The actor and author on starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, her Ballet Shoes sequel and the government response to theatre’s crisis
More than six months have passed since the pandemic closed theatres in March. What was that time like?
I had just left Les Mis for a few weeks to do a workshop for Cinderella. Covid cases were rising and there was talk of lockdown. I thought: am I actually going to get back to Les Mis? We had one day of the workshop and then all the theatres closed. We were gutted. My boyfriend [Oliver Ormson] was in Manchester doing Back to the Future. They’d been open for about three weeks and then got the call to say, “Don’t come in tomorrow.”
What do you think of the government’s response to the crisis in theatre? The suggestion seems to be that arts jobs aren’t viable
Anyone who works in the entertainment industry knows that our jobs aren’t taken seriously. We’re constantly asked – when are you going to get a real job? In normal life, you’d just roll your eyes and carry on. But when there’s a global crisis and your industry is dying you think maybe you should have fought back a little harder. Now, not taking our jobs seriously is costing our industry dearly. A lot of people have made the valid point that if you don’t believe the arts are a “viable” job, or you think we’re low-skilled, then switch off Netflix, close your books, turn your music off. If you don’t think this is important then you shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy it. See how great you feel with no entertainment.
