BUDGET cuts have forced the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) to axe its North-East performance season for the first time since 1977.

The company’s annual tour to Newcastle has become a highlight of the region’s arts calendar, with theatregoers travelling from far and wide to see the nation’s best Shakespearean actors on stage.

However, the RSC faces a 6.9 per cent budget cut for 2011-12 and bosses said it would be focusing on its work in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The decision was met with disappointment from Philip Bernays, chief executive of Newcastle’s Theatre Royal, which would have hosted the company.

Mr Bernays said: “It is a great shame that we will not be presenting the RSC season this year, but we also understand the pressure of budgetary cuts right now and the necessity to make some compromises in the short term.

“We know how important the RSC season is to our audiences in the North-East and further afield as the northern ‘home’ of the RSC, and we eagerly look forward to the exciting performances the company are bringing here in 2012 and beyond.”

It is hoped the full Newcastle season will return next year.

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, said: “The RSC is proud of its relationship with Newcastle and the North-East and we very much regret that we are unable to bring a full season of plays to the city this autumn because of pressures on our funding.”

The RSC is planning a national tour of large theatres and a Young People’s Shakespeare tour and bosses hope to bring both to Newcastle in 2011-12.

Other events could also be held in the region and the RSC is applying to the Arts Council for funding to return with full productions from 2012.

The RSC is also taking shows which played to Newcastle audiences last year to New York this summer.

The RSC Newcastle season began in 1977 with performances from Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. It has also featured Kenneth Branagh as Henry V, Jeremy Irons as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Sinead Cusack as Lady Macbeth, David Tennant as Romeo and, in 2007, McKellen returned as Lear.

McKellen called it dreadful news after being told during a visit yesterday afternoon to the City Theatre, in Durham.

“I am speechless,” he said.

“I am very upset and I am sure people in the North-East are too because it’s a national company. They don’t belong to London or Stratford, they belong to us all.

“We are paying for them with our taxes.”

He was visiting the 71-seat city theatre, run by Durham Dramatic Society, as patron of the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain.