And so after 4 years I was leaving the Royalty and it was back to the Avenue again.

AND SO AFTER 4 YEARS I WAS LEAVING THE ROYALTY AND IT WAS BACK TO THE AVENUE AGAIN.

I think looking back, although it may not quite have felt like it at the time, maybe it should have felt like a step backwards into a previous life that I had been glad to leave. I think though at the time it was work and with the loss of the Royalty I had little skills to allow me to be choosy

In all my time at the Royalty Theatre, we had never done a show for more than two weeks. Julian had offered me the choice of redundancy or Chief L. X. At the Lyric. Matt Doddington was leaving to go to a theatre at Basildon. The Show at the Lyric was Five Guys Named Moe. At this point it had already been at the Lyric nearly four years. It was to show to me very quickly that the crew was in my opinion quite stale. They were happy doing a show that required very little work and they had become used to days of little work or challenges. There was one 15 socket on each side of the stage and little else. Yet again there was little power in any of the dressing rooms. The theatre had recently changed radically back stage due to the loss of a large section of the basement to the new Wendy’s hamburger store on the corner.

I was now back with my friend Mark Watkins. The second Dayman was a guy called Darren Hull and there was the luxury of three carpenters again. The show crew consisted of two follow spot operators and a swing showman between the LX Dept and the stage. This arrangement would cause me many problems in the future. It was a ridiculous concept bearing in mind that the stage dept only had 6 cues in the whole show and 4 of those were house tab fly cues. The other two being the flying of the radio. This again was to show why the West end technical departments had such a poor reputation.

I did not like the show at all. I was asked to watch the matinee, lord knows why, but I am always being asked to watch these things. I have to confess to having no interest in doing this, after all I am going to see the show enough times in the weeks or possibly years to  come . As the years pass one’s actual interest in what goes on on stage decreases exponentially. I would see it over and over again from the lighting board! What did I care what they did on stage. I suffered the first half, and as years before headed to the pub for the second half. Looking back it has only just occurred to me that this was only one of only two occasions in a lifetime of theatre when I would enter a theatre with the show already established.

Matt left at the end of the week and I settled down to a life of boredom. Mark knew a lot about the equipment on the show and I had less than no interest in it. It had yet again been poorly plotted. I am a great believer that the desk should be left in the simplest and most foolproof way possible to operate. Everything possible should be done to ensure that mistakes just can not happen. Another Country at the Queens theatre had been the first time that I had come across a situation where this principle had not been followed. The second was the way the temp desk was plotted on Annie. This time however it would be my downfall in a spectacular way.

The company manager seemed an odd kind of person. Very intertwined with the Master carpenter but I could not figure out why. Also there seemed to be some resentment in my very existence both from him and from the wardrobe mistress?

One night there was a blockage in one of the sewer pipes that was in a corridor to the side of the auditorium. I went down it and unblocked it. Getting covered in quite a lot of the blockage. It was a job that needed to be done as quickly as possible. In the old days at the Royalty I would just have washed the trousers myself but here I ask the wardrobe the Dept. They rudely and flatly refused! ( Later I would find out that the wardrobe mistress somehow blamed me for the moving of the previous but one Chief Electrician. How or why I have no idea. Perhaps if I had spent every night pissed over in the pub then everyone would have been happy!

Next came the mistake on the lighting board, as I have said that although it was my mistake I still think whoever plotted the abortion should take some of the blame. The lights that lit the band were put on a sub master, or in other words they were out of the control of the main part of the lighting desk. Effectively I forgot to turn them off. As such by this point there was really no cue sheet. Notes just scrolling past on the monitor. For the last 2 hours all one had to do was just press the “Go” button when told to do so. Then just before the end of the show this sub master had to be set to zero. Otherwise the dramatic black out at the end of the show wasn’t. Because the band truck would remain alight.

Well I forgot, so fucking what……………….I had certainly fucked up better and bigger shows than this one!

Hauled up in front of the Second hand car salesman of a company manager this was the start of my intense dislike of him, Cameron Mackintosh, and all of his management lackeys. I had the board replotted the following day. It was an accident waiting to happen. It had been left like that years previously because I suspect that at some point the band lights had been missed out of a memory and the opposite had happened and the lights had gone out. Rather than just running through the cues and making sure they just worked properly, they left it on an independent supply, with the inevitable result!

