Ulysses

This show was imported from the old website. If you are able to provide any more information, please contact the Archivist.

Took 33 hours, and involved 16 directors and 130 actors. You could pay 17 pounds to see the whole thing, or 2 per segment.

James Joyce’s novel “ Ulysses” is a modern classic, which had never previously been performed on stage. Teevan and McDevitt had the ambitious idea of adapting the novel and performing the result at the Bedlam as a co-production of E.U.T.C. and their cabaret club, “ The Friends of Pooka McPhellimey”. Teevan asked Jon Webster of The Edge to co- produce with him, and proposed that the show, then assumed to be about twenty six hours long, be performed as a benefit for “Friends of the Earth.”

” Ulysses” was scheduled for performance in April 1989. Sixteen directors were marshalled,and over a hundred actors, to perform the various sections of the book, supported by at least fifty backstage staff and technical people. The whole non-stop show ( bands played in the cafe space during the intervals) eventually came to rest after 33 hours and 31 minutes.

Hardly anyone had managed to get much sleep, although five brave individuals sat through the whole performance from start to finish. Nearly £1,000 was raised on behalf of Friends of the Earth. Highlights of “ Ulysses “ included Past President Sally Bates’ direction of “ Cyclops “, with David Campton ( now her husband ), Hamish Clark and Sandra McKay playing all the parts, and drew a standing ovation for this comic tour de force at five o’ clock in the morning, and the final chapter, directed by Roddy McDevitt, which featured seven Molly Blooms, including Lucy Morgan, Lisa Gornick > and Ali White interacting beautifully to bring the performance to its affirmative climax.

At least 130 people crammed into the galleries and aisles of the Bedlam to watch history being made, as the longest show on record drew to its close. The whole event brought the entire membership together in harmony as never before or since. The resulting sense of achievement and well-being was palpable. The Guardian newspaper likened the event to a “ fantastic sixties happening” and described the show as being “ incandescent with talent “. The production also brought the Bedlam to the attention of the Edinburgh public, from which it had become increasingly detached since the early eighties.

Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre p.31-32