COVID cancellations hit theatres including the National Theatre and Donmar Warehouse

A string of show cancellations has hit London theatres as the industry is again affected by COVID, and the rise of the Omicron variant with The National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse and the Barbican Theatre among the affected theatres.

Force Majeure, seen here in rehearsals, is among the cancellations. Photo: Marc Brenner 

Cancellations include:

• Performances of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) production of Comedy of Errors, currently running at the Barbican, have been cancelled from Wednesday 15 December up to and including 22 December. The RSC said that "the combination of cases means that we are unable to go ahead with our rehearsed understudies or alternative versions of the show. Our priority is keeping everybody safe, and cancelling performances is a last resort."
• The National Theatre has cancelled their performance of Hex tonight having earlier announced that the planned Press Night, due to take place on Wednesday, has been moved to next week, as reported in The Stage.
• The Donmar Warehouse has announced the cancellation of tonight's performance of Force Majeure, which stars Rory Kinnear, citing a suspected case of COVID.
• The Bush Theatre has cancelled tonight's scheduled performance of Fair Play, tweeting that "Unfortunately, due to COVID isolation requirements we are unable to perform Fair Play tonight, Monday 13 Dec." The Bush Theatre hopes to resume performances from Tuesday.
• The Southwark Playhouse has announced the cancellation of performances of The Rhythmics up to an including Thursday 16 December.

Cancellations have not just been confined to London. In Coventry, Belgrade Theatre’s Christmas pantomime, Beauty and the Beast, has faced at least 10 days of cancellations, and the Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes also forced to cancel performances of its pantomime, Peter Pan.

The cancellations come on the back of the recent cancellations of Moulin Rouge which has also moved its official Press Night to 9 January.