"The Go-Between has a pretty interesting history; we opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds five years ago, before hitting the Derby Playhouse and Royal and Derngate in Northampton - the reviews were great and we really wanted to bring it to London, but we were aware of the need for a strong actor to play the lead role who could really pull in the crowds. When Michael Crawford said he'd do it, it was the perfect casting, so we started planning to bring the show to the West End."
Tim continued, "The lighting rig we have here in the Apollo is a full mix of what we used in Leeds, Derby, and Northampton. I decided to stick with the basic rig and add a layer of LED lighting over the top. We used the ETC LED Source 4 Lustr 2 profile lights which are great, and a lot of GLP X4 RGBW LED wash lights overhead which give lots of really beautiful, deep, saturated colours.
"We chose the X4 over similar lights because they are really punchy and bright. I put two out-front narrowed-in, along with a couple of Martin MAC TW1 lights to do the work of followspots."
PRG XL Video account director, Peter Marshall, who has worked closely with Tim for over five years commented, "Tim's an exceptional designer - we've worked with him on many projects. He has a clear vision of what he wants to achieve; and as can be seen on The Go-Between, is highly skilled at getting lots of wonderful looks out of a very minimalist rig."
Tim paid tribute to the technical team he works with. "Chris Vaughan is truly amazing and does an exceptional job as production electrician."
The production uses an ETC Ion desk as a lighting control console, Tim described the process of plotting the show, "Chris Hurst did all the programming in the theatre on an ETC Eos, before we stepped down to run the show on a little Ion. Rather than modify the existing show file from the previous incarnations of the show, we decided to reference against it, but to start from scratch, that way we wouldn't get random lights coming on unexpectedly."
(Jim Evans)
