Ben Ormerod - Lighting Designer

[Music] Hello and welcome to the Making Theatre Podcast. My name is James Farncomb. And my name is Bruno Parrott and we're freelance lighting designers. This time we're talking to lighting designer Ben Ormerod. I started my career as Ben's associate doing relights of his designs on tour. He was an inspiring mentor who taught me so much about professional lighting design and I am indebted to him for his generosity and guidance. I think this is a remarkable interview. Ben has clearly thought deeply about his art and has developed his philosophy over many years of practice. We're very grateful that he has agreed to share it with us. Hello Ben, welcome to our podcast. Thank you. It's very good to have you here. You're a lighting designer. What does a lighting designer do? Well, you can't do a play in the dark. So we need to see it and so someone has to turn the lights on. And the thing about light is that it's very evocative. As soon as you switch your light on, it will suggest something. And someone's got to take control of what it suggests. And that's the lighting designer's job. And the more particular the thing is that the light suggests. The sooner that light stops being right and starts being wrong and then you have to make a change. And that's a cue. So in this kind of simplest way of putting it, we've got to light the stage or we can't see the actors. And as soon as we do, we have to start making decisions about how that's going to happen. So that's the kind of the simplest version of what it is that we do. That's wonderful. I think that's a very beautiful way of starting this conversation. Take us back to the very beginning, Ben. Where did you begin? How did your career start? Well, how far back do we go? When I was 16, I started a theatre company with some friends. And we actually booked tours every summer for three years and would do shows and take them around in the back of a van. A bunch of school children put it on plays. It was through that that I decided that I wanted to go to drama school and become a director. And so I enrolled central on the stage management course. And that was quite a competitive course to get in on. But, you know, I've been running a company for three years when I went for the interview. So it was kind of a shoeing, really. So I did train as a stage manager. I mean, in those days, we're talking about 78, 79. There certainly wasn't a lighting design course. There were really directors courses apart from at university. And I was a terrible slacker at school and there was no way I was ever going to get into university because I basically read plays, talked a lot, and listened to lots of music at school and failed on my levels. So drama school was kind of the only option for something like that. And because you know, it wasn't a degree in those days and, you know, you could just basically talk your way in, which is what I did. And that was fantastic because I wasn't the only one with ideas about using stage management as a way of a different end. And that kind of was what happened in those days. If you weren't going to be an actor, then you became a stage manager, and you did that for a few years, and then you became what it was that you wanted to become. So in the same year, as me, was Sam Hunter, who, you know, production stage manager of the Olympics opening ceremony and so on, Howard Harrison and Deborah Warner. We were all studying stage management. There weren't specialist director or designer courses at that time, is that right? There were design courses, very much were design courses, but there wasn't anything like the Berkbeck director's course or anything like that. One of the most directors did was went to university and then directly plays and got a degree in something else. What was the next step? So you left central, I presume, therefore you did get a job as a stage manager. I was not a very good student at central. Again, you know, I spent most of my time listening to music, having long conversations with Debbie and Howard and Sam about lots of things. And being a bit of a rubbish stage manager to be honest, especially Chief LX when I got the job of Chief LX, I was awful. How I'd got to do some lighting. I didn't know that that was what I wanted to do in those days, so I did get to do a bit of directing. I actually directed Deborah Warner in an act of head of garbler, which was an interesting experience. And Howard Harrison played Tezman. Wow. I had a fantastically good time and in those days you didn't get a diploma. You got a piece of paper saying that you've been there for two years and a letter to take to the doll of this. So when I left, the normal thing to do was to become an ASM in rep, work out your card because you had to get, I think, 50 weeks of contracted employment in a rep before you were allowed to work at the National RSE or the West End. That was high-rate. 50. 50. Yeah. 40. No, 40. 40 weeks. 40 weeks. Yeah, it was a close shop in those days. It was a really big deal in those days, wasn't it? It was really important. It was a very big deal. And I, you know, the old fashioned part of me sort of regrets the passing of that. It was an interesting concept. So you had to prove that you could do it. You could get the work, you know. But I kind of knew that I would be hopeless as an ASM in rep. I need an ASM to get through the day. I'm not ASM material at all. And so I went off into the West End and worked as a stage head. Right. Yeah. I got a job at the Victoria Palace where I was learning. And then I heard from one of the crew members that somebody was looking, it was running a fringe company. I was looking for a stage manager. So I met here and he took me on with that company, which is called Cherub Company. And the director was Andrew Visionewski. His original idea was that the actors would do all the stage management. But there was some bits and pieces that they couldn't do like run the show, obviously, or design the lighting and make up the sound tapes. So that's what I did. So I did all the stuff. The actors couldn't do. And that involved lighting the shows. So it was sort of an accident, really. And I was really lucky because it was a touring company. And we got slapped up pretty quickly by the British Council. And they then took it centers on around the world. So I was lighting the show in a difference here to every day. You know, one minute, I'd be at a number one house in Holland. Next thing, I'd be at the Young Vic studio and doing the same design. The same design, but obviously, obviously, you'd be using whatever equipment was in the venue. So you have to adapt it. Whatever equipment was available. And of course, the distances were completely different. Touring the ideas, rather than touring the equipment. Yeah. Which is what it's all about. So Ben, who were you working with at this stage? So I did Cherub. And sort of at the same time, I worked with Deborah Warner and her company, Kickstarter. We worked together for five or six years, putting shows on in Edinburgh and so on. I also went to another company, when the director called Simon Usher and his company, called Buick of Size. And these were three really, really different directors. All requiring very different things from the lighting designer. But I didn't think that that was what I was going to do. Now, I regarded lighting as a passport to get me into the rehearsal room. I wanted to direct. When I left Cherub after a couple of years, because I was offered a job at the Young Vic as an assistant director. And so I went and worked with Frank Dunlop as his assistant. But people can ask me to light shows for them in my spare time. So, you know, I would continue, as you know, you all know about this. And then one day a director came to see a show that I'd let. And he said, and he's a director, I particularly admired a guy called Bernie Goss. And he said, well, he said, Ben, I think it's time you stopped doing all these different jobs. I think you need to pick one. And I know which one it is, but I'm not going to tell you this for you to make up your mind. And I thought, yeah, I think he's probably right. And so then I stopped, you know, the idea of directing. And I just, it's just obvious, it was kind of there in plain sight. Then actually this thing that I was doing as a way of getting into rehearsal room so I could be with actors and directors was actually the thing that I should be doing. That actually I was perhaps, if people are asking me to do it, perhaps I was quite good at it. I said, were you ever an assistant or an