Bucket collections and stage shout outs in bid to plug £500,000 King's Theatre funding gap

Fiona Gibson, chief executive of Capital Theatres, which is due to hold a soft launch at the King's in July with a string of one-night test shows before hosting the Edinburgh International Festival in August, admitted there is still £500,000 to raise towards the interior finishes of the project. The total cost of the project is £40 million.

However, she said the remaining funding gap would not affect the planned reopening schedule.

This comes as members of the public are being asked to write their own "message in a bottle" for the historic theatre as the Grand Old Lady of Leven Street prepares to reopen after a four year refurbishment.

Ms Gibson said the first bucket collections had been held at sister venue the Festival Theatre after last month’s sell-out shows of Alan Cumming’s The High Life reboot - with cast members flagging the fundraiser from the stage.

She said: “We’ve still got in the region of half a million to raise, so we’re working on that. We’re doing a low-level giving campaign and every penny counts, it all adds up.

“We’ve been doing bucket collections at the end of every show, the High Life did well for us and when people are helping us to do a call out from the stage, it makes such a difference.”

She added: “We will get there. We’ve got a little bit of time.”

Billed as a "unique storytelling project" celebrating the King’s past, present and future, the ”hope in a bottle” initiative is to collect stories about people’s memories of the theatre, by submitting their memories and thought online, or in a giant bottle located in the Festival Theatre.

The idea was inspired by a discovery in 2024 when an historian visiting the site uncovered a glass bottle hidden in plain sight above the stage. Sealed in October 1906, just before the King’s opened its doors for the first time, the bottle contained the names of the architects, plasterers and apprentices who built the theatre.

Selected contributions from members of the public may be featured online, displayed in venues or included as part of the King’s reopening celebrations.

Ms Gibson said she was looking forward to the reopening of the theatre.

“It feels very scary, but exciting in equal measure,” she said. “It’s been a labour of love and it’s been the most rewarding project I’ve ever worked on because so many people just love that building and have so many incredible memories of it.

“We’re just really thrilled with how people have latched onto the hope in a bottle campaign, with beautiful messages of hope for the future. I think the public are just as in love with the building as we are. It feels like a real privilege to be the stewards of something that is really the beating heart of the Tollcross area of Edinburgh and it’s felt a real responsibility to bring it to life.”

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The theatre closed in the summer of 2022. However, weeks before work was meant to get under way, it was announced that rising construction industry costs had created a funding gap. Work finally began in 2023 after the Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council provided an additional £6.85m, with the UK government later approving a further £2m.

Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced an extra £2.5m for the project, which Ms Gibson described as a “hugely significant moment” for the theatre.