- Caryl Churchill walks away from Donmar Warehouse over its sponsorship with Barclays
- Stephen Dillane, Samuel West, Bilal Hasna among artists backing Churchill’s decision, urging Donmar to drop the bank
- Move follows growing pressure on UK arts institutions, including Sadler’s Wells and the Almeida, over ties to complicit funders
Caryl Churchill, one of Britain’s greatest living playwrights, has withdrawn a play from the Donmar Warehouse upon learning that the theatre receives support from Barclays, which invests over £2 billion and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting to nine arms companies supplying weapons to Israel.
Speaking about her decision, Caryl Churchill said:
“Theatres used to say they couldn’t manage without tobacco sponsorship, but they do. Now it’s time they stopped helping advertise banks that support what Israel is doing to Palestinians”
Her action has been met with widespread support. Over 300 theatre workers have signed an open letter, published in full below, backing Churchill and urging the Donmar Warehouse to cut ties with the bank.
Actors Alex Lawther, Asif Khan, Maggie Steed, Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson say they share Donmar Warehouse’s mission to foster “a more empathetic society”, and this is precisely why “they can no longer overlook Donmar’s relationship with Barclays, which enables Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians”.
Barclays currently invests over £2 billion and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting to nine arms companies whose technology and weapons are used in Israel’s brutal assaults on Palestinians.
Barclays is also the only UK-headquartered bank that acts as a ‘primary dealer’ of Israel government bonds, directly helping the state raise funds to finance the mounting cost of its military assaults.
The bank’s role in other human rights and environmental harms has also come under fire. Last year, Barclays was named the largest financier of the fossil fuel industry in Europe for the eighth consecutive year.
Directors Richard Eyre, Ian Rickson, Maxwell Stafford-Clark, writer Simon Stephens and theatre-maker Tim Crouch are among those who say that “Donmar Warehouse’s relationship with Barclays directly contradicts its commitment to “keep environmental responsibility at the heart of our work”’.
Churchill’s withdrawal comes amid growing calls across the UK cultural sector for institutions to cut their ties to organisations complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
- In May 2025, 435 theatre and arts professionals demanded that the Almeida Theatre end its relationship with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
- Since November 2023, Sadler’s Wells has faced growing pressure over its sponsorship from Barclays, whose Chairman Nigel Higgins also chairs Sadler’s Wells Board.
- In September 2024, over 1,000 artists and Islington residents, including Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson, and Jeremy Corbyn MP, signed an open letter demanding Sadler’s Wells sever its ties with the bank.
- Later that month, dancer Eve Stainton withdrew from the Sadler’s Wells East launch programme, citing “moral objections” to its Barclays sponsorship.
Culture Workers Against Genocide, who co-organised the open letter, said:
“There is an ethical dissonance amongst arts leaders on six-figure salaries partnering with corporations whose actions contradict the values their institutions claim to uphold. Caryl Churchill’s principled stand reflects the growing refusal among artists to stay silent while the arts are used to launder the reputations of corporations complicit in genocide.”
Read the letter in full:
Dear Tim Sheader and Henny Finch,
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Artists for Palestine UK 