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 Fame Starmaker 2010 production poster
Have just returned home from seeing Starmaker Theatre Company’s production of Fame at the Wilde Theatre in Bracknell. It was really good to see a decent audience there and they were rewarded with an excellent performance by a fine cast, most of them under 18 years of age. Starmaker has apparently not been immune from the effects of recession on ticket sales but this is a company that really deserves to do well, whatever the economic weather.
I’d assisted with the lighting rig for this show last Sunday and so had half an idea of what to expect but the performance really exceeded my expectations. The cast were trained to a very high standard and the production values were similarly well honed. Interesting to see from the programme notes that this was the last show for some of the teenage leads; one can only hope their skills will percolate into other amateur or even professional companies.
Becca Wyard’s lighting design worked well; I really liked the opening scene, a whole sequence of lighting changes really setting the expectation for the rest of the evening. There was also neat follow-spotting throughout, subtle and effective.
It was good to see how well the six Showtec 3W LED PAR cans also worked on stage. Good beam spread, mostly flicker free fades and colour transitions and a reasonably punchy output. I’d trialled one of these late last year and suspected this model might well have made the LED PAR can come of age. Now got me thinking about possible uses on at least one forthcoming show…
 Iolanthe, performed by Reading Operatic Society at the Salvation Army hall, Reading Central
I must confess to not being exactly on top form when it came to designing and rigging the lighting for Reading Operatic Society’s performance of Iolanthe at the Reading Central Salvation Army hall. A throat infection was not a good overture for my efforts but anyhow it all happened in the way that shows always manage to happen.
It was a new venue to Reading Operatic but not to me; my original touring PAR can rig of circa early 1980s vintage having been resident here for the past couple of decades. The original plan was to hire a lot of additional kit, fly some trusses to hang it all from and control it all with DMX, but that plan was changed and so I had to figure something out with 22 channels of dimming and just a couple of extra lanterns. Think I just about managed to prove less is more but I must confess going back to running a whole show on a two-deck preset board kept me on my toes.
Little bit busy with lighting in the near future. First in the Wilde at Bracknell next weekend to assist with the rig for Starmaker’s performance of Fame. Then to The Theatre @ The Oakwood Centre for Mostly G&S’s concert rendition of The Gondoliers on 26-27 March. Then back to the Salvation Army hall for a John Lewis fashion show on 10 April before designing the lighting for Sainsbury Singer’s performance of Beauty and the Beast at The Hexagon on 26-29 May.
Plus I really need to do a major overhaul of my lighting kit this summer. So plenty on.
 Pedro 33 Solano Incalzando on the River Seine below Rouen Just once in a while it’s fun to celebrate something for no great reason. In this case an image I first took on 35mm transparency film on the River Seine from the deck of our Pedro 33 Solano Incalzando, sometime in the mid 1990s.
From memory the specifics were a dawn departure downstream from Rouen, to ensure we took the travelator of a tide that flows with gusto on the tidal river Seine. In the image you can just see the hints of mist, but not long before or afterward tendrils of thick fog were curling over the rails and knitting themselves into a blanket to obscure even the bankside, just a few scant metres away. It was technically illegal for a leisure boat to proceed in such circumstances, given the commercial traffic on the river, but on 70-odd miles from Rouen to the sea there are few if any places suitable for pulling over and tying up, even on a steel motorboat. And so we put the radar on and spent a concentrated hour or so until the sun got going and broke through.
These days it would be very interesting to see how a FLIR infrared thermal imaging camera would have coped with the conditions; I’m hoping to see first-hand before too long now, as soon as we have demonstration units in play.
Meanwhile the much older technology of 35mm Fuji film reminds that the summer is but a few months away and adventures hopefully beckon.
 du Pre Marine website It’s been a little while since I was involved in the launch of a website, let alone the creation of one. The addition of a new company to our group, du Pré Marine, has provided the excuse to dust off skills and catch up with the current state of various content management platforms.
