Barbican Theatre, Plymouth has been awarded a grant of £135,550 as part of Garfield Weston Foundation’s Weston Culture Fund to help them face the continuing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, supporting local young and emerging artists and providing income for freelance artists and practitioners in the area.

Barbican Theatre, Plymouth is one of a number of cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving part of more than £30 million of investment from Garfield Weston Foundation. 

The fund was created by the Weston family in response to the devastating impact of Covid-19, and is supporting a diverse range of organisations from museums to regional theatres and national touring ballet companies.  Grants range from £100,000 up to £1.5 million based on the size of the organisation.

Garfield Weston Foundation Director Philippa Charles says

“Our cultural sector is at the heart of our local communities providing not only entertainment but education and inspiration for many. Our Trustees were impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit shown across the arts in response to Covid-19 and it was a privilege to hear what organisations had been doing to not only survive but also to reinvent the way they reach audiences. What really stood out was the level of collaboration and support they had for each other and the determination to keep going, despite the increasingly difficult situation.

We all want and need our cultural sector to thrive and, if anything, our time away from the arts has shown just how important they are to us – bringing much needed pleasure and enrichment to our lives. Arts organisations are desperate to re-open and get back to what they do best, and we hope that this new funding will help many of them do exactly that.”

Barbican Theatre is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) and a registered charity established in 1980. We are an inclusive organisation and get excited about people creating and enjoying theatre, dance, culture and live entertainment on stage and in unusual spaces.

Barbican Theatre CEO, Laura Kriefman says, 

“This vital funding will allow us to continue our extensive work across Plymouth: helping us build people’s creative voices.

“We are relieved to be successful and are looking forward to continuing to create extraordinary work with the community and artists in Plymouth and the UK.” 

Barbican Theatre will be concentrating on creating pay-what-you-can site specific events around Plymouth – taking creativity and culture to communities directly, whilst we can’t have people in our theatre. From live music and dance, to giant puppets and comedy.

This funding will ensure we can continue to  run our successfully re-designed  talent development work, which was relaunched in September 2020 with 16 classes for 12-25 year olds, adaptable for online teaching during lockdown.  A total of 119 places have been taken by participants ages 12-25 in subjects such as Character and Stage Combat, Online Stories, Comedy Sketches, Composing & Choreography and Acoustic Performance. Classes cost £60 for an entire year and participants can attend as many sessions a week as they want. Introducing more classes has enabled us to offer increased employment for freelancers across Plymouth and increases the quality of training available for 12-25s.

The theatre has an extraordinary track record for creating site specific shows. Previous open air #BardInTheYard summer productions offering professional emerging artists opportunities at Royal William Yard and our FUSE Diverse Dance production CIVIC with professional artists and the local community in the Melville Building back in February 2020 are just two examples. This funding will enable further site specific productions to take place, with the Barbican team currently working on a summer 2021 spectacle in a unique Plymouth space,  offering paid employment to more than 60 local creatives. 

When Covid-19 closed the theatre doors Barbican Theatre wanted us to use the teams’ skills from developing these previous site specific pieces to create performances that travelled to the communities of Plymouth (digitally and live). During the first lockdown they launched B-Hive, an online resource with challenges, tutorials and activities for all ages to engage with. Since then we have added Masterclasses with industry professionals, with more than more than 68,000 people engaging with the B-Hive content and the theatre seeing a 741% increase in channel subscribers in less than 12 months. 

Barbican Theatre’s  Digital Rebels were formed early in lockdown to explore how digital technology can create innovative dance film outcomes. The young rebels were joined by Barbican  practitioners and specialists in videography and projection art installations to create the Butterfly Effect. The film and masterclass discussion is available here: and has been viewed over 1000 times: https://youtu.be/trf4JOdNP5A 

In July our ReBels team worked with a number of dance organisations in the city to create a performance of Singing In The Rain to take to the gardens of care homes and day centres. 20 dancers of various ages and styles performed to more than 100 residents and staff members as a thank you for all their hard work and dedication.

