What now for live theatre?

‘Socially-distanced’ theatre is not an option for the big production establishments in Courier Country. David Pollock finds out more about their plans after lockdown

Ask any of the people in charge of the big producing theatres in Tayside and Perthshire about “socially-distanced” theatre, and they roll their eyes. Especially when you mention the photographs which emerged at the end of May showing the Berliner Ensemble’s plans to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 lockdown by taking 70% of their auditorium seats out.

Thanks to these images, a perception seems to have emerged among sections of the public and the media that this will be a great way for theatres to get back on their feet as quickly as possible. Yet speak to those who run our local theatres – which include among them some of Scotland’s most well-loved and acclaimed stages – and they’ll tell you nothing could be further from the truth.

“You know, I really wish that image had been sent back out again, annotated with what the state subsidy for theatre is in Germany, and what people pay for tickets there,” says Lu Kemp, artistic director of Perth Theatre.

“It’s one of the most misleading images I’ve seen in recent times.”

“It’s a practical solution, but is that really why we go to the theatre, or to see dance or music?” asks Andrew Panton, artistic director at Dundee Rep, who doesn’t hold much love for the radical German model for these times of emergency.

“It’s for the shared experience, isn’t it? It’s the assembly, the bringing together – the heat of people’s bodies and hearing the gasps, it’s all of that. You’re part of something that’s completely unique and will never, ever happen again the way you’re seeing it, that’s why you’re not at home watching Netflix. I don’t think I’d want to sit in a theatre that was socially distanced like that, it would be soul-destroying for the artists and the audience.”

Public funding is in many ways the key to the survival and recovery of the nation’s theatres in Scotland and throughout the UK, but this country is an outlier in terms of how much of a public utility and good it views theatre, and how deserving it is of this funding.

Even in pre-pandemic times, there seemed to be a disconnect in people’s minds between the experience of attending a theatre and staying in to have a comfy night on the sofa with a streaming show instead – not realising that a great many of the actors, writers and directors making their favourite shows owe their very careers to a start in theatre.

Liam Sinclair, the executive director and joint chief executive of Dundee Rep Theatre and Scottish Dance Theatre, points out that – in Europe – the average public funding for a buildingbased

You’re part of something that’s completely unique and will never, ever happen again the way you are seeing it

theatre company is somewhere between 85-90%. His organisation, with a building and two major producing companies under its roof, gets 57% public funding (48% from Creative Scotland, the rest from the city council), and across the UK this is considered high.

Elsewhere, Horsecross Arts – the