Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily that is e-mailed to subscribers every morning (to subscribe, send message to ShentonStageMailingList@gmail.com), and is also available online here.

The West End’s escalating COVID crisis

As yet again we head into another COVID crisis in the UK, with rising infections, hospitalisations and deaths, it is appalling to see the inaction from the West End and its governing body the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) — who have, since “Freedom Day”, flung their doors open to full houses and basically left it up to them whether or not they even wear masks, with only some venues checking for vaccinations or current negative tests.

Washington Post theatre critic Peter Marks has been in town, and his tweets (and warnings) to his US readers are salutary indeed:

As he tweeted:

During his stay he also tweeted this:

And this:

Actor Stephanie McKeon (currently playing Elsa in Frozen at Drury Lane) tweeted this yesterday:

At a (COVID denying) country pub in West Sussex yesterday, I saw this — the public equivalent of the advice that SOLT give to theatregoers:

And yesterday Peter Marks summed up his Lonon trip thus:

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS….
My weekly THAT WAS THE WEEK column, rounding up my columns and tweets of the week, plus those of others, is here: https://shentonstage.com/that-was-the-week-that-was-october-18-24/

TODAY’S THEATRE BIRTHDAYS
Theatre Birthdays (OCTOBER 25): Glynis Barber, 66 (pic: in BEAUTIFUL at Aldwych Theatre, 2015); Phil Daniels, 63 (pic: in James Graham’s THIS HOUSE at the National Theatre, 2013); Dominic Droomgoole, former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, now Classic Spring Company, 58