Under a canopy of trees and within earshot of the fast-flowing River Tummel in Perthshire, Pitlochry Festival Theatre recently re-opened for its first summer season in two years. As actors took to the wooden mini-auditorium for the premiere of David Greig’s play Adventures with the Painted People, the audience sat expectantly on picnic blankets. It must have felt rather like a midsummer night’s dream.

Before Covid struck, Pitlochry was a fixed point on theatre-goers’ calendars. A picture-postcard town in the Scottish Highlands, with a high street selling tartan and tinned haggis, it is a honey pot for bus tour operators and pensioners.

Looking across to the blue peak of Ben Vrackie, Pitlochry’s bespoke modern theatre has become a mainstay of uncontroversial plays and performances, what you might call the thespian equivalent of easy-listening. I’ve been on stage there a few times, as a speaker at its popular winter book festival, but this luxurious, intimate space is designed primarily for drama, bringing comedy, musicals and satires into the audience’s lap.

Like so many of the arts, theatre in Britain has been hamstrung – some might say decapitated - by regulations that make it all but impossible to put on shows. Last Christmas, out-of-work actors performed pantomime on Londoners’ doorsteps, singing and dancing between the refuse bins and flowerpots. But it was only a gesture, a reminder that, while the country was effectively under lock and key, an army of actors, singers, musicians, stage managers, designers and costume makers was in the wings, awaiting their cue to leap back into action.

As Pitlochry was quick to realise, open-air venues are the only safe way ahead for the foreseeable future. Not everyone, however, has this alternative. While audiences in Perthshire might shiver in their cashmere shawls and sheepskin gloves, they are luckier than some.

Last week, the impresario and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, famed for Evita and The Phantom of the Opera, sent a heart-rending message to the Westminster government. He begged it to allow indoor theatres to operate at 75% capacity rather than 50%, come the end of restrictions. As Boris Johnson’s promised “freedom day” of 21 June in England looked increasingly unlikely – now put back a further four weeks – Lloyd Webber announced his determination to open his long-postponed London West End production of Cinderella next week, “come hell or high water”. If they didn’t like it, he said, the authorities could “come to the theatre and arrest us”. He also intimated that he might sue the government for what is widely being seen as discrimination and bias. If cricket fans can go to Lords, and football supporters crowd in their thousands into stadia for the Euro championships, why can’t theatres welcome back their audiences?

In Scotland, things are, if anything, even worse. When the current restrictions are finally eased – the mooted date of June 28has been extended to July 19, as in England - indoor seating in theatres and concert halls must abide by the two-metre social distancing rule. For many, this makes it financially impossible to put on performances. Why, the creative industries are asking, can pubs and restaurants across the UK operate under one-metre rules, when they cannot? Thanks to the more stringent rules here, there has been an exodus of arts professionals towards the south, where they have better opportunities for work.

The impact of lockdown across all the performing arts has been a little short of devastating. Book festivals, around which the seasons revolve, at a rate of about one a week – Borders Book Festival in May, Hay-on-Wye in June, Edinburgh in August, Wigtown in September, Cheltenham in October, and so on - have valiantly tried to replicate the experience online. Yet, as anyone who has tuned into or taken part in these virtual sessions knows, they are like low-wattage bulbs compared to the neon lights of the live version.

To make things worse, HMRC is intent on taxing online festival events at the full 20%, rather than the usual 5% rate, unless they are viewed in real-time. Even without this latest blow, the economics of running an arts event is parlous. Keeping the books has become an exercise in brinksmanship and an act of faith. “Country House” opera companies, for instance, estimate that, even operating at 50% capacity, they will lose half a million pounds a week.

This is the worst period in living memory for orchestras, performers and venues. As one theatre director bemoaned, even in wartime the live arts were able to boost people’s morale, whereas during this epidemic they have been silenced. And while there seemed to be a realistic chance that this summer could see an uptick in revenue sufficient to tide them over to better times, the delay in full unlocking has all but snuffed that out.

A few weeks ago, the director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe announced that unless one-metre distancing was allowed, it was in danger of collapse. As yet, that guarantee has not been forthcoming. And while the Godfather of all events, the Edinburgh International Festival, will offer tickets for open-air theatres and socially distanced concert halls, they have resources and devoted audiences others can only dream of. Yet, by this stage, as they enter a second summer season of discontent and uncertainty, even companies with deep financial reserves are rightly worried.

Adding to their woes is another potential difficulty. Even when the day does come when it’s possible to sell every seat in the auditorium, will arts audiences actually want to come? So far, it seems few people like the idea of being elbow to elbow with strangers, unable to concentrate on the performance for wondering if the air conditioning is bringing in fresh oxygen or simply recirculating old, or if the venue’s pre-event Covid testing regime can be trusted.

One day, this time of anxiety, trepidation and hardship will become the source of films, novels and plays. Until then, those who previously relied on their powers of invention to make a living are obliged to curb their imagination if they hope to get a good night’s sleep.

(Rosemary Goring is a journalist, writer and editor. Her books include Scotland: The Autobiography, Scotland: Her Story and the novels After Flodden and Dacre’s War. She is currently writing a book about Mary, Queen of Scots, and lives in the Scottish Borders, closer to England than Edinburgh.)

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