OUTRAGE AT COVID: THE MUSICAL
JUST what planet are these arty types living on?
With tens of thousands of corpses piled up in morgues, Christmas cancelled and Britain facing a never- ending lockdown, one theatre producer wants to stage a MUSICAL based on the pandemic.
Theatreland darling Tarquin Jarvis says that his new show – provisionally called Carry on Corona – is a “light- hearted romp”.
Speaking to a theatre trade website Jarvis trilled: “There is only one way we are going to get through this hell, darling, and that is through art.
“COVID may destroy the lungs but art is medicine for the soul. We have already written a couple of numbers and a couple of scenes.
“It would be simply glorious to get a big name involved – someone like Una Stubbs or dear, dear Russell Howard. Isn’t he just simply divine?”
But former theatre critic Hampton Lavelle blasted the idea.
The drink- sodden hack raged: “I have never heard of anything so preposterous in all my years reporting the West End.
“This is even worse than Jarvis’s plan to do a musical based on the Raoul Moat affair. Thankfully, that was shot down very early on.”
Mercifully, the tasteless production may never be actually staged – and we have COVID to thank for that.
The effect of lockdown means that no theatres may be open to stage Carry On Corona.
Last week gargoyle- faced theatre impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber said the industry is “at the point of no return” and that it would be economically “impossible” to run venues with social distancing.