Titchfield Festival Theatre Limited (pictured), a charity-run amateur dramatics theatre near Fareham, west of Portsmouth, went into administration in May 2026 owing HMRC a total tax bill of £8.24m for disputed Gift Aid claims.

The collapse of the business followed a lengthy planning dispute with Fareham Borough Council over the conversion of one of its ‘warehousing sheds’ to a theatre on its site, which already had two venues, the Oak, and the Acorn, and was deemed to have breached planning permission. This dispute was going through the courts at the time of the collapse.

Joint administrators Alex Kinninmonth and James Prior of FRP Advisory identified HMRC as the largest creditor when the theatre went bust with an £8.24m unsecured non-preferential HMRC claim, saying the theatre’s board ‘had become aware of a highly significant potential claim from HMRC relating to Gift Aid, which if substantiated could not be repaid’.

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