The company was founded in London in 1968, during the Vietnam War, as a radical socialist theatre known as agitprop.
Red Ladder also hosted the Asian Theatre School, later Freedom Studios,[1][2] preparing productions including the play Silent Cry by Madani Younis presented at the Theatre Royal, York (2004).
[3] In 2011, it ran a play called Promised Land, an adaptation of Anthony Clavane's book about Leeds United.
[4] Today the company: Red Ladder's Arts Council funding will cease from April 2015.
In response to a fundraising campaign to save the company, author David Peace has donated the theatre rights to his novel The Damned Utd.