assistant? Yes, I was, but quite late on. I got an agent in fact. And I met a designer, a lighting designer who might have always admired a guy called Jerry Jenkinson. Jerry was the in-house lighting designer for the citizens. And his route was completely different from mine. He was an electrician, chief electrician, who lit all the shows in the way that, you know, was a tradition at that time with the chief lit all the shows and had become through that, had become a lighting designer. And I met him at my agents. And I also knew him a bit through David Heyman, who might a little show for. And so we had coffee and we decided to work together. And I really, really felt that I needed that at that point. And it was great because there I was suddenly, I was at the national, you know, working on Jerma. And the lovely thing, isn't it, about being an associate, is you get to think Think about the show you're doing. you even get to make some choices and decisions, but you can go home at night and not worry. - Not have the responsibility in the same way. And being in the room and seeing how big rooms like that function and the different roles that. - Yes. - 'Cause I mean, I feel I learned much of my craft from you working as your associate, because I've done a lot of work on my own friend shows and student shows and things, and sort of inventing lighting for myself, but actually being in the room with an experienced professional taught me so much more about the craft of it, I think, and about the approach. How did you refine your craft at the early stages of your career? I guess you invented it for yourself, would that be right? - I did, I did, yeah, I really did. I learnt a lot from Jerry, but by then, I'd already taught myself a great deal. And Jerry and I are really, really different lighting designers, both philosophically and also, in terms of technique, I think we're really different. And so the things that I learned from him are not things that I necessarily do as a lighting designer. I am really self-taught, but the two things that have really shaped me as a lighting designer are the fact that so much of my work has taught, because when you make a show that has to be recreated, you have to be really tough on yourself, not cheat. What I mean by that is that if you've got a light that you've assigned for one job, and you suddenly discover that, oh, that light actually, you've got it handy in that room, I'll pop that in great. You can't do that safely on a tour, 'cause that light might not be there next week, it might be somewhere else. - And the other thing that shaped me is working, is having to sit down and explain what I've done to someone else so that they can take it out on the road. - Yes, oh well, yes, yeah, yeah. That's when you discover the holes. - Yeah, and that's actually a really brilliant thing to do. Having explained what I do to somebody else, I've understood it better myself. - I think it's safe to say that you've been an incredible mentor and teacher for many, many people. And I mean, I'm definitely one of them. I think the School of Ornerod, if you could call it that, has had a remarkable series of alumni. There's me, there's Paulie Constable, Neil Austin, Malcolm Rifford, Emma Chapman, Mark Hellland, Rich Howell, Amy May, Bethany Guttpill, the list is long. So I think you're willing to share your thoughts and pass on your sort of knowledge and experience and your way of working has benefited a huge number of people. - Well, it wasn't completely altruistic. So I have to say, so because how it all started was I was working with Steve Unwin at the sort of the beginnings of English Touring Theatre. And he said to me, can you write me a paper on I could take to the board on the best way of recreating lighting on tour? Because Steve's great ambition with English Touring Theatre was that you shouldn't, you wouldn't think that they were touring shows. It should be like going to the RSE, going to the National, going to the West End. Yes, it had to be up in on Monday, open on Tuesday. It had to fulfill that brief, but at the end, it had to look as if it was, a week's production week. Basically, I said there are two approaches we could take. One is that we actually tour our own lights and demos. And the other one is that instead of using an electrician to do the real lights, which was the normal thing those days, but is to employ a lighting designer to do them. And find a young lighting designer. And now, I had recently met Paul E. Constable because I got a call from Goldsmiths saying, we've got this girl here, and we've basically run out of things to teach her. Could you take her on? And so I did. And we went to see a show together, and we looked at the plan, and we talked about it, and we went to see David Hershey show, and we talked about it afterwards. And then she came up and worked with me at Leicester Haymarket in the studio, and was lovely and supportive because it was a difficult place to work if you were a lighting designer, and you weren't, you know, of a certain age. And she was very lovely, actually, if she was great. And so I said, there's this young lighting designer, and I think she could do it. And so that's what happened, and so Paul, we took that on. Let's move on to talk a little bit about your techniques and approach to lighting. And I'd like to start by asking you about colour, if I may, because I know that's something that holds a particular fascination for you. For my own work, I usually try to avoid using it beyond drawing out the colours inherent in setting costume. I tend to trust the choices that have already been made by my colleagues in the design team. Otherwise, I feel like I'm adding too much flavouring. But how does it work for you? Do you find that you respond to the colours in the world that the setting costume designers have created, or do you feel that you can using light, alter things, and is that an important part of what you do? So there's various strands to this answer. One is that it's really important to avoid the trap of rescuing a set rather than illuminating it. And what I mean by that is that you see with some designers who seem to have started their careers working with either bad designers or negro resources and so on, and they just kind of spray goboes all over the set, like graffiti. And they're not really letting the set live. They're kind of laying their idea of what the show should look like on top of an existing idea. I think it's very important not to do that. Unless, of course, you do have to, you know, as we sometimes do, have to rescue the set. So there's that. In terms of colour, there's this long conversation to be had as we know about colour, which is basically to do with the fact that a colour only exists in relationship to another colour. And so what that means in terms of my repertoire of colours is that I have, when we're talking about using gels, because of course, when you know we can mix our colours at the desk rather than use gels. But when we're talking about using gels, I have a repertoire of colours that I not only do, I know what they look like against each other. So in other words, I know what GAM365 looks like when it's used against all the other colours that I have in my repertoire. So that gives me a repertoire of hundreds of colours rather than just a 20, which is probably the number of colours that I actually use. So I might occasionally add a colour to that repertoire because there's something in the set or the costumes that I want to use. But it's a classic trap to think that because someone's wearing a purple costume, you've got to light them with a purple light in order to come out. That's not the case. And I was lucky to learn about this really early on with an amazing show that was a huge crowd pleaser at the Royal Ballet called Elite Syncopations, which I used to go and be regularly. The costumes are these fantastic, lycra brilliantly coloured lycra leotards and tights. And cross light, white, cross light. And everybody would say what an incredibly coloured show it was. But it was basically just white, cross light. And of course, the more you intervene with colour, the more you're in danger of actually subduing the colours of suit and lighting. Yeah, I mean, you think a lot about faces as well because it might be that you can find a colour that makes a particular costume really pop but that might do something terrible to the face of a wig and we have to. Yes, but you should say what happens to the floor behind the person standing in that colour. So, I guess we're always concerned with the whole