Based on the popularity of Live Design's 31 Days Of Plots in December each year, we have decided to present Plot Of The Week, with a light plot (or plots) per week until December 2023, when the next 31 Days Of Plots begins. First in this series of weekly light plots is the 30th anniversary tour of An Inspector Calls, a 1945 play by JB Priestley in a National Theatre production, presented by PW Productions. Directed by Stephen Daldry, this tour is based on the 1992 revival of the Priestley play with sets and costumes by Ian MacNeil and lighting by Rick Fisher.
"Originally at the Lyttelton Theatre in 1992 and then touring UK, the production subsequently went to the Olivier Theatre (at the National Theatre in London) and it has played in at least five West End theatres since, Broadway for a year in 1994-1995, winning Tony and Drama Desk awards for Best Lighting. Two USA tours, Australia, and Tokyo followed…," says Fisher.
The current nine-month tour includes many UK cities and runs through May 2023. "Originally a totally conventional and incandescent rig (apart from one 2.5kW HMI), we have now had to alter the rig to include more LED and some moving lights (which do not move!) to speed the load-in process and require less access to equipment to focus," Fisher explains.
"The show has always had a very small over head rig, mostly to light the sky cloth which was originally lit by well over 40 1kW Fresnels and is now lit by 12 50° ETC Source Four Series 2 Lustr; in addition, 11 Ayrton Diablos light inside the house and top/back light (one unit does actually move!... once....).
The rig also includes:
2 R+V 500w Beam lights on the proscenium
1 4kW ARRI HMI with DMX shutter
1 Strand Patt 243 2K Fresnel on the circle rail - chosen because its still the best 2kW fresnel out there and can go so wide!
10 GLP X4 Bar 20, vertically rigged to light the rain
3 Martin Aura XB on the proscenium
The gear for the tour is supplied by White Light.
"My current associate is the excellent Will Evans, and the equally brilliant programmer/assistant LD is Michael Fox," Fisher adds.
"A change we had to make in 2015 was the addition of 10 GLP X Bar 20," notes Evans. "An Inspector Calls opens with torrential rain on stage, real water, falling from the flys. It looks stunning BUT only if it is lit really well. It used to be lit from both sides with eight custom-made battens with eight low-voltage, Par 36 sized 'aero' lamps in each, they had a spread of about 4º and sliced through the rain beautifully, making it sparkle and 'tingle,' and a narrow enough beam that the light would be lost in the opposite wing. Unfortunately these lamps were designed for the aviation industry, aircraft landing lights I believe. When, like many industries, they started to transition to LED lights, they stopped making the lamps. Unfortunately, nobody told us, or the hire company! When out on tour, one of the battens was damaged and needed a full set of replacement lamps, we carried eight spares, so all good until I tried to find more spare lamps. When both myself and the hire company realized the lamps were no longer being made anywhere in the world we then had to search high and low across the country, phoning other companies, theatres, random warehouses that supplied that sort of thing. We managed to scrape together enough spares from dark cupboards and dusty corners of shops and suppliers to get through the rest of the tour but then the hunt was now on for another way to light the rain. The X-bars were chosen because (at the time) they were the only linear unit to zoom in narrow enough for our needs, but to run them, it's required two more DMX universes on the show, which required us to tour a full data network (to be fair this has since allowed us more flexibility and I've been able to add other intelligent kit) and new custom built towers to mount and transport them on. All because airplanes have gone LED!"
Lighting Team
- LD: Rick Fisher
- Associate LD: Will Evans
- Programmer/Assistant LD: Michael Fox
- Tour Electrician: Alex Hannah
- LX #2: Jamie Gibson
More: Plots Of The Week 2023