The Old Vic and Laurence Olivier as its stars, performing mainly at the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) until the Old Vic was ready to reopen in 1950. In 1946, an offshoot of the company was established in Bristol as the Bristol Old Vic. In 1963, the Old Vic company was dissolved and the new National Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Lord Olivier, was based at the Old Vic until its own building was opened on the South Bank near Waterloo Bridge in 1976. In July 1974 the Old Vic presented a rock concert for the first time. National
Jonathan Holloway (artistic director) at University of Exeter, and started his programming career whilst reading drama there, promoting and presenting bands and artists including The Sugarcubes, Thom Yorke (pre-Radiohead), Siouxsie and The Creatures, Transvision Vamp and The Inspiral Carpets. He was resident theatre director of the Wilde Theatre in Bracknell (directing under the name Jack Holloway) and in July 2003 was creative director of Elemental, a large-scale theatre, music and spectacle event at Chalon dans la Rue festival in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. From 1997–2004 he set up and ran the National Theatre's events department on London's South Bank, where he was the founding artistic director