Cambridge virologist expects comedy gigs to be cancelled until 2021

There will be no comedy gigs in the UK until at least next year, a top virologist has suggested.

Dr Chris Smith said that it would be ‘carnage’ to open even small-scale entertainment venues before a Covid-19 vaccine is found – and said that for the sector as a whole: ‘I think this year is basically a write-off.’

In an interview with the BBC, Dr Smith, a Cambridge University lecturer and science broadcaster, expressed fears that some creative industries ‘won't ever recover’ from the ‘monumental impact’ of coronavirus.

But he said that leading figures in the entertainment industry need to think ‘not with their wallet, but with their head screwed on,’ to avoid undoing all the work the lockdown has achieved.

Dr Smith also poured cold water on the idea that venues could feasibly operate with social distancing in place.

‘How on earth would we ever have a system that was enforceable where you said, "You can go to a rock concert and watch Ed Sheeran but you've got to stand two metres apart?" Everyone would just laugh.’

‘In the short term, we're going to have to rethink all this because it's just not feasible to say, "let's just translate this into different numbers",’ he explained. ‘Because the economics don't work out for the artists and the venue holders, because those venues work at the capacity that they were built for.’

He also said getting people in and out of the venue – or even letting them go to the toilet – without social contact would be impractical.

Dr Smith also says it would be a ‘terrible idea’ to let those who have already contracted Covid-19 back into venues as it could encourage people to deliberately catch the disease to get their life back to normal. Especially given that science has not proven that you become immune after your first infection.

Last week, major UK comedy venues told Chortle they were hoping to reopen in the late summer, but theatre impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh has suggested the West End might be effectively dark until early next year

Last week, American bioethicist Dr Zeke Emanuel told the New York Times that promoters rescheduling concerts for autumn were being baselessly optimistic. ‘I have no idea how they think that's a plausible possibility,’ he said. ‘Realistically we're talking fall 2021 at the earliest’ – raising the possibility of 18 more months without live entertainment.

Ireland this week tentatively suggested theatres might open in August, but while Germany and France have tentatively mapped out a way out of lockdown, theatres and venues are at the back of the queue.

Published: 7 May 2020