A DANCE teacher from Worcester has created a lockdown hit with a Zoom-friendly stage show.

Zillah Dimmock, who teaches for Helen Fowles, Principal at Focal Pointe Dance School, based in Worcester, decided to create the show after the coronavirus lockdown saw the arts devastated.

The show, “Alice in Zoomland” is loosely based on the plot of Wonderland, but with a 2020 twist. Since then, groups from across the country have been in touch with her to see if they too can put on the show.

She said: “During lockdown I wrote a Zoom friendly panto/music hall style production. Since then, the script has been bought by over 55 Performing Arts Studios in the UK, Canada and America.

“It loosely follows the plot of Wonderland but with a quirky 2020 twist. I held workshops over zoom in January and then my own students auditioned.

“We have been rehearsing since February and are just starting to record. It has been an incredibly difficult Year but despite this, students have continued to work towards their usual Assessments and an online Production.”

Zillah, who is a qualified associate UKA dance teacher, also linked up with a Worcester T-Shirt printer, Urban Prints Worcester, to create unique shirts for the production. The business has also produced T-Shirts for other studios who have bought the script.

For more information about Focal Pointe Dance School, go to www.focalpointedanceschool.com

The pandemic has hit the arts world,with The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) unveiling a £1.57 billion fund to help the cultural, arts and heritage institutions survive the pandemic last summer.

Of the £1 billion that has been made available, some £830 million in grants and loans has been awarded to different organisations so far, but only £495 million of that has been paid out, the National Audit Office report said.

The Department assumed, in the worst-case scenario, that social distancing would remain until the end of March this year and that demand for the likes of theatre tickets and venue capacity would remain at 40% of pre-Covid-19 levels.