Nightmare in the West End, the sequel: ‘If restrictions remain into the autumn, it all collapses’
After a nail-biting weekend and stomach-churning Monday, theatreland is now facing up to a torrid, horrid summer of struggling and imperilled shows and a grim autumn of vulnerability and uncertainty, afflicting audiences and theatre-makers alike. This follows the Government’s announcement that the ‘unlocking’ of Covid restrictions (Step 4) must be set back a month.
Social distancing must stay for a short period (though with no absolute certainty that it is definitively coming to an end) just when momentum was building to restore theatres to viability by returning to full capacity. Not since Boris Johnson’s March 16 2020 announcement, disastrously advising people they should stay away from “pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues”, was there such agonised attention paid to the words spoken by the PM. There was greater clarity this time, but the colossal upset his remarks caused was like a repeat performance of the pandemic’s first act.
I canvased opinions from many of the industry’s movers and shakers, amid a whirl of wall-to-wall meetings – as everyone involved in mounting productions battled to make sense of the incoming news, and then digest it.
Theatre-owner/producer and pillar of the establishment Andrew Lloyd Webber is assessing the situation. The composer has been banking on restrictions lifting to make sense of launching his new musical Cinderella next week. Last week he vowed to defy the Government decision if need be, claiming he would have strong case in law to do so.
“I’m still aiming to preview on June 25,” he told me, without specifying whether he intends to test the capacity limits. His line of argument is founded on encouraging scientific data: a recent UCL trial showing the efficacy of face masks, plus apparently positive feedback about the Government’s pilot mass gatherings events programme.
But it might not be necessary for Lloyd Webber, at least, to test the law. Tonight, Boris Johnson referred to him in his briefing: “I’ve got colossal admiration for Andrew Lloyd Webber. The entire theatre sector is one of the great glories of this country, and it’s broken everybody’s heart to see what we’ve had to go through. I bitterly regret the fact that we must be cautious again now. And actually on Cinderella and Lloyd Webber’s latest production, I think we’re in talks with him to try to make it work and we’ll do whatever we can to be helpful. As I said earlier on, there are some pilot events that we hope will be able to go ahead even in the next four weeks.”
In response, Lloyd Webber said: “My goal is, and will always be, to fight for the full and safe reopening of theatre and live music venues up and down the country. I was pleased and surprised to hear the Prime Minister mention Cinderella as part of his announcement today, but I can’t comment further on the proposed pilot until I know more about the scheme.”
Speaking on Tuesday, the impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who owns eight West End theatres, and whose production company has been preparing to bring Mary Poppins back to the Prince Edward from August 7 and Hamilton to the Victoria Palace from August 19, was measured in response.
“Since the announcement I have been examining along with my colleagues what it means. At the moment everyone is very hopeful that July 19 will be the end of it, but at the same time it isn’t a guarantee. What we are all doing as calmly as possible is discussing the pros and cons of the shows that are either in rehearsal or about to go into rehearsal and whether the timing is right. I don’t want to get into whether we are going to do this or that but, yes, we’re going to be discussing whether Mary Poppins is still possible under these circumstances.
“The decisions are going to have to be taken long before July 19 - we will have to make them over the next few days. At the moment, however optimistic Boris wants to be, it isn’t a cast-iron guarantee. We have lived through God knows how many Government u-turns, sometimes in the same day, let alone week or month. We have to take irrevocable decisions that land on our shoulders without any money having come back to help run our commercial theatres.”
Referring to producer Sonia Friedman’s warning that “the West End was sleepwalking to oblivion”, he averred: “It’s not the West End sleepwalking to oblivion, it’s the Government that’s sleepwalking into inadvertently creating an abyss into which the commercial theatre could easily vanish – because we don’t have certainty and we don’t have backing and we don’t have insurance.”
He continued: “I’m extremely cognisant that this is the most dangerous time for the theatre, having waited and waited and tried, some of us, to get things going before Christmas, now we’re trying to get the London theatre back and it’s an enormous logistical challenge. For it to be thrown into jeopardy by the last two or three weeks is a huge problem. We’re reaching the point of no return.”
As for the idea of pilot events as a significant way forward, he revealed: “I’ve spoken to the DCMS – they haven’t made any decisions about the pilots. It was a surprise even to SOLT because everyone thought they had done the pilots and the theatres had got a clean bill of health. We’ve all been rung up today by [DCMS] people saying can we do a pilot? For me, it’s a sideshow, it’s not to do with the problems we’re facing and the decisions we need to take.”
The country’s second biggest theatre-owner, Howard Panter, the director of Trafalgar Entertainment, is more openly scathing about the situation. “It’s devastating and disappointing. We’ve marched all these armies up to the top of the hill – we were encouraged by Boris who has said consistently that he saw nothing in the data to reverse his view that we will be unlocked on June 21. What, as an industry, were we supposed to do? He says: wait a bit longer, but the truth is we can’t wait a bit longer.”
