UK

The Royal Shakespeare Company has developed a unique version of the Midsummer Night's Dream described as "a live, shared experience between actors and online audience members" involving the latest gaming and theatre technology with an interactive symphonic soundtrack "in a pioneering collaboration". The production is a collaboraiton with virtual reality performance company Marshmallow Laser Feast and biennial creative industries festival leaders Manchester International Festival.

This Spring Oldham Coliseum Theatre presents a season of online events and experiences for audiences of all ages to enjoy, using interactivity and digital technology to transport audiences to different worlds and put them at the heart of the story.

From Friday 9 - Sunday 25 April Oldham Coliseum Theatre and Front Room Productions present Whodunnit at the Coliseum? – a tongue-in-cheek interactive murder mystery set at the theatre in 1954 on the opening night of The Scottish Play.

Leeds Playhouse will offer new theatre space as exclusive use for artists and companies in the Leeds City Region to help in the recovery of the cultural sector.

The take over of the studio space is being offered as part of Playhouse Connect, an ongoing response to the pandemic aimed at aiding reconnection and recovery within the City.

Enquire and book your slot on the Leeds Playhouse website.

Two brand-new digital works by Hot Brown Honey and Esosa Ighodaro will be available this Thursday, 11 February, via HOME’s website, homemcr.org.

The works are part of HOME’s Homemakers series, launched in April last year, which commissions theatre and live art markers to create work at home, for an audience who are also at home.

Manchester City Council, with industry partners HOME, have announced a £500,000 hardship fund for freelancers working in Manchester, made possible by a generous gift from the Savannah Wisdom Foundation.

The Savannah Wisdom Foundation has created a discretionary fund to support freelancers working in the creative and cultural sectors who are facing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19. The charity is making up to £500,000 available in grants of £1,500 to individual freelancers.

Calling all music groups of different shapes, sizes and specialisms. Brass Bands England's industry-leading BandSafe programme is designed to support safeguarding in any musical setting - not just bands.

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games cultural festival has received £6 million in funding from Arts Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The funding will go towards staging a six-month-long cultural festival from March to September 2022. The funds will be ringfenced for West Midlands projects to be delivered ahead of the Games to positively impact communities.

The British Council has announced recipients of the Digital Collaboration Fund, supporting UK and overseas cultural partnerships to develop digitally innovative ways of collaborating.