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Live entertainment depends on lively audiences and big crowds, making it one of the hardest-hit industries in the pandemic.

While music venues and theatres are closed, with much of the workforce furloughed, performers are having to find ways to reach audiences online.

Stand-up comic and TV writer, Meryl O’Rourke, who writes for Frankie Boyle's New World Order, has taken her new solo show Vanilla online, with the next broadcast on Thursday. She started performing using virtual conferencing in April.

“I do it every few months,” she told ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money podcast.

“It was going really well, I was making the same amount of money doing the online show as I would in a club, but now we have online fatigue, and selling tickets this time has been very difficult.”

She jokes about the practicalities of online gigs and saying she is ‘on tour’.

“I feel like I should move the camera to different bits of the house.

“Me and my director, Tom, have managed to work out how to hear the laughs, how to see the audience, how to make it as much like a real gig as we possibly can.”

But she adds that people in her line of work are struggling financially.

“The whole industry is on this circle of mate’s rates at the moment.

“There’s a lot of time involved. Yesterday I promoted for three hours, sold one ticket and then PayPal went down.”

Online audiences can behave in a rather bizarre way too, she reveals.

“The problem with Zoom is that people can’t forget that they’re at home… there’ll be somebody smiling, I’ll be focusing on them, and then they’ll just get up to make a cup of tea.

“People in normal audiences do get up to go to the toilet, but they’re usually wearing trousers.”

For panto actor Tam Ryan, the Covid-19 restrictions mean there will be no shows this year. Instead, he will be performing at online staff Christmas parties.

“It’s a brand new venture, we are finding ourselves as we go,” he told ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 5 Live’s Sean Farrington, “but we’re having a lot of fun.”

So how does a staff ‘virtual shindig’ work?

“There will be lots of pre-recorded sections… we’re going to make it very bespoke to the individual company, which will hopefully set us apart,” he said.

“We’re going to mine the information into pre-written routines and awards and work-based quizzes and things like that… so we’re very much going to tailor it to the individual company.”

The idea is the brainchild of Helen Lacey, Creative Director at Enact Solutions, a training and events provider in Huddersfield. It was in response to comments from some of the event delegates she works with, about how they coping with working from home.

“A huge amount just said ‘yeah, we’re kind of getting on with things, it’s really different, but we really, really miss going into work, the routine, seeing colleagues, talking about what was on telly last night, having a giggle with people, and just basically connecting’”, she said.

“I heard something on the radio about everything being cancelled… and I thought ‘how about we create a product that is a virtual Christmas party, your work’s do, for businesses?’

“Especially with all the actors that are out there that would normally be doing Christmas shows, pantos… there’s an extraordinary amount of talent out there.”

Tam said it was a ray of light in the current climate. “I’m greatly indebted to Helen. Everyone’s got to think very creatively now.”