To pay, or to not pay: Cambridge Shakespeare competition wins employment tribunal after refusing to offer an actor a wage

A renowned Shakespeare festival has become embroiled in a pay row after an employment tribunal ruled an actor didn’t need to be paid.

The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival (CSF), which puts on open-air performances in the grounds of the University of Cambridge, attracted criticism for its decision to pay actors ‘beer money’ rather than a wage.

The long-running arts event was sued at an employment tribunal by disgruntled actor Sarah Campbell over the murky area of law surrounding what constitutes a ‘worker’.

Ms Campbell, whose professional name is Sarah Goldsmith, believed she ought to have been properly paid for her roles in Hamlet and Richard II during the festival’s run in 2024.

Ms Campbell, and other actors, received a ‘token gesture’ of £50 a week towards living expenses and were put up in free accommodation in student rooms, but were otherwise not given a wage.

Organisers for what is one of the highest rated independent arts festivals in the UK said the productions were a ‘labour of love’ and ‘entirely voluntary’, claiming that it is not profitable.

Now, an employment tribunal has sided with CSF, controversially ruling that Ms Campbell was not a ‘worker’ but was a ‘volunteer’.

The new ruling contradicts a previous employment tribunal ruling in 2022 which found that two actors who sued the festival were ‘workers’.

The latest ruling has been criticised by actors’ trade union Equity, who have been campaigning against ‘wage theft’ at the festival.

The tribunal, held in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, heard that Ms Campbell performed at CSF in 2024.

Actors perform six Shakespeare plays at the annual festival, was run that year by Dr David Crilly and Jan Burns, over a period of two months.

The festival company was established in 1988 by Dr Crilly, a composer and conductor who for 18 years was Director-in-Residence for Anglia Opera.

The 2024 festival put on productions of Antony and Cleopatra, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Ms Campbell was offered the parts of Gertrude in Hamlet and the parts of the Duchess of Gloucester, the Gardener, and Ross in Richard II.

At the tribunal, Ms Campbell claimed she qualified as a ‘worker’ and should have been paid, while the festival organisers disagreed and claimed her participation was ‘entirely voluntary’.

The 2025 tribunal was told that the invitation sent to actors to audition for the festival said: ‘I’m afraid we are only able to make a ‘token gesture’ contribution of just £50 per week towards expenses.

‘It’s an important point to make that the appalling financial aspect of involvement in the Festival applies to everyone – we’re not asking you to work ‘on the cheap’ so someone else can make money – the Artistic Director regularly loses thousands of pounds to support the event.

‘We want it to be profitable, and it sometimes is… but often it isn’t.

‘But we believe the Festival is worth doing, nevertheless.

‘The reason we’re keen to hammer home this point is that very occasionally (about once a year) we receive replies to invitations along the lines of ‘how dare you expect me to work for nothing…’ Well, we don’t!

‘The Shakespeare Festival is a labour of love for everyone involved.

‘We’re asking if the Festival is something that you’d like to be involved in on a purely unpaid and voluntary basis.

‘It’s very much a worthwhile artistic collaboration rather than a ‘job’ in the traditional sense.’

The budget of the 2024 festival was close to £250,000, more than £120,000 of which was spent on accommodation for the actors, the tribunal was told.

Dr Crilly told the tribunal that the festival ‘can be profitable some years’, but that was ‘not its purpose’.

He said its purpose was ‘educational and charitable’, and any surplus money earned would be ‘kept for the following year(s) in case of any future funding shortfall’.

Employment Judge Matthew Hunt found the festival had been a ‘a near life-long ‘labour of love’ of Dr Crilly’s’.

The judge said: ‘In response to a question about why he does not increase ticket prices (for instance to pay the Festival actors), (Dr Crilly) said that he wished the Festival to remain accessible to the broadest range of people across Cambridge, so that they all have the chance to see Shakespeare plays being performed outdoors, live, in the elegant surroundings of college grounds.

The judge sad he had ‘no reason…to doubt’ this, but observed that Dr Crilly ‘has not ‘formally’ set up any charity or other form of ‘not-for-profit’ structure to run it.’

The judge added: ‘It doesn’t seem to have any formal status at all.’

The tribunal heard Ms Campbell took up ‘temporary work as a solicitor’ during the festival, and as a result ‘often did not undertake leafletting or attend rehearsals at the scheduled times’.

Dr Crilly said that some of the first rehearsals had to be cancelled because some actors, including Ms Campbell, didn’t know their lines well enough.

They ‘were not subjected to any sanction’, the tribunal heard.

The judge found: ‘(Ms Campbell)’s participation in the Festival was expressly ‘unpaid and voluntary’.

‘Both parties could not have been clearer about that.’

He added that the money given to actors would not cover ‘the reasonable subsistence expenses of someone performing at the Festival’, and ‘Dr Crilly called it no more than ‘beer money”.

The tribunal found that Ms Campbell was not a worker for the purposes of the Employment Right Act 1996.

Her claims were therefore dismissed.

Judge Hunt said that in this case there was ‘good reason to depart from’ the 2022 tribunal decision, in which the opposite finding was made, despite there being no ‘significant difference to the facts’ found by the previous tribunal.

Explaining his decision, Judge Hunt said: ‘The extent of what (Ms Campbell) committed to do and under whose control she did it is not, in my view, a principled basis for finding that (Ms Campbell) should be considered a ‘worker’ rather than a ‘volunteer’.

‘This is because a volunteer may well undertake effectively the same, or greater, duties than any equivalent paid individual in any given scenario and may well do so under considerable direction.

‘In my view, the only principled distinction is as to the expectation of remuneration.’

The trade union Equity is questioning the choice not to pay actors at the festival.

Their website states that 25,000 people attend the festival every year, and an adult ticket to the festival costs £20.

A spokesperson for Equity said that the latest ruling was ‘disappointing’, and said it ‘directly contradicts the ruling on the 2022 festival’.

The spokesperson continued: ‘As recently as July (2025), CSF committed to negotiations with Equity for a union agreement that would lead to fair pay, terms and conditions for the performers they engage.

‘Yet despite these assurances, public comments from CSF now contradict their previous commitment to enter ‘into discussions with Equity to ensure the Festival aligns not only with current legal requirements, but also with the highest ethical standards – so that we can continue this long-standing tradition in a way that is fair, supportive of actors, sustainable, and future-facing.’