Culture Recovery Fund: full list of organisations receiving money in first round of grants

A full list of the 1385 English organisations receiving funds in the first wave of funding from the UK government and the Arts Council has been revealed.

According to the Arts Council, 31 per cent of all grants (constituting 34 per cent of funding) went to organisations in London, with 14 per cent going to the south East. 12 per cent went to the "North West".

From our speedy number crunching, it seems that over 570 theatre and combined arts venues received grants (totally at least £111,000,000), with spaces such as Kiln Theatre, the Turbine Theatre, the Arcola Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse and Blackpool Grand Theatre all appearing on the list. Belgrade Theatre received nearly the maximum amount with just shy of £1 million, while Theatre Royal Bath received £950,000. Soho Theatre company received around £900,000.

Other venues receiving funding include Northern Stage, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, Hull Truck Theatre, Cast Doncaster, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Bush Theatre, HOME Manchester, Riverside Studios, and the King's Head Theatre.

ACE has yet to reveal what portion of applicants have thusfar been awarded funds.

Read our earlier report on the fund too.

More to follow.

Reactions:

Chris Stafford and Nikolai Foster of Curve Leicester said: "COVID continues to have a devastating impact on our industry and we are indebted to Arts Council England and DCMS for the Culture Recovery grant which will help secure a future for Curve. Curve would not have survived this period of closure without the funding grants from Arts Council England and Leicester City Council, along with the support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). As the CJRS comes to an end, this crucial investment in our theatre will enable us to protect jobs, forge plans to reopen and employ 100s of freelancers.

"We will shortly announce our reopening plans, and although socially distanced performances are not sustainable in the long-term, our theatre plays a vital role in the life of our city and on our local economy; this investment will enable us to bring our building – and Leicester's Cultural Quarter -back to life as we wait for news on when we can expect to reopen at Stage 5 of the Theatre roadmap."

Jo Hemmant and Yamin Choudhury of the Hackney Empire said: "Hackney Empire is very grateful to Arts Council England and The DCMS to have received this funding, and thereby have the opportunity to continue to do our best to support our community, our audiences, our young people and ALL of the people that make arts and culture happen. The challenges of the future remain, in many ways, unknown. We feel it is our responsibility as a sector, now more than ever, to ensure that we are always learning, always improving and always working harder to represent and reach out to the unheard and the unengaged. With this funding we must guarantee that the transformative power of the arts can be experienced by the many; to share, to entertain, to inform and to educate."

Yvonne Arnaud director Joanna Read said today: "We are relieved and heartened to receive this critical emergency support. A small staff team is currently doing all it can to keep the theatre alive for the future and this support will help us plan for the new year and beyond. We have opened for a few one-night performances to give our audiences and local partners some live entertainment during this difficult time. However, this is not a viable long-term solution.

"We expect to stay socially distanced through to April 2021. Until social distancing is lifted and insurance cover is in place in the event of lock down, it will not be possible to mount the larger scale productions which are our hall mark, this award will help us reach the moment when we can re-open fully and bring theatre back to Guildford."

Paul Taylor-Mills of the Turbine Theatre said: "The support from the Cultural Recovery Fund will allow us to retain staff, continue to promote new musicals / artists and ensure we're able to hit the ground running for when we're finally able to open our doors. I'm desperate that this will be sooner rather than later."

Nottingham Playhouse chief executive Stephanie Sirr said: "Chief Executive of Nottingham Playhouse said: "We are extremely thankful to have been awarded what we requested from the Culture Recovery Fund which will see the Playhouse through to March 2021. It means we face the future with a great deal more confidence. We would like to thank everybody for their support of the Playhouse at this critical time."

Julian Bird, chief executive of UK Theatre and Society of London Theatre said: "The announcement by the government today of a significant investment in nearly 1400 organisations is warmly welcomed, and will help create work and retain jobs. Arts and culture can inspire and support communities at this time, and this commitment is vital to the ongoing future success and prosperity of so many all over the country. #HereForCulture."

Jon Morgan, director of Theatres Trust, who comments: "With £500m in grants to be divided across all artforms, we always knew that the Culture Recovery Fund would not be enough to support every organisation in need, that there would be winners and losers.

"As the theatre sector has been particularly impacted by the pandemic, we are pleased to see that a good number of theatres have been successful in this first round and hope to see more funded in subsequent rounds. It is also welcome that it includes treasured local theatres and important theatres on the touring network.

"However, there will also be many theatres that were unsuccessful and this news will have a terrible impact on those organisations, their staff, the artists they work with and the communities they serve. We had hoped that November would bring good news about when theatres might reopen fully, but with the Prime Minister's announcement of a three-tier lockdown system that now looks unlikely."

King's Theatre in Portsmouth CEO Paul Woolf said: "We are absolutely delighted to receive this award. It recognises the important part The Kings, as an historic theatre, plays in the cultural scene of Portsmouth. Before the award we had committed to staying open and staging our loved traditional family panto. The attendant risks involved in that decision have been eased by the award and for that we thank everyone who has supported and believed in us. Tickets for panto are selling fast so hurry and book now."

Deafinitely Theatre's Paula Garfield: "We are delighted to have found out this morning that we have been successful in our application to the Culture Recovery Fund. This is vital income for us at Deafinitely Theatre, like so many of our fellow theatre companies and peers the past 7 months has been tough and we thank DCMS and Arts Council England for their support. It means we are able to continue to deliver our bold, broad crucial cultural programme for the deaf community including our digital projects, our youth and adult training programmes, R&D and main productions and our online panel discussion events.

'We are however fully aware of so many still struggling in our industry, the support is a huge relief to us as it will be to many like us receiving it this morning, but our thoughts are with those who did not receive funding or could not apply and of course to to the many freelancers making up our industry without who our productions and projects would not be possible.

"We are also very excited to announce a new deaf freelancer project and we will announce more information this coming week about that."

The Actors Centre chief executive Amanda Davey said: "On behalf of everyone at The Actors Centre, I wish to express my gratitude the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, HM Treasury and Arts
Council England for providing this lifeline at this most crucial time. While there remains a long and difficult journey ahead, with a lot of work to be done, we welcome today's funding announcement as the first step towards securing the organisation's future."

We will update this page with more reactions and news.

The full list is available here.