2024: Polka’s Year in Review

2024 was a special year for Polka Theatre as we celebrated our 45th birthday!

We’re so proud to be such an integral part of our local community and with your support, we celebrated some incredible achievements: 

• 120,000 people experienced our work, with around 110,000 children and adults visiting Polka. 
• We staged 744 performances across 35 productions. 34 performances were adapted for Deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse audiences, reaching 3,754 attendees—enough to fill our Main Theatre 12½ times! 
• 5 productions toured nationally, including a sold-out schools tour of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
• We held a ‘Big Dreams Festival’ for early-years children and an ‘Artists’ Day’ to showcase our 2024 cohort of Catapult Artists. Our Catapult programme is designed to platform underrepresented artists who are currently making Theatre for Young Audiences.
• 99% of visitors said Polka has a positive impact on children’s lives and would recommend us to friends and family. *We’re particularly proud of this one!

An audience member, who attended ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’, a British Sign Language (BSL) led and Audio Description & Captioning integrated production, told us:  

“This show was the hallmark in the seamless integration of accessibility, diversity, representation, and storytelling. I hope the whole of the arts world takes note and that this marks a real change. This is absolutely how it should be done.” 

Our incredible Creative Learning team had a record-breaking year!

• 20,253 participants took part in our Creative Learning Programmes with 78% participating for the very first time!
• 1,165 workshops and events were delivered giving 32,301 individual experiences.
• 227 schools came to Polka to participate in workshops or to see a show, or to celebrate the achievements of their peers at one of our Freefalling or Write Here Write Now showcases.
• 8,595 free tickets were provided to schools and communities facing financial difficulties – that’s about 10% of all tickets!
• 90% of children who attended via Curtain Up! (free tickets for eligible state schools) visited Polka for the first time. 

“The children truly enjoyed the performance as some of them had never had that experience before. Their little faces were grinning for the rest of the day.” – Teacher, Curtain Up! 

Autumn was marked with a flurry of awards including: 

• UK’s Most Welcoming Theatre 2024 at the UK Theatre Awards. 
• 3 Merton Business Awards 2024: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; Sustainable Impact; and the top prize of Merton’s Best Business. 
• Our productions received 19 OffWestEnd Nominations

Our programmes were also shortlisted for major awards: 

• Take Your Seats (community programme) for the Audience Impact & Innovation Award, Fantastic for Families Awards. 
• Write Here Write Now and Freefalling for Outstanding Drama Initiative, Music & Drama Education Awards. 

We also launched the Polka Playwriting Award, thanks to the generosity of the Garek Trust. Winner Sarah Middleton will receive a full commission and staging of her play Dweeb-A-Mania in Polka’s Adventure Theatre this Autumn.

Above all, our greatest achievement is the joy, creativity, and imagination that we’ve brought to children and families through theatre, our Creative Learning workshops, and free indoor play area and gardens. 

Thank you for making 2024 unforgettable. We can’t wait to see what 2025 holds! 

“Being named the UK’s Most Welcoming Theatre is a testament to Polka Theatre’s commitment to accessibility, creativity, and inclusion. Thank you for enriching children’s lives through the magic of theatre.” – Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London and Polka Patron 

*Feedback from our 2024 Annual Audience Survey