Last weekend, Six the Musical opened at the Lyric, two doors down, and was almost impossible to get a ticket for, so excited were punters to see the queens reign again. The Bush, the Bridge, the Hampstead, the Garrick, the Dominion — all have opened shows in the last fortnight (the Dominion last night — tonight will be its last) to high demand, after what can only be described as a superhuman effort to make their buildings Covid-safe; to set socially-distanced rehearsal protocols; to devise staggered entry times and new systems and relaxed refund policies to half-sized, fully-masked audiences desperate to get back into their slightly uncomfortable seats. The financial implications have been well covered. Commercial theatre has received less than one percent of the much-lauded funding made available to the arts. Even just that short list represents hundreds of people —fired just before Christmas, as if we were in some implausible festive movie without the heartwarming resolution. But what breaks my heart is the blood, sweat and tears — the sheer gargantuan effort that all the arts, from theatres to cinemas to museums, have put into making the absolute best of a horrible situation; into getting back on their feet, only to have the rug whipped out from under them.
