News

Climate campaigners disrupt two theatre performances

Fossil Free London activists interrupted Swan Lake at Sadler’s Wells over the weekend in protest at the theatre’s ongoing sponsorship from Barclays, while Just Stop Oil disrupted a performance at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Monday.

Patrick Jowett
4 min read

Performances in two London theatres have been interrupted by climate campaigners.

Fossil Free London activists disrupted the closing performance of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at Sadler’s Wells in London on Sunday (26 January).

The demonstration involved 10 protestors dressed in swan costumes staging a die-in outside the theatre, with the group falling to the ground next to a banner that read ‘Barclays Funds Bombs and Big Oil’.

The activists says the protest was to urge the theatre to cut ties with Barclays over the bank’s funding of fossil fuels and arms.

Barclays is currently a major sponsor of Sadler’s Wells, while the chair of its board of trustees, Nigel Higgins, also serves as chairman of the bank.

A 2024 investigation found Barclays to have been Europe’s biggest fossil fuel financier since the 2016 Paris Agreement, delivering $24.2bn in funding to the fossil fuel industry.

The bank has also been criticised for its links to nine companies whose weapons and military technology have been used by Israel against Palestinians, with research from Palestine Solidarity Campaign revealing the bank’s £2bn in shares and £6.1bn in loans and underwriting to these companies.

Just before Sunday’s show began, Fossil Free London activists unfurled a banner from a second-floor balcony reading ‘Drop Barclays’, before being escorted from the building by security.

Video Credit: Fossil Free London

Joanna Warrington, a Fossil Free London spokesperson, said that for as long as Sadler’s Wells partners with Barclays, the theatre is “complicit in the devastating extreme weather events and untold violence we’re seeing strewn across the news daily”. 

“Thanks to Sadler’s Wells’ cultural power, this sponsorship enables Barclays to hide behind a façade of corporate responsibility. All whilst they continue to bankroll industries that kill,” Warrington added. “It’s time Sadler’s Wells took a stand against the oily financiers set on destroying everything we love, all to line their pockets.”

Former protests 

Sadler’s Wells has been under pressure to end its Barclays sponsorship for several years. This latest protest followed another which impacted the opening night of Swan Lake in December.

Last year, a string of cultural events faced protests over their ties with Barclays, including Brighton’s Great Escape music festival, which saw around a quarter of booked acts pull out over claims Barclays had increased its investment in arms companies trading with Israel. The movement contributed to Barclays withdrawing from its sponsorship commitments with all Live Nation festivals last summer.

In July, National Trust staff, volunteers and members held a week of protests at 40 of the conservation charity’s locations, calling for the trust to cease working with Barclays.

“We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do,” a statement on Barclays’ website on its position on defence funding reads.

“We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. Whilst 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.”

Just Stop Oil action

Meanwhile, two Just Stop Oil activists held a protest on stage mid-way through a performance of The Tempest at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on Monday (27 January) evening.

The two protestors walked onto the stage while actress Sigourney Weaver was performing.

The pair held a banner stating ‘Over 1.5 degrees is a global shipwreck’ and fired a confetti cannon before saying “we’ll have to stop the show, ladies and gentlemen, sorry” while Weaver was escorted off stage.

Video Credit: Jamie Lowe

According to the Guardian, the protestors, a 60-year old man and 42-year old woman, were then arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

Just Stop Oil has targeted a number of cultural institutions and events in recent times, including the National Gallery and BBC Proms.

A statement from the campaign group released online says the latest protest was in response to the recent finding that annual global temperature has risen above the internationally-agreed 1.5C target for the first time.