I Know That We're Gonna Dance Again

I've written about all the negatives over the past few months, so it seems only fair that I write something about one of the positives that has FINALLY happened.

On Monday morning, 1385 organisations received the much needed news that they had been successful in receiving a grant as part of the Culture Recovery Fund. For those that don't know, this is from the Government's 1.57 billion 'rescue package', that arts organisations applied for back in August. 
One of the organisations who received a much needed grant was my place of work, and my home: The Theatre, Chipping Norton.

It's a really strange thing when your place of work is so much more than that, and it actually is your home. If you didn't know, I essentially grew up in that theatre, and it has literally been my home from home for the last 18 years (and my full time employer for 6 and a half years).

The pandemic has stopped the arts in their tracks, and threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands (with tens of thousands having already been made redundant or forced to take employment elsewhere.) This funding has secured our staffs employment through the winter and into early next year, when we plan to reopen fully in the Spring of 2021. I think in reality that's optimistic (largely due to the government's shambolic response to the situation)  but we're planning and adapting to our ever changing surroundings. It's what we artists do: we look at what is around us and react.

Inevitably, not everyone was as lucky as we were. Two thirds of applications were successful, but that means that around 700 applications weren't. Which is really rough. There are organisations that are going to really struggle in the coming months, and some of them won't survive. And that's really hard. 

There was a way of getting all our venues through this if the crisis had been acted on sooner, and the Government had invested in us the way that we really deserve, but hey, we are where we are. If you have any money that you could donate to one of these venues, who will be frantically working out how they are going to keep going, you'll never know how much they appreciate your generosity. 

Herbert Kretzmer (the lyricist of Les Miserables) died this week. It's a real loss to the theatre community, but he truly left us with some of the most hopeful words in the musical theatre canon. If you're looking for a lyric about hope, there isn't one better than this:

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise"

I'll Shout And Start A Riot, Be Anything But Quiet

I'll be honest before I start: I have no idea where this is going, because where do you even start with the last few weeks, eh?

The world began to make a little sense again towards the end of July, and for most of August. Almost every industry was able to operate in some way. Theatre was able to happen outdoors, hospitality was able to operate and the economy began to move, with the infection rate staying lower.
We knew that it was unlikely that we were going to be able to operate like this for a long time, because the winter was going bring with it a second wave. We had been told this virtually from the beginning. But it didn't make it any easier when the false sense of security you've been lulled into started to get taken away again. With the introduction of the 'rule of six' and ever increasing local lockdowns, things are starting to become that much harder again. Add to that the cold, wet and short days, and I think we are in for a challenging time.

By the time that some of you read this, the decision will be out from the Arts Council as to who gets what from the emergency funding that the Government put together (basically the section of the 1.5 billion that has been given to ACE to distribute).  They have today  (Friday) announced a delay to this, due to an unexpected Parliment debate on the Arts, so we are in limbo for a bit longer.

My job's future literally relies on the outcome, and that's a lot to take in still. I don't think I've got to grips with the fact that this job I love may not be mine in a very short space of time. I know that it hasn't been mine for over 6 months now, but there was always the 'being able to come back to it' thing that kept me going.
Having spent the past couple of weeks in full-time (helping another department) and how having a few days a week for the next few weeks, it all felt a little 'normal'.  Who knows what's to come. 

But a lot has happened in the last few weeks that I want to address and put my thoughts against.

The Business Secretary has managed to get himself on my list of  "members of the Conservative Party who are absolute morons."

In a statement in Parliament, he discuss the way in which the Government will be supporting people from sectors that cannot currently work into new and different jobs, but more crucially, "better jobs."
Now, lets clear one thing up: I don't need you to help me get a better job. What I, and the hundreds of thousands of people like me, need is meaningful, substantial and  properly structured support to help us keep the jobs that we already have. It's just ridiculous that after seven months, they still haven't got their head around this. We are such a viable industry, we just need support now in this time before we can get going again. It's an investment. 

