Coronavirus, COVID-19 : London Theatre Bookings and The Theatre Café

On behalf of myself and the company owners, Jill Davey and Joe Davey, it is with massive sadness, but with necessity, that today we close the doors of The Theatre Café and our London Theatre Bookings’ shops. These are unprecedented times, where theatres are dark and the streets are empty and as such we cannot trade. We must allow our staff to take the necessary precautions to stay safe and we will all do our part to stop the spread of Coronavirus, COVID-19.

Myself, Jill and Joe run an independent, family owned business. For most of our lives all we’ve known is selling and supporting West End’s theatreland for 8 shows a week, open 9am to 8pm every day, except Christmas Day. The last 48 hours has been incredibly nerve-racking and challenging, but we have strived to work continuously, collectively to give all our staff immediate attention and deal with this as humanly and honestly as possible. The response and conduct of our staff has been exemplary and we would like to say a huge thank you to them for their shared determination. The true team-spirit they’ve displayed has filled our broken hearts as we navigate our way through this, with full determination to come out the other side when that time is right.

We might be closing our doors, but our work will go on. We are actively now trying to work with our industry colleagues and shows, coupling our Theatre Café social media fanbase to provide content and engagement through this lockdown period. The light will be left on and the show must go on! Do continue (and if you don’t, join now!), follow our Instagram, Twitter or Facebook through this period and support us and our community so we can all weather these times together.

Please everybody be safe, continue looking out for each other. Our promise is this: The evening the Government deem it safe and our theatre’s lights come back on, the curtain rises, and we all go back to doing our wonderful thing, whether that be ticket buyer, performer, box office, producer, creative, marketing, usher or anyone who makes our theatreland work… We will once again provide a space for us all to come together and be at forefront of our industry’s recovery as we start going back to whatever our wonderful versions of “normality” are.

With much love,

Ryan Woods

COO – The Theatre Café and London Theatre Bookings