The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced a new sponsorship scheme with BP for its £5 ticket scheme, prompting renewed opposition from a protest group.
The Reclaim Shakespeare Company carried out “performance interventions” at productions in Stratford and London last year during the World Shakespeare Festival which was also sponsored by the oil giant.
Now BP is backing the RSC’s scheme for 16- to 25-year-olds which allows them to buy £5 tickets for all RSC productions whether the company is performing in Stratford, London or on tour.
James Atherton, 23, who acted in one of the Reclaim Shakespeare Company’s on-stage protests last autumn, said, “We were hoping that the new artistic director Greg Doran would listen to the concerns of theatregoers and actors and end the RSC’s relationship with BP.
“We’re deeply disappointed to learn that this is not the case. We believe that BP is an immoral choice of sponsor, and we will continue to pop up unexpectedly at the RSC to make this point in creative and attention-grabbing ways for as long as the sponsorship deal continues.”
The Reclaim Shakespeare Company has started an online petition calling on the RSC to drop BP as a sponsor.
BP received the biggest criminal fine in US history in connection with the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in 2010. Eleven workers died and millions of barrels of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico.
The RSC’s executive director Catherine Mallyon said, “BP has been a supporter of the arts for many years and works with a number of the UK’s leading cultural organisations.
“The RSC considers potential partners very carefully. The decision to receive sponsorship from BP was taken with the full backing of our board.”