Welsh National Theatre reveals principal funder on eve of opening season

With Welsh National Theatre’s inaugural production opening tomorrow night (Friday 16 January) at the Swansea Grand, the Colwinston Charitable Trust has been announced as Principal Funder of the opening season.

Since its establishment in 1995 by founder and chairman Mathew Prichard CBE, the Trust has donated royalties received from the London production of The Mousetrap – the murder mystery written by Mathew’s grandmother Agatha Christie – to support organisations delivering high quality work across the arts, particularly those working for the benefit of Wales.

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Trust and more than 30,000 performances of The Mousetrap since the play opened on the 8th of June 1952, an Anniversary Fund was launched to celebrate creative expression and the art of storytelling, be it through music, opera, performance, visual arts, exhibitions, or the written word, supporting projects designed to achieve ultimate impact and enjoyment for audiences. Welsh National Theatre is one of eleven organisations to receive a special grant from the Fund.

Co-founded by the actor Michael Sheen in early 2025, Welsh National Theatre has a vision to create world class work from Wales and take it to the world, bringing together Welsh talent to create ambitious theatre which makes the country’s story come alive.

The inaugural season opens tomorrow night with Our Town, a co-production with the Rose Theatre in which American playwright Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece is seen through a Welsh lens, playing Swansea, Llandudno, Mold and Kingston-upon-Thames. In November, Olivier-award winning playwright Gary Owen’s epic new play, Owain & Henry, will see Sheen play Owain Glyndŵr in a co-production with Wales Millennium Centre on Europe’s second largest stage.

Michael Sheen, artistic director of Welsh National Theatre said: “Our sincere gratitude to Mathew Prichard and the Colwinston Charitable Trust for recognising our ambition for Welsh National Theatre. Our values and ambitions around supporting Welsh theatre and theatre makers feel very much aligned. To be supported by the extraordinary legacy of Agatha Christie in this way is a great source of inspiration and confidence for us at WNT.”

Sharon Gilburd, founding chief executive of Welsh National Theatre, added: “When we founded the theatre, our strategy was to explore a range of routes of funding to support the vision. We can’t thank Mathew and the Colwinston Charitable Trust enough for recognising our shared values and hope this is the beginning of a long relationship.”

Mathew Prichard, Chair of the Colwinston Charitable Trust, said: “The Trust is delighted to celebrate 30 years of working with many high quality arts organisations across the UK by awarding a special Anniversary Grant to Welsh National Theatre to support productions of Our Town and Owain and Henry during their inaugural season in 2026.

“My Grandmother spent her life being enthralled by the Arts. She wrote to entertain and loved being entertained by so many different art forms. I remain grateful to all the Arts practitioners who continue to bring her work to life and have enabled the Colwinston Trust to be involved with projects that I think would have been close to her heart. It is my ambition that the 30th Anniversary Fund will continue to encourage this to happen.”

Tickets for Welsh National Theatre’s opening season are available HERE