Leading West End producer Nica Burns: ‘London going into Tier 3? That’s very scary for theatre’

It has been a week – and a weekend – like no other for London theatre since the closure of the playhouses in March. All at once the West End has started to look like its old self again.

Two big-hitters have bolstered the returning confidence: Cameron Mackintosh has brought back Les Misérables (in its concert form) to Shaftesbury Avenue and lavish panto (albeit in revue format) has taken up residence at the Palladium. A new comedy, too, The Comeback, at the Noël Coward is creating a buzz.

But the most salient and significant contribution has come courtesy of Nimax. Six theatres co-owned by (and named after) Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer (a veteran US producer based in Oklahoma) have reopened in swift succession, offering a cornucopia of shows to watch, despite the fact that, under Tier 2, capacity is capped at 50 per cent, meaning that the financial model is, at best, a break-even one.

The last 48 hours has seen a welter of official Covid-secure openings: Six – the roaring musical smash relaying the under-sung lives of Henry VIII’s wives – has arrived at the newly refurbished Lyric, while along Shaftesbury Avenue, the ebullient Brit hit Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (rebooted with a Covid‑referencing script and costumes) has been packing them in (in a socially distanced way) at the Apollo.

A new drag-queen comedy, Death Drop (billed as “a Dragatha Christie murder mystery”), has brought gags and glamour to the Garrick. And the funniest theatre troupe in Britain – Mischief – are once again holed up at the Duchess (with The Play That Goes Wrong) and the Vaudeville (with an impro show, replacing Magic Goes Wrong). Across the week, once you factor in a busy, mixed programme at the Palace (comedy gigs, musical showcases, celebrity audiences), Nimax has presented 42 performances of 12 shows.

“What a statistic!” Burns (its chief executive) says with a delighted grin as she gives me a whistle-stop, Willy Wonka-ish tour of her mini-empire, going backstage to see technical run-throughs and say hi to effusively grateful staff. “These openings have been hugely emotional,” she says. “It has been a massive, emotional, happy weekend for me.”

It would have been tempting to do the minimum in the midst of a pandemic – especially given the absence of a government-backed insurance scheme – but doing the most risk-averse thing doesn’t sit well with Burns. A long-standing commercial producer of note, a trailblazer who set up the Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly the Perrier) and ran the Donmar Warehouse in the Eighties, she’s a female entrepreneur par excellence. “I’m not a fearful person,” she says. “I prepare, check and plan but I will take risks and every time I’ve taken a risk it has worked out well.”

It took nerves of steel to take on theatre ownership back in 2005 – putting all her assets, house included, on the line – on the fateful day (7/7) bombers brought chaos to the capital. Yet all challenges pale beside the perils of 2020: after nine arduous months her company has risen, phoenix-like, only to face the imminent threat of London being put into Tier 3 this week; the omens are not good.

What would be the impact? “It’s very scary,” says Burns, 66. “It would be a huge blow.” The cost of slamming on the brakes? “Hundreds of thousands.” Her staff (approximately 350) must still be paid, masses of tickets rebooked. “The question is: will the audience come back? They’ve been great so far, staying with us over every hurdle, keeping their tickets – the refund rate is low. That’s encouraging – it means they’re keen to come back. Even so, every time you muck them around…”

“Ruin” is not in her vocabulary. Come the anniversary of the closures in March, Nimax will have lost around £20 million in expected revenue. Even so, “there’s no question of us going bust, we’re secure financially. We will stop and start as the Government requires – it’s about compliance and putting safety first. We will weather the storm.” Those sniffing around West End theatres for a sale needn’t bother calling? “Yes, I get inquiries like: ‘Would it be helpful if I bought you?’ ‘No!’ We’re not for sale!”

No one does determined good cheer like Burns, who started out as an actress before turning to directing. She regularly sings to herself the old Thirties Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers number Pick Yourself Up. “That has been my mantra – it’s exactly how I feel. We’ve been on the floor, picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and started all over again.” This has happened several times now, what with the imposition of a second lockdown and then reduction in indoor venue capacity.

“There have been some rock bottom moments,” she admits. “I didn’t see that lockdown coming. Others may have done. We were in full reopening mode. It’s one of those things. There was no point beating myself up as to whether I’d made a mistake. We were in it now. The financial damage was limited, it wasn’t the end of the world. The human side was toughest because we’d just hired everyone. My staff had skipped to work with their eyes shining. I did think, I don’t know whether I can do this all over again, restart again – but here we are.”

Despite expressing due exasperation – “the complete uncertainty all the time has been really hard” – she takes an understanding attitude to the Government’s handling of the crisis. It was comments made by Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, in September, together with her attending Jesus Christ Superstar at the Open Air theatre, Regent’s Park, that encouraged her to bite the bullet. “He said, ‘Theatres are the lynchpin of the West End and without them their streets are empty and deserted’, and it has been a long time since a government minister actually put that on the record. It was, ‘Yes, thank you, you’re right!’ That was one of the factors that prompted me to lose money on opening and do something proactive and positive.” On a good week, in Tier 2, she can deliver around 20,000 people into the West End.

“By opening, we’re not worse off than mothballing and closing down. And we’re better off in terms of keeping staff employed, lighting up the theatres and keeping people entertained. We are here to spread happiness at a time when a lot of people have been depressed and finding it difficult to cope. I want them to forget their troubles.”

In the new year, given the vaccine and accentuating the positives, she’d love to see social distancing lifted by around the anniversary of the theatre closures, but she’s not holding her breath. And don’t expect – she says – a swift return to normality in theatreland. “Once social distancing is lifted we will go ‘hurray’ then there will be a climb back hopefully to the place we were in. It will take more than a year. You cannot put a big show like Hamilton or Harry Potter up in a few months. We were booming on March 15. It’s not going back to that straightaway. I take the view that you can retreat to your bed and put a duvet over your head or look around and think: how can I make this happen?”

For full details of Nimax’s current season go to nimaxtheatres.com