Living Spit’s The 6 Wives of Henry VIII socially distant in the Bristol Old Vic foyer.
In this, my first experience of live theatre since March I could not help thinking of the film Back to the Future. Is this really the way that theatre is going to be staged in the future? Will we be forever either looking longingly over our shoulder at the way things used to be, or hoping that something turns up in the years to come to change our present predicament? This run of shows was already intended by Living Spit’s Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin as a fond farewell to this, their first show, but they didn’t count on Lockdown 2.0 limiting this run to just two nights at the venue where it was first premiered.
The show has been reviewed before, notably in StageTalk Magazine in October 2017, (click here) so I won’t review it here, not least since it won’t be performed again, but more so because I wanted to capture my experience of a socially distanced theatrical event.
We were greeted by a masked usher at the entrance. In times gone by that might have been a cause for alarm but in today’s world it registers as entirely reasonable, if still somewhat odd. There were no temperature checks, but we were asked if we had experienced any coronavirus symptoms before being shown to our table in the foyer replete with QR Code with which to order drinks and nibbles. Masks are de rigeur whenever moving about the building, but fortunately we could remove them when seated. That certainly meant that I could enjoy my red wine and my wife could stop steaming up her glasses. The foyer was set out in cabaret style with the raised performance/dining area reserved as the stage. Seating was imaginative, using the mezzanine floor and one table high up in the eyrie overlooking the stage. It felt safe, although if an already Covid infected audience or staff member was intent on passing too close and to cough, sneeze or expectorate with some of their very own ‘living spit’ then that might have been a different matter.
As for the performance, I confess that because of the acoustics in the foyer I found some of it hard to hear and due to the table configuration I needed to shift my seat to see properly, but the duo’s usual madcap mayhem, crazy costume changes and ability to convince that Stu was in fact all of the 6 wives meant that the evening was as pleasurable as it would have been in the good old days.
So what of the future? BOV have already announced a new set of shows around Christmas, with The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk and Living Spit’s own new show Beauty and the Beast being shown live on the main stage. Only 35% of seats will be filled with the remainder left empty for social distancing meaning that putting on any show will be financially very challenging. So let’s get back to the theatre. There is plenty of parking for your DeLorean nearby. Bryan Mason 3rd November 2020
