Picture: Johan Persson
We could have been born with a love of television or comic books or 1930s radio plays. That wouldn’t have been quite so bad. But no, Dionysus, god of theatre, took one look at us and decreed: “On top of the worldwide suffering and loss from Coronavirus, you are to spend the 2020 pandemic almost entirely deprived of the artform that brings you the most joy.” He’s a mean drunk, that one.
But when good ol’ Bacchus takes away with one hand, he gives with the other. He bestowed upon theatre artists a stunning make-do spirit and as a result, in small but glorious bursts of brilliance, the show has gone on. Here are some highlights from the last year.
Recorded live shows:
Some of the first theatrical responses to the pandemic were from producers who made films of their shows available to stream online. Fans of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 composer Dave Malloy were treated to three of his lesser known shows: a 2008 irreverent and inventive adaptation of Beowulf; 2011’s enormously fun, Rasputin-based Beardo; and the original 2015 cast recording of Ghost Quartet at New York’s McKittrick Hotel. The last of these came just months after that show’s sublime London premiere at the Boulevard Theatre had closed, thus providing a precious link to the recent past. It is free to watch on YouTube and I have done so at least once a month since its release. It might the best thing on that entire website, cat videos included.
Another streamed show to celebrate human connection, albeit in a more theatrically traditional way, was Rachel Wagstaff and Richard Taylor’s Flowers for Mrs Harris. A recording of a performance at the Chichester Festival Theatre was made available to stream in April. Judging by the online response it wasn’t only me reduced to tears by that overwhelmingly beautiful final scene.
One personal highlight for this category was the online premiere of David Bowie and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus that marked the fifth anniversary of his untimely death. Long before discovering the genius of Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert and Sullivan, I grew up with Bowie’s music on repeat. Attending the London production a half-decade ago, it was revelatory to hear his music reconfigured for musical theatre. That the story was so much weirder and more moving than a typical jukebox musical made the show even better. This film version was produced with a professional sheen and artistic flair, giving hope for the viability of musical theatre as a filmed medium.
And, of course, there were the big-budget offerings. Lloyd Webber has ramped up his internet presence throughout the pandemic in an effort to save the medium that made him his fortune. His company was very quick off the mark to release a series of musicals on YouTube as part of The Shows Must Go On! These included filmed performances like the arena recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, and also free streams of feature films such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
This onslaught of musical theatre blockbusters did a fantastic job of whetting the appetite for the Disney Plus recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s game-changing Hamilton. The original Broadway cast film was made with no expense spared over a number of live and audience-less performances. The result is a polished but still exuberant and vital record of one of the most significant shows of recent times. Given its success, hopefully we will see more such documents of musicals made in the future.
Elsewhere, the inspirational Chickenshed Theatre presented many shows online over the lockdown including fresh takes on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Rapunzel.
Actual live shows:
It seems strange now, but last summer there was a great deal of optimism that normality might return after just a couple of months of lockdown. The announcement of Opera Holland Park’s new outdoor staged reading of A Little Night Music was hugely exciting, and the show itself a cathartic demonstration of the tenacity of live theatre. The rain did not let up for the entire length of the show, but not a single attendee was complaining as co-producer/star Janie Dee stepped out into the deluge to perform a masterful ‘Send in the Clowns’.
Picture: Alex Hinson
With indoor venues mostly unviable, it has been particularly heartening to see the emergence of new performance spaces in the great outdoors. Early pictures of a new venue in a forest in Thorington, Suffolk look particularly exciting – especially as it will be opened with a new production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods – but even in the big cities, outdoor theatre has experienced a small renaissance. I particularly enjoyed trips to The Eagle’s repurposed beer garden for excellent productions of Fanny & Stella and Pippin last year. Stripping theatre back to the bare bones often makes you appreciate it anew, and that was certainly the case with these simple but excellently executed productions.
London’s premier outdoor performance space might well be Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Their summer production of Jesus Christ Superstar was as gripping and moody as when it premiered in the Barbican pre-pandemic. Even in broad daylight and rain with actors forbidden from touching, the cast’s stunning performances and the newly-distanced choreography made for a stunning time at the theatre.
One of the most striking outdoor spaces in the country is Cornwall’s Minack Theatre. Over lockdown they managed to stage a number of fantastic events, including a brilliant production of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years – a two-hander musical that is perfectly suited to social distancing restrictions. Look out for that title again in this article!
A particularly creative solution to lockdown was the invention of musical theatre drive-ins. The West End Musical Drive-In saw performances from some of the biggest names in British musical theatre, including Layton Williams, Lucie Jones, Alice Fearn, Emma Hatton, Shan Ako, and 12 previous cast members of Six the Musical. Excitingly, these concerts are returning in April.
When theatres did open their doors again – under very strict restrictions on performance and audience capacity – one of the hottest tickets in town was Sasha Regan’s all-male production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. We wouldn’t all be here on this website if we didn’t love sitting down in a beautiful theatre and watching a talented cast perform brilliant musicals. To have that back, if only very briefly, was a precious, wonderful thing. That the show itself was a hilarious tour-de-force was icing on the cake.
