Theatre closures are not necessarily a disaster – they offer a chance to remake culture

Theatre stands on the brink of ruin, says Sonia Friedman. And if you believe Twitter, so is my career. I’m apparently ‘a disgrace to my profession’. ‘Not fit to do my job’. I wear ‘grubby’ oversized T-shirts, dare to have ‘an anagram for a name‘ (sorry for being foreign) and possess the face of an ‘etiolated ferret’ and, naturally, for all this, I should be fired. 

Leaving aside for a moment my funny name, ferrety face and baggy clothes (all criticisms not without some merit), what was my crime? To suggest that theatre being on the brink of ruin might not be such a disaster. That tongue was firmly lodged in cheek was of course wilfully overlooked. Hey-ho. This is Twitter. Leaping on the most uncharitable interpretation of a tweet is the default setting. Which inevitably meant that, according to one Twitter account, I was advocating ‘children starve’. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I’ve always been solidly anti-starvation of any kind.