One rule for sports, another for everyone else: when will the arts get their freedoms back?

On-air pundits constantly remind us that football is a game of two halves – plus a penalty shoot-out if those halves disappoint. Less fatuous and more concerning are the two worlds of entertainment being exposed, sports and the arts, as the government winds back covid restrictions unevenly and unfairly. 

As the worldwide television audiences can see, the thousands of spectators as Wimbledon and Wembley are free to behave like pre-covid crowds. Masks and social distancing are very much minority options, and at moments of excitement on and of the pitch, they hug each other with the enthusiasm of a Secretary of State for Health.

Visit the theatre, and it is like going through the Iron Curtain in the bad old days. Multiple staffed checkpoints, followed by enforced sparse fare when you get there. 

Sports venues are not yet supposed to be full to capacity, although the stadiums look a lot cosier than the stipulated limits would permit. Anyway, there will be packed houses for the finals, including thousands of UEFA nomenklatura to whom the rules don’t apply. 

The players do their physical competitive stuff with each other, nodded through by Public Health England, which has yet to produce a credible explanation of how a Scottish player testing positive could put two of the England team into quarantine while miraculously leaving teammates in his own “bubble” unaffected. 

It is not like that for the rest of us. Many, like me, were gullible enough to install the NHS app and get “pinged” for ten days house arrest under the tautologous “self-isolation” guidelines. 

But then, when it comes to high-profile, big-ticket sporting events (and a smattering of rock festivals and nightclubs), they make up and break the rules as they go along. Exceptions are made available for test schemes – just ask Michael Gove, who dodged quarantine after watching Chelsea play in Portugal by getting a place on a pilot project. 

So far the “Events Research Programme: Phase 1” has found that there is little risk of spreading infection. After 10,000 watched the World Snooker Championships, there were only five positive tests, none after 3,500 put up with the Brit Awards live, and only 28 cases out of a total of 58,000 guinea pigs. No matter, the rules have still not been adjusted for ordinary entertainments and venues. No wonder one nightclub pulled out of a pilot worried that it was being manipulated to justify a fresh batch of orders from the government. 

As previously with his threat to emigrate if Tony Blair was elected, Andrew Lloyd Webber has disappointed his admirers and detractors alike by not risking prison by opening up his theatres at full capacity. 

At least the Tory peer turned down Boris Johnson’s attempt to buy him off with an exemption. “I have made it crystal clear, “ he explained, “that I would only be able to participate if others were involved and the rest of the industry – theatre and music – were treated equally.” Instead, Lloyd Webber added, live theatre is being treated “as an afterthought and undervalued”.

Since arts venues were allowed to open, I’ve rushed to see two plays and two operas. The shows did their best, but the experience was made miserable by the Covid restrictions. Theatre-goers are a law-abiding bunch and were so happy to be in an auditorium again that they tried to shrug off the hoops they were being forced through. 

If you are lucky enough to get a ticket at the National Theatre, you have to queue outside before being marshalled through hand sanitising, NHS app registration, and up a pre-determined course. Drinks must be ordered in advance, collected in a brown paper bag, and can only be consumed at your seat. Wooden shelves have been fixed over blocks of seats to enforce social distancing. Ushers check that everyone wears a mask even when the lights are down.  

Glyndebourne Opera has the advantage of fresh air in its rolling Sussex grounds, but masks, social distancing and temperature checks are still mandatory. 

It is no better on stage; social distancing still applies. Many plots revolve around flirtation, love and irresistible passion. These are difficult to convey when men and women have to stay firmly two metres apart. 

In Il Turco in Italia, Glyndebourne tries to make a virtue out of circumstances. The chorus wears face masks until they have to sing, and an extra appears with an admonitory two-metre ruler to keep couples apart if they get too frisky. Without such telegraphing, to the audience, the stagecraft and fatal attraction of Katya Kabanova was incomprehensible as the lovers circled each other like a shoplifter and a store detective. 

The National’s Under Milk Wood makes no direct reference to the pandemic. However, it lurks in the extra writing, which shares Dylan Thomas’ poem for voices between the occupants of a care home. There is no scenery; instead, each character wheels their props on and off, making them a lot easier to sterilise in the wings with anti-viral wipes. 

Things were a bit more relaxed at the Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith, if only because Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days serves up the perfect metaphor for these times: a woman buried from the waist up, going nowhere and dying slowly. Of course, I got “pinged” when I checked my phone after the performance, sentenced to another ten-day purgatory despite double vaccination and innumerable negative tests. 

None of these theatres can be blamed for the precautions they are taking. They know that government officials are watching, ready to pounce on any infringement. Even though the performing arts earn more for this country than competitive sport, the so-called liberal elite, who perforce comprise many performers, know that this government does not have their best interests at heart. 

Boris Johnson and his cohorts do not compute why they should help a sector likely to criticise them. Sportsmen and women can cross borders easily even, but before Covid, Brexit had already hobbled the ability of troupes or musicians to go on tour in Europe.

Now that fair play and the rule of law are all, but out of the window, the UK is known worldwide for Scotch whisky, James Bond, 1966 and Shakespeare. The Johnson government is happy to play up to the first three totems. “Scotch” is a vaunted beneficiary of the new trade deals, and Johnson has been posing for photos watching the Euros, despite his declared preference for rugby. 

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is being asked to return his advance payment for his unwritten book on the bard. He has made his choice between worlds by opting for sport and the cheering masses. Who cares about awkward, difficult, spiky, culture, even though it is loved by just as many?