Bradford Playhouse
The Bradford Playhouse is a 266-seat theatre in Little Germany, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It also has a flexible studio space for smaller shows. The venue opened in 1929 as Bradford Playhouse, run by the Bradford Playhouse Company, who rented Jowett Hall, a former Temperance Hall used as a cinema, for their premises. The Bradford group was connected to the Leeds Civic Playhouse Company and became independent in 1932. In 1932 J. B. Priestley became president of the independent Bradford Civic Theatre, a role he kept until his death in 1984. His sister Winnie, who had been the secretary of the Bradford branch, later served as secretary to the independent theatre and is remembered with a plaque in the building.
In 1934 Priestley wrote about the Bradford Civic Theatre in his book English Journey, praising small, intelligent repertory theatres and their community value. Jowett Hall burned down in April 1935. With Priestley’s help and royalties donated from several plays, the group bought the site and rebuilt. The rebuilt venue opened in January 1937 as the Priestley, a combined theatre and cinema. It ran as an amateur theatre with film showings between plays, a pattern that continued until the cinema role ended in the early 2000s.
On the night of Friday, 19 July 1996, a major fire broke out during a production of Lysistrata. The company rebuilt the set in their Studio, allowing the final show of the run to go ahead. In 1996–97, while the main auditorium was rebuilt, a full season of plays was staged in the Studio, and the main auditorium reopened on 31 October 1997 with J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls.
Since reopening in 1997, the theatre faced ongoing financial difficulties. In October 2001, an appeal was launched to raise £10,000 to avoid liquidation, and the effort succeeded in raising over £11,000, buying the theatre a short stay of execution. By January 2003, the theatre announced it would close on 20 January, but a new board obtained a £40,000 bank loan and donations of £18,000, allowing it to stay open. It was relaunched as The Priestley, with the management of the building separate from the user groups.
The Priestley went through more trouble in autumn 2008 and entered administration. It was relaunched with a new board, returning to the name The Bradford Playhouse. A £51,000 Arts Council grant in July 2009 helped it leave administration. In September 2011, the Playhouse entered liquidation with debts around £300,000. Be Wonderful Ltd., a former company affiliated with the theatre, ran the venue under licence from the liquidators. The theatre reopened as The Little Germany Theatre, and in January 2012 the Studio was renamed the Isherwood Studio in honor of former member Millicent Isherwood.
In October 2012 Be Wonderful had to close, and Clare and Jono Gadsby formed Takeover Events & Theatre Ltd. to lease the building for six months, renaming it The New Bradford Playhouse. Throughout this time, liquidators searched for a buyer for the building. In July 2014 Colin Fine bought the theatre, hoping to keep it as a theatre. Takeover Events & Theatre continued to manage the venue until July 2016, when they stepped back to focus on production. On 1 August 2016, Megan and Carl Murray took over the running of the theatre as Purple Stage Theatres, keeping Bradford Playhouse active for the local arts community.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:14 (CET).