Andrew Lloyd Webber, who famously took part in a trial for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, was delighted to hear that it’s been approved for use in the UK. “It’s great news. I’m thrilled. Everybody was pretty optimistic about it earlier in the year, so it was just a question of when.”
The official announcement is “terrific,” Lloyd Webber continues, “particularly that it can be rolled out so quickly and easily. I’m rather honoured to have been a part of it.” When the vaccine rollout “ticks up”, the composer says he’s “pretty confident that everything is going to be much, much better by the summer. We all need a pick-me-up.”
Lloyd Webber’s offering in terms of theatrical cheer is his new West End production of Cinderella, starring Carrie Hope Fletcher. He’d pushed the opening from April back to the middle of May a few weeks ago: “I felt pretty certain we’d be able to open by then – you just have to keep hoping.”
As for his current estimate, “I might be out by a few weeks, but I don’t think I’ll be far out. I always thought we’d have a pretty awful December and January – now it’s more like January and February. But it’ll get dramatically better thereafter.”
However, he admits he was concerned a couple of weeks ago by the crowds of shoppers on Oxford Street and Regent Street. “That did bother me. So, reluctantly, I was in favour of theatres closing when they had to to before Christmas, and the same now with the tier restrictions.”
