2 days ago
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The playwright Caryl Churchill has pulled out of a project at the Donmar Warehouse, citing the organisation’s sponsorship by Barclays and the bank’s links to Israel.
In a statement, Churchill, a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights, said that the London theatre should drop its association with the bank, which has been criticised for providing financial services to defence companies supplying Israel.
She 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.”
More than 300 arts workers and creatives, including the actors Alfred Enoch, Samuel West, Tim Crouch, Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson have signed an open letter supporting Churchill’s decision.
The project Churchill was working on had not been announced but would have been the first time she had worked with the Donmar since 2020’s Far Away.
Barclays sponsorship has led to controversy at a UK arts organisation before.
In September 2024, the campaign group Culture Workers Against Genocide released an open letter – backed by Maxine Peake and signed by 1,000 others – aimed at pressuring Sadler’s Wells to cut ties with Barclays.
Last year the activist group Bands Boycott Barclays ran a successful campaign to get several music festivals – including Latitude and the Great Escape – to drop the bank as a sponsor.
Barclays declined to comment.
But the bank states on its website: “While we provide financial services to these companies, we are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ in that sense in relation to these companies.”
In June last year, CS Venkatakrishnan, the group chief executive of Barclays, wrote in the Guardian that the bank did “finance some companies making defence equipment, alongside their civilian products”.
He defended the decision, adding: “These companies are supported by our democratically elected governments for their role in protecting the UK and allies in Europe. We will not undermine our own national security by de-banking them.”
Culture Workers Against Genocide, which co-organised the open letter, said: “Arts institutions have an ethical duty not to contribute to oppression and injustice. By continuing to accept sponsorship from Barclays, Donmar Warehouse is helping to launder the bank’s reputation as it profits from Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
Donmar Warehouse has been approached for comment.
The Donmar receives no Arts Council England funding after losing its £500,000 annual grant in 2022. It seeks private funding from “memberships, philanthropic donations, corporate partnerships, and grants”.
In 2022, Churchill was deprived of the lifetime European Drama award she had received earlier in the year, due to criticism of her play Seven Jewish Children (which was called antisemitic by some critics) and her pro-Palestinian campaigning.
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