Page 252 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

“Zoom auditions are difficult if you’re singing in student accommodation – the walls aren’t the
thickest and you don’t want to disturb people,” he notes drily. Three of the shows he joined were
kiboshed by the new lockdown. “It was weird going from being very busy to nothing at all, except
work,” he says.

“The majority of my time is spent in my room. Sometimes you think: where can I really go from
here, who can I meet, what can I do? There have been times I wanted to go home.”

Still he counts himself lucky – earlier in the term, restrictions eased to allow in-person rehearsals
and he took part in a one-off freshers’ showcase. “It was really nice. There were four of us, with a
distanced audience of about 40 people.” No post-show party, though, and he hasn’t been able to
meet the cast in person since.

Looking across the year since Covid hit, Gabbie Sills, president of Durham Student Theatre – who
was to have directed two plays this term (one scrapped, the other postponed) – estimates that 70
shows have been either cancelled or postponed out of the usual 120. Theatre rehearsals were
allowed to proceed after the playhouses were closed again on November 5, but that rule doesn’t (it
gradually emerged) apply to non-professional theatre. Many of the surviving planned Durham
shows have been rescheduled to next term, though there’s no certainty that things will improve
until spring. “I don’t think anyone is holding out too much hope,” Jones says.

“There has been a soul-destroying lack of clarity to government guidelines,” rails John Livesey,
Oxford University’s drama officer. This term at Oxford, theatre activity has been reduced to a few
online bits and bobs. “It’s heartbreaking to be honest,” he says. “Usually there are about 30 shows
this term but zero have gone ahead in the usual way.”