Lottery to buy empty seats to make pantos viable

The National Lottery will be buying empty theatre seats this Christmas to enable pantomimes to be staged with social distancing, including star-studded performances at the London Palladium. Up to 250,000 tickets are expected to be made available to the public, and more than 20,000 tickets will go to National Lottery players for free.

Qdos, the UK's biggest pantomime producer, had hoped to stage 34 shows at UK venues this year and is working with the National Lottery to extend the scheme to other venues.