Today Arts Council England has announced more than £2 million in repayable grants for eight dance and theatre producers to tour productions for the first time including Fiddler on the Roof, Dear England and Top Hat.
Facilitated by the pilot Incentivising Touring scheme, the productions will tour all nine English regions, every UK nation, and internationally – to a projected audience of 1 million people across 55 venues – meaning more people in more places will have the opportunity to see high quality, large-scale work, close to where they live, bringing an economic boost to those communities.
Norwich Theatre will welcome Fiddler on the Roof in August and Dear England in February next year. Dates and venues for Top Hat are to be announced soon.
This is the first repayable grant scheme by Arts Council England and it presents an innovative new way to support larger scale productions with commercial potential. Additional producers receiving repayable grants for tour titles still to be announced are:
- Rambert
- Eleanor Lloyd Productions
- Wise Children
- David Pugh Limited
- Paranormal Show Ltd (Hanna Osmolska and Simon Friend)
Launched in November 2024, and developed in close collaboration with the touring ecology, the scheme reduces the financial risk on touring productions, gives boards and investors increased confidence and incentive to support tours, helps attract further investment and enables greater programming choice for venues.
Along with providing support for the touring sector, the local economies the productions visit are also set to benefit. New research by the Centre for Economic and Business Research has found that public funding in the arts helps drive regional regeneration and local visitor economies, and contributed £1.35 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy in 2023, 17% above pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
In addition to the Incentivising Touring scheme, Arts Council England has commissioned a major study of the touring of theatre, dance, music and combined arts activities to venues presenting work on indoor stages to provide deep insight into the current touring landscape. The findings, informed by extensive consultation with the touring sector, will be published later this year.
The Incentivising Touring scheme will develop in real time to meet the needs of the sector. Round 2 will launch in July and will incorporate the feedback and learnings from Round 1.
Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England said:
We want more people to be able to access excellent performances wherever they live. Our new investment means more touring across England and beyond, not only delivering for audiences, but positively benefitting local economies too. We’re continuing to make the case for further investment in the arts, so we can continue to support brilliant, high-impact initiatives like this.
Hannah Lake, Director of Touring, Arts Council England said:
We’re thrilled to be announcing the first recipients of this pilot scheme, designed to reduce the risk for producers who wish to tour larger scale work where profitability is expected but not guaranteed. We are already hearing how producers are using the scheme to evolve business models and build resilience for the future. This has been a shared endeavour and I am incredibly grateful to the many who consulted on the scheme, in particular the external working group and external advisors for their advice and unwavering support which has got us to where we are today”.
Stephen Crocker, Chief Executive & Creative Director, Norwich Theatre said:
“At Norwich Theatre our audiences and the communities that we serve across the East of England are at the heart of all that we do. On their behalf I am delighted that, thanks to this new financial support, this wide-range of high quality large-scale productions will help sure up the flow of work coming to their local theatre over the next few years.
“The need for a funding intervention to support regional touring has become urgent over recent years but the strategic issues surrounding touring and distribution are broader and more systemic than just funding.
“I welcome the Incentivising Touring scheme, along with the accompanying research, as Arts Council’s commitment of not only new funding for touring but to a more strategic approach to touring led by better data, greater equity and whole-sector collaboration and aspiring to develop new solutions to old problems.”
James Graham, the multi-award-winning stage and screen writer and writer of Dear England, said:
“Dear England is about the national game and my greatest passion was always to share it across the whole national stage. I’m incredibly grateful that the show has been included in this new scheme and think it’s great that the Arts Council England have recognised the challenge and responded to the need to support touring large-scale work. I would have never become a playwright had it not been for the world class work that toured to my local theatres.”
James Pidgeon, Executive Director, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre said:
“We could not be more delighted that our Olivier Award-winning revival of Fiddler on the Roof will be experienced by thousands more people across the country over the course of this year, supported by investment from the first round of Arts Council England’s Incentivising Touring scheme. Beyond this tour, such investment will also indirectly support Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s future producing capacity and the resilience of our non-subsidised, not-for-profit business model which relies on ongoing income diversification.”
