LONDON (Reuters) – Opening its doorways to a dwell viewers for the primary time for the reason that coronavirus pandemic took maintain in March, London’s Dominion Theatre is on the point of placed on a socially distanced, concert-style manufacturing of musical “A Christmas Carol”.

The greater than 2,000-seat theatre will be capable to host fewer than 1,000 per present and the 28 solid members will stay aside on stage.

“Everyone seems to be carrying masks on a regular basis, even in rehearsals, even after we’re singing. The solid are socially distanced on stage through the manufacturing,” producer Freddie Tapner advised Reuters.

British actor and comic Brian Conley takes on the position of Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly protagonist of the favored Charles Dickens Christmas story, a staple of London’s theatreland through the festive season.

Conley mentioned he was delighted to be again in entrance of a dwell viewers and felt protected doing the manufacturing.

“A dwell viewers is the place it is at, it is the place you reside within the second. You come alive,” he advised Reuters.

British theatres have been hit exhausting by the pandemic. Greater than 15,000 theatrical performances have been cancelled within the first 12 weeks of lockdown with a lack of greater than 300 million kilos in field workplace income, based on a parliamentary committee report in July.

Regardless of the British authorities’s 1.57-billion-pound rescue bundle for the humanities, some within the trade really feel there has not been sufficient assist.

“I believe everybody’s actually felt this yr, I do not know, left within the chilly in a roundabout way … underappreciated,” mentioned Matt Jay-Wills, who performs Scrooge’s mistreated clerk Bob Cratchit.

He mentioned the performers have been grateful to be working. “I’ve by no means seen a solid so dedicated in my life. It is good.”

Tapner mentioned because of the restricted variety of seats on sale, the manufacturing, produced by The London Musical Theatre Orchestra, shouldn’t be anticipated to generate income – however the present will go on.

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“We now have made that call as a result of we wish to put theatre on this Christmas,” he mentioned.

Conley mentioned he hoped the present would take the viewers away from any coronavirus cares “and simply have a second of Christmas spirit, of affection”.

“A Christmas Carol” runs from Dec. 7 to Jan. 2.

(Reporting by Sarah Mills, Ben Makori; Modifying by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Hudson)