Theatre of the United Kingdom rise of satire in 1960s Britain. The Chichester Festival Theatre was Britain's first modern thrust stage theatre. It was inspired by the Festival Theatre of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival launched by Tyrone Guthrie in the Canadian city of Stratford, Ontario. The inaugural Artistic Director of the Chichester Festival was Sir Laurence Olivier, and it was at Chichester that the first National Theatre company was formed. Chichester's productions would transfer to the National Theatre's base at the Old Vic in London. The Theatres Act 1968 abolished the system of censorship of the stage that had existed in Great Britain since 1737.
Bristol Old Vic of the Watershed Media Centre as executive chairman. In February 2009 the company announced that Tom Morris, at that time an associate director at the Royal National Theatre and formerly artistic director at Battersea Arts Centre, had been appointed as artistic director. Emma Stenning, who had previously worked with Tom Morris at BAC, became executive director. In October 2010 there was a merger of the Old Vic and the Theatre Royal Bristol Trust, into a combined charity to be chaired by Laura Marshall, the managing director of Icon Films. A fundraising campaign for the £19 million planned refurbishment was assisted