Trusts, Foundations & DAFs
The Telling is a registered charity (no. 1181802).
Despite our size, we deliver impactful work by touring our hallmark collision of music and drama to excluded areas across the UK that larger arts organisations don’t dare to reach, while reaching audiences normally unmoved by traditional classical concerts.
In 2025/26, we delivered 51 performances, engaging 3,795 audience members in 29 locations across England, Wales and Scotland, most of which are typically excluded from touring circuits. We reached 467 school children through 16 workshops in 8 primary schools in 4 locations (Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Swansea & Southeast Edinburgh), delivering music workshops to children who don't typically have sustained access to music education.
Our two most recent ACE applications were unsuccessful, so we rely on grants and donations from trusts, foundations, DAFs, public funders and individuals to fund this work.
If you can help us with a donation or grant, or want to find out more about our programmes, please contact us here.
Why support us
Producing music and theatre shows requires more costly rehearsal time, a theatre director, stage crew and technicians, compared to a traditional concert.
In order to reach excluded communities where there is no early/classical music or theatre promoter, we cover the costs of venue hire, fees for artists and crew, accommodation and travel. The wider our reach, the higher the costs.
Promoter fees and ticket income don’t come close to covering these costs.
We are prepared to do the hard work that others won't because we believe the communities we serve are worth every effort, and we hope you do too.
Thank you so much for your consideration.
Current Fundraising Priorities
We are always in need of core funding, without which our important work wouldn't be possible. If you can help support our core costs, please do get in touch.
We are currently fundraising for two touring and outreach projects in 2027: Creating Carmen (May - September 2027) and Practically Imperfect (October - November 2027).
We need your support to tour these shows across the UK, including to disadvantaged and excluded communities.
Costs include fees for the artists, director, stage manager, and technical crew, as well as venue hire, lighting equipment hire (which enables us to perform in communities that lack a theatre venue), travel, accommodation, marketing, and project management.
Additionally, as part of the tours, we will capitalise on having high-quality professional artists in the area to deliver music outreach projects to schoolchildren most in need of musical enrichment. The schools will be chosen in consultation with the local music services. Costs include fees for the workshop facilitators and musicians, and travel.
If you can help support any of these costs, please get in touch.
Creating Carmen (May - September 2027)
Prosper Merimée (played by actor/comedy improvisor Niall Ashdown) is struggling with his latest novella (on which Bizet’s Carmen was based), when his leading character - Carmen (played by Suzanne Ahmet) - turns up in his study, larger than life, with a band of musicians in tow and chaos in her wake. Which one of them controls the narrative? And what will happen when Carmen discovers the nasty ending Mérimée has planned for her?
Creating Carmen is a fun-filled show of fantasy, comedy, drama and tremendous music from Bizet’s Carmen and Spanish-inspired music by Boccherini, Manuel de Falla, García Lorca, Granados, Ravel and Albeniz, all arranged and performed by the prizewinning trio, CarmenCo: Emily Andrews (flute/mezzo), David Massey and Francisco Correa (classical guitars).
Practically Imperfect (October - November 2027)
The very private PL Travers (played by Lottie Walker) lives quietly in Chelsea. Out of the blue, her very own creation, Mary Poppins (played by actor-musician Joanna Brown), suddenly appears in Travers’ study, asking difficult questions Travers would rather not answer. Rather than the Banks family, Mary Poppins has come to sort out the acerbic PL Travers herself. But Travers is a force to be reckoned with too. So who will control the narrative and win the battle of wills?
Soundtracking the fun-filled chaos, Mary Poppins, handily equipped with an accordion, performs the kind of music PL Travers actually wanted in the Mary Poppins film - including Edwardian songs such as Lily of Laguna.