Feest Isolation Days –17 June
The sun was shining and the evening was glorious! Just as I started to set the table outside for dinner…the rain arrived! Some things never change. England in the summer means rain and intermittent sun. The weather is so important to us at the moment. We can’t meet indoors with our friends so we must sit in gardens. How does this square with people standing in long queues where socially distancing appears to be a thing of the past? It doesn’t – pure and simple. Too many people seem to think it is all over and all they have to do is wear a facemask and they are safe. Let’s see what happens over the next few weeks. All of Europe seems to be reopening. Restaurants in Paris are open for indoor as well as outdoor meals. And they don’t even have the rain to contend with!
Yesterday on my bike ride, I saw some older drunken tramps using benches and tables that belonged to a closed restaurant as they drank their cans of beer. Yet they were still socially distancing! Amazing to see. They weren’t sober but they were sane.
We had planned a theatre event with our theatre pals in a few weeks time and were delighted to discover that Matt Smith and Claire Foy were going to do a two hander at the Old Vic in London. Lungs. The Old Vic website said that all the patrons would be seeing the same thing but tickets would cost between £10 and £65 per household. They planned to sell 1000 tickets which represents the number of seats in the Old Vic. Of course the only tickets left were £65. Neither we or our theatre pals thought we wanted to spend that sort of money to watch two actors socially distance on a bare stage without an audience even if it was the Old Vic. The theatre got it so wrong! We would have happily spent £20 or so as would our friends. Many more people could have opted to see the play as well. Why limit it to 1000 people?
Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the award-winning playwright, reckons streaming shows to your own living room during lockdown “just isn’t theatre.” When “you watch a streamed play you might as well be watching television,” he adds. I agree! Still, I would have been happy to support the Old Vic and give it a try. It’s not theatre but they are trying to pretend it is. Someone got that one wrong! However, several days were “sold out”. Maybe Alan and I underestimate the public’s need for theatre?
Theatre folks are struggling and the profession will no doubt be one of the last to return to normal…whatever that will be. But theatrical folk will be waiting in the wings to make theatre again, somehow, somewhere. Because that’s what these lovely folks do. Let’s hope that it’s sooner rather than later. With the lack of social distancing around we may require more, not less entertainment in a few months time! Maybe it’s time for a letter to the Old Vic!
With love
Kathy x