When I heard that Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber was offering to go to prison over the opening of a theatre in London’s West End where his Cinderella musical is due to open, I had mixed feelings. Is he a hero or a villain of the pandemic? After all, this is the same person who accuses those not taking a COVID-19 vaccine of being ‘selfish’. Also, along with another major West End luvvie, Tom Stoppard, he is in favour of vaccine passports. Naturally he is, it will help him achieve two aims: opening his musical and making money; and discriminating against the selfish people who have not been vaccinated. The latter will include both theatre goers and theatre staff.
As someone who considers all musical theatre to be a crime against humanity, I would have locked Lloyd Webber up years ago. But I realise that people’s jobs depend on this and likewise the livelihood of bars and restaurants in the West End. However, frankly, if he does go ahead and open the theatre in contravention of government guidance, I cannot envisage the Noble Lord being cuffed and frogmarched to the clink, as amusing and satisfying as that would be.
His Lordship seems to have achieved hero status among some people and very little opprobrium, remarkably. It appears that there may be one law for the rest of us who say we should be free of all restrictions and another for those like Lord Lloyd Webber who are fantastically rich and extremely well connected in the higher echelons of society. This is clearly demonstrated by the holding of the G7 summit in the UK. Few of us can leave the UK and none of our family and colleagues can visit us from a vast swathe of countries, including the USA. But guess who arrived this week? President Joe Biden and the other five G7 leaders. Not only them but their wives, retinues and retainers. Mind you, old Joe needs a lot of help to negotiate aircraft steps and generally to find his way around. But this is a glaring example of there being one law for them and another law for the rest of us.
Why does the G7 meeting even need to be held in person? In these days of virtual meetings and travel restrictions to which the rest of us are subjected lest we kill others or succumb ourselves to the ‘killer virus’ how come they are immune and how come the army of staff—civil servants, advisers, security staff and caterers—is also immune? It is not so much a killer virus as a very clever one. One could also ask what the G7 summit is for and what it achieves except generating enough hot air to launch a fleet of barrage balloons. These are the people who purport to join together to solve the economic problems of the world. The fly in that particular ointment is that these are the very same people who created the problems in the first place.
But back to His Noble and musical Lordship. Part of me wants him to go ahead and open his theatre and to break the law. If he does perish in jail, then that is a sacrifice I am prepared for him to make.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