At first I was considering using WordPress for the site; it seems to be much greater than a mere blogging tool now and I really enjoy working with it on here when I have the time. But in the end I selected Joomla. It took a few hours and a couple of headache pills to get to grips with it. However the end result is good and it gives us a basis for getting going with the first of our product lines in the new company, FLIR thermal imaging cameras.
We already have our eyes on further marine product lines although the aim will be to concentrate on a small number of high quality products. Double First has just had its biggest ever year and there’s lots of good things happening at du Pré so it’s going to be a busy 2010 for all three companies.
 Model of Decorum and Dignity from Chess The Musical I’d always wanted an excuse to use square focusing of theatre lanterns in a lighting design and Chess The Musical gave me a very good reason. All of the downstage specials were focused in a grid of two rows of five squares using 10 SL 15/32s from front of house. My hat is off to Martin Pretty of the Hexagon staff who did all of the hard work on Bridge 2 getting the SLs in place first time.
This kind of focus meant the cast had to be well forward (pretty much on the front edge) of the box to be lit and there was a distinct but tiny shadow at the edge if they moved sideways between boxes. So accuracy in hitting marks (and explaining them) was needed. But the effort was worth it with a lot of encouraging comments.
I also had four Source 4 10-degree lanterns on a balcony truss to project gobos onto a back black gauze and cyc and seven 26-degree Source 4s with ChromaQ scrollers for stage backlight so that I could zone the action stage left and right as required (a further two were used for downstage chess tournament scenes). All of this kit was hired from Viking Stage Lighting and worked well.
The 10-degree Source 4 beams were just as I had calculated but I thought at first I had over-cooked the 26-degree backlights and specified them too tight. However some frost in each (thanks again Mr Pretty) gave just the effect needed.
Reviews on the show are excellent. Plaudits all around to Sainsbury Singers.
 Chess The Musical, performed by Sainsbury Singers 27-31 October And so to rehearsals for Sainsburys Singers‘ performance of Chess The Musical at The Hexagon, Reading on 27-31 October. Having just got home from the first run-through I must say I am impressed by the quality of the singing of what is a very difficult score. Soloists are strong and the cast at full bore nearly took the roof off the rehearsal venue. Exciting!
As for my part in this, lighting, a whole stack of moving lights and three or four days to plot wouldn’t go amiss. But for all sorts of reasons I have to achieve the desired effect with less time and conventional fixtures. So my next few evenings are accounted for as I will be quite happily buried in the task of ensuring I have the many fast-flowing scenes covered.
Further details here.
 Police follow this van - why? Are the crooks inside? Is it me, or does the ‘Police follow this van’ sign seen on the back of Group 4 cash trucks these days conjure up images of a Keystone Kops scenario in which the security wagon drives past, the boys in blue read the sign and immediately obey by running after it up the road, truncheons drawn at the ready?
I guess the sign means to infer that somewhere, there is a darkened room with a lot of screens and square-eyed monitoring staff watching blips (perhaps those big blobby ones favoured in Thunderbirds and early James Bond movies) dancing across a map. Chances are though that the following of the vans is a little less intense, although I’m happy to be educated otherwise.
Just to set any minds at ease I’m not planning a heist; just mildly annoyed in a Lynne Truss kind of way at the wording.
 Formanda flies her ensign for the first time in two years I have to say that it has always felt that something was missing. And then I realised what it was.
In all of the time we have been busy rebuilding Formanda, our Beecham Searider 45, the ensign was tucked away in one of a myriad number of boxes and the staff socket was removed from the rail. Well, all of that is in the past now.
In a fit of August Bank Holiday activity (yes, I know, another timely blog!) the socket was secured to the rail, the staff rigged and the ensign flown. Actually, it’s a slightly OTT ensign, one that might cheekily flick the unwary visitor boarding astern in the ear, but after the rebuild that Formanda has endured it seems appropriate to make a bit of visual impact to celebrate progress to-date.
