It is a strange time for live culture at the moment. On the surface, much of the industry seems to have returned to something close to normal: heads are being banged at gigs, popcorn scarfed down in cinemas, and applause is rippling through theatres. Yet at the same time, Covid case numbers are at concerning levels (if down on previous weeks); there are continuing murmurs of Plan B (or even Plan C), and winter is looming.

It feels like a good time then to take the temperature of live performance and who better to do so than the Guardian’s crack team of critics and editors, whose work means attending more shows and screenings than anyone else. I have asked four of them for their impressions of what it’s like to be in venues at the moment, and the general state of their respective artforms, and they’ve thrown in a few recommendations to boot …

Cinema

Peter Bradshaw, Guardian chief film critic

Being back at the cinema feels like being released from suspended animation. Something we took for granted is back on the menu again and we can go back to taking it for granted. Except that we shouldn’t.

Going to the movies is still a relatively painless experience compared to almost any live event. I have been to the theatre and to live comedy since things opened back up and that was a matter of being ushered into special one-way queues and showing the Covid double-vax QR code on your NHS app to stern door staff, as if boarding a flight to Dubai. Going to the movies is much more free and easy and it feels like a joy. As far as the maskless ones are concerned, I am not worried – or not as worried as I am on public transport. At the movies, except for rare sellout performances, social distancing is managed quite naturally.

It was such a childish thrill seeing No Time to Die on a screen the size of an upturned five-a-side pitch and I’ve now seen Dune three times on the big screen, at least partly now for the sheer pleasure of tuning in to other people’s rapture.

Gigs

Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Guardian music editor

A gig audience almost certainly isn’t representative of the wider population in terms of attitudes towards the waxing and waning pandemic: it’s a self-selecting group of people who have chosen to spend time in close proximity to each other. To some this is reckless, even unethical behaviour, but the fag-packet risk assessment that punters have taken is that the likelihood of catching or unwittingly spreading Covid, particularly at a venue that requires you to demonstrate a vaccine or negative test, is outweighed by the need to see live music.

Judging by crowds at recent gigs by Self Esteem (euphoric at the potency of sisterhood) and Bring Me the Horizon (creating circle pits the size of A-road roundabouts), that need remains deep-rooted. It would be whimsical to say that this emotion is particularly heightened post-pandemic; it was more like seeing gig-goers’ muscle memory happily kick back in. Instead, it is the artists who seem to be most affected. Judging by the on-stage tears at each of those gigs, those who have been long deprived their livelihoods, and very reasons to be, are particularly thankful for live music to be back.

Theatre

Arifa Akbar, Guardian chief theatre critic

In some ways, it feels like a slide back into normality, once inside the theatre, but there is a tension between the old normal and the new. Production teams have shown such a will to survive, despite some having to be put on hold because of Covid cases and it’s been a relief to see them after their isolation periods.

I have a heightened awareness of safety and distancing now and feel more uncomfortable in shows where few in the audience are masked. I remember being inside a theatre soon after the government made masks non-compulsory, sitting cheek-by-jowl in a packed theatre to watch Ian McKellen’s Hamlet, and looking around in surprise at how few people had their elected to wear their masks. Since then, it has only got more lax, and I sometimes feel like the odd one out. More surprisingly, I have only been asked for my Covid certificate on two trips to the theatre – and I am someone who often goes four times a week.

All of this leaves me feeling a little insecurity about the future welfare of theatre as much as my own safety. Having said that, it’s been well worth any risk and I’ve seen some fantastic theatre, from the fun factor of shows such as Hairspray or the ghostly 2:22 in the West End to the searing brilliance of the Kiln’s The Invisible Hand and Emma Rice’s playful Wuthering Heights at the Old Vic. But best of all has been Paula Vogel’s Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory, which combines a queer Yiddish love story with an ode to theatre and the most gorgeous music. My biggest fve-star show so far.

Art

Jonathan Jones, an art critic for the Guardian

You cannot enjoy art online; you have to be there, and it has been sheer pleasure to see it for real again. As soon as galleries reopened I raced to review as many shows as possible, travelling by plane, train and Shanks’s pony to experience real art in real places. It has been moving to find so much art roaring back. Manchester was still considered a Covid crisis zone when it launched its international festival, where I was moved by an exhibition on art and poetry. The problem, of course, is what not to like. When galleries are facing such struggles, is it responsible to write a bad review? But you cannot love art without discrimination. So the bad reviews write themselves and hopefully that too feels “normal”.

If you want an exciting feast of art after the pandemic, and in the era of Black Lives Matter, don’t miss Yinka Shonibare’s visionary Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

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