maybe ," compere Kiri Pritchard-McLean tells the crowd. The last few months have been no laughing matter, with the Covid-19 death toll still ticking and the devastating impact of lockdown laying waste to countless jobs.The performing arts industry has been among the hardest hit, with redundancies at institutions such as Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre feared to be just the tip of the iceberg.
A lot is riding on getting events like this right - with spikes in cases across Europe after the lifting of lockdown restrictions, and the recent reintroduction of measures in Oldham following a surge in new cases there, both lives and livelihoods hang in the balance whenever rules are relaxed.
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