Queen Elizabeth’s wish – why the show went on in Chichester

Thursday’s night’s performance of The Narcissist in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre went ahead, prefaced by a speech from Chichester Festival Theatre’s executive director Kathy Bourne.

CFT artistic director Daniel Evans explained: “There is huge protocol for Arts Council organisations and the protocol was that on the day of her passing, performances should go ahead.

“Kathy mourned her passing and the longest reign of a monarch in the history of our nation and said how grateful everyone was for her service. We had a minute’s silence. And the protocol suggested that any address should end with Long Live The King and that's what Kathy did.”

For the actors who then performed The Narcissist, as Daniel says, professionalism took over – and also a sense of history: “It will be rather like everyone knowing what they did on the day that JFK died.”

What happens now will become clearer in the fullness of time, but Daniel said his understanding is that theatres will be closed on the day of the funeral.