In this short film, Samantha Lane, Joint CEO of Little Angel Theatre (LAT) talks about how the Figurative TTR Cashflow Loan supported their growth strategy:
Little Angel Theatre (LAT) is one of the UK’s leading children’s puppetry theatres. Based in Islington, London, it exists to inspire young minds through imaginative storytelling while preserving the rich heritage of puppetry.
It was founded in 1961 by John and Lyndie Wright who, after touring South Africa with their puppet company, purchased a derelict hall from the Temperance Society, alongside the neighbouring small cottage. Together with a troupe of enthusiastic puppeteers, John and Lyndie transformed the hall into a theatre, running it themselves. Over the following 30 years, LAT created and performed over 30 shows, touring them nationally and internationally, firmly establishing its reputation as a leading puppetry theatre. The theatre was handed over to a charitable trust in 2000 and has continued to grow.
It now operates a 100-seat main house and a flexible studio for performances, workshops and community events. Recent productions include the mid-scale tour of Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book visiting 70 venues and securing a West End transfer. Alongside performance work, LAT delivers a wide range of education, community and engagement programmes. It specialises in puppet design and making, and generates income through birthday parties, venue hire and a digital on-demand programme.
LAT received a TTR cash-flow loan in summer 2024, which helped maintain its cash position during its seasonal low and supported ongoing investment in upcoming productions. The loan also gave Figurative and Little Angel the chance to deepen their understanding of each other’s work and begin exploring a full ACIF loan.
The Opportunity
Following the success of the TTR loan, LAT approached Figurative to invest and grow six core areas:
- Expand its productions portfolio to broaden its touring reach, meet demand and introduce more families to high-quality, family-friendly theatre.
- Scale its design and puppetry services by hiring a Commissioning Manager, enhancing workshop/storage and building a library of ‘puppets for hire.’
- Expand its school partnership programme to reach 1% of UK primary schools (circa 200 schools)
- Meet demand for birthday party experiences by creating new portable shows
- Maximise the value of digital content by upgrading its video on demand platform
- Hire additional staff to manage a new Individual Giving Campaign centered on its 65th anniversary
James Cross, Investment Manager at Figurative says, “We are really excited to support a remarkable and innovative theatre as it builds on its recent growth and extends its reach. The loan has helped strengthen LAT’s financial sustainability and enable it to pursue new creative and income-generating initiatives. This is exactly where impact investment can add real value – helping organisations grow their income and push forward innovative ideas.”
The Process
As the investment focused on expanding both new and existing activities, it was important to assess the evidence of demand across the six areas, which also underpinned LAT’s financial forecasts. This allowed us to identify which parts of the organisation were most ready for investment and likely to generate a return, and which would benefit from more time to build a stronger evidence base. We therefore phased the investment. In Year 1, £170k was made available to support targeted expansion of productions, the puppet-making facility, birthday party delivery and fundraising campaigns. A second tranche in Year 2 focused on growing the education programme and developing LAT’s digital platform. This approach enables LAT to scale sustainably – pursuing opportunities with immediate growth potential while allowing other areas, such as the new production funding model and national schools partnerships, to develop and be validated over time.
The Impact
The team at Figurative was impressed by the diverse range of education and community projects LAT delivers, including a programme of free workshops and events at Little Angel Studios for local children and adults facing barriers to access, schools partnership programmes and educational workshops, and partnership projects delivered to those who cannot access the theatre, such as with Great Ormond Street Hospital. The assessment focused on its local schools partnership programme as it is the organisation’s most sustained and consistent engagement of specific services users. The programme provides primary schools in Islington subsided access to LAT shows, a production performed at their school and an after-school puppet club for targeted pupils, such as those from low-income households, with Special Educational Needs (SEND) or those with speech, language and communication needs. CPD training sessions for teachers are also offered in the form of creative workshops tailored to the curriculum and behind the scenes access to industry professionals.
