Coronavirus will have a huge impact on theatre and film - Tony Earnshaw

It was Richard Attenborough who persuaded me that films should be watched on a big screen, in the dark, with an audience of like-minded people.
By Tony Earnshaw
Published 20th Mar 2020, 13:31 BST
Henry Filloux-Bennett, artistic director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in Huddersfield, has spoken about the impact coronavirus is having on theatres.Henry Filloux-Bennett, artistic director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in Huddersfield, has spoken about the impact coronavirus is having on theatres.
Henry Filloux-Bennett, artistic director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in Huddersfield, has spoken about the impact coronavirus is having on theatres.
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The real enjoyment of movies, he said, was in the collective experience.

I was reminded of his comments this week when a friend used the term “economic devastation” to describe what the arts has begun to go through – and may never recover from – as the UK shuts down under the spectre of Covid-19.

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The effects were brought starkly to life via stats provided by Henry Filloux-Bennett, director at Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre. Via Twitter he outlined sales for the last four Mondays.

A month ago the LBT shifted tickets worth £4,154. This week the total was £27. “This is what regional theatre is facing,” he wrote. Theatregoers and cinemagoers are facing something cataclysmic, and venues are facing something they haven’t faced before.

Live theatre needs audiences. And even when it doesn’t – thanks to the technology of National Theatre Live – it needs audiences in regional arthouses and multiplexes. All that may soon be lost to us.

The British film industry has long sought to flex its muscles in the face of bigger rivals. First there was Hollywood, always glitzier, more glamorous, and festooned with cash. Then came television, when entertainment could be sent direct to mass audiences in their homes. In the 1970s studio production dried up as foreign financing went home. The industry took years to recover and, when it did, the likes of Richard Attenborough were upfront and centre in its revival.

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Theatre has had its ups and downs, too, not least from the scrutiny of the Lord Chamberlain who, for 230 years, had government sanction to censor plays and prevent them from being seen. But from Shakespeare and Marlowe via Osborne, Pinter, Stoppard and Ayckbourn, it’s always been there. Always. A constant. The coronavirus may succeed where that bizarre combo of Hitler, Hollywood, TV and the Lord Chamberlain failed: keeping stages and screens dark.

Are we really at risk of losing a way of life that has been our entertainment for a century – or, in the case of theatre, for centuries?

Whatever remains after Covid-19 has stripped away the financial foundations of our entertainment palaces, they will be much, much different to what we have now. Sadly – nay, tragically – I don’t have much hope that it might be fixed.

Related topics:CoronavirusHollywoodCovid-19Huddersfield