• IntroductionThere's No Place Like London: Theatrical Landscapes of a City in Recovery
• Harry Derbyshire (bio), Nicholas Holden (bio), and Mark O'Thomas (bio)

At approximately 5:30pm (GMT) on Monday March 16, 2020, the West End and theatres across London as well as the rest of England were brought to an abrupt halt. The public was instructed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues," thus plunging the country's arts and hospitality sectors into an acute and unexpected state of paralysis.¹ That evening, as commuters and tourists boarded buses, trains, and planes to make their journeys home, few could have predicted the sustained and brutal impact that the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 would have on these industries, and public life generally, in the months and years to come.

Not since the Second World War had London's theatres suffered such unrelenting and grave difficulties. Indeed, even during the height of the [End Page 1] Blitz, the West End had remained open—albeit severely depleted—in an attempt to bring "some sense of normality" and "maintain general morale" for the public.² In the early stages of the pandemic, the severity of which had not been seen for over a century, London's theatres were in complete blackout, with little sign of recovery. Theatregoers, whether Londoners or visitors, were left without the source of live entertainment that the country's capital had been famously supplying for hundreds of years.

What separates the impact of COVID-19 from previous global conflicts and pandemics, however, is the advent of various technologies in the twenty-first century that have come to provide a social lifeline to the world's population. As stay-at-home orders, such as England's "Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives," forced much of the world into lockdown and physical isolation, people turned to internet platforms and apps such as Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, and Microsoft Teams as a means of maintaining contact with friends, families and colleagues. During those first weeks, quizzes and other traditional games were imaginatively reconceived for an online context to provide entertainment and a sense of social contact to a population confined to their homes.

As has often been the case throughout history, the theatre industry in Britain responded quickly and imaginatively to the urgent issues and demands of the contemporary world. With theatres closed and production on film and television halted, the two industries worked together in new creative ways that were reflective of and informed by the isolation that had been enforced upon many during this time. At first, production companies found themselves sending cameras, recording devices, and other production equipment into the homes of creative teams. The results included Isolation Stories (ITV), with four episodes aired from May 4-7, and Unprecedented (BBC4), a short series of 14 dramas presented over four nights at the end of May 2020. Unprecedented was commissioned in the immediate aftermath of theatre closures and showcased new work by playwrights including James Graham, April De Angelis, and Duncan MacMillan for the BBC. The series was subtitled "Real Time Theatre From a State of Isolation" and, as described by BBC executive Stephen James Yeoman, offered "an intimate response to the radical way our world changed when lockdown was announced [in England] on 23 March [End Page 2] 2020."³ This was followed in June by further original work in the form of Staged (BBC), a series of short comic episodes starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen that was filmed almost entirely using video-conferencing technology. The same month saw the broadcast of a revival of Talking Heads (BBC), written by veteran playwright Alan Bennett and starring theatrical luminaries including Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter. The series, which had been rehearsed on Zoom and filmed using a skeleton crew on location at London's Elstree Studios, allowed for a continued sense of connection between the British theatre and its loyal audience during the initial lockdown period.

The rapid restrictions placed on the theatre industry and the considerable impact of this uncertainty on its workers meant that many were left unsupported, financially and otherwise, in the early...

• 简介没有像伦敦这样的地方：恢复中城市的戏剧景观
• Harry Derbyshire (bio), Nicholas Holden (bio), 和 Mark O'Thomas (bio)

2020 年 3 月 16 日星期一大约下午 5:30（格林威治标准时间），伦敦西区和剧院以及英格兰其他地区突然停止。首相鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）指示公众“避开酒吧、俱乐部、剧院和其他此类社交场所”，从而使该国的艺术和酒店业陷入严重且出乎意料的瘫痪状态。¹那天晚上，当通勤者和游客登上公共汽车、火车和飞机回家时，很少有人能预料到由 COVID-19 引起的全球大流行将对这些行业和整个公共生活产生持续而残酷的影响，在未来的几个月和几年里。

自第二次世界大战以来，伦敦的剧院从未遇到过如此无情和严重的困难。事实上，即使在[End Page 1]闪电战的高峰期，西区仍然保持开放——尽管已经严重枯竭——试图为公众带来“某种常态感”和“保持总体士气”。²在大流行的早期阶段，一个多世纪以来从未出现过严重程度，伦敦的剧院完全停电，几乎没有复苏的迹象。剧院观众，无论是伦敦人还是游客，都失去了该国首都数百年来一直提供的现场娱乐节目的来源。

然而，将 COVID-19 的影响与之前的全球冲突和流行病区分开来的是 21 世纪各种技术的出现，这些技术已经为世界人口提供了一条社会生命线。随着英格兰的“待在家里，保护 NHS，拯救生命”等居家令迫使世界大部分地区陷入封锁和物理隔离，人们转向互联网平台和应用程序，如 Zoom、Skype、FaceTime 和Microsoft Teams 作为与朋友、家人和同事保持联系的一种方式。在最初的几周里，测验和其他传统游戏被创造性地重新构思为在线环境，为被限制在家中的人群提供娱乐和社交联系。

正如历史上经常发生的那样，英国的戏剧业对当代世界的紧迫问题和需求做出了迅速而富有想象力的反应。随着影院的关闭和电影和电视的制作停止，这两个行业以新的创造性方式合作，这些方式反映了这段时间对许多人施加的孤立，并从中得到启发。起初，制作公司发现自己将相机、录音设备和其他制作设备送到创意团队的家中。结果包括隔离故事(ITV)，从 5 月 4 日至 7 日播出了四集，以及史无前例(BBC4)，这是 2020 年 5 月末在四个晚上播出的 14 部短剧集。史无前例。在剧院关闭后立即受委托，并为 BBC 展示了詹姆斯·格雷厄姆、阿普丽尔·德·安吉利斯和邓肯·麦克米伦等剧作家的新作品。该系列的副标题为“隔离状态下的实时剧院”，正如 BBC 执行官斯蒂芬·詹姆斯·约曼所描述的那样，“当 3 月 23 日 [英格兰] 宣布封锁时，我们的世界发生了激进的变化[完]第 2 页] 2020 年。” ³随后在 6 月以Staged (BBC) 的形式推出了更多原创作品，这是一系列由 David Tennant 和 Michael Sheen 主演的短漫画集，几乎完全使用视频会议技术拍摄。同月播出了《说话的头脑》的复兴(BBC)，由资深剧作家艾伦·贝内特 (Alan Bennett) 撰写，由莱斯利·曼维尔 (Lesley Manville) 和哈里特·沃尔特 (Harriet Walter) 等戏剧界名人主演。该系列在 Zoom 上进行了排练，并在伦敦 Elstree Studios 的外景地使用骨干摄制组拍摄，在最初的封锁期间，让英国剧院与其忠实观众之间保持着持续的联系感。

对戏剧业的迅速限制以及这种不确定性对其工人的巨大影响意味着许多人在早期没有得到经济和其他方面的支持……