Richard Bratby

How real is the performing arts exodus?

Richard Bratby meets the music and theatre pros who've become shelf-stackers and drivers during lockdown, and finds many are enjoying it

A show that definitely won’t reopen until they know it won’t be shut down again: Hiran Abeysekera as Pi in Life of Pi, due to transfer to Wyndham’s from Sheffield Crucible. Credit: ©Johan Persson/ArenaPAL 
issue 20 March 2021

Think back 12 months to when you first felt the pandemic. Not when you first read about Covid-19, but the moment of impact — the lurch in the stomach as it hit you that this time, it really wasn’t going to be OK. For Emma Cook, a freelance stage manager on the John Cleese farce Bang Bang!, the moment came during a rare week off.

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