Will The Climbers be seen eventually?
“I hope so, because there was quite a buzz around it. But I can’t say anything for sure. I really can’t see us doing a summer season next year, at least not in the same way. The world has changed, and we need to think about different ways of working,” says Stevenson.

“When I arrived here, I imagined I’d be leading the theatre through a process of evolution. Change was already coming, but Covid has altered where we find ourselves almost overnight. It’s like suddenly staring at a blank slate at the same time everyone is adjusting to the huge loss and the shock and the challenge the theatre closure brings to the community. The theatre has faced crises before, but it always managed to keep going, keep producing.”

What has Stevenson been doing during lockdown?
“Going on the steepest learning curve. I grew up in Chorley in Lancashire, where there wasn’t a theatre. If we wanted to go to the theatre we had to get on the train to Bolton. So, I know that a building can be a beacon of hope in a community and provide opportunities for that community, including local artists.

“What we are facing now is scary, but it is also a chance to listen to the community and reconsider what we do and why we do it. It was the local community who set this theatre up 20 years ago and we must listen to them, particularly the young people. Theatre by the Lake is the only producing theatre in Cumbria, a region where there is not much access to art. When it gets tough and feels overwhelming, I just remind myself that we have a job to do and we need to get on and do it.”

Further details: theatrebythelake.com

A show that opened this week in 2012: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

A show that did open this week, in 2012, was Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It tells the story of Christopher, an autistic teenager, who discovers his neighbour’s dog has been killed by a garden fork.

The production ran in the National Theatre’s Cottesloe space (now the Dorfman) from July 24 to October 27, with a press night on August 2.

The production was directed by Marianne Elliott, designed by Bunny Christie and featured terrific movement sequences by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett of Frantic Assembly. The cast included Nicola Walker, Paul Ritter, Niamh Cusack, Howard Ward, Luke Treadaway, Matthew Barker, Nick Sidi, Rhiannon Harper-Rafferty and Sophie Duval.

The show began as a bit of a summer sleeper, and some critics were dismissive of what they described as “cloying kidult entertainment” and a “self-conscious cuteness and sentimentality”. But Stephens’ clever version, combined with Christie’s witty design, in which infinite possibilities and multiplying confusions were represented in squares and numbers, ensured that this was a crowd-pleaser that went on to become a West End and international hit for the National Theatre.

It certainly wagged its tail at the box office. By the time it departed the West End in 2017, it had been seen by 2.5 million people worldwide. It had also won a slew of awards, including seven Oliviers and five Tonys. It became infamous in December 2013 when part of the Apollo Theatre ceiling collapsed during a performance. But it returned to the West End in 2014, taking up residence at the Gielgud Theatre, with the critics lining up to pat the mutt.

“Simon Stephens’ superb script has just gone on the GCSE syllabus. Yet Stephens would be the first to admit that his adroit, playful text is just one component among design, sound, lighting and movement. It’s an accessible, adorable union of the mainstream and the experimental,” declared Dominic Maxwell in the Times, while in Time Out Andrzej Lukowski wrote that the show “remains a thing of unbridled wonder”.