celebrate forty years of the play’s original performance at Thekla on Sunday the 7th of December. The play, a now rare memory of Thekla’s time in Bristol, is a core part of the venue’s history and as such that of Bristol’s. While not a full production, surviving members of the cast & crew plus a host of those who hold the play close to their hearts bring renditions and celebrations to honour the milestone anniversary of Stinkfoot.
Tickets are available to book via Alt Tickets here: https://www.alttickets.com/stinkfoot-tickets/bristol-thekla/2025-12-07-19-00
