In retrospect, we look naïve. The afternoon of Friday 13 March 2020, I was signing a deal with a regional theatre. That evening, I welcomed a packed press night audience to Jermyn Street Theatre, the West End studio which I run, to see
The Tempest, starring Michael Pennington as Prospero. By Saturday, as France slid into lockdown, I was rethinking my planned Parisian getaway, and our reviews for
The Tempest were coming out.
Sunday saw plans made and remade at breakneck speed, leading up to the now infamous moment on Monday, a couple of hours before curtain-up, when the prime minister advised the public not to go to theatres - invalidating insurance at a stroke. We performed to sixteen people that night. The next day, we crept back into an eerie West End to film and audio-record the production. That night, on an empty train home to Cambridge, I wondered when I would return to London. A fortnight? Six weeks? The answer was July. I also wondered how long it would be before an au