Our  theatre  industry is the second most popular reason people visit  this country, behind 'Heritage'. To question our viability at a time like this it absolute madness. The Government will be relying on us to help boost our economical recovery. We generate £6 for every £1 of invested funding. It is exhausting to still be saying this, at this stage into the pandemic. And yes, we fully appreciate that there is a pandemic going on. But we have ways that we can operate. You just have to help us with insurance and investment until we are back to full houses. We make six times more than we take from the Government. 

(That'll do on that, but do some reading on the stuff that's been said by Rishi Sunak too...)

It's been... tiresome watching the two most well-known members of the musical theatre industry fight it out over the last six months, and I've got my problems with both the approaches they've taken.

First the positive spin: Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Look, I would honestly rather ANYONE was trying to save theatre as much as Andrew is at the moment. It does his ego no good, the fact that he is the 'voice of the West End.' But the fact is he is the man with  the money and the loudest voice, and thus here we are. 

He's also the man who is actively doing the most. Take the pilot event that he pulled together at the Palladium with Beverley Knight performing. With the amount of equipment, technology and just sheer man power he put in to getting that to happen, it deserves all the credit. The first person to prove it can be done in some way. He continues to work with our useless Culture Secretary, providing evidence for Parliament and offering expertise where he can. He is less than perfect but at least he is trying. 

On the other hand, we have Cameron Mackintosh, who unfortunately has done nothing but show us just who he actually is. And that isn't a compliment. 

Cameron has decided that he won't be reopening any of his shows until there is a vaccine. Okay, I guess that's an acceptable viewpoint. But, we already know that even when a vaccine is ready, we won't all able to have it for at least 2 years. There's 65+million people in this country alone. But more than that, is he really going to do NOTHING with his shows until then? It just seems... odd. 

It's also been hilarious watching Andrew and Cameron indirectly jab at each other over the horrendously messy closure of Phantom in the West End during lockdown. The brief version is the cast were released from their contracts, because Her Majesty's Theatre (where it plays in London) is practically falling down and the show is still running on fixtures from 1986. Cameron released a statement saying the production was closed, Andrew came back with it wasn't and they would be bringing it back, then Cameron said it's done, then Andrew said it isn't and back and forth it went. Like two bickering schoolgirls, now ain't the time gals. 

However, my main problem with this man, is the fact that he made 850 members of staff redundant the second he was going to have to start contributing any money to the furlough scheme. He wouldn't even contribute the National Insurance and tax, which was the first month's contribution. And my main reason for being so angry? Cameron's net worth is the same amount (approx) as the entire Culture Recovery Fund. Let that fucking sink in for a minute. I'm sorry if people don't agree with being angry at that, but I am. That shit stinks. 

I think a lot of us (myself included) had decided to not pay to much attention to him and let the stories you hear be white noise because he produces a lot of fantastic shows. But I've kind of reached the point with Cameron where I have to seriously question my moral compass as to whether I can buy tickets to his shows anymore. The only place I can make my point noted is in not giving him my money. I have done the same thing with the Young Vic following Kwame and Idris being bellends over Tree and I have to truly think long and hard about whether I can see Hamilton, Mary Poppins or Les Miserables again...

On a more positive note, I'm becoming more and more impressed by Sonia Freidman as this fiasco continues to unfold. She has so far written two spectacular articles for the Telegraph, which I'd highly recommend reading - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/theatre-stands-brink-ruin/ and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/government-has-brazenly-announced-willingness-discard-mental/ . It's great to see someone articulate this all in a succinct and powerful way.

It's been really interesting, and incredibly telling to see what side of the court the big names would fall on throughout the pandemic. We've already talked about where Andrew and Cameron sit, and neither of their stances are hugely surprising. Nica Burns is reopening some of her shows, socially distanced, rather than making her employees redundant. It's an interesting stance to take, in the fact that she is going to working at a loss.
Sonia is working on the fact that she won't be reopening her shows until we are at Stage Five of the plan put in place by the Government, which sees theatres able to reopening without needing social distancing in place.
In reality, we are probably a way off being able to do that, but there are a number of things to say before writing it off as being years away.

