History
In 1994 Sue Pyecroft and Christopher Davies approached the headteacher of The Mount Special School to discuss the possibility of a theatre residency for students with learning difficulties. She thought it a good idea so we contacted The Leicester Haymarket Theatre who agreed to provide the Studio theatre for a week. It just so happened that during that first residency the BBC were recording a documentary at the Haymarket and came in to film what we were doing. The film maker asked Christopher what the company was called. We hadn’t thought of that – had not really thought of ourselves as a company – certainly didn’t have a name. So Christopher called across the studio:
“Sue! What are we called?”
“Bamboozle” came the immediate reply.
And we have been Bamboozle ever since.
The residency went so well that we did another one, and then another – we were really enjoying it now so in
1998 we appointed a fundraiser so we could do more work. This led to a big increase in the amount of residency work we could do. We also ran our first artist training this year.
In 2001, we begin to work with children who have complex needs and their parents during the school holidays.
2002 - established our management board – this was getting serious now. Three of the five original board members Mandy Stewart, Corallie Murray and Maureen Stubbs remain and have been joined by Gina Fisher and Susan Pesic-Smith 2003.
The Thunder Stone – interactive performance tours East and West Midlands
2005 - became a registered charity.
Tour to the Isle of Man.
2006 - became a full time company.
Our first book “The Bamboozle Book of Dramatic Starts” published.
2007 - received Arts Council funding and appointed our first employee – Sam Ireson became our managing producer.
Collaboration with The National Theatre to run residencies related to War Horse.
Board strengthened by Martin Arnold and Haley Smith.
2008 – web site established.
Moved into new premises with office, storage, rehearsal studio and space for other companies to share.
