Getting recreation and leisure up and running again.

Regrettably, the PM announced a significant loosening-up of planning regulations this week to permit commercial properties to be converted to residential with the minimum of paperwork. The grand old dames like the Palladium will be safe, it's the more modern and less-loved theatres that might be at risk where developers have got their eye on prime sites.

Through it might be a different type of consumer - a need to attract domestic audiences if tourism to London - especially from outside Europe- settles at a lower level than before.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53282476?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment_and_arts&link_location=live-reporting-story
do the words "cat" and "pigeons" come to mind?

Though he still said about getting them open "covid secure", which, unless what that term means changes, would seem to point to no actual change in the situation?  So, we can only hope that the ALW trial impressed enough to make them agree to a different version of "covid secure" than before.

Also I notice beyond saying that "we will do everything we can to support the events and arts industry in the meantime" he didn't, again, specifically promise a financial package.

Hairdresser!!!!!

That's never going to happen. 

Any  of it.

This is an (ahem) encouraging sign, isn't it?

I am feeling quietly confident that next week we can expect some form of announcement on both the possible reopening dates of theatre and also some form of financial support. Although as I have stated before if the finances are announced as part of the Chancellors statement on Wednesday and not as separate announcement I think that it’s is unlikely that size of the financial package will be as large as we would all hope for. I also feel that whatever happens the industry is going to be very different when we come out of this, as the Chancellor has said he can’t save every job and this along with the fact some of the companies have used COVID as an excuse for a restructure means that change is inevitable.

My main concern now is how we get shows up and running, having spoken to Producers of various scale shows, all are of the opinion that even when the Government gives the green light for the reopening of shows nobody wants to risk there money on being first out of the gate. I am pleased to see that the Mousetrap is preparing to open in October and it will be interesting to see what the audiences are like when this returns, but I hear that most of the West End will follow Cameron’s Mackintosh’s lead and wait until they feel certain the audiences will come. If the smaller venues that mainly produce new productions have no Producers and backers we could end up in a situation where the Government says that we can open, but yet we still don’t open because nobody wants to take the risk.

For many years the respective unions have done sterling work in eliminating low pay and no pay from our industry (and I support that) but it occurs to me that the only way we may get some shows to open in the short term in smaller venues is to spread the financial risk. So I am interested to hear from professionals what they would think of a temporary (say for 6 months from when the Government allows opening) period when small scale venues would be allowed to do fully open book profit share productions. No comp tickets for anyone, no papering of seats, everyone who watches the show pays and the profits of the show are split evenly between everyone including the venue. I know that money is tight for all of us and we would all like to return to proper wages but it seems to me that it might be the only way of getting shows open. What are the communities thoughts?

In case anyone thinks that it is about money, maybe look into the issue of contracts to source PPE. A chocolatier, a pest control company an employment agency with a few hundred quid in assets, shady tax avoiders and so on,

If theatres had moonlighted as crony capitalists, they would have had millions given to them.

That’s the government we have.

I’ll be interested to see how the forthcoming package measures up against similar ones in other European countries,