Another major indoor event last year was the premiere of the wonderfully-titled Sleepless: A Musical Romance at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre. This adaptation of the romcom classic starred Jay McGuiness and Kimberley Walsh will hopefully go on to enchant more audiences once the lockdown ends.
Streamed shows:
Then, of course, there were the theatre-makers who seized the opportunity to push the envelope and try something new. The brilliant cast of Showstoppers: The Improvised Musical entertained us with a series of streamed shows that were always hilarious, as well as being seriously impressive demonstrations of witty improvisation.
Lambert Jackson was one of the first production companies to embrace the new medium and put out exceptional streamed work almost immediately. Leave a Light On was a series of concerts featuring the West End’s biggest stars, captured giving incredible performances at home. We were blessed when the series continued in 2021. Their production of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years was a very successful experiment in filmed performance and creative video editing, and last year they also streamed an energetic and heartwarming production of [title of show] from a rehearsal room at the London Coliseum.
All of that without even mentioning a stunning virtual production of another Jason Robert Brown classic, Songs For A New World, which began online and transferred to the London Palladium for one of the most memorable experiences of the whole theatre lockdown. We hope to see that production live once again, but in the meantime the company keeps offering more delights, the latest being a new filmed production of BKLYN – The Musical this month.
Last year, the Bristol Old Vic staged a run of Emma Rice’s Romantics Anonymous, but instead of filling their auditorium with punters, they set up cameras and live-streamed the performance around the world on a virtual tour. The luscious but quite traditional show worked surprisingly well in this new medium and if this production ever sees a re-release, I am certain it will be streamed by theatre-lovers for years to come.
Also impressive was Hilmi Jaidin’s Shift+Alt+Right, which was based on the world of online video games and was performed and streamed live from a humble London flat. Director Adam Lenson’s technical innovations included impressive live graphics work and the show – as well as being enjoyable in its own right – showed the exciting potential of this new medium, even without the enormous budgets of some big-name production houses.
Lenson deserves praise also for continuing his Signal concerts – which have been beautiful celebrations of new writing for some time now – online. These showcases are streamed live from various locations in a feat of quite remarkable technical achievement, and there is always something interesting, exciting, or even world-changing on offer with every show.
Another champion of new writing has been London’s Union Theatre, which streamed a fabulous filmed version of Peter Polycarpou’s Falling Stars to acclaim from audiences and critics alike (presented by Thomas Hopkins and Michael Quinn for Ginger Quiff Media in association with Guy Chapman and Bailey Harris-Kelly). Ginger Quiff Media and Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre were also responsible for the excellent Godspell 5oth Anniversary Concert.
Picture: Pamela Raith
In addition, Cirencester’s Barn Theatre put on a series of streamed concerts celebrating the country’s most exciting contemporary composers. For those in the mood for a reminder of the classic musical theatre they miss, the venue also streamed a wonderful production of the Sondheim love song revue Marry Me A Little and, more recently, the innovative new digital event The Secret Society of Leading Ladies.
The previously mentioned Hope Mill Theatre is often to be found on the cutting edge and the creatives there have embraced streaming technology for filmed productions, not least by presenting their production of Rent, the run of which was cut short by the Covid lockdown.
As the vaccine is rolled out and we work our way out of (hopefully) the worst of this pandemic, we are seeing more and more masterful visions of online theatre. Fresh from streaming what might be my personal favourite interpretation of The Last Five Years (an Aria Entertainment production which sadly had to shut down in-person performances twice due to the lockdowns), the Southwark Playhouse have put their streaming expertise to excellent use again with several productions including the compelling Stay Awake, Jake and the magical new musical The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Leicester Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome’s stunning The Color Purple (following the huge success of Sunset Boulevard) also shows the streaming potential of even the most well-established theatrical shows. That show packed an enormous emotional punch and the brilliant camerawork made you forget that you weren’t in the room with the superb performers.
Picture: Pamela Raith
Beyond these works, it has been wonderful to see widespread dedication to keeping theatre alive. The BBC’s recent Musicals: The Greatest Show hosted by Sheridan Smith featured performances of beloved songs and was enjoyed by millions on both radio and television. Websites such as Thespie and stream.theatre have established themselves as the go-to hubs for streamed content, and there have been myriad exciting new web series from The Theatre Café’s The Theatre Channel, as well as the fascinating behind-the-scenes interviews of In the Wings on YouTube.
There is a magic to attending live theatre, but after this year we are going to have to stop using our understandable urge to protect that magic as justification for making theatre less accessible. The most casual of glances at YouTube and Tik-Tok will reveal an incredibly passionate audience for any musical theatre bootleg or scrap of show that doesn’t cost a couple of day’s wages and a trip across the country to enjoy. In the crucible of this awful year, we have forged a hundred new approaches to presenting theatre remotely. It would be good news for all if a show no longer disappeared completely when its run ended. Things will be different, but I look forward to celebrating the magic of theatre with people from all over the world online, as well as in person in the auditoria we hold so dear.
Ian Bowkett
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