From the end of July the monthly Café Acoustica was moved to Teats Hill Amphitheatre. Held on the last Friday of the month this brings live music, dance and spoken word to the Coxside community in a safe and secure way offering entertainment and performance opportunities to emerging artists in the city. More than 120 people have engaged with the free open air events so far. During the 3rd lockdown the theatre used YouTube Live Stream to stream their January ‘Wassail and Warmth’ event, which was watched live by more than 290 people, with a further 300 watching the recording. This funding will enable the live streaming band open air events to continue throughout 2021 and beyond. 

On 10 September Barbican’s ReBels brought a giant puppet parade to the backalleys of the St Judes area of Plymouth. Five metre tall puppets built in free workshops at Barbican Theatre by local residents, accompanied by two seven metre tall on loan from Lostwithiel Puppets, paraded the backalleys watched by more than 1000 residents from the safety of their property. Further free parades are planned in 2021, when lockdown restrictions are lifted. 

In December members of our ReBels Training and local dance artists Mercedes Romero and Vibha Selvaratnam entertained Plymouth Christmas shoppers with an open air event fusing Afro Beat, Commercial, Flamenco and Bharatanatyam. More than 4000 people watched the performances live from the Piazza and via Facebook live,  which was also featured on ITV Westcountry’s 6pm news. 

Barbican Theatre were facing a reduction in turnover in the region of £425,000 in the 2020/21  financial year, so this grant is vital in enabling us to continue our work and supporting people to gain employment in the arts. Without it the future would have been very bleak. 

For updates on Barbican Theatre activity, events and opportunities please visit our website barbicantheatre.co.uk or follow us on social media

• Instagram: @Barbican_Theatre
• Facebook: Barbican Theatre Plymouth
• Twitter: @BarbicanTheatre
• Youtube: BarbicanTheatrePlym

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Notes to Editors 

About Barbican Theatre

Barbican Theatre is committed to building Plymouth’s cultural voice. We have been working for 40 years to inspire the next generation of artists and entrepreneurs to find their creative voices (voices often unheard). 

We are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) and a registered charity. We specialise in creating performances and events for unique spaces, mixing genres and styles to create innovative, accessible work, and taking performances that people want to engage with, direct to their communities.  We are committed to inclusivity regardless of cultural, sexual or social background. 

Our CEO is award winning choreographer Laura Kriefman, who specialises in the fusion of movement and technology, and has an extensive background across a number of art forms. She is supported by a highly experienced core team of professionals in production, tech, marketing, finance, event management, theatre, and dance. 

People can get involved with our work in so many ways; not just as a participant or an audience member. We have opportunities to engage with technical, choreography, directing, writing, producing, designing, digital, film making and much more.  There are so many opportunities and experiences we want to help emerging talent explore and engage with so that together we can create work that inspires, challenges, entertains and educates. We believe that creativity belongs to everyone so we ensure our performances and workshops are affordable and accessible. 

Barbican Theatre is a registered charity, funded by Arts Council England, Plymouth City Council, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Garfield Weston Foundation

• Instagram: @Barbican_Theatre
• Facebook: Barbican Theatre Plymouth
• Twitter: @BarbicanTheatre
• Youtube: BarbicanTheatrePlym

 www.barbicantheatre.co.uk, email info@barbicantheatre.co.uk or call 01752 267131.

About Garfield Weston Foundation

Established over 60 years ago in 1958, the Garfield Weston Foundation is a family-founded, grant-making charity which supports causes across the UK and gave over £88 million last year.  It has donated well over £1 billion to charities since it was established.

One of the most respected charitable institutions in the UK, the Weston Family Trustees are descendants of the founder and take a highly active and hands-on approach. The Foundation’s funding comes from an endowment of shares in the family business which includes Twinings, Primark, Kingsmill (all part of Associated British Foods Plc) and Fortnum & Mason, amongst others – a successful business model that still endures today; as the businesses have grown, so too have the charitable donations.

From small community organisations to large national institutions, the Foundation supports a broad range of charities and activities that make a positive impact in the communities in which they work. Around 2,000 charities across the UK benefit each year from the Foundation’s grants