UK - Lighting designer Andy Webb specified Robe moving lights to be at the heart of his lighting designs for two high-profile pantomime shows, The Further Adventures of Peter Pan staged at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury and Sleeping Beauty at the Festival Theatre in Malvern – two of 11 pantos presented this season by UK Productions.
As the proliferation of mad characters, slapstick comedy, innuendo and humour flowed, so did the illumination, together – literally – with some cast members in Aylesbury, as the action and fun drew heavily on a series of spectacular flying gags – both onstage behind a drop-down projection screen, and out into the audience.
At Aylesbury, the infrastructure needed to make this happen meant a few production compromises, and the lighting department lost several ‘standard’ positions in this 1,200-capacity venue due to the installation of the flying systems, a fact that informed Webb’s general approach to lighting the show.
A large track from theatrical flying specialists Flying by Foy traversed from stage left to the upper circle, enabling actors and props to fly out above the audience in a series of thrilling scenes that had everyone on their feet, gasping with wonder . . . while Webb was challenged to find new lighting positions to compensate for those that were now unavailable.
Another task was to conceal as many flying wires as possible, amplify the impact of those seat-edge moments, and deal with the additional flying onstage, all of which reduced the already squeezed tight tech time and resulted in some intense overnight programming sessions for lighting, which Webb and his team took in their stride. “Every challenge is also something else that drives us to deliver a great show,” he elucidated.
“Panto will often be the first theatrical experience for so many kids, so our job includes making it all as magical and mysterious as possible, so they really do believe it’s happening,” he noted, adding that children are also notoriously hard to impress when it comes to stagecraft.
For his spot-wash fixture ‘backbone’, Webb this year chose Robe Esprites and Spiiders, with 11 and 18 fixtures respectively, to which he added 10 MegaPointes and six ParFect 150s all supplied by rental specialist, CEG, together with the lighting kit for Malvern and two other UKP productions.
With the two main overhead lighting bridges lost to the audience flying track, Webb compensated by utilising the pros arch drop-down bars and the side ladders more, with 14 fixtures rigged each side. “I really appreciated the power of the Spiiders and Esprites here,” he commented, explaining that these positions proved effective for crossing the stage at a steep angle.
When combined with additional moving lights positioned on the front-of-circle bar, moving lights came into the stage from all angles so everything was fully flexible. The ParFect 150s were also positioned in these high side angled positions, great for lighting the forestage and cross-stage activities.
He also spec’d 16 Robe LEDBeam 150s which were scattered around at all levels and all angles, their small size perfect for filling any gaps.
These Spiiders and Esprites were the main workhorses of the show, and as fixtures with which Webb is very familiar, assisted massively in achieving results during the incredibly tight programming windows.
Colour is hugely important in lighting Panto as the different worlds of the show are usually fantastical, offering designers the chance to go wild when getting imaginative. Webb was “very grateful” to have all the power and versatility of the Spiider at his disposal, known for its excellent colours and colour-mixing properties.
“Spiiders enabled me to add layers of depth and bring a huge visual warmth and sense of vividness to the different pictures,” he said, adding that in this setup, the over-audience flying also meant physically less separation between stage and audience, another factor informing the fundamentals of the lighting.
On top of that, the side stage slip (lower) and upper positions were used for playing out certain parts of the performance, “so the whole spatiality of the room was changed, everything became more integrated which required even more interdepartmental collaboration than usual”.
The MegaPointes, positioned onstage, produced super-bright shafts of light, and especially with the prism effects inserted, helped conceal the auditorium flying wires. “There is nothing to beat a Robe MegaPointe in a magical situation,” quipped Webb.
Programming – completed by Josh Gallagher – had to be super-accurate due to the exceptionally tight timing and to address all the challenges of lighting a panto with flying elements. Gallagher also operated the show for the five-week run of performances, a role he’s taken on at Aylesbury for the last three years.
Lighting for Sleeping Beauty at the Malvern venue saw Webb op for a more old-school aesthetic, and with all the flying contained onstage, it was more about creating the right dynamics and narrative treatments with the lighting, for which he used Robe DL4S Spots, ParFect 150s, ParFect 100s and Spiiders, together with some other moving lights and a collection of generics.
He programmed the Malvern show himself using an Avolites Tiger Touch II console, finding it “extremely quick” and both of these pantos had around 300+ lighting cues in the consoles.
The sets for both productions were designed and produced by the UK Productions in-house creative team, with The Further Adventures of Peter Pan directed by Chris Nelson and Sleeping Beauty by Paul Boyd.