picture. You see, this is why this thing about colour being all about its relationship to other colours is so important. But if you use a straw, because a colour is defined by the colours that it is on stage with, if you use a straw to light somebody with, and then you also light them in a different direction with a very cold colour. That straw goes almost orange, but it's still very broad in spectrum. It's not an orange gel. So, it brings out all the other colours in the costumes and looks like a strong colour. You can have the best of both worlds. You can have strong colours in the light and see lots of strong colours in the costume at the same time. But it's about being able to manipulate your colours by juxtaposing them with other ones. I think that's something I learnt very early on. In those days, when I was doing those student shows, it was like Ripley Burger, the one you saw at the same time. I think because I had so little kids, you know, I had 18-way manual desk, and I had, I think, 12 dimmers and I repatched a few, and very, very few lights. But I discovered that by choosing which colours, which combination of lights are used, I could get a lot more looks out of them than you'd think. Because you might have one scene lit by a big, strong, cold blue backlight. And then, using lights that maybe were daylight in another scene, but at a very low intensity, in contrast to that strong blue, [BLANK_AUDIO] felt kind of warm and rich and then of course you could flip that way around and so I think necessity and experimentation probably taught me quite a lot about what you've been talking about in theory. And I think being starved resources was very very helpful for my learning curve on that because I had to find tricks to to make things work even if I didn't actually understand technically how they were how how they worked in terms of science. Yeah that's true for me too. Actually I was going to say Ben I've always remembered the way you used colour to light Ralph Colta's massive perspex head which was part of the set for suddenly last summer. Notting in playhouse back in 1998 I think it seemed very magical to me at the time. Do you do you remember that show? I do I remember it very well. That was actually that was one of those things where it was really simple and it was more Ralph than me to be honest and it was Ralph's kind of technical mastery. He had this enormous perspex head two-dimensional head over the stage but it had been designed in such a way that that it was it was largely opaque apart from these kind of like where they veins or was it a tree upside down or was it a crack in the skull you know that the kind of ambiguous image yeah and that was translucent and therefore lightable so it was really simple you could light it with a red light and it went red but it looked like it was coming from the front it wasn't it was coming from behind it's really really simple and people you know I remember the artistic director it came up to me after I said I've never seen anything so precise in all my life that's the most amazing lighting sign and I thought she was talking about the lighting I thought she was talking about you know the way the actors were met you know and it took me like months to understand that she was talking about this thing these veins and they they did make a huge impression on people but they were real it was like you know it was a moment's work to be honest no I'm sure that's right but it was still a beautifully thought out design it was it was a beautiful and an excellent example of a set designer working with light in mind routes and did to respond yeah he did he did and we talked about it and we talked about you know how we should use color I mean one of the critics slightly unkindly said that it was like a giant traffic light to tell you guys what was going on which I think was possibly a little bit unfair but then on the other hand I think now I would probably have been more subtle in the way that I would have used it and I might have tried to get less flat colors through airs and stuff like that you know but it's a long time ago yeah I don't know whether you have this thing but I have this thing but which I call fried onions and garlic and what it's like footlights a bit like that you work on an extremely complex sequence of cues getting you know where somebody is lit as if the lights come from the window but it's actually a little something hidden behind there and then you manage to it looks like there's only light coming through the window with actually there's lots of it and you do this kind of mean prayer or intricate work you know and you work you sweat bullets get to get there and it looks fine and wrought and everything and then the next scene you tell your footlight on everybody turns around and smiles at you like you're something that a genius you know and it was and I and I call it fried onions and garlic because it is because you know I imagine you know friends going round to you know Jamie Oliver's for supper you know and you're in the sitting on drinking cherry and Jamie Oliver goes into the kitchen so I'm just going to start kicking about cooking lad and he goes in the kitchen and he gets the olive oil on and he puts some you know some onion and garlic and in the frying pan stops frying and everybody goes what genius what a genius yeah what incredible oh my god this is going to be amazing you know and I sort of feel the same way about these things you know that are literally a moment's work and very very simple and those are the things and it's fine it's good and it's as it should be to be honest it is of course but there are times when you have worked so hard on something and somebody comes along and talks about that that mating footlight you just say yes well the the detail and craft into making some lighting that isn't necessarily apparent that's doing a very very detailed and complicated and subtle job on a production which is possibly like underscoring in sound I think because you never a sounds either Chris talk to Chris at the other day I don't think he'd ever want someone to come around and say oh I thought the underscoring was really good I think the underscoring in a way should be imperceptible it's hopefully nurturing and holding up the work that the cast are doing on stage and I think a lot of what we do in lighting is a bit like underscored it's that sort of subtle support you hope of what's happening on stage and occasion there's big dramatic moments when you turn on the footlight so you did the big kind of bright stark white itch my backlight that makes really strong shadows and everyone turns on and goes yes there's lighting happen but actually so much of the work we do is more detail than subtle than that and I don't mind the people don't notice us I do think it's part of my job I think it's really important that they don't I mean you know it it it it does contribute massively to the experience of the audience but it you never it's very rare that you want the audience to be conscious of what you're doing and the reason actually I for me is is one that I sort of feel that the conscious mind is kind of can't walk and chew gum at the same time basically you know I mean the conscious that can't really handle more than one piece of information to time whereas the unconscious mind is capable of kind of gathering masses and masses of stuff and and kind of combining it and and actually it's the unconscious mind of the audience member that interests me to be honest I'm not really interested I'd make a terrible brechtian you know I'm you know I'm not really interested in making a kind of logical argument to to to the audience personally I I'm interested in is transporting them into a world where these things are possible and as long as they're thinking about what you're doing you're you're not able to do that so it's not about it's not that we don't want to get in the way it's not that we don't want to be self-groundizing all these things are true but it's actually that the only way that we can get anything done is by addressing this subconscious and just kind of tiptoeing around the conscious like if I'm kind of sleeping giant and go take a notice of me and then you talk to the unconscious mind and then my goodness me you could do these amazing things that that's that's what it's about for me and the moment you make a wrong step that sleeping giant wakes up and you're a real trouble so let's go back to the beginning of a design a bit about how you create a design from scratch where do you start is it about getting clues from the