British Airways ‘Impact’ Day – 1st April 2020
All the stories in this digest were written during the pandemic. Dear Friends, Jennie has suggested that whilst I am stuck in the house I should put pen to paper and write down some of the rather curious and hopefully amusing experiences that I have witnessed in my forty years of lighting design. Get yourself […]
Isao Tomita in New York – 8th April 2020
or the tale of channel 101 – In 1984 I was tasked by Theatre Projects to manage the lighting for a concert by Isao Tomita on the banks of the River Danube in Linz, the show went well and I made some new friends amongst the Japanese creative team. A year later I was in […]
Transporter Slaughter – 15th April 2020
In the early eighties I left my role as deputy chief LX at the Adelphi Theatre to pursue a freelance career. Whilst working in the West End I had lit quite a few national theatre tours in the main for Bill Kenwright and some West End shows for Barry Humphries and Wayne Sleep. I decided […]
One Night in Donetsk – 22nd April 2020
The Donbass Arena is one of the most remarkable stadiums that I have ever seen and was built in a previously desolate and very poor area of Donetsk which sadly, whilst we were in Sochi with the Paralympic Games in 2014, became a war zone. It really looks like a space ship that has landed […]
Hats off to Grace and Naomi – 29th April 2020
At the start of my lighting design career aged seventeen I joined an amateur theatre, The Preston Playhouse, and was allowed to light the pantomime with our limited rig, four Furse fixtures FOH and ten Junior 8 wire wound slider dimmers. I remember we had pieces of wood around six feet long with notches in […]
Just my IMAGINATION – 6th May 2020
In the early eighties I moved from my job as Deputy Chief LX at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford to the West End where I was appointed as Deputy Chief LX at the Adelphi Theatre on London’s Strand. Whilst I had been at Guildford quite a few ‘name’ LDs had passed through as it […]
Me Old China – 13th May 2020
I have been most fortunate in having been invited to light some fantastic events over the years not least of which was my invitation to light the 2012 ‘Handover to London’ during the closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. My appointed task here was to illuminate the eight minute handover sequence […]
Under Arrest – 20th May 2020
During my travels around the World flashing coloured lights in people’s faces (as my son Robert once described my profession) I have found myself in some bizarre situations and sometimes at odds with security or law enforcement through no real fault of my own; you decide. (All photos in this tale are indicative and aside […]
His Secret Passion – 27th May 2020
In the late eighties I had the pleasure of working with Giles Havergal at the Citizen’s Theatre and Welsh National Opera and Philip Prowse at Opera North in Leeds. The first performance with Philip was Tamburlaine which he directed and for which he designed a wonderful set complete with giant horse statues. The second opera […]
All the President’s Men – 3rd June 2020
In 2014 I was invited to light the Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies in Sochi with a rig inherited from the mighty Al Gurdon who had designed the Olympic Ceremonies a few weeks earlier. Once again we turned out the stadium lighting system and PRG brought in some 2,500 moving lights, unlike Rio we were […]