Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, popular Huntingdon-based amateur theatre company Shakespeare at The George (SaTG) has been unable to perform its annual open-air Shakespearean production in 2020 as it has for the last 60 years.

Unfortunately, the cancelled performances this year (it was to be Twelfth Night) mean that the company will not have the income to allow us to distribute our annual bursaries.

Every year we make these funds available to local groups and individuals in order to further theatre and theatre skills in the region and these bursaries are a key element of our charitable status, our reason for doing what we do.

For instance, in the last three years we have donated £1,000 to three separate local organisations for events or equipment that will help to instil a passion for theatre in scores of young people; Longsands Academy, St Neots, Huntingdon Youth Theatre and Hampton Gardens School, Peterborough.

With live theatre in all its forms still shut down, our local cultural landscape is under huge pressure. We hope that this campaign will allow us to help restore and rebuild such a crucial part of community life once the pandemic is over.