His newly renovated Trafalgar Theatre is due to host a revival of Jersey Boys, and he is also co-producing another major musical, Anything Goes at the Barbican, the run of which is scheduled to begin on July 23. Will these shows proceed? “We’re in a real dilemma,” he concedes. “It’s a nightmare, because all these people have been employed, scenery has been built, the costumes have been made. Can we wait until mid July to find out whether to proceed? We’d have to think carefully even about getting to that point. Our huge fear is that they will say ‘We will look at it again… nanny knows best. ’ But nanny doesn’t know best. If restrictions remain into the autumn then it all collapses. I don’t think they understand.”
Hope has evaporated. “This is the worst day I’ve known in the business,” veteran producer Bill Kenwright confides. “We lived for the bubble, but the bubble has now burst.” He is poised to decide what to do with his two big summer shows: Hamlet with Ian McKellen, at Windsor, and the musical Heathers at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. “I despair,” he says.
Michael McCabe is co-producer of The Prince of Egypt, due to reopen from July 1 at the Dominion, and Wicked, returning in September at the Apollo Victoria. “It’s an awful position to be in, and if you’re a show that was due to open late June, early July without social distancing the news couldn’t be worse.” Only the size of the Dominion – allowing a capacity of a thousand even when capped – offers reassurance, but even then it’s short term.
John Brant, the producer of Come From Away, scheduled to open at the Phoenix Theatre on July 22, has a little more wiggle room than some, but not much. “Hopefully we will open as planned. But we’ve started spending money; we’re eating through the money we saved for reopening. This is our last pushback - during this delay we start full-on pre-production. So if they delay us again after this, then it’s very difficult for us because what do we do – stop everything? What can we do?”
Kenny Wax, producer behind the mid-scale West End hits Six and The Play That Goes Wrong (poised to return to the Duchess Theatre, with Culture Recovery Fund backing) is preparing to “hold my nerve. I’ve got no option, because shows are either in rehearsal or planned. For the bigger shows, the alarm bells should be clanging very loudly.”
The situation is disquieting if not downright bleak outside London too. Wax explains: “I’ve got venues on the tour of Six – Plymouth, Hull - saying they won’t even open if there’s social distancing. So some venues will stay dark. What do I do with the cast on my payroll?” Among subsidised regional theatres, the mood music is also downbeat. “Some difficult decisions may need to be taken,” says Chris Stafford, CEO of Curve, Leicester, while Joanna Reid of the Belgrade, Coventry, hails the news as “hugely disappointing.”
SOLT and UK Theatre chief executive Julian Bird said the delay had “serious implications” for theatres and performing companies around the country, impacting not just those preparing to open in the next few weeks, but those with social distancing which had planned to increase capacity - and producers “making the difficult decision whether to start rehearsals for shows due to open in late July or August, with thousands of jobs hanging in the balance.”
He added: “Particularly at risk are large-scale commercial productions, which have received little or no Cultural Recovery Fund support and cannot survive under social distancing. We urge Government to consider greater support for affected theatre organisations, by offering a tailored insurance scheme, allocating the remainder of the Cultural Recovery Fund, and extending full furlough and the Business Rates holiday.”
Producer Eleanor Lloyd (currently The Money, Witness for the Prosecution), and president of SOLT, found the Prime Minister’s statement lacking in the full reassurance necessary. “We’ve been hanging on every nuance - expressing ‘hope’ isn't the same as being ‘certain’.” She outlines the dilemmas: “Since March 2020 there have been several times when we have been told the end is nearly in sight, and here we are in July 2021. It’s really difficult because two weeks ago the message was ‘nothing in the data makes us think June 21 is going to be delayed’. So it obviously changes very quickly.
“That makes it very hard to make enormous decisions about whether to go ahead on the basis that it will only be July 19 and then it will all be fine after that. Most producers are trying to weigh up which one is the least worse option - is it better to plough on and risk the prospect of being fully or part rehearsed and not able to open a show, or is it better to postpone, take away the uncertainty but on the other hand maybe feel like you should have gone earlier? Doing nothing costs me money, doing something costs me money – I don’t know which is going to cost more.
“Witness for the Prosecution is scheduled for August 3. In theory that’s fine, but if we rehearse that show and it’s delayed further then I’m stuffed. I’ve basically got one chance at paying to get it up and running again. It will be the high six figures in terms of costs.”
She continued: “I think all the producers over the next 24-48 hours are going to be tearing their hair out trying to make an impossible decision – and nobody knows which is the right decision to make. It’s interesting: usually producers are good at working out what they think they should do; they call around and everyone has a sense of what the right thing is. Everyone has been speaking to each other over the last few days – nobody knows what to do.”
Theatre people are sometimes misjudged as hysterical drama queens. In fact, they’re mostly level-headed risk-takers with nerves of steel. But even the hardiest spirits are buckling after 16 months of sustained pressure. The news spells an artistic Agincourt in reverse. Usually we punch above our weight. Just a handful of weeks’ delay, amid the fog of political jaw-jaw, and the serried ranks of British theatre, which have stood their ground for so long, are cracking. This will go down as one of its worst days.