Chaos Reigns on U.K. Film and TV Sets as COVID-19 Cases Soar - Hollywood Reporter

becomes a global hotspot for the delta variant: "On too many productions, COVID supervisors are not listened to and their advice is ignored.".

So lamented Andrew Lloyd Webber as he revealed on Monday — the very day that all remaining lockdown restrictions were lifted across England — that he was shuttering his West End musical Cinderella after a castmember tested positive for COVID-19.

Leavesdon, which shut down for two days on Monday after a production member tested positive.

“On too many productions, COVID supervisors are not listened to and their advice is ignored,” says veteran Brit producer Jonathan Weissler of Balagan Production.

“Quite often these supervisors are relatively junior production people who now have this job title but no actual authority.

Weissler also suggests that many productions “cover up” their COVID problems, simply plugging gaps with crew, only for more people to become infected the next day.

But with COVID delays now written into insurance policies, such corner cutting could affect any compensation that might be due when a production is hit.

“If they don’t stick to [the guidelines], they might lose the compensation they get when production is delayed, and they are sort of incentivized to stick to those,” says Enders Analysis COO and director of TV Gill Hind.

With most people on productions likely to be at least partly vaccinated, few people on sets are likely to become “badly ill,” she adds.

That said, the anger leveled at the government for its overall handling of the pandemic — not least the decision to remove all restrictions entirely amid a surge in infections and, as Lloyd Webber argued, its “blunt instrument” isolation guidance — isn’t likely to dissipate soon