Our Story

WELCOME TO KILBURN

Kiln Theatre views the world through a variety of lenses, bringing unheard voices into the mainstream. We present high-quality and innovative work, which provokes debate and emotionally engages. Located in Brent, the most culturally diverse borough in London, we are a local venue with an international vision.

Our building starting life in 1929 as a meeting hall for the Friendly Society of Foresters. The hall was converted to a theatre in 1980 by Shirley Barrie and Ken Chubb, who named it the Tricycle Theatre in honour of their touring theatre company, the Wakefield Tricycle Company. In 1984, Nicolas Kent became the artistic director and for the next 28 years grew its reputation as a major political powerhouse. Indhu Rubasingham joined as artistic director in 2012 and after a much-needed, major architectural renovation, the building re-opened as Kiln Theatre in September 2018. Amit Sharma became artistic director in 2023.

The venue has a 292 seat theatre alongside a 300 seat cinema, a bar, restaurant and café, plus three rehearsal spaces which are used for our productions, workshops and Creative Learning projects.

We want everyone to experience the power of theatre.