text yes and of course what the text is there is so if it's a play and it's finished which is kind of what when normally you know when you're talking about a text that's what you're normally talking about then yes I have a very simple approach I read the play for pleasure which which is quite difficult I find sometimes yes and I think that's something that one needs to have a think about how one does that I read the play for pleasure and then I kind of troll through it for clues and you know it's really important to know whether it's raining or not and you know what time of day it is and things like that it's really important to know whether these things are important or not and you do something like doll's house and you actually follow all the things that people say about the lights and the lamp light and stuff and you discover stuff about the play that actually you're not going to understand fully into you see it on stage so it's you know it's some with some so with some writers if you ignore these stage directions at your peril I think the clues in the text I think I think that's can be very interesting because I think the conversation you might have on a hot sunny afternoon that you can say the same words at three o'clock in the morning at the kitchen table with a candle and those same words could feel very very different because of the context and I think we're quite responsible for that side of how a play can come across really interesting I had thought of that yes I think that's absolutely right I think that's absolutely right also I think as you I think as you troll through the show as the play looking for these things that seem to be like the kind of the the boring menu tie of you know is it morning or afternoon you may yeah sometimes you discover something about the play's relationship with light that you wouldn't discover otherwise right so so you absorb the play you troll for clues and then what you do to translate that into something tangible that you can work with so I'm a great believer in in lists every now and then I go I think that this is a show where I need to actually take out every line that mentions light and put them all together on a separate piece of paper and read it so and this was something that Alison Chitty taught what she does often is she writes a list of every physical object that appears in the text and then she reads it as if it was a poem about the play right and this is a fantastic because of course what that does is when you're reading a poem you're looking for metaphor. And that is what we're all, that's our job, isn't it? And so you're understanding that, so you know, you're doing King John, and you go, this is the play that she mentioned, but it's such a good example, you get King John, you kind of go, a mirror, a throne, a crown, a dagger, you know, and you go, this is a poem about King John, I'm reading. And it's very interesting. If you do that about light, if you say, okay, here's a poem I've written about Beth, and it's every single line, yeah, well it is, it is, this is the interesting thing. But Beth, if you do that, it runs to pages of references. And you discover patterns in the play about light, that are very, very revealing about, I mean, I think this is a long conversation, but there is a very distinctive narrative about light that is completely consistent. So it's not like he's going, this is a play about light and dark. Let's have lots of references to light and dark. There's actually a story going on in Beth about light. So given that you've gone through a script and thought about the clues text, do you think about light in the abstract, or do you need the context of a design in a model box? I think I find that I like hanging it on a physical space, so if I know the shape of the space, I mean, it might not be the right colours yet, it might be painted, but just a, some idea of what the physical environment, the performance, are going to be in, means I can then start thinking about what the light is going to be. Until I have that, it's all just a bit wishy-washy in my mind, I think, does that, is that similar to it? Yes and no. So, what it's going to look like, absolutely, I have no idea, until I see the model box, if not rehearsals, but what the elements of it are going to be, I might well know that, the law way in advance, the elements of the lighting design, the building blocks of it, I might know what they're going to be called, but I don't know what they're going to look like, does that make sense? Yes. So, if I'm reading, I mean, I know that, almost certainly, if I'm going to do, like, bath, that I'm going to be, that, sunlight is going to play a part in it, that moonlight is called night better, the day is going to play a part in it, and night is going to play a part in it, for instance, but I don't know what day or night are going to look like. I don't, that's why I changed from sunlight to moonlight, because they might be represented by sunlight and moonlight, or they might not, but I know that they're going to be there and they are going to have to be designed in such a way that they kind of define each other, because they're opposites, talking about texts, what do we mean by text, because it might be an opera, say. Now, with an opera, I'm responding to the text, the words, but I'm also now responding to the music, and so, depending on the opera, if it's something like, let's say, something like Tristan, then, you know, I'll be working, if, you know, the good thing about opera is you get a lot of warning that you're going to be doing it, so, you know, I, you know, with Tristan, the first time I did Tristan, I started working on the Q list a year before rehearsal started. What I did with that in terms of the preparation, this is an extreme, well, I'm kind of obsessed by how Wagner works, and with reason, I'd sort of built my whole workflow around Wagner, really. There's this thing in Wagner where, this is called a light motif, he writes these little scraps of music or motifs, and then he attaches them to ideas in the text, and the whole opera is constructed that way, so the text actually delivers the music. It sounds like it kind of mad painting my numbers, which it really, really isn't, but all of the music is built out of these little scraps of musical material, each one of which is related to an idea, and they are descriptive often, but usually how it works is that he had this amazing ability to write very memorable music. And so, once you've heard something, you kind of remember it, and so, when you hear it again, you kind of remember the first time you heard it, and then when you hear it a third time, and so what happens is the oath throughout the eve, these things, but all those moments connect together. And what I want to do is I want to find out which of these motifs, and there are maybe 50 or 60 of them, which one of these am I going to attach a lighting idea to? So I'm actually playing the same game, I'm using Wagner's incredible skills of structuring across time to structure the lighting design for me. So I will then go, okay, so this motif here, like, sick, which I've called sick Tristan, I'm going to give that a particular look, and that becomes what I call an element. Now when I'm doing all of this work, I don't know what any of those looks are going to look like, but I know that I'm going to use them, and I might not find out what they look like until the tack even. But you've got a structure to hang the ideas on, and it means that as you adapt and learn what you're making in the tech, you've got that consistency of preparation, so that if you learn what sick Tristan is or might be, you then know other moments where you can use it together. And if you've discovered at the end of the tech, which is all that happens, you can then go back and reapply it, because you've done the homework, you know. Exactly. That's right. That's right. There's this beautiful story about Agatha Christie, which was that she was asked, do you know who did it when you're writing your thrillers, we all who done it, and she said, no, I didn't have no idea. What I do is I write to the final chapter, and then I stop, and then I read it again. And then I choose the next unlikely person, and then I go back and I rewrite, laying it all the clues, and then I write the final chapter. But we say, yeah, but you see what's lovely about that, it's the idea of, it's only when you're at the final chapter that you can understand what it is that you've got. And then you go back and you rework it, having discovered, yes, discovered. I think that