Over the past week it has become ever clearer that the planned panto season in the UK's theatres will not be able to take place – with theatres including the Birmingham Hippodrome, Blackpool Grand and Kings Theatre Edinburgh all announcing the cancellation or postponement of their pantomimes.
While sad for regular panto-going families it might be easy to underestimate the importance of this, and the devastating impact it may have. Last week The Stage reported expected £90 million losses as a result of this change to programming, and producer and managing director of Qdos Entertainment Michael Harrison – normally responsible for 34 pantos across the UK – wrote that 'For non-subsidised theatres, pantomime is their subsidy. It can contribute up to 35% of a theatre’s overall revenue' – needless to say, therefore, without that annual boost to the income, there are many theatres whose survival will be fundamentally threatened.
Unfortunately, with no prospect of non-socially distanced performance being considered before November, it's impossible to conceive of many pantomimes being mounted in a financially viable way – and so the ongoing impact of the pandemic is felt in theatres.