Pantomime producer Michael Harrison has vowed to try and save the five productions he has lined up that have fallen into Tier 3, as he criticised the government for its lack of leadership. The producer had 10 pantomimes lined up through his company Qdos across the country, including Pantoland at the Palladium.
Five of his planned productions fall into Tier 3 areas, including shows he had lined up in Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Stoke and Nottingham. A Qdos production is also planned for Birmingham, which is in Tier 3, but is not due to open until January, with Harrison hopeful the situation may have changed by then. Speaking to in Novemeber he said it was worth “taking a beat” to see what can be done in areas that are in Tier 3, and added that doing so could save jobs.
“We have been used to rescheduling and replanning all year and that is what we are doing now. We are not letting everything sink and we have the fortune that we can move some things around and, for the ones that are affected, we can try and make sure that we can deliver as many in some shape or form as possible,” he said.
Harrison said he and his company were carefully “working out what might be possible” including what will have to be cancelled and what can be moved.
“We want to take a beat to work out what the other options are and it’s worth taking a beat as that can protect jobs,” he said, adding: “It’s worth not making quick decisions, so we can see if any rescheduling would work to protect everybody who has already put an enormous amount of effort in. It’s just worth surveying the landscape and seeing what we can do.”
However, he criticised the guidance from the government as “appalling”. He added: “There is no joined up thinking at all. To go into lockdown, and and encourage rehearsals to keep going and then to announce a tier system is crazier than many of the scenes you will see in one of my pantomimes.”
He said he had written to 48 MPs and to the Cabinet to ask them to make theatre shows exempt from the restrictions, prior to today’s announcement about which areas had fallen into Tier 3. “I was asking for exemption on the basis that non-essential retail can open and gyms. Why can you march around the Trafford Centre in Manchester but you can’t sit socially distanced within your own family bubble wearing a mask in Manchester Opera House for a 75-minute pantomime with no interval in a building that has had tens of thousands of pounds spent on it to make it Covid-secure?”
He revealed that in London the Palladium pantomime is being reduced from a capacity of 1,200 to 1,000 to fit in with new restrictions on capacities for indoor events.
“That effectively means we are sold out but its the most dissatisfying sell out I have ever experienced in my life,” he said.