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 it's actually something i find really satisfactory. i'm enjoying the work. i like working with my hands. and even learning skills i would like to develop in my own time perhaps alongside music. # i'm patiently waiting, passionately smashing. every expectation... my mum actually originally she bought me a canvasjust before the lockdown because she knew i would be by myself for some time. i started doing mandalas. i had a lot of support from friends and people saying i should sell this artwork. are you making an equivalent amount of money? no, nowhere near an equivalent amount to what i would. it's a small business, so supporting small businesses is important for so many people in our industry. immediately, i needed ajob so i started looking and i started looking at supermarkets and i couldn't even get past the online interview, so i've been selling flowers. and i love flowers. so you have got my fair lady, eliza doolittle so i have turned into eliza doolittle. i get very tempted to say, "go on, buy a flower from a poor girl." # one more day before the storm myself and my fiance actually applied for 26jobs. _ i reached out to my best friend and he said look, | i can help you out. and get you working. so i have been qualified - as a sparky's mate and we're building commercial. and domestic work up and down from sussex up to london. - the government's current road map out of lockdown anticipates allowing theatres to fully reopen again injune, which if it happens, is likely to put a smile on a lot of people's faces. will gompertz, bbc news. now on bbc news, it's time for our world. there's this narrative that this was a david and goliath story. it's all of these hedge funds, like yours, against the people — and the people won. i'll put it this way. if a 5—year—old walked into this room right now, i could probably kick his ass. take me down. just being honest about it. goliath story? uh, you know — no! something happened this january that no—one expected. it was a little bit like an internet revolution. we were team human, team normal, regular guy. it's united capitalists... for everything that's gone gone on for the last few hundred years on wall street. ..socialists. .. if there was a smaller chance that i could have a direct impact — on ruining some billionaire's life, i wanted in on it. ..and youtubers. so how much did you make? um, $40,000-ish? the idea that an internet forum could take a failing company and by collectively investing in it, or to use the parlance, "taking it to the moon," take on hedge funds and win, seemed impossible. houston, if that's not the earth, we're in trouble! but was this really a people's revolution? iiis is noi— a david—versus—goliath story, but more of a goliath—versus—goliath story. the gamestop story is the story of its investors, and we'll be telling it through the experiences of three amateurs in california who all buy and sell their shares using trading apps. gavin may, a 19—year—old youtube star, parkour enthusiast and amateur online trading guru. do you sometimes wonder why people listen to a 19—year—old who's been trading for, like, six months? yeah, no, totally. that's definitely a very valid question. john motter, who works for a homeless charity. he blames big finance for some of la's housing problems. have you ever bought any shares before? no. first time? first time. and casper and matt who run a social media marketing company. i'm a gambling guy and i really believed in the power of memes and i put my money where my mouth is. a year ago, gamestop to many was a business slowly dying. it sells physical games at an actual shop, and many on wall street thought that that business model wasn't just outdated, it was prehistoric — a business doomed to fail. its share price this time last year was around the $3 mark. over the summer, though, a few investors began to proselytise about gamestop. people like the then—obscure youtuber keith gill, many think it's a foolish investment, but everyone�*s are wrong! they argued that far from being dead in the water, gamestop had potential. gamestop is an established, uniquely positioned player in a thriving $150 billion gaming industry. one group in particular was listening. an internet message board called wallstreetbets. so could you just describe to someone who's never been on wallstreetbets, roughly what the culture is? yeah, i mean... it's hard to do it without, um, without using offensive terms, but it is veryjuvenile, very subconsciously absurdist. their favourite thing to do is something called "loss porn," where you share your biggest losses. and everyone will be like, "hey, man, goodjob!" like, "you lost $1 million, good job, man!" sort of the nature of the sub is, like, riskier bets. - i can't tell, like, what'sj a meme and what isn't. but all those meme posts| are feeding into the larger goal of getting as many people to buy stocks as possible. - slowly, gamestop started to get a buzz, and gradually the share price began to tick up. this is the first official close above $14, so cheers to that shit! so i first read about gamestop through the subreddit, wallstreetbets. i think the first time i bought in was late november to early december. i think the stock price was around $16 back then. gamestop�*s share price had attracted the attention of another kind of investor — short sellers. hedge funds that thought gamestop was overpriced. hedge funds like citron capital, founded and run by this man, andrew left. i'd known gamestop for a long time. to me it looked like they were following the blockbuster video path. and then all of a sudden we found out in december, while the industry was actually up — the video game industry had their best month ever, december of 2020 — gamestop actually had a bad quarter, or