05/25/20

The layout of its shops is being tweaked to discourage people from lingering at high-traffic spots. "The government can give regulations. I think you go beyond. . . The thing that we're looking at is reassurance," says John Bason of Associated British Foods, which owns Primark.

The hand sanitiser, for instance, is not merely plonked onto tables but installed in solidlooking fixtures. Perhaps the unlikeliest leisure business preparing to reopen is the cinema.

Pubs can space tables farther apart and shops can allow in fewer customers. But going to the cinema means spending hours in a small, enclosed space, breathing the same air as others.

That does not phase Tim Richards, who runs Vue, a chain of cinemas. Attendance has been dwindling for years, which could turn out to be an advantage: "I think what's important to recognise is that our occupancy rate tends to be around 20%, so for us to manage our customers coming in is relatively easy to do."

Mr Richards's plan is to stagger screening times in a cinema's different auditoria, with no two films starting at the same time, so as to stop people hanging around together buying popcorn. Ticketing systems will ensure that any booking-whether for a couple or a family of five-is surrounded by empty seats.

Vue will open cinemas gradually, once it is allowed to, with the formal reopening on July 17th planned for the release of Christopher Nolan's "Tenet", a film in which a secret agent must save the world. At the very least, he might help save the cinema.