PAINES PLOUGH LIMITED
Registered charity 267523 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as BEDFORD THEATRE CO LTD, PAINES PLOUGH
As the UK's national theatre of new plays with the playwright at its heart, Paines Plough widely tours world premiere productions and offers bespoke development support to playwrights.Over the past 40 years, Paines Plough has established itself as a leading new writing company producing work by a wide range of playwrights across the UK and abroad.
Causes: Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts
Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts
The accounts state that total unrestricted reserves stood at £359,190, which is above the charity's stated policy target of maintaining a £100,000 general reserve. The auditors confirmed that the use of the going concern basis was appropriate and identified no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue operations.
Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.
What the accounts disclose
Reserves policy: a Support Costs Reserve fund of £100,000 as well as a minimum General Reserve fund of £100,000 (held: £359k)
“The organisation's reserve policy stipulates maintaining a Support Costs Reserve fund of £100,000 as well as a minimum General Reserve fund of £100,000 to support operational cash flow.” — page 6
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Related-party transaction: Donations from trustees
“The trustees and key management personnel made donations of £6,000 (2024: £850) in aggregate to the charity in the period, these donations were made without conditions attached.” — page 31
“During the year, the charity received £66,690 (2024: £51,908) in co-production fees and £Nil (2024: £185) in royalties from a charity in which one trustee is a director of the charity's wholly-owned trading subsidiary. The charity paid £21,037 (2024: £31,113) in production costs charged by this charity.” — page 31
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Related-party transaction: Transactions with charity where a trustee is a director
“The trustees and key management personnel made donations of £6,000 (2024: £850) in aggregate to the charity in the period, these donations were made without conditions attached.” — page 31
“During the year, the charity received £66,690 (2024: £51,908) in co-production fees and £Nil (2024: £185) in royalties from a charity in which one trustee is a director of the charity's wholly-owned trading subsidiary. The charity paid £21,037 (2024: £31,113) in production costs charged by this charity.” — page 31
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Trading subsidiary: Paines Plough Productions Limited
“The charity has an investment of £1 (2024: £1), being a holding of 100% of the ordinary share capital in Paines Plough Productions Limited, its trading subsidiary.” — page 27
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Accounts audited by WP Audit Services LLP. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.
Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Paines Plough (matched by registered charity number).
Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram
Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)
Reported reserves equal ~3.3 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).
Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (58% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.
Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 0.7% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.2%) (benchmarks).
- Kulwinder Thiaraichair
- Abigail Louise Morgan
- Ankur Bahl
- Asma Hussain · trustee of 1 other charity
- CAROLYN LOUISE SAUNDERS
- Corey Michael Anthony Campbell
- Farha Tahera Quadri
- Helen Perryer
- Lauren Dark
Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).
Operates in: Throughout England And Wales
Income and spending
Common questions
Is PAINES PLOUGH LIMITED financially healthy?
Per its FY2025 accounts: The accounts state that total unrestricted reserves stood at £359,190, which is above the charity's stated policy target of maintaining a £100,000 general reserve. The auditors confirmed that the use of the going concern basis was appropriate and identified no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue operations. Its FY2025 accounts were audited by WP Audit Services LLP.
Who funds PAINES PLOUGH LIMITED?
Funders whose own accounts filings name PAINES PLOUGH LIMITED as a grant recipient include THE WILLIAMS CHARITABLE TRUST, THE THEATRES TRUST CHARITABLE FUND.
Known funders
Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.
Government & lottery funding
Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).
Funders of similar charities
Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.
Charities like this
Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with HEADLONG THEATRE LIMITED.
Side by side with its peers
Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.