a bad month. they were declining, and that was supposed to be their saviour month. and that's when i started to short the stock. left�*s hedge fund was now one of the many hedge funds that were shorting gamestop. essentially, they were betting that the share price would fall. if it did, they would make money. but that had also been noticed by people on wallstreetbets. gamestop happened to be one of the names that was most frequently shorted. they'd worked out that if gamestop�*s share price went up, hedge funds would lose money. and many users on the platform came up with a theory that went like this. if enough of us were to buy together, in conjunction, could we create a short squeeze which would force some of these hedge funds who are betting against gamestop io ciose — out their position by buying gamestop back, and therefore pushing the price of gamestop even higher? wallstreetbets is a forum on san francisco—based reddit, one of the biggest social media companies in the world. and watching on was its chief executive and founder, steve huffman. i've known about wallstreetbets for years. wallstreetbets is in fact one of my guilty pleasures on reddit. was there a point where you were like, huh, this is a bigger story than i thought? on wallstreetbets, there's often a couple of stocks or companies that have their attention. and so over the years, it's been tesla, it's been virgin galactic, it's been blackberry. and so in my mind i'm just browsing reddit, gamestop, ok, gamestop�*s got their infatuation right now. so i was actually a little bit late to the party. i didn't realise reddit had leaked into the real world again. so it was really at the take—off of the mania, i was like, ok, this is a bigger one. by mid—january the price of gamestop shares was nearly $30, a tenfold increase from eight months before. it was about to go stratospheric. i got the champagne. cheers, congratulations, look at this shit! look at this shit, 60%! when did you start thinking, oh, dear — something's happening here? well, i was about to go do a twitter live feed. and i think like 150,000 people would sign on in the first few minutes. remember that line from jaws — "i think i need a bigger boat!" it's about this point when gamestop shares truly took off. ridiculous, ridiculous. ridiculous, argh! i remember that day. i think we opened at, like, $39 and at the peak of the day it was $76. watching this chart gives me heart problems, i swear to god. we both bought between, what, $70 or $80? around there. newsreel: gamestop had another wild day of trading. _ and it was ridiculous. we were texting each other all night. there was a couple of good mornings... a couple of really good mornings, yeah! newsreel: gamestop isn't stopping. - fuelled by social media, i the video game company... all the money you had in the world was doubled? yeah, crazy. in just a few hours? completely crazy. and that was only, like, the first of five days of craziness. gamestop was going to the moon. the price was going up and up and up. there's more and more activity, more and more news, more and more attention. newsreel: the video game retailer hit a high _ of $380 a share... gamestop was now in uncharted waters. its share price had increased by 100 times since march. we have gamestop hitting $300 and $350, and there was even an after hours session when the market was closed, but you know, especially large institutions can still trade, where it hit $450! i bought in at around $330, a first share. so i was a latecomer. word got out there was a good chance the hedge funds and billionaires that got greedy, and bought those enormous short positions, were going to be completely ruined over this. and so, even if there was a smaller chance that i could have a direct impact on ruining some billionaire's life, i wanted in on it. steve huffman was looking on. he had the power to switch wallstreetbets off. was there any pressure on you to maybe lock down wallstreetbets ? we faced that question, that literal question — is there pressure, should you do something? but our motivation, or what we were trying to do, our duty in the situation was actually the opposite, to keep wallstreetbets online. so we did take a closer look here, but really, we were making sure the community didn't break. were coming to reddit for that experience. with reddit keeping wallstreetbets up, it now seemed unstoppable. can i ask how much you lost in total? no. imean... i think the fund was down approximately, i don't even know... 18%, i9% —18%, possibly. how much is that in cash terms? i won't discuss that. that figure is certainly in the millions, and likely the tens of millions. rule but then something happened. one of the biggest trading apps, robin hood, based in san francisco made a crucial decision. it another in san francisco made a crucial decision. itanothertrading decision. it another trading apps decision. itanothertrading apps were happy for people to sell shares but they decided to restrict people from buying them. ., ., , restrict people from buying them. . . , them. that really took the wind out of the _ them. that really took the wind out of the sales _ them. that really took the wind out of the sales for _ them. that really took the wind out of the sales for the - them. that really took the wind out of the sales for the whole i out of the sales for the whole movement because the majority of the people can't buy the stock and obviously a lot of people started freaking out a little bit. robin hood's reasons. or another words, they were running less money. we don't answer to hedge funds. we serve the millions of small investors. serve the millions of small investm— investors. and it basically started falling _ investors. and it basically started falling back - investors. and it basically started falling back down | investors. and it basically l started falling back down to earth — started falling back down to earth. then it fell to the 200s and1005~_ earth. then it fell to the 200s and 1oos-_ and 100s. the clue to robin hood's branding _ and 100s. the clue to robin hood's branding is - and 100s. the clue to robin hood's branding is in - and 100s. the clue to robin hood's branding is in the i and 100s. the clue to robin - hood's branding is in the name. and to some, they protected the ridge. it and to some, they protected the ridie. ., , , ridge. it happened right in front of your _ ridge. it happened right in front of your face. - ridge. it happened right inj front of your face. no-one ridge. it happened right in - front of your face. no-one can front of your face. no—one can say anything. that's when we were thinking, we give brands and companies a voice all the time, let's try and give the little guy a voice to something we are passionate about. you decided to — we are passionate about. you decided to fly _ we are passionate about. you decided to fly a _ we are passionate about. you decided to fly a plane over robin hood's offices in the bay area. ., , robin hood's offices in the bay area, ., , robin hood's offices in the bay area. . area. robin hood catching the brunt of this, _ area. robin hood catching the brunt of this, they _ area. robin hood catching the brunt of this, they created - area. robin hood catching thej brunt of this, they created the irony for themselves. they cashed in on the brand image of democracy. so the average man can participate. that typically, they had closed out of. as soon as the little guy starts to win some chips at the table, they have to shut down again. table, they have to shut down aiain. ., , ., again. one of the things that came u- again. one of the things that came up time _ again. one of the things that came up time and _ again. one of the things that came up time and time - again. one of the things that| came up time and time again that the financial systems were rigged to benefit the rich. much of that seemed to stem from the 2008 financial crash. known was held accountable, the banks were bailed out. i couldn't get a job, i couldn't afford housing at that point. you can kind of see on the post, the difference between the means and the jokes and the person who is like, this is for my immigrant parents, the people who ruined my dad �*s business. there are a lot of ernest posts. it's notjust socialists who think that. jordan belfort was a vocal supporter of wallstreetbets. his financial crimes were characterised in the film the wolf of wall street. and that's a real wolf? that is a real—life wolf that was there at the time. he went to prison, but claims now to be reformed. when i got indicted and went to jail, never once did it occur to me that i was innocent. seriously, i neverfelt like i was persecuted. i got what i deserved, i trusted the institutions that put me away in jail, i did my time, and i got out and i rebuilt my life. most people today don't trust the institutions that are essentially meting out justice. they watched what happened in 2008, and we all saw the movie the big short, or at least many of us did. at the end is a funny scene — "funny" — where the say, "and all the bad guys went to jail." and it's like, ha ha, just kidding, no—one went to jail. and we laugh or at least smirk because we know it's true, but in our stomachs, it's not right, and we know it. and it erodes the trust of the people. so i think you find a lot of people right now, they just. .. they know it's not right. by early february, the share price of gamestop tenth of its market high, and on the way down people lost a lot of money. casper�*s shares were at one point worth around $100,000. he sold a few, but he hung on to most of them, he says out of principle. on the way down, his shares decreased in value by more than $60,000. i could have made a little bit of money, but i think the experience... i think some people are going to be mad that i'm saying this, but i think the experience was worth it, you know? i don't really get too attached to the gains until i've sold. john motter bought high. he says he only invested what he could afford to lose. but many others bought high thinking gamestop would go to the moon and lost big. i do think that there were many who strongly believed that they could drive the price up, and it would just stay there, and it would stay up, forever. and the only thing i can think of that functions that way has been bitcoin. gamestop didn't behave like bitcoin, though, and many people holding onto their shares were being egged on by other reddit users, whilst others were selling. there were definitely people trying to get everybody whipped into a frenzy so they could cash out. so you're constantly saying you're taking it to the moon, while at the same time, yourself, trying to divest. it's easy to forget that there's really millions of people on here that aren't commenting, all they have is a username and theyjustjoined it and they're just reading along and making their own decisions. reddit is like i the definition of confirmation bias. because the way the i platform works is that content gets served - to you based on how many upvotes it gets. so people have to agree with you for your- content to reach the front page. i so that means you're only - going to hear from the people who are saying whatl people want to hear. you're only going toi hear from the people who are diamond—handing it. right, so if someone said, "do you know what, guys, i think we should sell up now..." no—one's going to like it. no—one's going to like it, so, it's just the more extreme funny stuff that gets upvoted, and you get that false that's so interesting. yep, exactly. i asked reddit�*s boss whether he felt any i think any