Today, Arts Council England announces over £2 million in repayable grants for eight dance and theatre producers to tour productions for the first time.
Productions supported include Fiddler on the Roof (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Top Hat (Kenny Wax Productions and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions), and our nationwide tour of Dear England (National Theatre Productions and JAS Theatricals).
Facilitated by the pilot Incentivising Touring scheme, the productions will tour all nine English regions, every UK nation, and internationally – to a projected audience of 1 million people across 55 venues – meaning more people in more places will have the opportunity to see high quality, large-scale work, close to where they live, bringing an economic boost to those communities.
Dear England on tour
Dear England will tour to 16 venues across England from 15 September 2025 until 14 March 2026.
Written by James Graham and directed by Rupert Goold, Dear England tells the uplifting, at times heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring story of Gareth Southgate’s revolutionary tenure as England manager in this gripping examination of nation and game.
Dear England is about the national game and my greatest passion was always to share it across the whole national stage. I’m incredibly grateful that the show has been included in this new scheme and think it’s great that the Arts Council England have recognised the challenge and responded to the need to support touring large-scale work. I would have never become a playwright had it not been for the world class work that toured to my local theatres.
James Graham, Writer – Dear England
About the Incentivising Touring scheme
This is the first repayable grant scheme by Arts Council England and it presents an innovative new way to support larger scale productions with commercial potential.
Launched in November 2024, and developed in close collaboration with the touring ecology, the scheme reduces the financial risk on touring productions, gives boards and investors increased confidence and incentive to support tours, helps attract further investment and enables greater programming choice for venues.
Along with providing support for the touring sector, the local economies the productions visit are also set to benefit. New research by the Centre for Economic and Business Research has found that public funding in the arts helps drive regional regeneration and local visitor economies, and contributed £1.35 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy in 2023, 17% above pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
In addition to the Incentivising Touring scheme, Arts Council England has commissioned a major study of the touring of theatre, dance, music and combined arts activities to venues presenting work on indoor stages to provide deep insight into the current touring landscape. The findings, informed by extensive consultation with the touring sector, will be published later this year.
We are thrilled to be included in the first round of Arts Council England’s Incentivising Touring scheme, a gamechanger that will allow us to share our work with even more people across the country.
Since it opened in 2023, over 350,000 people have seen the play at the National Theatre, in the West End and via NT Live screenings around the world and the play has also inspired a BBC four-part drama of the same name. This vital grant will not only support us financially to deliver this ambitious new tour with fantastic theatre partners across the country, but also ensure even more people come together to experience this powerful story of identity, hope, and national togetherness.
Kate Varah, Executive Director & Co-Chief Executive