Firstly, there is still no logical reason why you can sit packed in on a plane, but you can't do the same in a theatre. I know that in all seriousness you shouldn't really be doing either, but it's quite simply not fair to be doing one and not the other. We have the facility to make it as safe, if not safer being in the theatre. We have adapted to the every-changing situation and can continue to do so, but the only way that we are going to do that safely is with the capacity for full audiences.

Theatre isn't going to survive on social distanced audiences. There is about to be mass unemployment as the furlough scheme ends and theatres sit and wait for what money they might receive from the Culture Recovery Fund. There has already been one delay to the results of applications being announced (their reason: more people applied than we expected!) and the earliest any money is being distributed is December. November and beyond is going to be horrific. Some places are managing to do some business, but no one is going anywhere in great numbers.
As I've said before, the funding we've been allocated by the Government is going to mothball venues whilst they go down to minimal staff. It saves no jobs, and does not put theatres in strong positions to reopen. It's kind of like putting a plaster on a knife wound.

                Time to spin the dial a little bit, and move the focus from theatre to cinema.

You've no doubt heard the news that No Time To Die - the latest in the James Bond franchise - has once again shifted it's release date (this time to the Spring of 2021). This news is a devastating blow to a sector already struggling to get through the pandemic. 
With all blockbuster releases continuing to push their release dates because of the state of the world, the hopes of the industry were resting firmly on Bond, following Christopher Nolan's Tenet failing  to jumpstart cinema-going  back in August. Now, there is nothing set to be released of public-wide significance until early 2021. Even that is probably unlikely as things will continue to be pushed back.

As a result of all this, Cineworld (one of the UKs largest cinema chains) has announced potential plans to close all of its 120+ sites until sometime in 2021 when there are titles being shown that will warrant being open and being able to pay their staff. 5500 people look set to be made redundant due to this catastrophe. And to make that worse, employees found out on  the front row
I fully appreciate the situation that film distributors find themselves in: No Time To Die will have cost millions upon millions to make, and they want to make that back. But one film needs to take the hit for the sake of cinema's survival. Someone needs to go first, to ensure that we have an industry in which we have cinematic releases, big blockbuster films, and the movie going life that we know and love.

It's also interesting to note that I've been to the cinema twice since they reopened in July. Both times I have felt incredibly safe, and that is due to the extraordinary lengths that cinemas have gone to to ensure that they are covid-secure, but still enabling an enjoyable experience. The staff have outnumbered the audience both times, but there has been calm and personal customer service, with clear instructions on how they are operating.
They fought to be able to open at the earliest opportunity; whether that was the best decision remains unclear. But they opened in good faith, with an autumn/winter line up of films that was sure to be able to kickstart them to their former flory.

I wonder whether the closure of cinemas, and the dire situation they find themselves in, with move the needle on the theatre situation. Theatre is seen as something posh, rich people attend, whereas cinema is accessible for everyone (by and large). I hope that more people will stand up and shout at the inadequate support we have been given, and the way it continues to happen not fast enough.

Where do we go from here? The question I continue to ask myself every day. 

The only way is forward I think, as the world only spins that way. This has completely been a learning curve over the last few months, watching people you have admired and seeing how they have reacted to the pandemic (some admirably, some not). 

I think my plea for the next few months to you is this: theatres are going to do their absolute best to produce a Christmas show for you this year. Go and support them and see it. They are almost certainly doing Christmas Carol, but they will have thought about an exciting way they can do it. And the venues that you visit will be safe, secure, but most of all inviting. We are desperate to have you back in our auditoriums, in our bars, in our foyers and seeing live theatre. 

The bottom line is we need you to come and see our Christmas shows this year, maybe more this year than ever before. Our futures literally depend on how our audience numbers do this year. If you love your local theatre, cinema or arts venue, and have enjoyed being able to visit them these past few weeks and months, I implore you to spread the love with everyone you know. 

Hang on in there guys. 

I'll see you in the National Theatre foyer for a filter coffee soon ❤️xx