trade, any trade, notjust a risky one like that wallstreetbets is known for, has risks. but it also has opportunity. and i think it's important that individuals have that opportunity. like, i don't think we as a society should be so paternal to say that, well, this group is smart enough to make these decisions, but this group, you know, we should keep them out. and nobody goes to wallstreetbets thinking that this is a safe place to spend money. gamestop has been characterised as a wallstreetbets vs wall street battle. but we didn't interview anyone who thought it was as simple as that. i suppose the question is, was this a people's revolution? well, it certainly started as a people's revolution. and then i'm sure it would be onl logical that any shrewd, large investor would say, "hmm, look what they're doing, let'sjump on that bandwagon." and i think the important thing, and what makes this dangerous, is those sophisticated investors that got in on the back are smart enough and sophisticated enough to know when to get out of the situation, while the little guy is typically the one that ends up holding the bag. and that's very dangerous and sad. tantalisingly, what could have happened is hedge funds taking aim at other hedge funds. this narrative that it was just wallstreetbets that moved it, i mean, a lot of other people think, uh, no, it must have been much biggerforces at play. obviously there was a short squeeze, obviously it could well have been hedge funds trying to screw over other hedge funds. sure, absolutely. really? you think other hedge funds were doing that, potentially? i mean, if you saw an opportunity to make money, it's legal, it's fair. go buy stock, it's an open market. what's without doubt is that wallstreetbets helped to start things rolling. but much larger financial players were also heavily involved. people using robinhood and people who are not large institutions, are not registered financial professionals, are a bigger part of the market than they've ever been. they're about a quarter, 25%. but they're still a small player, relative to the biggest institutions. and so when you see a price movement from gamestop at $18 all the way up to $325, it's very unlikely that the only people that are buying and driving that price up are the retail traders, just by virtue of their size in the marketplace. so what just happened ? was this something extraordinary, did something change, and could it happen again? you're going to find that the large institutions have already made changes in their policies that pretty much prevent these extreme situations from happening. i would be certain that right now, there is not a chat board out there that any hedge fund doesn't have their people in there in every single chat, watching everything that's going on. andrew left says he'll think twice about shorting in the future. did i lose money on gamestop? yeah, i took it, i moved on, i have many good years left of me in the stock market, i hope. you don't think that's what happened will make people more nervous about shorting? of course it will. no, no, of course. 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 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. 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 they all wanted to make some money. what's clear is that trading apps have transformed the financial system. trading's become more democratic, but conversely, it's also become more risky — exaggerating the highs and the lows. the story of gamestop, then, is both inspirational and cautionary. if this was a revolution, it was one that had its casualties, of some investors who reached for the moon and didn't quite make it. hello. tuesday brought us a very mild day across the uk. in fact, for wales and scotland, it was the warmest day of the year so far, and widely, we had temperatures in the mid to high teens. this is how we ended the day in north somerset. the warmest spor was pershaw in north worcestershire where temperatures got just shy of 18 celsius. it wouldn't be quite as mild as we look to the course of wednesday. at another largely dry settled day for many of us there'll be spells of sunshine around on wednesday. publishers dominating in england. on wednesday, we start off as the chilli node. perhaps wales as well. through the day, the card will thicken, bringing a few splashes of rain to parts of east anglia, the south—east, a few showers. blowing over cold sea surface temperatures. temperatures only about nine or 10 degrees around the east coast. about 14, 15 celsius. i cloudy skies but some sunshine breaking through. again, across parts of eastern england the few showers. 13 or 14 celsius. winston rotating, will start to come in from a more north—easterly direction. you can see colours pushing and across parts of southern and eastern england. a bitter changes look towards the end of the week. drawing colder air in across the south—eastern third. a fair amount of cloud. 13 degrees with the likes of glasgow and norwich. it's going to be that southeast, north—west split. where you are exposed to that. it's going to be chilly for the likes of dover. welcome to bbc news, my name's mike embley, our top stories: a decade of conflict in syria, we revisit aleppo and hear the testimony of those whose lives were torn apart by war. the eu's medical regulator remains convinced astrazeneca's vaccine is safe, despite more countries suspending roll—out of the covid jab. the benefits of the astrazeneca vaccine in preventing covid—19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death outweigh the risk of the side—effect. brazil marks a record number of covid deaths, as medics in several cities call for a national lockdown. in a world first, uber drivers in the uk will be classed as workers, not self—employed, with big implications