Soho Poly: Arts for all

The rebirth of the Soho Poly, our leading London Fringe theatre venue from 1972 to 1990, goes from strength to strength.

The University’s Soho Poly theatre is being brought back to life. Once the home of pioneering lunchtime theatre, and a leading venue for alternative and underrepresented writers, the historical space was left abandoned until ten years ago. Fundraising efforts are now well underway to restore the space and the spirit of the Soho Poly theatre to its former glory.

In 2021, the National Lottery Heritage Fund granted an unprecedented donation of £88,300 for an outreach project, Soho Poly: Inspiring Future Generations. In full spirit of the original Soho Poly, this project has widened participation in and enthusiasm for the arts.

The project, which commenced in September, involved historians at the British Library training 30 undergraduates from the University in recording the memories of past practitioners of the theatre, including Simon Callow, Hanif Kureishi and Ann Mitchell. In these moving recordings, actors and directors relive their past experiences of the Soho Poly theatre.

Meanwhile, in another part of the project, 90 schoolchildren at three partner schools received drama workshops led by award-winning director, Helen Eastman. They also co-created a Schools Resources Pack rooted in the importance of learning about equality, diversity and inclusion in the arts.

“The workshop the students did was fantastic,” said one drama tutor. “They were able to learn and reflect on their own views regarding theatre and also develop new ones through discovering the history. We have taken the students to the theatre since, and they are still talking about it.”

In the third branch of the project, 30 Westminster students were involved in delivering memoir writing workshops with the charity Open Age.

While our outreach efforts are already having a positive impact on the community, there is still a way to go to fully restore the structure of the theatre.

So far, we have been privileged to receive internal funding from the University, as well as donations from a number of trusts and statutory funding sources. We are just under £40,000 short of the £39,000 required for work to commence this summer.

The priority is to make the theatre health and safety compliant and accessible to the public. However, this does not include fixtures and fittings, such as a Box Office and theatre benches, which we will need to continue fundraising for once the space is open.

To help us in our fundraising efforts, we held a Soho Poly Donor Event Series in spring this year, to showcase the potential of the space. Notable artistic alumni, such as best-selling author Jon Ronson, musician Emmy the Great and The Strawbs guitarist, Brian Willoughby.

The Soho Poly Open Day on 29 March marked exactly 50 years since the Soho Poly opened its doors in 1972. Here we had prospective partners such as Age UK and the Westminster LGBT Forum in attendance, to see how they could make use of the restored space. These organisations will use the theatre for their own activities for free. In return, they will deliver learning back to our students, the University community and our partners.

Be part of performing arts history

If you are interested in contributing to the project and making the arts accessible to all, we would love to hear from you.

To discuss the funding and recognition opportunities available, please get in touch: sohopoly@westminster.ac.uk or visit donate.westminster.ac.uk/ appeal/soho-poly-theatre