The first performance of 2021 began with an enormous cheer from the audience and staff at the Oxford Playhouse, following months of no live theatre.

A buzzing atmosphere at last returned to the beloved venue on Friday night as it threw open its doors for the first show of the year.

The show was an immersive, socially-distanced sound installation by award-winning playwright Simon Stephens, adapted for the stage from Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago’s dystopian novel, Blindness.

The show saw the audience get the best seats in the house - sitting socially-distanced on stage wearing headphones, through which the voice of actress Juliet Stevenson could be heard, telling the story of a doctor’s wife in a gripping tale about a global pandemic.

Her voice could be heard from all around with lighting assisting the immersive ‘3D’ feel.

Louise Chantal, joint director and CEO of Oxford Playhouse was thrilled for live theatre to be back.

She said: “As our front of house manager said, ‘ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Oxford Playhouse’, there was an enormous cheer.

“It was brilliant to see all my colleagues do what they love and what they do best. All the staff and volunteers were all there and they were delighted to be back - as was the audience.”

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Ms Chantal explained that unusual shows like Blindness could be here to stay.

Throughout the pandemic, the theatre has opened its space for university lectures, and education teams kept going online. Now live theatre is back, so is the livestreaming of performances.

Ms Chantal said: “In the way that we will never work in the same way again, we will never do theatre in the same way again. From now on we will always do live theatre and digital theatre. The hybrid model is here to stay.”

The Oxford Playhouse director explained that although she was apprehensive at first, livestreaming theatre simply makes it more accessible.

It means those who do not feel ready to go back to the theatre can still watch a live performance from the comfort of home. It also means people from across the world in Australia are watching plays performed at the Oxford theatre.

Ms Chantal said: “Watching a live performance, even if you are watching it on your sofa and on your screen at home, is a different experience to watching television or film, you are watching it in real time, it is live, it is a collective experience.”

The pandemic has caused theatre to adapt at an accelerated rate and Ms Chantal does not see these changes as a bad thing.

The theatre director believes it still allows people to have a ‘coming together experience’.

She said: “Theatre is a live organism, and it is constantly changing - as it should be.”