happens a lot in lighting through the tech. And I think often, even just through a scene that I was thinking you're a little, I'm called Vanya recently in the West End, and it's which ended with Sonya's beautiful last speech with her sat at the table of the candle. And so I knew what I wanted that final image to look like. So I had to imagine in my head and rehearsals, so the whole, my whole process of lighting the last act was to enable me to somehow take the light away to get to the final part. And the rig was presumably designed to where you could do that. It's interesting how sometimes knowing clearly a look for a particular detail or moment in the show can actually shape what the whole thing is going to end up being, because there are certain targets you have to hit, which you sort of, which you know very clearly, you could see something. And then everything else, you don't know exactly what you're going to do with it until you get beyond the plundering stage. Yeah, I think that's right. And the interesting thing is that they might not be the most significant moments. Yeah, that's true. I find that the moment that captured my imagination in rehearsals, the ones that I build the architecture of the scene around, if you like, are in the scheme of things often quite fleeting. But I suppose what we're talking about really is the inherent challenge of stage lighting, which is to provide atmosphere, a beautiful stage composition, those pictures, those images, those moments that we've talked about, while also providing appropriate illumination. We have to create an atmospheric world and then find ways of providing the requisite illumination in such a way that it doesn't leap out, that it doesn't jar, that it sits comfortably, that it's believable in the context of the atmospheric world that we're trying to create on the stage. And that can be quite difficult to do successfully, especially if you're trying to persuade the audience that the scene is dark. Someone likes Dream. The funniest scenes happen in pitch dark, according to the narrative. Yes. So what are you going to do? Are you going to make those scenes pitch dark? Well, one of the few cliches about lighting that happens to be true is that if the lighting isn't bright enough, the jokes won't land, and it's true. It is true. Yeah. And interestingly, that exactly happened to be on the Sunlight Stream. I did it at the Bridge Theatre in New York recently, where we went through the tech and we lit the love of scenes, very, very beautifully, I think. They were looking great, and everyone was very happy, and it was delighted we sort of wander around looking to different places, and it was all great. But then we did a dress rehearsal, and he just turned around and said, "Just need to make it a bit brighter." And he was right. Yeah, he was absolutely right. I just got, I went down a bit to an extra rabbit hole of making it beautiful. And of course, I know that it's not to say that brightness is a beautiful word. No, no. And it's not even to do with brightness in a fine sort of way, because, you know, this is a, I mean, it's a good note, it's a, it's a, obviously, a good note, but it's not about brightness, because otherwise, if that were true, then nobody would have laughed at the Sunlight Stream from the date that it went indoors from the globe until HMI's camera. And that's not true. No, well, so, but they, then that's what, what is brightness? This is an intensity as a number of brightness is your, it's back to perception. And often, if it, if the notice, it's not bright enough, it often means it's not focused enough, or the person you need to hear can't be seen well enough compared to the rest of the picture. So, they're perceived to be not bright enough, rather than it actually being about how many lumens of light are hitting the stage of it. I think we'll. of that is true. I think the thing about comedy is a different thing. I suspect that it's to do with being too pictorial. So, so, when you, if you like, it's a word I don't like using at all, because I don't really know what it means. But if you like a comedy scene to atmospherically, what happens is that the, the comedy goes into a different room from the audience. And the audience are watching something rather than are participating. And what directors call bright light is actually to do with the face feeling more, include more kind less an object of beauty and more a person having a tough time and us laughing at him. Does that make sense? That's really interesting. You could, you know, you could do a beautiful caravigistate look, you know, for the lovers, but it's not funny because you're looking, you're not in the same place as the audience. The audience, they're in a different room from you. I think they're also ties into reasons that thrust stages and traverse stages and in the round stages are places where Shakespeare often feels more successful because he wouldn't so aware of each other and they're aware of their reaction to what's interesting. So the actors are in the room of the audience. So perhaps in the same way that if they feel like they're lit in a more neutral way, the fact that we're sharing experience and we're aware of each other also helps. So the third thing is dance, where the text is being made in front of you. And so with dance, what I do now is a lot is, is that I have, you know, I have a little webcam and I'm reviewing it because I've got my own recordings. And I'm, again, using GarageBand to type notes in, queue positions, I'm talking about the old version of GarageBand where you can do these, these bookmarked podcasts feature, you know, where you have lots of, yeah, wonderful. And so, yeah, we'll talk and I'll just go, okay, and I'll type it in and it's there in the video as a note as a queue position, basically, you know. So let's talk about rehearsals, actually. Let's, I think, I mean, I know that you work a lot in the rehearsal room and an idea, it depends a bit on the show, but I often I think spend a reasonable amount of time in the rehearsal room. And for me, hearing the actors perform the words, tells me so much more about the script than just reading it myself. If it's about movement, then obviously seeing the move, I can't do without being there. And if it's music, again, hearing it perform basically different than just hearing recordings. So I think being in the room helps you understand it. And do you agree is that the most important for you to be in the rehearsal room? Yeah, absolutely. At that time is, is, is just critical. And I suppose my measure is, have I seen every scene before the first run through? Stopping start rehearsals and hearing the conversations about it often tell me more about the show. And what the director feels about the show than sitting down having a lighting conversation with the director. Because you glean little snippets of what the world is by being there and overhearing those conversations. And then you can have that quick cup of coffee conversation. You know, you said this thing. So that meant this to me. And therefore you can then maybe tie it into a lighting idea, perhaps. But it's very, very hard, I think, to sit down and have the big lighting meeting. Yes, it is. I'm not very, I mean, yeah, that's a long conversation. And most of the directors that I work with are quite happy not talking about the lighting. Why is it so difficult to talk about lighting? Because, I mean, it's very ephemeral, I know, but some directors will avoid the subject or skurt around it. Some just actively avoid it. Others will talk at great length, very poetically about it when prompted, seemingly very eloquently. But I'm often left feeling far more confused and wishing I hadn't bothered to ask the question. Because this is the problem is that lighting works on an unconscious level. When you start talking about it, you bring it into the conscious, which is where it doesn't belong. And then you think it's going to be a conscious element of the show. That's the problem with talking about lighting is it's because if you say to a director every time somebody talks about this, I'm going to lighten like that. They're kind of going, no, you're not. That's a terrible idea. So do you have any ways of circumnavigating that reaction? Paul Pied has a really useful trick. It has tricks the wrong word. But I learned this years and years ago from a director who said that he'd worked in Paul Pied and Paul Pied and asked him this question, which I ask a lot, which is, do you have any golden moments? That is basically saying, is there a moment in the