a year ago theatres in england closed their doors because of the pandemic. in that time the theatre world has lost income of around 200 million pounds. many theatre workers are freelancers and a quarter of them have gone out of business. our arts editor will gompertz has spoken to four performers who ve had to change jobs to make ends meet. music: there s no business like showbusiness theatre, one of the great success stories of britain s creative industries but this time last year the bright lights of the west end went dark. theatreland s professionals suddenly found themselves unemployed and needing a plan b. i am a freelance and as well as the show, i also do a range of other kinds of playing such as concerts and recording sessions and tourism things like that. as well as the show closing, all of that went up in smoke. so all of your income has disappeared? yes, exactly. these guys here were looking for an extra pair of hands and they kindly agreed to take me on. in fact
petrol or diesel car, would you be prepared to swap it for a bike or take the bus instead 7 a scheme s begun in coventry where people can hand their vehicles over to be recycled in exchange for credit to spend on more sustainable modes of transport. our business correspondent katy austin has the details. it s the end of the road for this car. it was sent here deliberately by its former owner. but why? let s reverse a few days. we met mohammed, who owned that 15 year old diesel for four years. after, you know, the lockdown has kicked in, i have been mainly working from home, five days a week. so, i m not using the car as much. he decided tojoin a trial in coventry. owners of cars over ten years old can give them up and get cash for other forms of travel. they are offering £3000 worth of credits, which you can use to travel by bus, train, taxi. authorities in the west midlands are behind this scheme, using funding from a government grant. the idea is to get 250 cars off the
and as for gamestop, well, it s now looking to move its operations digitally. its share price is still incredibly variable. in february, it s been between $40 and $200. casper and matt believe what happened shows what the internet can do through collective action. i think from now on the hedge funds are going to have, in their risk models and prediction models, there s going to be a new line item in there, like, hey, watch out for this everyone ganging up on us and grouping together scenario. that s never happened before. without the internet, that would be impossible to accomplish that. john s investment was relatively small, but he lost most of it. i don t think any, like, change has come out of this. that s been pretty apparent. i hope people see that, i hope everyone who gets screwed over does see that no one s coming to bail them out and changes aren t being made to help the little guy. if nothing else happens, i hope people get educated
hey, watch out for this everyone ganging up on us and grouping together scenario. that s never happened before. without the internet, that would be impossible to accomplish that. john s investment was relatively small, but he lost most of it. i don t think any, like, change has come out of this. that s been pretty apparent. i hope people see that, i hope everyone who gets screwed over does see that no one s coming to bail them out and changes aren t being made to help the little guy. if nothing else happens, i hope people get educated around that and just, like, learn a lesson. and gavin says he ended up making $40,000. there is this kind of assumption that a lot of people who are on wallstreetbets were just there to, like, make a political point about hedge funds, but actually there were lots of retail investors that were there to make money, like you. yeah, no, definitely. i would say, as much as people say that they wanted to make a point about hedge funds, at the end of the day,