Getting recreation and leisure up and running again.

It's no different to countries allowing you to enter with a negative test.

How exactly do you expect anyone to prove they don't have COVID at any given time? If that is the benchmark then you may as well not ever go out of your front door. Expectations cannot be set so unrealistically high. It is up to individuals to decide if they want to take a risk.

Surely having to have a test before going would make theatre even more elitist than people already claim it is - I imagine it would have to be paid for so that plus the ticket prices will put it out of reach of even more. Full plaudits to ALW for all he's doing to try to get theatres up and running in a viable way.

It's bittersweet seeing all the things being announced that ARE going ahead - wonderful to see theatre back in some form of course but for me it's slightly depressing as I'm on a paycut with redundancies looming so can't spend money on anything extra at the moment. Still good to know that if things work out there will be theatre to see at the end of it.

But a negative test doesn't last a week in reality - a friend works in the testing units and said that you can test negative one day and positive the next depending on how long the virus has been in the body so being negative Monday doesn't mean you are when you enter the theatre on Friday!

Yes it is, in individual situations, otherwise the only solution is for no-one to ever leave their house.

Where you have a risk that cannot be eliminated entirely, like a virus without a cure, it will always come down to a risk assessment of individual circumstances and the only people who can decide whether they are willing to take the risk of doing something like going to the theatre in their own circumstances is each individual, COVID test or no COVID test.

That is exactly what we are all doing right now in terms of going to restaurants! The only way to avoid that is a blanket ban on any form of social gathering, or indeed even going outside. Life is all about assessing risk in every aspect of it.

I had a few dates with a guy who asked me if I wanted to go to WW. It was a very short relationship.

I do agree with you, really I do. But I do feel that you speak from the position of a younger person whose risk factor is lower (and I’m sorry if I’ve made assumptions about your age or state of health). 

And while young, healthy people are skipping around assessing their risk, finding it is low, socialising and seeing fab theatre there’s potentially a significant number of people who can’t do that because the risk for them is so much greater. These may be people who buy the expensive seats which subsidise the cheap ones. 

So while I do think theatres should open to the (privileged?) young and healthy performers and customers who feel happy to take the very small risk (to them) it’s a bit of a selfish model to adopt. 

I understand where you are coming from, but actually I think that yours is possibly the more selfish attitude to adopt, as it is the one which has the inevitable consequence of higher unemployment and more businesses and industries going under, which will ultimately cause more damage. You are saying that because some people are vulnerable then the economy can **** off, to use your expression. That is probably more harmful in the long term than risk-assesssed re-opening. There has to be a balance.

I entirely appreciate that some people are higher risk and that is why I specifically said that it is for every individual to assess their own risk, and that will obviously include the risk to those around them. There is only so far you can feasibly take that as no-one can legislate for the people they come into contact with on the street, who have (however reluctantly) chosen to be out as well. I have to get on a train to work, and have to decide if I am in a position to take the inevitable risk. That is simply a symptom of the world we currently all live in.

We are going to be living with this virus for potentially a long time, so although it may seem harsh I'm afraid the only viable option is for industries to continue cautiously opening up with everyone assessing their own risk. Anything else and the country will grind to a halt, it just isn't economically or socially viable.

That's too bad, christya. Fingers crossed that you'll be able to do something this year. I'm not sure my mum's group has any ambition to reach concert standard; it's more about companionship, and having a bit of fun on a Friday morning.

Should anyone be interested, a total of 29 made it to the park yesterday. I hope the Council haven't aided and abetted in any CV regulations being broken! "We're going to need a van with low floor access, Sarge." 🙂

By the autumn won't it be just a little too late? Shows take months to prepare, why hasn't he been working on this already?

Wow! That's sudden! Thank God they did it just in the nick of time before all the pantos were cancelled and thousands of people lost their main source of income for the year...

It was too early to be able to do this before now, it's a simple as that. I'm sorry that many panto and musical productions had to be cancelled already but they were clearly not in a position to be able to move forward with these plans before now. It's unfortunate but that's just how it happened.

Many theatres and producers should be in a position to still put something on over the festive period if this plan proves accurate and so it is better than nothing. It might not be the full scale pantomimes and musicals they were planning but we could see perhaps old ready to go productions revived or Christmas concerts and the like, which would be very beneficial to everyone involved.

I know my local theatre had things ready to go at short notice even in the summer if they theatres could suddenly re-open so i'm pretty sure that theatres and producers are equally prepared for the festive period. It was already announced that social distancing in theatres was going to be reviewed in November so any producer or theatre worth their salt should already have a plan up their sleeve for November and December at least.