Elaine C Smith believes there’s a way to make theatres safe for Christmas shows

The popular entertainer recognises the need to keep the public, actors and support workers who make a successful panto work safe and healthy. But she believes there is a way to put on pantos this winter and not jeopardise anybody.

She thinks too that this would be a massive boon to the entertainment industry and also lift the country’s spirits by giving the public back their much-loved shows.

“I absolutely support that health has to come before everything. But the sooner we can get to stage four and have some limited opening of theatres, that would be great.

“The problem is that you can’t get to stage four until the R rate is down and the infection rate is lower.”

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But she believes that if everybody plays their part a solution is possible.

She added: “I think actually that as a public space theatres can survive. I think that socially distanced theatre, companies taking all the responsibilities from the stage door back, everything backstage, say it was a panto or something they would look after all that: the testing, the hygiene.

“And unlike television – and I’m going back to do Two Doors Down, we’re doing a Christmas special – the Government has underwritten the insurance in that.

“So that if things happen and someone gets the virus and a production has to shut down or stall for a few days, there’s no real risk to the production.”

Smith believes that theatres are being unfairly penalised compared with other industries and points in particular to the airlines.

She said: “There’s a lot of people who look at aeroplanes and see that there are 300 people next to each other with masks on, on a flight, and think ‘wait a minute, they’re all sharing two toilets and say why can they do that, why is that allowed and 300 people in a theatre with a mask on isn’t allowed?”

Elaine references how English theatres have managed to address the problem. “It’s being done in London. In fact friends of mine have been to see a show in the Palladium. They say it’s different, you’re sitting with masks on, socially distancing and all that, but actually it works all right.

“And Johnny Mack, who I do the panto with, has just finished a run in Great Yarmouth and they were in a 900-seater with 300 people in it and he said actually when the lights are down and the seats that are empty are blacked out. It works.

“I think there are experiments to be done.”

Smith believes that actors are ideally equipped to adapt to social distancing, both on and off set.

“Johnny said they managed to do it. I think testing helped so where they weren’t allowed to go to restaurants or bars. They literally went from the theatre to their digs and that’s literally what they did for six weeks. And they were in a bubble.

“Now something like panto, it would be very difficult to have dancers dancing next to each other. You could only have three in the pit, socially distancing, no wind instruments, no sax, no trumpets, things like that.

“You could click track a lot of the songs so that you could get the atmosphere that you’re not actually singing live.”

She continued: “But with the panto you could really take the mickey out of it all, you know.

“Particularly if you’re doing routines, you don’t stand next to each other anyway. For instance if the Principal Boy and the Princess are going to kiss all you need is me coming out and saying ‘wait a minute’ two metres apart, so you are able to get away with it in a way that other types of theatre would be more difficult.

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“And the audience would be able to shout back because if you’re sitting there with a mask you’d be able to do that. And they can still applaud and still laugh.”

Pantomime has long been treasured by the entertainment industry as being a key seasonal employer and Smith believes we should do all we can to put shows on if we possibly can.

SHE added: “I don’t think I realised until now because pantomime is looked down the nose by theatre ... it’s not ‘proper theatre’ you know and we use it in terms of Westminster being ‘a bit of a pantomime’, we use it all the time.

“But in actual fact for theatre companies the Christmas period, whether it’s a Christmas show or pantomime, sustains them for the rest of the year.

“I have had a 30-year career in television and theatre, everything from Brecht to Shakespeare, Radio 4, BBC News 24, and all people want to ask about is panto.

“Because you realise that the vast majority of people don’t go to the theatre, the vast majority of people watch Netflix, but when they do go to a show, they go to the panto even if they’re dragged along as kids.”

Smith believes though that it is not too late to salvage our panto season.

She said: “If some sort of a thing could go ahead. You know, say at the King’s, it couldn’t be panto as you knew it – it would have to be another version of it, a smaller one, no interval, all of that. All things are talked about that way.

“You’re talking 60 jobs there, and that’s not counting front of house. And also there’s the night-time economy, the restaurants and all of that, because all the restaurants are packed because of the panto.

“And that’s not counting the Citizens, the Tron ... there’s no big show on in the Theatre Royal, the Pavilion, none in the SECC.”

Smith is naturally disappointed that she will not be able to tread the boards at King’s this Christmas.

“There’s no way you could put Cinderella on ... it’s too big a show. It will be postponed until next year and so if you’ve got tickets for Christmas Eve, then they’re valid until next Christmas Eve.

“The thing is that thousands of people have tickets already, they buy them a year in advance.

“I’ve seen all of the comments – ‘oh, we’ve being going to the King’s on Christmas Eve for 30 years with all the family and our grandchildren go – you know, people book for 20 people and all that.

“But it’s not beyond the realms of booking systems to have some sort of an algorithm system that would be able to book a theatre with only families together. Schools could go to the theatre, the kids could go.

“The best-case scenario would be that the restrictions in certain theatres, particularly our big old theatres in Scotland ... you could really socially distance there. And what you would want is some support to do that.

“A shorter run, a shorter show with all the Covid-compliant measures in there that ultimately keep everyone safe, then that would be the only way forward I could see.”

And as Smith sits out panto this year, she is looking forward now to shooting Two Doors Down in November.

She added: “Ironically during this terrible time, Two Doors Down has had over 30 million views on iPlayer, so it’s huge. People have been saying as I’ve walked along the street ‘oh, that’s kept us going.”’