The Old Vic and RBC

The Old Vic theatre says that its overarching mission is “to be a strong advocate for the power of theatre as a force for good in society.” Yet the Old Vic’s principal partner since 2015, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is one of the biggest investors in fossil fuels in the world and has billions of investments in companies supplying arms to Israel.

Playwrights, actors and theatre workers are urging the Old Vic to stop legitimising RBC. You can join them.

Our campaign so far…

In October 2025, we launched a short film, Tickets are Now on Sale, based on a play by Caryl Churchill and starring Siobhán McSweeney and Samuel West. The film premiered on an Ad Van outside the Old Vic on its press night for Mary Page Marlowe, intercut with powerful frontline testimonies and footage showing RBC’s impacts on communities in so-called Canada and Palestine.

BAFTA winning actor Siobhán McSweeney commented:

“Theatre needs sponsorship. It doesn’t need to be complicit in genocide, in the arms trade, and in the destruction of the world. That shouldn’t be the option…”

In January 2025, we highlighted Royal Bank of Canada’ s investments in companies which are complicit in war crimes. With a history steeped in colonialism and land theft, RBC is deeply invested in the genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people.

RBC’s investments include weapons manufacturers supplying Israel, companies complicit with illegal settlements, and AI systems targeting Palestinians. Companies complicit in genocide and apartheid made up 12.8% of the bank’s total holdings.

In September 2024, audience members arriving at the Old Vic for the press night of The Real Thing, were greeted with an Ad Van denouncing Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) sponsorship, with damning video testimony from First Nations and community leaders impacted by fossil fuel projects financed by the bank… until the theatre called the police in an attempt to bring the truth-telling intervention to an end.

In August 2024, a letter to the trustees of the Old Vic Theatre in London, signed by over 80 theatre professionals, urged Old Vic to cut its ties with RBC, ‘one of the world’s biggest financiers of fossil fuel development’.

The letter, whose signatories included Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance, theatre and screen figures Paapa Essiedu and Morfydd Clark, and award-winning playwrights Caryl Churchill and Dawn King,  also referenced the ways in which RBC-funded fossil fuel infrastructure projects are violating the rights of First Nations people and impacting disproportionately on communities of colour in North America, where there is already a long running campaign against the banks’ practices led by these communities. 

“As performers, theatre-makers, artists and workers, we strongly object to our creativity and our labour being used to enhance RBC’s reputation and its profits.” 

The Old Vic began its corporate partnership with RBC in 2015, with the contract up for renewal again in August 2024. In June 2024, we launched our campaign urging the Old Vic not to renew this partnership.

We highlighted how Old Vic sponsor Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is one of the biggest climate-wrecking banks, and put the spotlight on RBC’s record of violating human rights, particularly Indigenous rights within the place now known as Canada.

Quick Facts

The Old Vic and RBC

  • The Old Vic began its corporate partnership with RBC in 2015. 
  • In the last decade, RBC has ploughed over $290 billion into climate-wrecking projects.
  • It has over $61 billion invested in companies complicit in the genocide in Gaza and in illegal activities in the West Bank, and has increased its investments throughout the course of the genocide.

The Old Vic boasts that it offers sponsors such as RBC the chance to:

“enhance your corporate credibility by positioning your brand as a crucial supporter of the arts and its positive impact on the communities theatre serves…a creative stage on which to tell your brand’s story”

This sponsorship is a transaction, not a donation, and is designed to benefit RBC financially. RBC’s London business focuses on ‘wealth management’ for ultra rich individuals and capital markets and its London office hosts their Global Energy Group, an “integrated investment and corporate banking team comprised of experienced professionals dedicated to the oil & gas sector.”

RBC’s business in London generates profit for a tiny minority of ultra-rich individuals via investment in anything from weapons, fossil fuels and settler colonial infrastructure – all with the support and complicity of the Old Vic.