show that you want to live in a particular way that you have really strong feelings about? And it's a very, very useful question, actually, because it's a terrible thing to find out in the tech. And those moments are kind of odd, because the way I think of them is that how they can be is that there are moments when the director needs something particular from the lighting. But it's not from a lighting designer's point of view, particularly important in the overall concept. So these golden moments are a bit like, you know, you've been commissioned to do one of those huge kind of battle scenes, you know, 90th century battle scene. And then, you know, and then the guy who's, the guy who's commissioned in the painting for you said, it'd be really good, I think, if we had a red gate. Yeah, cool. Absolutely red gate, no problem. But then you kind of going, I have now got to paint this painting so that that red gate makes complete sense. Yeah. And so these golden moments are really helpful, but they can also be really puzzling, because it can take a lot of work to work out how that thing that the director needs from you. Yeah. It doesn't kind of stick out. Yeah. Actually, having said all that, there's some direct side work with who directs, who are very aware of what lighting can do in terms of story. I think it actually directs shows around lighting. I mean, Francis has got a negrit and who's an opera director. Oh, yeah. Does a lot of staging with using using the power of lighting to tell stories. And he thinks of the shape and sees the shape from the very beginning, imagining what lies in me. So actually, conversation with him about the shape are about those golden moments, but actually, it's sort of beyond that. And that he's actually rehearsing with those golden moments in his head. So, and that's a, that's a very different, but a very fascinating way to work. Yeah. Absolutely. So let's move on to the tech. How do you approach it? Are you quite prepared for hand in terms of technical? It really does depend on what role lighting is going to play. So there are some plays where you kind of know that like a ratican, for instance. I did a wonderful ratican play recently in Bath. And there, you know, it was basically, there were people coming in and switching lights on. And there were, there was a bit where they turned the lights off to watch the telly. And it's the kind of play where you could just really easily have 10 cues in it, to be honest. And those are the 10 cues that you know from reading the script that you know where they go. But then there's another hundred or so cues, which are to do with that sofa is too bright because there's nobody sitting in it. And those kind of cues. And those cues on the whole, I don't put in the text in advance. So with a play like that, the show caller will get a list of about 20 cues without numbers. Yeah. With an opera, I will basically is the opposite. So with an opera, I will go through the score a lot, as I've said, a long way in advance. And I will basically put a cue in everywhere I think there might be a cue. Yes. And I'll do the same with dance as well. So that's a massive number of cues. It's maybe 2 or 300 for, for, for, and they all go in the desk in advance. And then I give those to the show caller a good week or so before the tech. And so they've got them in the score. And so by the time we hit the tech, they're calling those cues. Yes. So well, we don't have a course attack. So those, those of you who have worked in opera, we have a thing called a stage and piano, which most directs I work with, regard that as being like a tech. It's just, it's a lot quicker. You've done just time. A lot less time. And so basically what we do is we kind of try to either with the, I almost never have anything in the desk before we start apart from those numbers, those cue numbers. I don't do plotting sessions as a rule. Because actually, you know, the thing is, you get somebody on stage, the band plays. They start singing and you put a light on them and your mission is accomplished. And, and you, you can't do that in a, in a plastic session. If, if I just kind of put a light on somebody or the director kind of, it doesn't feel very, I don't know, I sort of imagine something a little bit more extraordinary. And you think, and you go, yeah, I know, but that's because we're missing 90% of the show. I did like this at the show. And look here, an empty little set, and if you're lucky with someone suddenly in black. Anyway, there's this dreadful story about the bridge of the natural death of a salesman. It's not a dreadful story, it's regarded this marvelous story where they're lighting up. It's the scene with the boss again, with the dictaphone, and there's a stage direction about it where the chair, a Willy Lomond's chair, has this ineffable glow at the end of the scene. And apparently they spent hours lighting this chair, trying to give it an ineffable glow. And I just read this description, and I just think this is like pulling teeth. I mean, three o'clock in the morning, everybody's half asleep, and the director's told to give you this chair an ineffable glow. And actually what you need to happen is one of the greatest scenes in 20th century literature to happen in front of you, put a light on the chair, mission accomplished, but you can't do it without the scene. And we can't do without the person sitting next to us programming the lighting console, busy two-hour words into numbers and high-speed keystrokes, enter all the data and recording our lighting states. I think we're pretty lucky in the UK as there is a growing tradition of lighting programming developed and developed by some extraordinary folk who have largely invented the role of the modern-day programmer, and you can be pretty confident that you can walk into most producing houses in the UK and the person sitting behind the lighting desk will be very good at what they do. And they've become someone that we rely on very heavily. And of course, if we have a fast programmer, we can very quickly light over rehearsals and keep up with developments on stage. But it's not true everywhere. And indeed, often outside the UK, I find that I'm instead expected to make notes during rehearsals rather than trying to light at the same time. And the process of lighting happens afterwards, and it's a much slower methodical affair. And there isn't the same expectation to respond live as it were. I rather think that means that the ambition for the lighting is reduced, and I find that very, very difficult. So a good programmer is essential to my process. And presumably it's true for you, too. And I know it is for Bruno. What makes a good programmer been? - Well, it's interesting this, because I used to work with Andy Davis. In fact, I mean, we kind of grew up together in that I started working at the RSC. And about the same time that Andy Davis was cracking the spine of the galaxy manual. And you know, it was he who kind of led the idea that you actually had somebody in the building who was a programmer, and that they didn't have to spend a day focusing lives and doing all the other stuff, but actually that they just, and that nobody else did it, that only the programmers actually lit shows. So Andy was gonna do the ring cycle with me. And then there was a whole confusion about dates, and he couldn't do it. And I was heartbroken partly because, for many reasons, it was a relationship that had begun over years, and I couldn't wait to be lighting the ring cycle with Andy Davis. But also partly because Andy does this thing. Have you worked with Andy? - Oh, yes, many times. - Do you know that thing that he does when he's working on something, he's always humming the song that he's working on? - I just couldn't wait to hear Andy singing Wagner while he was working on these tunes. - Anyway, there was this young, rather bright lighting designer that I met at Radical Anthony Arblaster, and he was really good at programming, and I thought maybe he could do it if he went and spent a week with Andy. So he went and spent a week with Andy, and Andy told him, and I think this is the answer to your question, sorry, there's a lot of answer for a short question, but he said that he thought that it's not about typing fast, it's about being ahead of the lighting designer. Knowing what it is they're gonna ask for before they ask for it. And I think that that's the sign, I mean, obviously technical competence goes up, you do want to know how the movie lights work, obviously. But once we're beyond that stage, it's actually setting the show