It all started at the end of May, the week that the theatre world came together to highlight the scale of the crisis it faces in relation to Covid-19. It started as a trickle and ended as a flood – the Old Vic and Globe publicly declared they were worried for their very futures, the National Theatre warned of job losses, and playwright James Graham articulately outlined the challenges on BBC Question Time. The dire situation was encapsulated in an article from the highly successful producer Sonia Friedman, the title of which said it all: Theatre stands on the brink of ruin. Friedman argues that if there is no government rescue package then 70 per cent of performing arts companies might close and more than 1,000 theatre venues may end up shut, many permanently. Nuffield Southampton Theatres and Leicester’s Haymarket Theatre have already gone into administration. 

All of these announcements emphasised the contribution of the arts to society and, playwright James Graham in particular, the contribution of theatre to the economy. It is estimated that the performing arts is a £5 billion industry with cumulative audiences comparable to Premier League football crowds. Whilst pub theatres will not see anything like this kind of revenue or audiences, its part in the theatre ecology is beyond doubt, a fact acknowledged by actor Jason Watkins in a recent tweet.  

The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) have officially cancelled all performances until 28 June, in line with government guidance. But no one is under the illusion theatres will suddenly all reopen at the start of July. The government plan drawn up by Nickie Aikin published 2 June outlined a recovery strategy for the opening of West End Theatre.   This document says that we 'need an aspirational timetable to being big events back so theatres, hotels and restaurants can plan and forecast for Christmas – one of the busiest times of the year'.  Pub theatres are obviously affected by restrictions to pubs as well as theatres, not least because most are only accessible through a pub. The government published a Roadmap on 11 May outlining when various businesses and organisations might reopen. In that document both pubs and theatres were to be part of stage 3 through two taskforces, one focusing on Pubs and Restaurants, the other on Recreation and Leisure. These were not expected to reopen before July. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to capture all the nuance in the debate around the end of lockdown and ‘returning to normal’. The simple answer is that no one knows for sure. One thing is for certain, however, there will be no full return to normality unless there is a vaccine, which even optimistic estimates are saying could be at least a year away. So, two things guide any changes in the meantime. One is the current infection rate and the other is testing (and by extension track and tracing). The fall in registered daily deaths has led to the initial easing in restrictions recently and informs the next stage of reopening certain businesses and activities. And with better testing, and track and tracing of those that have, and had, Covid-19, it is more likely that the virus can be contained. Yet even so, it appears social distancing, i.e. keeping at least two metres away from someone who is not from your household, will remain in place in some form until a vaccine is found. And it is this that has so many detrimental implications for theatre.    

Is social distancing even remotely viable in an arts venue? Well, the VUE cinema chain seems to think so and is setting out plans for socially distanced cinema in from July. But cinemas screens are (compared to most pub theatres) large and, with attendances in decline, are often not full to capacity. Therefore, it may be possible to have smaller audiences and still be economically viable. Pub theatres are much smaller. The Kings Head Theatre, one of the larger pub theatres with a capacity of 100, was the subject of a feature on BBC London News recently. Demonstrating how the two metres distancing might work there, they concluded the venue would not be able to hold more than 20 people per performance. 

There are various other initiatives that might help theatre under social distancing, echoing the VUE model, such as performing shorter work to small audiences multiple times in one evening so that the daily audience figures are not too small. This sort of innovation might help keep pub theatres open and bring some money in, but it has drawbacks, such as the demands on performers.  

However, the virologist Dr Chris Smith, quoted by the BBC, has been very pessimistic about how realistic social distancing will be at arts events and believes that 2020 will need to be written off. 

A touring production of Phantom of the Opera in South Korea would not be normally be the subject of much discussion in the London theatre world, but it is drawing interest at the moment. It has stayed open throughout the pandemic. Audience members have their temperature taken beforehand and are required to wear masks, and the staff wear PPE. If a member of the audience, crew or staff tests positive everyone who attended is traced and required so self-isolate for 15 days. Yet the pandemic has been nowhere near as severe there as it has been in the UK, with only 300 registered deaths. However, it could be a model for theatres in the UK to reopen when infection rates fall, and a vaccine has not yet been rolled out. But pub theatres would still face unique challenges as smaller spaces that are part of /joined to another venue.

Pub Theatres are deeply embedded in their physical space. They could attempt to perform elsewhere, e.g. an open space, during a transitional time, but it feels that this would have very limited programming, perhaps one play a season. Another alternative is streaming. The National Theatre and Hampstead Theatre have been among those venues providing free streams of previous work from the archives, requesting only voluntary donations. Not many pub theatres have been able to invest in high quality recordings of performances in the past, although the Finborough streamed a recording of its award winning It is Easy to be Dead recently. There have also been smaller scale online events, such as a reading via zoom of the play Paper Cut by Andrew Rosendorf at Theatre503 for its writing group. The play had been rehearsed but the theatre had to close before the first performance. Those lucky enough to see this exciting performance were surprised at the emotional punch that could be made via Zoom. Yet, going forward, it might be harder to rehearse work from scratch whilst social distancing.

Pub theatres will await the next government announcement about reopening businesses and spaces, but none will expect a reopening soon or will desire to open before it is safe or practical to do so. Whilst pub theatres do not have the same overheads as larger theatres, funding will become more of an issue. As major figures in the theatre world make the case for a theatre bailout/investment, pub theatres, due to their key role in the theatre ecology, need to be part of this discussion.    In response to that, SIT, The Society for Independent Theatres has issued a statement on behalf of Independent fringe and pub theatre venues  supporting a request for Government financial intervention in the light of the current Coronavirus crisis.  This is supported by a survey of 54 member venues which gives evidence of the contribution that pub theatres and other off West End venues make to the industry as a whole.    

SOCIETY OF INDEPENDENT THEATRES - MAY 2020 SURVEY

BASED ON 54 MEMBER VENUES

44 VENUES IN LONDON / 10 VENUES OUTSIDE LONDON

1 Annual turnover (including ticket sales) £ 46,600,000.00 

2 Annual spend with suppliers (excluding fixed overheads) £ 26,400,000.00 

3 Value of venue's presence to local economy £ 233,400,000.00 

4 Estimated deficit in turnover due to lockdown £ 14,000,000.00 

5 Employees / Freelancers / Volunteers / Actors / Technicians 36,200

6 Number of seats 9,950

7 Total annual tickets issued (numerical) 2.1 million

8 Annual number of different productions 4,340

9 Total annual number of performances 21,050