News: MTFestUK announces it will postpone the musical festival until May

It has been announced that MTFestUK will not be going ahead in February, but will instead be postponed to May. The festival, which celebrates new musical theatre, was originally planned for February 2021, and was subsequently moved online following the latest government guidelines.

Paul Taylor-Mills, artistic director of The Turbine Theatre, has said: “Last week MTFestUK announced that it would be taking the whole programme online and that we would stream the shows to our audiences from The Turbine Theatre.

We have embraced every way possible in which we can do this but it will still demand many elements of physical contact. Speaking candidly, at this moment in time, this simply cannot be justified.

The entire MTFestUK family (over 100 freelancers) have considered ways in which we can make this work and it breaks my heart to say that with the huge number of challenges we currently need to navigate, now does not feel like the right time go ahead as we had planned.

To be completely clear, under Government guidelines we are permitted to work and indeed stream our content but I have learnt the importance of listening to both my instinct and to the people with whom I collaborate and we have come to the decision to postpone the entire festival to May.

The Turbine Theatre I’m sorry for the artists who were excited to work again and I’m sorry for the audiences who wanted to share in our glimmer of hope, but we will return soon.”

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