up in such a way that it's the desk is gonna be able to do. When we start making a cue together, that they make it in such a way that it's gonna want you to be able to do the things I might want it to do next week. - Yes. - Those are the things. And Andy, that was the thing that Andy said to Anthony, that's what you've got to master is you've got to understand what he's gonna ask for before we ask for it. And that, I think, is where it really works. - Yeah, absolutely. - And I do think it's a collaboration. - Yeah. - Back to ideas around. Having someone on your side to throw ideas around. And also someone who'll just go, you'll make your wrestling or something and you try something and you look at it and someone just goes, "Mm, you sure?" - And she'll go, "Okay, that's all, okay, let's. " - Yeah, okay, all right. - I really got that when I was lighting a dance piece in Leipzig and it was new to me. And I sort of inherited it from somebody else. And I was trying something with quite a lot of different colors in it. And the programmer said, "You know, in Japan we have an expression, clown-cotser." And I said, "Hey, that's what does that mean?" He said, "Mmm, clown vomit." I looked at the stage and I thought, "Okay, I think I'll realize this is. " - Sometimes a little devastating thing. Basically, you think at all. And I think also with the work I've been doing on concerts and musicals as well, when you get to the world of moving lights and seeing beams moving there, then you're at the point when you can't actually describe in words what you want because you need to say, "Make me a thing," when you're wiping your fingers around and the programmer needs to interpret that and just do a thing you could then look at. And then you bounce ideas around and discuss that. And then at that point, you just need someone who's very, very good at what they do. It has their own imagination and then the two of you're working together. - Yeah. - So talking about collaboration, obviously you're collaborating with your own team that how would you collaborate with everybody else during the tech? - Sound, costume. - Yeah, that's really important. - So this is really interesting 'cause when you're talking to Chris Sharpe, there was a lot of talk about conversations and so on and so forth and I don't understand how you guys have a time. - That's because I wander off and let the programmer throw something together and we will end to work the director. - Yeah, yeah. I'm just working really, really hard, getting on with it actually. And so I find that there isn't a lot of conversations happening in tech actually. Every now and then, I'll kind of go quite early on in the tech. I'll go, are we in the right ballpark here? Just checking that you're not gonna come up to me at lunchtime and say, oh, I've just been looking at the library and I think we need to have another thing because this is my, you know. - This is your chance. - This is my only chance, yeah. - Yeah. - So we might have that and then they might go, oh, finally you should say that actually, you know. But on the whole, I just keep going until somebody turns around and goes, that's not working for me on something. - Yeah, I think, I mean, to be fair, I think I do a lot of that as well, but I think getting out of my chair and just when I did this before a coffee break or it's when there's some costume issue or, yeah, things always stop. And I think there's, I think it's very useful in some of this stuff just to get out of the room and just check in with people. - I think, I should probably do, I should probably do that more than I do them. I think. - So it's little kind of mini conversations, when you could be checking your email or something, but actually it's very helpful to just go to the very good tip, actually. - And I must say that we talked about this on the podcast before, but the world of a tech where you can actually get around and get to each other really easily, rather than being stuck with you. - Oh, yes, I mean, yes, no, no, I want to be in the, no, I want to be in the stalls. There's no doubt about it. In many respects, it's much easier lighting from the front of the circle, but no, I want to be in the store. - You've got to be there, you've got to be nearby. - I think the person I spend more time talking to than anybody else in the tech is the composer. - All of a sudden, just like that. - They can make our work look great or we can make their work, yeah. It's got to work together, if it doesn't work together, then it's a disaster. - Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, I think most visible lighting cues, those ones that kind of pop up above the surface of this huge kind of underground, sort of this huge sea that we're creating. And then a little bit of iceberg pops up. Those cues have to be driven by something else. That's my feeling. And it might be somebody switching a light on, or it might be some fantastic piece of music, that we need someone else to give us that impetus for it to happen. If we try and do it by ourselves, we'll look terrible. That's my feeling. - Yeah, no, I agree. It can really jar. A cue can look very clunky and clumsy if it's seen in isolation. And it can really break the spell, actually, it risks waking the sleeping giant. And that brings us on neatly to rhythm and timing and cue points, because what we do is as much about the movement between lighting states, that is to say the change from one picture to the next, as it is about creating the pictures themselves. And engineering those changes is a significant part of our work. - Absolutely. I mean, Wagner said the art of composition is the art of transition. It's actually, for me, it's actually, it's the meat and drink of lighting design nowadays is actually the movement of light. - Yeah. - Not necessarily the state anymore, that actually, I've done many shows where it is just constantly light. you know, we are constantly in a state of transition from one cue to another. And there isn't actually a state as such that it settles it for a long time, especially, you know, if you're doing a big number in a musical, you are often just constantly on the move. But also in your play, that will be the case. Or play your piece of checkoff that actually you're very often just shifting the light in the room all the time. Absolutely. And there's there's there's long arcs which might be fading, the daylight fading and twilight beginning and then just the candles left. There's long slow cues happening in the background while other things are happening in front of it. All those very deliberate cues which are, and I'm sure we'll still be staging all the yes or the music or whatever. Yeah. I mean, why should it stop? Yeah, that's the question, you know, it is that if you once you've embarked on a change in the light, what stops it? And it's very hard to make a judgment about the success of those cues or how they feel until you're watching them in the context of a live audience, which brings us on to the subject of previews, which is something that's, I find very fascinating, the difference that sitting in an audience makes. I can have been sitting in front of a show for two weeks during a tech period. And I might have been very diligent and got up from my production desk and walked around the whole auditorium, but I will still see things for the first time sitting in an audience and things that you think were blatantly obvious. It's really important. Yeah, I think it's really important to watch shows with an audience, because you know, it's something that I was insisted with with tours was that once you've really let the show know creeping off to the lighting box to watch it from in there. Oh, really? You sit in the middle of the stalls and take responsibility for what you've done. That experience doesn't only affect what you have what happens when you watch the show. It actually affects the way you work on it, knowing that you're going to have to sit amongst people who've paid a lot of money in over a couple of hours tired, does it kind of make you go, yeah, no, I think I'm going to sort this out now. You know, I'm not going to sit through that tonight, not working. But yeah, I think it does. I think partly, you know, the audience kind of start shifting and shuffling and you kind of go, oh, is that because they can't see properly the lost interest or, you know, there's all of that, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, they give brilliant audiences give fantastic notes, because in a funny sort of way, they know more about the show than we