The Week in theatre in London, the regions, Broadway and beyond from May 9-15
As Britain moves to the next stage out of lockdown tomorrow (and theatres re-open, at least partially, to socially distanced audiences again for the first time since December), Boris Johnson has already been sounding the alarm that he may not be able to move to the planned full lifting of all restrictions from June 21, after all.
Theatres have, of course, been making their assumptions on the basis of the original roadmap laid out in February being honoured. But even as vaccination roll-out has happened successfully, we are still far from out of the woods; and with new, far more rapidly spreading variants of the virus arriving on our shores from India, yesterday’s papers were reporting Sage’s warnings that the further lifting of restrictions was likely to “lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisations (similar to, or larger than, previous peaks).”
The Times reported,
“Modelling for Sage suggests that if all restrictions are lifted as planned next month, a variant that is 50 per cent more transmissible could lead to 10,000 admissions per day, and possibly up to 20,000, even if vaccines worked just as well. At the peak of the pandemic in January, the highest recorded daily hospital figure in England was 3,768.”
All of which could throw all the plans for the summer theatrical rebirth way off-course.
I’m personally seriously looking forward to being able to return to the theatre this coming week, even though my husband and I are also realising our plans to finally relocate to the countryside at the end of the week, too, about ten miles from Chichester and ten miles to the nearest beach [pictured above is the entrance to our cottage!].
At least I’ll be somewhere tranquil and beautiful if our glorious hoped-for summer of theatre doesn’t materialise after all; though for the sake of all our theatre workers, and freelance staff, I hope we at least manage getting some of the activity back.
And of course I am also longing to return to my beloved New York, where Broadway is set to begin re-opening from September 14 onwards. Right now, of course, British citizens aren’t being allowed INTO America yet; so we’ve just cancelled plans to head there in August (when we were hoping to make our annual pilgrimage to Provincetown).
But meanwhile, I’m trying to remain hopeful, but cautious, about what the future may bring.
SUNDAY MAY 9:
- My column is my weekly That’s the Week That Was feature for May 2-8.
- Sunday in the Park with Mark(s) (yes, my husband is called Mark, too)
- Seth Rudetsky Concert Series: tonight’s guest is Christine Pedi
- The Mousetrap discount offer
MONDAY MAY 10
My column for today is here.
- Sadiq Khan announces new domestic tourist initiative from the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe:
- New show from Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures:
- Touring news:
- Casting announcements:
- Off-West End Festival News:
- Broadway News:
- Scott Rudin tweet of the day:
- Theatre picture of the day:
- Broadway poster out-takes:
- Patti LuPone interviewed:
- Jackie Weaver trends on Twitter (again) — makes a change from John Barrowman, this week!
TUESDAY MAY 11
- My column for today is here.
- Happy 40th anniversary:
- West End News:
- Touring News:
- Broadway News:
- Casting news:
Interview of the day: Olivia Williams
Theatre book of the day
Provocation of the day:
WEDNESDAY MAY 12
- My column for today is here.
- New season at English National Opera
- West End castings:
- West End charity single/video for Indian COVID Relief
- Festival News
- Broadway News
- Off-West End news
- Podcast of the day:
- Interview of the day: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Daily Mail fail of the day
- Scott Rudin tweet of the day
THURSDAY MAY 13
- My column for today is here.
- Lockdown news
- West End news:
- West End/Broadway news:
- Off-West End news
- Regional news of the day:
- Broadway theatre news:
- Theatre book of the day
- Desert Island Disc throwback of the day:
FRIDAY MAY 14
* My column for today is here.
- New theatre announcement of the day (or year or decade, probably)
- Covid news of the day (that may affect some of what follows):
- West End news of the day
- Tweet of the day related to the above set of news
- More West End news
- Broadway News
- Off-West End news of the day:
- Touring news
- Streaming news:
- Broadway news: will this happen in the West End?
SATURDAY MAY 15
- My column for today is here.
- Variety can’t tell the difference between theatre and film screenings
BIRTHDAYS OF THE WEEK
SUNDAY MAY 9:
MONDAY MAY 10:
TUESDAY MAY 12:
THURSDAY MAY 13:
FRIDAY MAY 14:
SATURDAY MAY 15: