Our Story | Lawrence Batley Theatre

What a year we had in 2024 as we marked 30 years as the only professional theatre in Kirklees.

We continued to bring the very best theatre to the people of Huddersfield on their doorstep, welcoming over 75,000 people through our doors.

We became an official Theatre of Sanctuary, recognising the support we give to refugee and sanctuary seeking groups in Kirklees.

We supported the development of new shows from our Associate Artists including Gary Clarke Company’s DETENTION and local playwright Philip Stokes’s play Shellshocked.

We celebrated our 30^th birthday with the only way we know how, a big old party! We marked the occasion with a special exhibition. Theatre30 featured 30 portraits captured by local photographer Daniel Johnson Gray. 80 people took part in our community production. we raised a whopping £30,000.

More than 22,000 people joined us across the festive season for Dick Whittington. Our Christmas Hero’s campaign smashed all records with nearly £16,000 of generous donations.

We are incredibly proud of everything we have achieved in this landmark year.

You can’t beat live theatre, being able to see something unique as it happens. Over the financial year 2023 - 2024 we welcomed more than 73,000 people into our theatre.

Thanks to generous donations to our Christmas Heroes scheme, we were able to invite nearly 800 people to feel the joy of panto. This is more than ever before.

Each year thousands of young dancers and children who love to act, take to our stage and experience the magic of performing to their friends and families for the very first time on a professional stage. Research has shown that engaging in arts activities can have a profound positive impact on your mental health.

Our mission is to be the creative heart of Huddersfield, and this snapshot of the last year shows we’re well on our way.

Over the financial year 2022 to 2023 we welcomed more than 70,000 people into our theatre.

We produced three exciting and entertaining professional shows of our own, Jesus, Jane, Mother & Me, Blood Harmony and our pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. Every year we raise money through our Christmas Heroes scheme to invite families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to, to come see our panto. This time donations broke all records and we invited 600 people in. Over the year nearly 3,000 people from our community got the chance to perform on our stage. We nurtured the confidence over 1,000 young people, and worked to develop their talent through our workshops and classes. We coached and supported 70 people to be part of our annual community production. We started working closely with our community ambassadors, Hardeep Sahota and Madiha Ansari who are local artists of South Asian heritage. We opened TEN Queen Street, a space for people to be creative on their own terms.

Check out our 2022 annual review below where you can hear all about how this year went.

2021 was a year like no other for Lawrence Batley Theatre. We started the year in a challenging world, but the company pulled together and created diverse ways of engaging with audiences, both loyal and new. It was a year where we learnt to adapt and flourish.

We became a radical new digital producing company, creating online theatre productions that were seen across the world. We curated an outdoor season of entertainment featuring local bands and touring theatre, which culminated in an incredible dance production featuring large scale projection that mapped on to the front of the building, making us the loudest and proudest we've ever been. Then as things got colder and safer again, we moved back inside trialling socially distanced shows at first, then taking our shows out into the community all the while modernising and learning to engage our audiences in different ways.

A huge thank you goes to our funders, who we couldn’t have done this without. Check out our 2021 annual review below where you can read all about how this year went.

On 16 March 2020 the Prime Minister announced that all theatres must close.

Within days of closing our doors we launched LBTV our free platform of creative content reaching over 20,000 people. 1,000 young people got involved with an Arts Award Young Company or Charlotte Holmes. We produced seven brand new digital shows which have been viewed by audiences in over 70 countries across the globe - when we could open we put on 33 live performances and worked with more than 150 performers, creatives and freelancers.

We had our West End debut and built new relationships all so we could continue to inspire and entertain our community.

Our very first in-house produced pantomime, Cinderella, takes place. They have since become a Huddersfield staple (oh yes they have!).

A photograph of a pantomime dame and cow in front of the theatre. — Pantomimes have been a hit here since 2016

The theatre is awarded £1.05 million of Lottery money allowing us to redevelop the North Wing over the coming years, including the creation of our Attic rehearsal studio and offices which opened in 1998.

The theatre is opened officially 11 September 1994, with Sir Patrick Stewart cutting the ribbon and Dame Judi Dench laying our foundation stone who commented "I long to do a play there someday".

On 15 September, the very first Comedy Club took place with Jeremy Hardy and has continued to run in our Cellar Theatre.

Our long-running amateur companies are always an audience favourite. The very first performances took place in October 1994, the Huddersfield Thespians with When We Are Married and Longwood Amateur Operatic Society with Pirates of Penzance.

A photograph of actress Dame Judi Dench wearing a hard hat and holding a large mallet, laying the ornamental foundation stone of the building in 1994. — Dame Judi Dench laying the foundation stone

A photograph taken on stage of a full audience on the opening night of the theatre in 1994. — The opening night gala audience

Following many years of planning and fundraising, conversion into a theatre began taking 220,000 hours and £5.3 million to complete.

A photograph of the main auditorium during construction in the early 1990s. There is a large crane and a number of builders wearing hard hats around the construction site. — During construction of the theatre

Kirklees Theatre Trust is set up with the aim of creating specific facilities for professional and amateur performance in Kirklees.

Over the years, attendance declined and maintenance costs rose, resulting in the building closing as a Mission.

The council began an arts centre while discussions were made to decide on the need for a permanent arts space for Huddersfield. This was however short-lived and closed in 1975 due to structural faults. The building was then renovated and converted into a squash club (!). However, the business didn't survive and closed three years later.

During the golden years of the church, the Rev. George Browne MacDonald and his family arrived as Superintendent Minister. Two of his daughters became the respective mothers of Jungle Book author, Rudyard Kipling, and a British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. A plaque commemorating their family can be still be seen today in our bar.

A photograph of three women who lived at the mission. One is wearing a nurse-like uniform, the other are in all black with white bows. — The women of the mission

Opening as a Wesleyan Mission at a cost of £16,000, the church had seats for 1,862 people and, at the time of building, was the largest Methodist chapel in the world. The builder of our now Grade II* listed building was Joseph Kaye who was also responsible for Huddersfield Railway Station.