THE “evasive and contrived” owner of the world-renowned Cambridge Shakespeare Festival can no longer hire performers on a weekly volunteer rate of £50, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Judge Louise Brown said Dr David Crilly’s “high degree of control” of performers while they worked  long hours six days a week meant that they are entitled to worker rights such as the national minimum wage.

The case at the Cambridge Employment Tribunal was brought by Equity union members Kit McGuire and Elizabeth Graham, who performed in the festival's 35th season in 2022.

Ms Graham was working just over a month when she was abruptly dismissed and replaced in August after Dr Crilly took issue with her informing the director, rather than himself, that she had caught Covid.

He wrote to her: “I am the owner and director of the Shakespeare festival.

“I’m afraid you can’t just ignore what I say and come and go as you please … as you didn’t have the professional courtesy to contact me, I have had no option other than to replace you in the production.”

Ms Graham was paid £150 a week towards expenses as she had found her own accommodation while she worked for the festival.

Mr McGuire was meanwhile paid a measly £50 a week after being offered to play Antonio/Captain in Twelfth Night and Dauphin/Williams in Henry V in April 2022.

He was told to be “off book” before the first rehearsals started two weeks before the first show and in charge of sourcing and teaching the shows’ music to fellow cast members.

In a text to Dr Crilly on June 20 2022, he said he would not return for Henry V, saying he had suffered “stresses since arriving this summer that have made me feel uncomfortable with living and working here.”

Under cross-examination he told the tribunal that he considered the working conditions to amount to an “exploitative business model.”

Dr Crilly accused Mr McGuire of acting out of “malice and spite” over being given a minor role, but Judge Brown said: “I found Mr McGuire to be an entirely honest and credible witness.

“I found Dr Crilly’s evidence at times to be evasive and contrived in that he would try and avoid using certain words when replying to questions put to him.”

Cambridge Shakespeare Festival was contacted for comment.