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
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.