GETTING BACK TO NORMAL
LIFE GETTING BACK TO
normal
Shops, pubs and restaurants opening up again, we hope! As I write this we don’t know whether we will be able to stick to the Prime Minister’s roadmap to ease the country out of lockdown, but it’s all looking pretty positive. All being well, all the shops will be allowed to be open again, as of Monday 12 April, along with the hairdressers and beauty parlours, gyms and spas.
MAYFEST Simon Randall, who runs the Headliners Comedy Club in Chiswick, says performers can’t wait to be on stage again. He’s organised a Mayfest programme over the last two weekends of May – eight standup comedians each night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of 21-23rd and 28th-30th May. Many of the comedians have been performing at the club for years – Jeff Innocent, Paul Tonkinson, John Moloney, Arthur Smith. Top class performers who you’d pay considerably more to see in the West End.
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Pubs and restaurants will be allowed to serve food and drink outside. From Monday 17 May they will be able to serve food indoors and pubs will be proper pubs again. Museums, theatres, cinemas and children’s play areas will be open.
Headliners celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and is lucky to have made it this far. Simon earned not a penny last year, as he was one of those, as a freelance sole trader who works from home, who didn’t qualify for any of the financial assistance available. People don’t usually book stand-up comedy much in advance, he says, but the response when he sent out a mailshot in March was absolutely incredible: “People are desperate to go out and to get something booked up so that they have something to look forward to”.
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