Streaming can’t match the sheer magic of live performance
On March 13, 200 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the UK, and I was meant to go to the National Theatre. A friend, reviewing Robert Lepage’s The Seven Streams of the River Ota, had suggested that I come as her plus-one. But on the morning of the performance, she emailed to ask if I wanted to change my mind about spending seven hours in the company of 900-odd theatre-fanciers, some of whom would inevitably seize the opportunity to cough.
I considered how many other chances I might have to see Lepage’s epic and wrote back to say I wouldn’t miss it for anything. The house lights had scarcely gone down before a fellow in the row behind developed a maddening sniffle, but fortunately neither my friend nor I fell ill. The memory of that night has sustained me during the surreal months that followed.
When I look at the list of events I had planned for early summer, they read like the record of a different person’s life: Rembrandt at the Ashmolean, Cézanne at the Royal Academy, Sunday in the Park with George the Savoy Theatre.
A curious paradox has emerged since my valedictory trip to the National Theatre. The arts have rallied magnificently during our confinement, streaming performances that we might never otherwise have seen, alongside initiatives such as the pianist Igor Levit’s Twitter concerts.
At the same time, there has been a flowering of amateur artistry, unseen since our greatgrandparents made their own entertainment with drawing-room recitals. Meanwhile, the leaders of the great arts institutions that are national treasures – theatre, ballet, art, music – warn that loss of ticket sales spells imminent ruin.
That sinister phrase, “the new normal”, has implications for so many imponderables, from the experience of university students to the audiences of live performance. Vastly grateful as we are during lockdown for online versions of what we might, in different times, have experienced in person, this period of virtual culture has served mostly to confirm that there is no substitute for face-to-face performance – that spontaneous, imperfect, magical connection between artists and their audience.
Come springtime, as
Chaucer observes in The Canterbury Tales, “than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages”. Caught between the Scylla of annual leave entitlements, the Charybdis of quarantine restrictions and the nameless doom of setting off for some picturesque UK destination, only to find it heaving with like-minded tourists, the most restful solution seems to be a vacation taken locally.
The British are a nation instinctively inclined to exploration, rather to the detriment of our local beauty spots. In Greenwich, where I live, barriers to block the visiting crowds go up every weekend, to the chagrin of local residents.
Now that we are allowed to venture further afield, the time has come to fulfil my long-cherished plan of exploring the less fashionable bits of nearby Kent. While the hordes converge on trendy Whitstable and Margate, I plan to head for Romney Marsh, where I spent childhood holidays learning to swim in the chilly, mud-coloured waves.
We may yearn for a beaker full of the warm south, but in these exceptional times, bleaker may be better. read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion