I once wrote a tribute to tribute bands.
It was not my best work.
It was in many ways simply a tribute, but the tribute fell away
When I started to look at how they were copies
and how they weren’t the same,
I decided I wouldn’t call them out,
And I wouldn’t mention them by name
Theatre has that issue now,
As it is starting to come out,
Like a blossoming bud on a summer’s day
Doing what it could
They have the government telling them
That they have to cheer and lead,
But the cash they need and the creative creed
Are starved whilst other parts feed.
BUT
They are standing boldly online,
Going places none of them have gone before,
and demanding some more of that guidance
From a government famed for avoidance.
And so theatre make plans,
To get us back in,
Many two metre rings,
Masked, sanitised too…
But the tributes we make as reviewers each day
and each time we go fringing,
will be to do our best
not to cheat the rest
through sanitising and audience distancing
Keep promoting what’s the best
in tribute or jest?
We want to go back,
But don’t want to go back,
To the old,
But shall we go back,
To the new?
And we ask, who will be left to lead the tributes this time?
