Jude Law: Another National Youth Music Theatre big name

Manager Jon Bromwich said the government had never funded the youth theatre in its 25-year history, but that now was the time for it to start doing so.

He told BBC News Online: "We are delivering, very often directly, on the government's agenda of social and creative benefits."

About �1m had been pledged to the youth theatre's parent organisation, the National Foundation for Youth Music, he said.

This money had originally been scheduled to be available to draw on as long ago as May 2001, he added.

Mr Bromwich blamed internal government wrangling for the delay.

'Hand to mouth'

Half the sum had been pledged by the Department of Culture, on condition that the Department for Education, would match that figure, which it had declined to do, he said.

Meanwhile, the Arts Council was unwilling to step into the breach while the dispute continued, he said.

The theatre's plight has been particularly acute since December 1999, since which time its existence is said to have been "hand to mouth".

Prior to that date, for six years, it enjoyed financial backing from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to the tune of �250,000 a year.

The company costs about �500,000 a year to run, and now has no continuity of funding, according to Mr Bromwich.

"We literally plan from month to month," he said.

"Us and the other companies like us should receive some element of government support towards our core operating costs."