do, actually, much more. Because we sort of all, you know, we're all stuck in the middle of it and and we're full of all this kind of stuff that is kind of our secrets, but they know this, they know the story in a sort of deep level. They know who the characters are meant to be on a deep level that we sometimes forget. And they're, you know, their understanding of it is, in many ways, better than ours. And they're very good note givers audiences, I think. When we went, when we talked about collaboration before, I missed out probably the most important people in the room, actually, which is the cast. Yeah. The people to feel we earn our living. Well, absolutely. And that relationship in the tech is interesting as well. Do you feel comfortable moving the actor to the light? Or should we be striving to always allow them to move and stand as they wish? But latter, I think. Yeah, the latter. I just want them to have a good time. I just want them, you know, I just want them to be able to do what they want to do. You know, that's really, for me, that's really important. I had a really interesting experience working with Mike Alfred's, because Mike Alfred famously doesn't block his shows. So you have no idea where anybody's going to be from night to night. And you've got to light the whole space all the time, really. Or negotiate areas of darkness, you know, and say, well, it's shadowy over there, stand there by all means. You can have dark areas on stage and you can have shadowy bits, but I think you have to make it understandable. If someone just feels dim because they've gone over there in what appears to be a bright little room, then that feels wrong. But if someone feels dim because they stood next to a bright little window, but they're not in the light for the window, then you understand that as an audience member because of the geography of the room. I think, yeah, I think half a face is fine. I think it's not half a face. I tell you what I think it is. It's minimum one eye. That's what I think that's what I think it is. Yeah, it's minimum one eye. But I also think that it's possible to put darkness on stage with light. So that both eyes are lit, but you think only one eye is lit. If you look at it, you look at a caravaggio and you'll see that the face is lit all the way around. Yeah, it's not just one side. It's just that's the experience that you have, but actually he's lighting both sides of the face. So Ben, I think it's probably time for the quick fire round. Good, good. Are you an optimist or pessimist? Oh, I am an optimist. That's a really easy one. There's no way that I would have stuck this job for so long if I wasn't an optimist. Okay, so do you still get the fear? No, no, I don't. I used to get it really, really badly, and it would be usually the night before focus. Would be a night of raw terror, basically. A night of lying in bed with the absolute certain knowledge that the rig that I designed didn't work. It did make sense that the lights actually probably wouldn't be able to see the stage at all. You know, you know, it's like when you try to sleep. I think there were two things that got rid of it. One was that thing of, you know, how many times do you have to go through the terrors and then pull off a good piece of work to go to yourself? Maybe I should just stop doing this. Because my experience is that actually, you know, I think, I think the thing is, is that don't worry about, oh my god, what it, you know, is this going to go wrong? Of course, it's going to go wrong. The problem isn't, is it going to go wrong? The problem is, oh, you're going to be able to fix it when it goes wrong. And that's different, I think, because once you learn that yeah, I can fix it when it goes wrong. I mean, it's about knowing that it may well not work at times, and you've just got to find something else to do. Yeah, I think that's it. And I think a lot of that's to do with experience. And the fear of having to prove yourself is something that gets easier as you're more experienced, because you don't worry that everyone in the room is questioning where you're there, which I think when you're young, which doesn't, does really cripple you. Which I'm afraid is not much consolation if you're young. Night or day? Both, because, because I tell you why. No, because I'm a lighting designer with a young family. So I'm a night owl who gets up very early in the morning, and then he's exhausted all day long. Yeah, what's your favorite tool? Well, my favorite tool is my webcam, but we've had that. So my favorite tool is my trousers. So I wear, I kind of discovered this by accident. I wear a pair of pale chinos when I focus. I was wearing the one who didn't show the summer and it was on a black dance floor, and you know, focusing on black dancers is really hard, because it's very difficult to see the light. And I was doing that area cover thing of standing in a corner of the, standing in the corner of the area, looking at my heels. And I was wearing pale trousers, and I could see exactly what the light was doing on the back of my trousers. And I went, this is fantastic. I can see so much. So now that's it. I always wear white trousers when I focus. That's my favorite tool. Very good. Very good. What's your favorite color? Well, it has to be a GAM 365, I think, which is the most wonderful straw. What would you do if the profession went away? A farmer down the road told me recently that we, I was talking about how hard it was because none of us had any work. And he just said, well, basically, if it wasn't economic and viable, we should just basically go the way of the miners and printing press and steam engines. And why should we get any special treatment? We're just another person, you know, another group of people doing a job, which is an interesting thing. Yeah, we're just like, depressing. But so what would you do if the theatre went away? Well, I mean, I wouldn't be a primary school teacher, which is sort of something I thought that I might enjoy after having done long down with three girls. I didn't know how they do it. I just didn't know how they do it. So not that. I suppose realistically, I would try and carve out a career as a museum designer, lighting designer, because I do that. Yes, and that's something we haven't talked about. Opera theatre musicals or dance. You can only do one, which would you pick? I think it would have to be theatre. It's not a nice choice. I feel very lucky that I'm able to do all four, but I think it has to be theatre. So is there a play or opera or venue that's on your bucket list? Yes, there is. It's VOTSEC. I am not going to retire until I've done VOTSEC. Yeah, VOTSEC is the answer to that question. Pudding or cheese? Oh, that's an interesting question. I love puddings, but cheese is more like need to keep me healthy. I think I did it. But yeah, nothing better than cheese. Tech rider. If you had a tech rider, what would you choose to put on it to help you get through the tech? A piano. Ah, yeah. A piano, a dressing room with a piano in it. That's what I would, that's what I would do. That's a good idea. A dressing room. That would be something. Yes. You know, someone would put your coat. Yeah, no. If we're really talking about, you know, balls of M&Ms type riders, then my rider would be a dressing room with a piano. Great. That's a really good idea. I like that. You like cooking at home. What's your go to crowd? Please a dish. I've got into making a lot of cakes lately. There's this fantastic cherry tart. It's an Austrian recipe. And it looks like you've been to like the best patisserie in London to buy it. And actually it's quite easy and simple to make. And I suppose that's my signature piece. Yeah. Wow. That sounds extraordinary. I have to say your photo for the show. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Thank you very much. It's lovely what it's been a good day. Brilliant. The Making Theatre podcast is compiled, produced and edited by Bruno Poet and myself James Farncombe. As ever, if you have any questions, comments or even ideas for future episodes, you can contact us on Instagram or Twitter and @makingtheatrefm. Or if you prefer, buy email on [email protected]. We are doing this for fun and also hopefully to contribute to a broader awareness of everyone's role in the industry. So we do all the hard work. All you have to do is spread the word and take a moment to leave us a glowing review of your favorite podcast platform. It seems like a pretty good deal to me. And we'll be very grateful. Until next time, thanks for listening and goodbye. Goodbye.