Bristol Old Vic theatre school to stop its undergraduate courses
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Renowned drama school says ‘unprecedented funding challenges’ make degrees unviable from September 2025. One of the UK’s most celebrated drama schools, which counts the Oscar-winners Olivia Colman, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jeremy Irons among its alumni, is to scrap its undergraduate degrees due to a range of financial challenges.
Bristol Old Vic theatre school, founded in 1946, said its undergraduate training model was now “financially unsustainable”. Other former students and graduates of the school include the Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite, Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart, The Crown’s Erin Doherty and Game of Thrones’ Stephen Dillane.
The school said the capping of student fees, restrictions to international student visas, cuts in grants and increases in costs of living and teaching had all influenced the decision to shut down the undergrad programme from September 2025. The school will continue delivering postgraduate courses including an MFA in professional acting, an MFA in professional voice studies, an MA in screen acting, an MA in drama directing, an MA in drama writing and an MA in performance design. It will also continue to offer short courses.
Fiona Francombe, the principal and chief executive of Bristol Old Vic theatre school, said: “Along with many arts and higher education organisations, we are facing unprecedented funding challenges which we need to address as our current training model, focusing on teaching undergraduate degree courses, is not viable in the future.
