Oh, what a performance
Britain’s theatres are dying on their feet. Now Andrew Lloyd Webber’s fighting to prove the show CAN go on — yet as SARAH VINE found at his Covid-safe staging, if the rules aren’t relaxed, the curtain may fall for good
There is much that is bafflingly random about the way lockdown is slowly being lifted. Why is it, for example, that I can fly to Torremolinos in a tightly packed metal tube, breathing in other people’s fumes for the best part of three hours solid — but am prevented from sitting in an air-conditioned auditorium?
It’s not just illogical, it’s absurd. especially given what’s at stake. Of all the things I miss about the old life, live culture is perhaps the greatest.
I mean, Netflix and the like are all very well and good, and have been great friends over the past few months — but still nothing beats the raw excitement of live performance, that moment when a dancer takes flight and your heart leaps with him, the way the orchestra tunes up in the pit, the flourish of a conductor’s baton, the sweat on an actor’s brow.
There is an intimacy and honesty to live performance that screen pixels, however slick, can never quite match, a human connection that feels so very vital — particularly now it’s gone.
There’s something else too, of course: If we don’t find a way — any way — of getting our venues open again and our audiences cheering, we risk turning our rich, cultural scene into a barren desert.
Venues will close for ever, thousands will lose the jobs they love, all that passion will be lost. There will never be another John Gielgud, another Darcey Bussell. Britain, a world leader in the creative arts, will lose an important part of itself. Not to mention a great deal of revenue.
All of which is why, on a muggy Thursday afternoon, I find myself battling my way through Soho to the London Palladium where, for the first time since the West end closed its doors in March, a live concert is about to take place.
NO, NOT some illegal rave or improvised gig — but a bona fide ticketed event, the wonderful Wolverhampton songstress Beverley Knight live in concert.
This matinee — by invitation only — has been organised by theatrical stalwart Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose LW Theatre group owns the Palladium. The aim is to prove to the Men from the Ministry (several of whom are in the audience) that our theatres can — and deserve — to re-open as soon as possible.
To say there is a lot riding on this is an understatement. London’s West end alone attracts a vast amount in tourist revenue. Last year it made £799 million, with 15.3million people flocking to the capital to attend thousands of shows. It provides employment for countless people and earns so much more for pubs, hotels and restaurants.
This is about far more than just a bunch of luvvies lamenting the loss of their livelihoods: it is the beating heart of the capital, and at the moment it’s flatlining.
Nor is it just London that’s at risk. According to Lloyd Webber, unless the Government offers clear guidance of when and how venues can reopen by August 1, the entire pantomime season — financial lifeblood of regional theatre — will not go ahead. Some theatres would never reopen.
But for now, here we are, in a theatre that would normally accommodate roughly 2,500 people hosting barely 600.
rows of seats sealed off, a oneway system, temperature checks. Instead of the normal pre-theatre hum of anticipation, a sombre, sober line of socially distant punters, tickets on phones, masks on. Inside, the atmosphere is nonexistent. It feels a bit like a party where half the guests have failed to turn up. Ushers are on hand with signs telling punters which way to go and what to do. The bar is open, but eerily empty.
Perhaps the weirdest thing is the complete lack of social interaction. There is none of that lovely warm buzz you get before a performance, and during the interval there are no huddles discussing the show, laughing and chatting.
As for the masks, they give the entire process a sinister air. I never realised how important being able to see a fellow human’s face is until today. I feel a little bit like I’m in an episode of Dr Who. It’s odd and rather draining.
Beverley and her band are, by contrast, crackling with energy. If it’s hard playing to a two-thirds empty auditorium filled with blank, masked faces, she isn’t letting on. red shoes, glittery jumpsuit and a voice that could fill 100
Palladiums: the woman powerhouse of positivity.
even so, it feels weird to be sitting alone, surrounded by empty chairs. I clap a bit and nod my head dutifully in time to the music — but feel stupid and exposed.
Others sitting in groups (people from the same household can sit next to each other) get up to dance, but again I’m too self-conscious to follow suit. At half time I is a order a socially distanced Diet Coke and crisps, and my refreshments are brought to me in a paper bag: one innovation I quite like.
But even that quickly loses it charm when I am reprimanded by a member of staff for not putting my mask back on in between crisps.
The second half of the show opens with a twangy version of Satisfaction (as in ‘I can’t get no’), somewhat apposite in the circumstances. But Knight is determined not to give up. Theatreland may be in an induced coma, but she’s damn well going to wake it up. She belts out a succession of soul classics, then delivers the tour de force: Memory from Cats.
Briefly, miraculously, the room comes together in a standing ovation. An occasion that has had all the joy sucked out of it by Covid suddenly feels worthwhile and alive again.
But Lloyd Webber’s message is clear: theatres cannot survive under these conditions. For any show to break even it has to run at least 70 per cent capacity. Today’s auditorium is at 30 per cent.
If the Government doesn’t give theatres and other venues the same freedoms as restaurants, pubs, gyms, tattoo parlours and the rest, they may never re-open.
And Covid, as well as destroying our sanity and our economy, will have also destroyed our culture.