THEATRE remains in crisis. Some have maintained an online presence through streamed and distanced productions but most have remained closed for over a year.

Even when the Luftwaffe was carpet-bombing London, intrepid theatregoers embodied the “blitz spirit” by attending productions frequently interrupted by air-raid sirens. But that threat — albeit severe — was from without and easy to identify. Now, invisible, it is among us.

When I spoke to playwright Mark Ravenhill, whose new production Angela has just been launched as a radio drama, he pointed out that the last time venues in the capital were shut for such a long time was in 1665, when the Great Plague was tearing through the city.