The Labour MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis, has learned that Norwich Theatre Royal will be forced to announce around 150 job losses this morning. The jobs are going because of a massive pandemic-related slump in operating income which has not been compensated for by government support.

On 23-06-20, Clive and five other MPs wrote to the Minister for Digital and Culture calling for more financial support for the large and successful regional theatres in their constituencies and across the country.

Commenting on the job losses at Norwich Theatre Royal, Clive Lewis said

The theatre has seen its income reduced to effectively zero overnight and unlike its publicly funded peers, doesn’t have a cushion of existing grant funding. Theatres are also likely to be amongst the last sectors to get fully up and running again. Norwich Theatre Royal is one of our city’s anchor institutions and I know the people who run it are in bits at the prospect of having to lay off almost half of their staff.

It is scandalous that this government did not heed our calls for large-scale emergency funding. If they’d listened, these jobs could have been saved and our regional theatres would be facing a less precarious future.”