What a difference a week makes. Just days before millions of Britons effectively went into their own lockdown, encouraged by the Government’s rhetoric to minimise socialising, the West End was bursting with life. 

Plays, musicals, concerts and comedies have been jam-packed for months after venues threw open their doors and thousands returned to enjoy live arts, packed cheek by jowl, following the end of restrictions. 

But what looked set to be a booming pre-Christmas season has turned out to be a bitter disappointment due to the omicron surge. 

As audiences retreat at the time of year when the sector should be making most of its money, theatre is once again left on its knees. The stage is set, but the show cannot go on.  

Veteran producer Cameron Mackintosh, who owns eight theatres, said on Friday that the sector is now fast “running out of Sellotape to hold everything together”.

Over the weekend plans emerged of a potential two-week “circuit breaker” that would ban indoor mixing. As Rishi Sunak rightly moves closer to offering a support package for the hard hit hospitality sector, theatreland is wondering who has their back.

It is Groundhog Day all over again.

Despite all its five star reviews, bumper sales and standing ovations, the theatre industry keeps waking up in the equivalent of its hotel room on the same day with “I Got You Babe” playing on the radio. There are only so many loops of this crisis the industry can relive.

There will be many more cancellations this week and the West End is at breaking point. Many feel hopeless. Andrew Lloyd Webber has argued that this Government will never listen to him “about the importance of theatre”, while Mackintosh has said the “Treasury is nowhere to be seen”. 

If they are right, and the sector ends up being excluded from further government support, then big businesses need to wade in with their own rescue boats.

The arts must not be allowed to disappear because we have failed to live with Covid. Theatre, art, music and comedy provides comfort and escapism in difficult times and will be needed more than ever after this pandemic. 

It is vital that the arts industry is protected and not left to languish underfunded. The long-standing relationship between the arts and the corporate world has never been so important. 

But strengthening this link will be easier said than done. Arts organisations have relied on corporate funding for years, but their relationship with big business is increasingly complicated and comes with huge public scrutiny.

Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A, said earlier this year that philanthropists have become wary of giving money to the arts in case they receive unwelcome attention. He said that “first instincts now are not, as it were, ‘How generous of people it is to support a cultural institution,’ but, ‘What are people whitewashing or greenwashing or bluewashing? What’s the motive?’”.  

The most notable example of this fraught friendship is between art and big oil. The National Theatre ended its relationship with Shell in 2019 due to climate concerns, just days after the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) cut ties with BP following a huge backlash. 

The British Museum often faces protests by climate campaigners over its relationship with BP, while the Science Museum was left mortified earlier this year after it emerged that it had allegedly agreed to sign a gagging clause in its agreement with Shell, promising to not say anything that could damage the oil giant’s reputation.

Such a deal should never have been on the table, let alone ever agreed to. 

But there is a middle ground between agreeing to such a chilling deal in the blind desperation for cash and ending relationships altogether.

The organisations that still need oil money to pay staff, create new exhibitions and host school trips could better educate its audience on why they are accepting the cheques, why oil is unfashionable and what the concerns are around the current climate emergency. They could pressurise the companies they are taking money from to adapt.  

There are many other instances of corporate backing gone wrong as skeletons in the closets of sponsors emerge or some industries, such as tobacco and oil, become outdated.

At a press conference for the Turner Prize in 2019, the questions were not about art but about the prize’s sponsor, Stagecoach, after it emerged that the bus company’s founder once campaigned against gay rights. The sponsorship swiftly ended. 

Of course scrutiny is necessary – picking the wrong sponsor can leave an organisation’s ethical credentials in tatters. The arts world has always been targeted by billionaires and businesses wanting to launder their reputations, but trust between business and the industry now needs to be rebuilt. It has been badly damaged. 

There needs to be clear boundaries with sponsors, ensuring that big business does not get to pay to determine curatorial decisions or dictate how they are portrayed.

Museums still accepting oil money can educate visitors on why the relationship is controversial and pressurise their sponsors to change. Different sorts of companies can step up to the plate. 

New funding is needed. As the Covid crisis puts the arts sector under unprecedented strain, relations with business must be mended. Nobody wants the curtain to come down forever.