01 Sep 2020
Our Barmy Britain tour took us to Battersea Power Station last week, where the Turbine Theatre had created a stage at the end of a jetty with spectacular views of London and the Thames. It was a breathtaking venue that was a sheer delight to perform on. The audience felt like they were in touching distance and one of the joys of outdoor theatre is you can see everyone’s faces. One family enjoyed it so much on the Wednesday they came back on the Saturday. It ended a shattering fortnight after the Drive In at Enfield. I can safely say that performing in a car park is the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done. The energy required to fill the space and make contact through windshields saps every ounce of vitality within you. But seeing hundreds of people step out of their cars to applaud was so invigorating it kept us going. We’re now heading towards an autumn schedule that will take us back into theatres, albeit with a socially distanced audience. It will feel like a blissful novelty after six months without indoor theatre. My own guess is that normality is not going to return until at least 2022. Once again, I hope I am wrong, but my guess back in March that we wouldn’t be touring our bigger shows until next April at the earliest is proving awfully accurate. I have no idea how our industry is going to survive another year of this. Theatre will always find a way but the myriad companies that make up the theatrical industry will be stripped down one by one. There is a very long way to go.