How the Old Vic Theatre navigated the Covid pandemic: ‘Everybody knew we were running out of money’

From shutdown to a pioneering streaming series, artistic director Matthew Warchus explains how the Old Vic came back from the brink
The Old Vic closed its doors in March but has been making online work throughout 2020
Manuel Harlan

There are not many dull moments in the Old Vic Theatre’s 202-year history. It was the birthplace of the National Theatre, the stomping ground of legendary theatrical producer Lilian Baylis and the place where Judi Dench made her stage debut. Not to mention that it’s gone bankrupt 13 times and been bombed by Zeppelins. But 2020 may have been its most eventful year yet.

In March, the 1000-seat not-for-profit theatre on The Cut closed its doors before officially advised to by the Prime Minister. Business as usual was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain, it said, so the acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Cumming, would close two weeks earlier than planned. “Interestingly enough, audiences didn’t tail off at all in that time,” says Matthew Warchus, the Old Vic’s artistic director. The decision was made because American-based cast members were becoming concerned about airspace closing between London and New York. “So I’d like to say it was prescient on our part, but it was mostly logistics.”

He believed, back then, that the theatre would be back open to audiences by September. Of course, that hasn’t happened, and as everyone’s plans started to fall apart, a sold-out, fully rehearsed show was thrown into stasis. In April, the Old Vic was due to open one of the year’s most anticipated productions: 4000 Miles, directed by Warchus himself and starring Timothée Chalamet and Dame Eileen Atkins.  

“It’s kind of a heartbreaking thing, actually, because it was looking so good in rehearsals. We were ready to do run-throughs and get it on to the stage. I feel like the piece has been completely made and is almost finished, and it’s in suspended animation right now. So that was difficult,” he tells me. “I was in the Old Vic the other day, and we still have the poster up in the foyer: Endgame, 4000 Miles and Local Hero. And I look at that and think, that looks like a really good season. And it’s just languishing now – that's tough.”  

Dame Eileen Atkins and Timothée Chalamet in rehearsals for 4000 Miles
Manuel Harlan

Crucially, 4000 Miles was totally sold out – normally a meaningful contributor to a theatre’s finances, but now a large amount of money in the bank that the theatre cannot touch. Everyone who bought a ticket is owed a show (or a refund, if they’re mad). A sign of the difficulty ahead came when the Old Vic had to ask Endgame ticketholders to consider not asking for a refund but making a donation instead, declaring that the losses would otherwise be “financially devastating”.  

Like Shakespeare’s Globe and the Royal Albert Hall, the Old Vic is a significant cultural venue in the UK but receives no government funding. Its financial model is based two-thirds on box office income, and a third on fundraising and charitable donations, which left it particularly exposed by the pandemic (a significant annual fundraising gala scheduled for the summer was, of course, cancelled.) That it wouldn’t survive seemed unthinkable – but it was the daily topic of conversation for several months. 

Matthew Warchus in rehearsals for Three Kings, staged as part of the In Camera series
Manuel Harlan

“Everybody knew that we were running out of time and money. We don’t have a huge reserve and we don’t have government funding, other than the Culture Recovery Fund. So it was very serious,” he says. “Of course, the fund has been an immense relief because it ensures that we can get through to March. If the vaccines turn out to be everything we hope, then that’s the bridging funding that we needed, because thereafter we’ll be able to bring audience back in, we hope. But if that wasn’t the case, then we’d be back in a similar position at some point in the spring.”

For the Old Vic, it’s “categorical” that audiences cannot return until social distancing ends – the theatre would make an annual loss of £5.6m otherwise. But it has been making work throughout the pandemic with its In Camera series, a unique initiative where shows are performed live and broadcast digitally to audiences. It began with Claire Foy and Matt Smith reprising their performance in Lungs, and has also featured Andrew Scott and Michael Sheen. Until now they’ve mostly been stripped back, with short runs, but a full staging of the theatre’s popular adaptation of A Christmas Carol, starring Andrew Lincoln, will be streamed from this week.  

The In Camera shows have been broadcast to 73 countries, and all of them have made a profit. They have involved a lot of “mucking in and a lot of good will”, says Warchus, with Zoom providing the platform for free, creatives agreeing to lower rates – or donating them entirely – and writers not taking royalties. “Everybody’s getting behind the idea that it’s a crisis, and it’s a crucial fundraising project,” he says, but he’s aware there’s a time limit on asking for favours. The fact that the shows are done on such a low budget – akin to “scratch” performances – has revealed them to be “a relatively risk-free way of making some money”. The positive audience response they’ve had has led the Old Vic to think seriously about the part they might play in the Old Vic’s future – if they could be dropped in among regular shows. “On the one hand, it’s great audience development of a kind, but on the other, it’s not necessarily a fair representation of all the different kind of things we do at the Old Vic, because you’re not really using the full forces of theatre.”

Perhaps one of the reasons the series has appealed is that it strives to replicate the live experience as far as possible. Each show begins with a front of house call and finishes with applause, and Warchus says that people get dressed up to watch them and get themselves a drink and an ice cream. “You know that a thousand other people are doing the same thing at that time, and it creates a sense of connectedness,” he says. “We’re trading on people’s love of theatre and live performance."

Andrew Lincoln as Scrooge for the Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol: In Camera
Old Vic

It’s been an emotionally exhausting year for the entire team – including redundancies. “The stuff we’ve been managing as individuals and families also applies for institutions – people run out of energy, or slip into gloom and depression and have to pull each other out,” he says. He describes the team meetings over Zoom, “people just looking tired, the emotional exhaustion and fear.” People who work in theatre are used to things changing at short notice – actors going off ill half an hour before a show starts, for example – but “you can’t improvise your way out of a pandemic”.

But the venue has tried to use this challenging time constructively: it now has an anti-racism group, and Warchus thinks the conversation between building and freelancers is in a much healthier place. And the Old Vic is optimistic about 2021 – corporate sponsors have renewed their support, audience appetite is strong, and the Recovery Fund has allowed them to commission new work. “There’s an old John Cleese film called Clockwise that has one of my favourite lines that anyone ever wrote or spoke ever: ‘it’s not the despair, I can handle the despair. It's the hope I can’t cope with’,” he laughs. “Despite that, I’m hopeful and at the Old Vic we are very hopeful about 2021. We’re planning to be back with full audiences and a full season at some point in the year – that's in our budgeting and our scheduling.” 

How can he remain so optimistic? His innate understanding of people’s love of theatre clearly helps. “It sounds simplistic, naïve to say this - I'm aware of that – but it seems to me that theatre is sustained simply by love for theatre. That’s how it works. And it’s been around for thousands of years, and the love of theatre is not going to go away – so in some senses, it’s a very secure industry,” he says. Yes, for many it’s entertainment, but it’s also often a profound, spiritual experience too. Outreach work can transform lives. “The role of theatre is indisputable, its value is not negotiable. Personally, I don’t really mind if the pub is open, but there are people who really, really notice the contribution that theatre is making to society. Therefore, it’s destined to come back.”

A Christmas Carol runs as part of the Old Vic’s In Camera series from December 12-24; oldvictheatre.com

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