Bedlam Theatre is a theatre in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. The building was completed in 1848 for the New North Free Church. After closing as a church in 1941, the building served as a chaplaincy centre and then a store for the University of Edinburgh before reopening in 1980 as the student-run theatre of Edinburgh University Theatre Company (EUTC), operating during Edinburgh Fringe festival as venue 49.
The New North Free Church originated in the Disruption of 1843, when Charles John Brown, minister of the New North Church, led many of his congregation out of the Church of Scotland and into the newly established Free Church. The church was noted for its active mission and its ministry to students. After its congregation united with Greyfriars in 1941, the University of Edinburgh occupied the building as a chaplaincy centre then, from 1975, as a store. The university gifted the building to EUTC, who reopened it as the Bedlam Theatre in 1980. It is named for the city bedlam, which once stood nearby. With a capacity of 90, the building remains the United Kingdom's oldest student-run theatre, hosting around 40 EUTC productions each year as well as up to eight shows a day during the Edinburgh Fringe.
The building was designed in the Decorated Gothic style by Thomas Hamilton. Though architectural criticism of the building has generally been negative, it forms an important part of the Old Town cityscape, terminating the view south along George IV Bridge. The theatre has been protected as a Category B listed building since 2001. The building underwent a major programme of restoration from 2012.
New North Free Church
The New North Free Church originated in the New North Church, which, at the time of the Disruption of 1843, was meeting in the chapel at Brighton Street in the Bristo. In November 1842, prior to the Disruption, the church's minister, Charles John Brown, joined other evangelical ministers in promising to leave the Church of Scotland if state interference in the national church was not ended. After the Free congregation left the New North Church in May 1843, it first met at an independent chapel nearby in Argyle Square.
The established congregation having returned to its historic home at St Giles', the free congregation worshipped again in Brighton Street from November 1843. When the building was sold to an Evangelical Union congregation in 1846, the Free congregation moved to the United Secession Church in Potterrow. The church's building was constructed on the site of the city poorhouse at a cost of £7,000, opening June 1848. That year, New North Free counted 650 members.
The church ministered in an area of significant poverty, founding missions, a Sabbath school, and a day school. In 1852, the congregation assumed responsibility for a Free Church mission in the Cowgate, which, from the following year, met at Mary's Chapel. Under Brown, the mission proved a success and was elevated to a full charge in 1859. The church's district (equivalent to a parish) was thereafter moved to cover the Bristo and, in 1880, the congregation purchased a former dance hall on Marshall Street to serve as mission premises.
Though Brown had effectively retired in 1874, he officially remained minister and his death in 1884 greatly affected the congregation, as did the deaths of nine other senior office holders between 1885 and 1891. By 1893, membership had declined to 470; though, during the ministry of John Kelman from 1897 to 1907, this revived somewhat, standing at 560 in 1900. The church also had a long connection with student life that continued into the early 20th century and Kelman established a special students' service. Both Kelman and his successor, John P. Sclater, were celebrated preachers of the liberal evangelical tendency.
In 1900, the Free Church united with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church. Like most Free congregations, New North joined the new denomination. In 1929, the United Free Church united with the Church of Scotland and New North rejoined the national church. The union created an extraneous number of parish churches in the Old Town and Southside: areas where the population was also declining. In this context, the congregation united with nearby Greyfriars on 23 March 1941. Greyfriars retained the New North mission halls in Marshall Street until their sale in 1961.
Ministers
The following ministers served New North Free Church (1843–1900); New North United Free Church (1900–1929); and New North Church of Scotland (1929–1941):