Bognor's Regis Centre enters second lockdown in buoyant mood

Amid the heartbreak that their limited autumn season has been wiped from the calendar, the team at Bognor’s Regis Centre are clinging to one crucial fact.
Hazel LatusHazel Latus
Hazel Latus

However hard the times are right now, however disappointing it is to cancel shows, the venue is financially secure – at least until next March and probably beyond, says Hazel Latus, who runs the venue.

“I am usually a very upbeat and positive person, but I do feel depressed that we can’t carry on with even our very, very tiny season that we wanted to put on.

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“The auditorium looks smashing at the moment. Everything looks gorgeous. It all looks so good. It is just such a shame that we can’t do anything.”

The uncertainty stretches into the New Year.

“We do have things booked for January as well, and the feedback at the moment is that even those bookings might not be possible. So yes, I do feel very sad.

“But we have just got to hope that the government uses this time to sort out a proper track and trace system during this second lockdown and maybe a vaccine appears before the end of the year.

“And the great thing is, on the plus side, that the venue is very secure financially. We are fine until next March and probably beyond that. Even when the venue is closed, it still costs us a lot of money, but it is better than being half open when you have got more expenses and not a lot of money coming in. It is a false economy in a way when you can only have 80 people in anyway.

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“But we are secure, and it is great to be able to say that. A lot of venues are not secure. A lot of venues are really, really struggling; a lot of venues have gone. We are not at that point.

“And they have extended furlough which is good. And our venue is nicely prepped and ready for when we can open.

“But I just feel very sad for our volunteers who come in and love it here. And I am so sad for the artists who just haven’t had the work.

“But I think lockdown had to happen. I can’t see what else they can do. I think everybody is caught between a rock and a hard place. The tiers are not working how they thought. We don’t have the virus badly down here, but we know that it is growing at quite a rate, and between the experts and the medics, we know that it could all get a lot, lot worse in just a few weeks.”

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The theatre team took the decision to cancel all events through to January.

“It is very depressing. It is very sad.”

Among the events were evenings with Gary Wilmot and Joe Pasquale – with the Gary Wilmot evening actually scheduled for just before the second lockdown hit.

“But we have just got to close everything down again, including the café and the studios. We are a volunteer run and volunteer led organisation, and the ushers were a bit concerned about coming in. They didn’t see why the lockdown wouldn’t be happening until the Thursday.

“Really, it would have been silly to try to carry on. Initially when the first lockdown came along, a lot of theatres were saying that they wouldn’t be opening again until March. We thought that we wouldn’t open again until January – but then when it seemed possible that we might be able to do something with social distancing, it seemed like we would be able to do something this autumn, just to be able to offer something to people.

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“And that’s what we were going to put on, but unfortunately that is not now going to happen.”

And that wipes out the rest of the year: “According to the guidelines, there is no guarantee that we could actually be opening anything on December 2.

“We could go into a tier system or there could even be an extension of the lockdown. That’s the problem.

“You just can’t know anything for sure.”

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