McKellen supports FOH and backstage workers

Published: 6 July 2020
Reporter: Sandra Giorgetti

Sir Ian McKellen Credit: Nobby Clark

Sir Ian McKellen is to match £40,000 of donations raised by The Theatrical Guild to support staff who work backstage and in front of house who have hit hard times.

Whilst Sir Ian is supporting the Guild's fundraising with proceeds from his one-man show On Stage: With Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and You!, he also calls on audiences and others to contribute to see the amount rise to £80,000.

The Theatrical Guild, now in its 125th year, helps theatre workers in financial difficulties with their food bills, housing costs, mental health and other essential services. Recent examples include those not eligible to be furloughed and awaiting Universal Credit, backstage workers who found themselves homeless when the tour they were working on was cancelled, and self-employed theatre workers left without work and unable to pay their rent and facing eviction.

Adam Bambrough, general manager of TTG, said, “these individuals are the unsung heroes of every staged performance, without whom there would be no shows. Their variety of skills from creating costumes, operating lighting rigs, and running the box office, to photographing the shows are what make theatre performances possible. Yet, most are low-paid, self-employed or on zero hours contracts so many, through no fault of their own, have fallen between the gaps for Government support.”

Donations to The Theatrical Guild are via not-for-profit, cloud platform The Good Exchange which has an automated matching system.

The Theatrical Guild is amongst a group of British theatre charities to be supported by Sir Ian's one-man show.

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, The Ticket Factory, LW Theatres and QuayTickets, are affiliate links for which BTG may earn a small fee at no extra cost to the purchaser.

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