A year ago I was having strange feelings that my life as an audience member was coming to a close. I filled in surveys expressing my doubts about when I might be booking shows again. I even expressed to friends my doubts that I would ever return to the life I had been living for the previous ten years. I still haven't re-engaged with the website I have reviewed for for nearly a decade.
In 2020 after the first lockdown closed all the theatres I saw just one open-air promenade performance - a diverse triple bill called Circuit at The Lowry in October - in that strange period when things started to open before completely closing again. I had seen six wonderful shows January - March.
Last weekend, I saw a short outdoor performance by Hawk Dance Theatre, part of the Pride in Trafford festival with Sale's Waterside arts centre. On Friday - for the first time since March 2020 I am back in an auditorium, socially distanced but in an actual bloody theatre watching something on a stage. And on Saturday, I return to The Lowry for Circuit 2 - a new iteration of that then-flicker of life last autumn. Other tickets have been bought for June, October and December (so far).
Not a perfect circuit but a circuit of sorts.