There’s much more to do this winter, but every time the tasks seem to be impossible I suspect I’ll be holding my own personal ensign ceremony, just to see that cheeky gash of red fly in the breeze.
 Website for the West End musical Sister Act We went to see Sister Act at the London Palladium on a trip organised by Sainsbury Singers on 6 October. I had heard that it was quite different to the film and so it proved.
It was hard to fault the show. The first couple of numbers in the nightclub seemed a bit ordinary. But then things took off with the appearance of the nuns and the evening roared through.
One cannot envy anyone trying to fill Whoopi Goldberg’s substantial boots. But Patina Miller soon got into her comedic stride and, arguably anything she might have missed in terms of force of personality (which became less and less detectable as the evening sparkled on) she more than made up for with her singing.
Miller’s Deloris Van Cartier was brilliantly balanced by Sheila Hancock’s Mother Superior. Miller might have had the moves and the energy but Hancock had the class and an easily delivered repertoire of stage skills – a stunning reminder of how top class British acting cannot be bettered.
As a bit of a Dad’s Army fan it was good to see Ian Lavendar as Monsignor Howard but while his part provided plenty of fun punctuation, it was pretty much eclipsed, not only by the two leading women but also by some brilliant moments from the supporting roles and ensemble. The vocally acrobatic ‘Lady in the Long Black’ dress sung by the three gangsters TJ, Bones and Dinero (Thomas Goodridge, Nicholas Colicos and Ivan de Freitas) early in Act II being just one example of a crescendo of successful surprises served by the cast.
More predictably Katie Rowley Jones‘ novice Sister Mary Robert, Claire Greenway’s strident Sister Mary Patrick and Julia Sutton’s wizen Sister Mary Lazarus all served the characters expected, a fact that sub-consciously probably played a very important part of the musical’s success.
It was great to see all of the expected actors playing their roles on a Tuesday night; we have been a little unlucky with understudies on our West End visits of late and while some stand-ins can perform the socks off of ‘names’ on this occasion it’s hard to see how a stand-in for Miller, Hancock et al would have been able to deliver quite the same performance.
The theatre geek side of me was more than satisfied by the Klara Zieglerova’s fluid and clever set and the very complimentary lighting by Natasha Katz. And Alan Menken’s music was very different to the film, but we enjoyed it enough to walk out of the London Palladium with the soundtrack.
No surprise the evening closed out with a standing ovation. Highly recommended if you want to emerge from the theatre with a broad grin.
I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to stay healthy can be, well, unhealthy. My reasoning being somewhat recently influenced by the experience of getting a routine ECG during a recent check on my health.
Medical people (aka chief torturers) recently stuck me on a treadmill with various parts hooked up to ECG and blood pressure. Keeping the pads hooked up involved shaving certain parts of my chest, something that seemed fine at the time (but that which subsequently left me with a very itchy patch for days afterwards).
So it starts. First three minutes at a slowish stroll. “Easy” says I.
Next three at a faster stroll and steeper incline. Still okay although out of the corner of my eye I see my ticker is getting a bit busier.
Next three minutes the pace and incline is upped again. Still okay. But before end of that the man in the white coat is saying “it would be good to get your heart to max bpm of (for my age) 173, can you manage faster?”
The macho bit kicks in and I say yes. Now Hollamby’s little legs are a blur, the chest is heaving, things are turning to jelly and I hit 180 one minute in. “It would be REALLY good if you could manage another minute” the techie says with a taunting “go on, real men can do it” look on his face that I just about register through sweat-stung eyes.
So I go for it…and experience the longest minute in my life!
ECG and blood pressure all fine and techie supposedly impressed.
“That was the best test this month” says he. “That was the only test you’ve done this month on someone under 80″ croaks I. He smiles, nicely, but doesn’t reply, which tells me all I need to know.
What does it prove. Well they can push me past my red line without, apparently, my valves hitting my pistons. Fortunately they don’t measure my ability to drive legs in a straight line afterwards…
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