Barbican and Trafalgar Entertainment announce three-year theatre partnership

The Barbican Centre has today announced a new theatrical partnership with producers Trafalgar Entertainment to develop and stage major new productions in the east London venue’s 1,200 seat theatre.

It builds on the success of 2021’s Trafalgar smash-hit musical Anything Goes, staged at the Barbican, and the production of Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway sensation A Strange Loop, which is still running at the venue.

The partnership will run from 2024 to 2026, with the theatre attracting large-scale shows and major international talent for the next three summers.

Sir Howard Panter, chief executive of Trafalgar Entertainment, told the Standard that the Barbican was a great choice for the partnership.

“It’s a marvellous theatre,” he said. “For audiences, everyone feels like they can touch the actors, and all the actors feel like they can touch the audience.”

Panter added that the Barbican is unique in its audience pull: “It’s a much more London eclectic, diverse audience at the Barbican because they have concerts, films, galleries, etc, so there isn’t actually a place in London like the Barbican.”

The Barbican has long added independent commercial productions to its theatre programming, with recent highlights including Sonia Friedman’s Hamlet, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch, and a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.

It will also continue to work with other producers, such as with the Royal Shakespeare Company, its partner on the record-breaking production of My Neighbour Totoro, which returns later this year.

Barbican artistic director Will Gompertz said he was excited about the new partnership, and that collaboration has always been in the venue’s DNA: “The relationship with Trafalgar will combine the best of the Barbican with the scale and reach of the commercial theatre sector, putting the City of London firmly on the capital’s cultural map.”

The Barbican’s head of theatre and dance. Toni Racklin, said, “This exciting new collaboration will give us the opportunity to develop joyful, inspiring new work that reflects the world around us, while we maintain our important relationships with a wide range of other production partners that allow us to showcase artists from around the world to our audiences throughout the year.”

On top of exciting stage productions, the partnership will also open doors for employment opportunities, with the Barbican keen on broadening access to jobs in the performing arts, with a new work placement scheme to support development of skills, experience and networking in backstage and technical roles.

Potential placement opportunities include joining Trafalgar Entertainment’s production office, or one of their venues, to learn about commercial producing, while opportunities at the Barbican include shadowing key roles in the development of projects and summer season productions.

Beyond the Barbican partnership, Panter’s Trafalgar Entertainment company has also been working on other projects, including the development of the Olympia Theatre, a 1,500-seat theatre, which will include 100 bathrooms. “Why should ladies’ queue for six hours to get to the loo?” the chief executive said.

There is still potential for further venue projects, Panter said, though he hasn’t yet earmarked the next location.

“I think that the City of London, East London has got some wonderful opportunities,” he continued.

“I’ve been there for the last three years, you pass massive, great, beautiful banks that are empty. There are wonderful buildings in the City of London, but because of the pandemic, are no longer functioning in the purpose they we’re originally built for. So, the whole repurposing of buildings into theatres is something which we’re very much involved in”.

Despite the effects of the pandemic and a tough current economic landscape, the theatre industry has managed to get back on its feet, Panter says.

“Your mother will always have a birthday, you and your partner will always have an anniversary, the kids will always have a birthday,” he said.

“So, there are high days, which if you spread them out across the population, or in and around London, and that means people are coming to the theatre every single day because it’s an affordable, pleasurable luxury that they can really enjoy.”