n Executive director Steve Mannix’s latest column reflects on a difficult time for Colchester’s Mercury Theatre

FIRST off, let me start by saying on behalf of everyone here at the Mercury we do hope that you, your family and your friends are managing to stay safe and well in these unprecedented times.

These are challenging times for everyone in our town and I feel proud of our community, which continues to pull together to support one another.

My colleagues at the Mercury have made scrubs, delivered food and medicines and even sang songs in the forecourts of care homes on VE Day.

Everyone has gone above and beyond to try to continue to bring some joy and aid to the community, something the Mercury team pride themselves on doing every day.

Many of you may have seen on the national news the issues faced by theatres, cinema and other leisure attractions.

We are waiting like everyone else for guidance from the government as to when we can reopen but, as will be no surprise to you, it’s going to be a lengthy process.

Of course, to add to these challenges we are still trying to finish off our shiny new building.

Our wonderful contractors, Phelan’s, have continued to work tirelessly on-site over the last few weeks.

They’ve implemented safe working practises to factor in social distancing and have even had to source some materials from right across the country (last week some of our plasterboards came from Leeds).

I’m not going to lie to you, it is difficult and stressful (as I’m sure it is for all of you).

Overnight, all of our income has disappeared. As you may be aware, 76 per cent of our income comes from our ticket sales, bars, merchandise and fundraising (£2.9 million).

As a charity, we’ve thankfully got some reserves that we were holding back for a rainy day.

Well, our board and I have decided it’s now raining, so we began dipping into those already.

However, I do worry as the days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months… let’s just say if I still had hair I would be pulling it out by now.

But to coin a phrase - ‘We’ll be back’, or as a friend of mine who runs another theatre said to me on the phone the other day - we are all just having a long interval.

We send all our love and best wishes to you, our fantastic audiences.

We have all been touched in some way by this pandemic, but in true Colcestrian spirit, we’ll pull together and we’ll get through this. Finally, if you need cheering up, fire up your computer, phone or tablet and participate in some of our Mercury Online programmes –masterclasses, quiz nights, singalongs - you name it. We can’t wait to see you there.

We are so pleased to be sharing our Mercury Online programme for free and will continue to do so in these coming months. But we do need your support. If you would like and feel able to support your local theatre during this time, please visit www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/support or text MERCURY to 70085 to donate £5.