Yet again I had inherited a theatre where over the years nothing much seemed to have been done on the building’s electrical infrastructure. The company manager’s office had a mass of trailing 4 way extension cables and so one afternoon I started with this room. Funnily enough it was number 7, the same as the Stage director at the Victoria Palace. Perhaps as halfway between  wardrobe which is always apart from at the royalty theatre always at the top of the building this made sense? The rooms were quite easy to do. There was a 13amp spur fuse by the entrance door to prevent the circuits from being overloaded but this only then connected to a single 13 amp fridge socket. Changing the spur to a switched one we could then wire the rest of the room with double 13 amp sockets protected and switched off at night from the switch just inside the door with just the original socket remaining on for the fridge. Again I worked the one afternoon off and one afternoon paid so yet again removing the need for a split shift. The Carpenters did not like this idea as they wanted the afternoon overtime for rehearsals. This for a long time meant that we were working a different shift pattern but that again suited me. In a far distant future we would move to afternoons and evenings only and the much hated, by me, split shift pattern would be gone. A lot of the carpenters were older than the electricians, this I think occurred because quite a lot had left some years earlier to work for independent television, leaving a bulge of a generation moving up the ranks. Most of the carpenters lived locally and wanted to go home for lunch. The new generation of Electricians were buying property out of town and so the little earned by an afternoon’s overtime did not offset the additional cost of a full price rail ticket for a whole week on a split shift pattern. We finished the rewire of the dressing rooms before the end of the show Five Guys. I think in the end the Company Manager appreciated the work but he never showed it. I had an ally in the D.S.M, Natalie. She and I had worked at the Victoria Palace on Annie. She was a very good D..SM. and I just let her tell me when to press the button as I had with Alistair Smith, I had no interest in the music at all. We plodded until the job was done.

Next in my memory was an argument with the Master carpenter, it started with the sharing of the swing showman. They had him on every second show on a matinee day. The fact that he was there to cover loss of staff seemed to make no difference, or that he was paid from the electrician’s budget. They only had a very few fly cues and they expected the swing showman to do them. If I was short to the fact that I as Chief Electrician was already working and still short made no difference. One night they missed the cue for the dropping of the curtain at the end of the first act! In the end I went up to the fly floor. Nothing was marked! By the time I had figured out which was the House Curtain set and was bringing them in, the Company Manager arrived and tried to blame me! The fact that all the stage staff and this swing showman were in the pub seemed to carry no weight at all! A blazing row ensued, the result of which we hardly ever spoke again, And I vowed from that day never to help a carpenter ever again. If I had been “Doing something” front of house and left them to carry the can, I would not have been blamed. Yet again this mysterious relationship showed itself. I had been used to working with the Carpenters at the Royalty and it was from that moment on a practice I would be certain to refrain from, from then on at the Lyric.

Not long after this the swing showman would leave and I would have to go over to the pub to discuss his replacement with the master carpenter. He would later come back over to the theatre and physically threaten me because I had ‘disrespected’ him! In all the years of working in theatre this was the only time of having such an ugly thing happen.

I decided at this point it was best to build a new workshop, and office, and abandon the crew room under the stage that was shared with the stage crew. Their obsession with having the television on all the time irrespective of if there was anything worth watching, was very annoying. I would turn it off, and in they would troop, turn it on, flick through the channels then leave. There was a room just front of house that was perfect for access to both the stage and the front of house. It had access to water and power and a toilet. By comparison my office on the second floor was little more than a corridor for the master carpenter to reach the toilets in the balcony.

We built a good sized workshop with a bench come desk for fine work and what little paper work that we needed to do. Also a full sized bench on the opposite side for heavy dirty work. This would be my working space for the next seven years. No daylight but we were well used to that kind of life by then. Best of all there were only 3 keys and no one but the electricians had access to it. We even a year also, later built a temporary drawing board for when we needed to work on full sized lighting plans.

We changed Managers not long after I went to the Lyric and got a young manager that was out to try and prove something. Scaffolding had been placed over the display boards outside and the neon signs had been disconnected. This manager tried in my absence to get the Deputy Chief electrician to go out in the pouring rain to work on these high voltage neon signs one night during the show. The Deputy phoned me at home, and I told him, not to do that under any circumstances, and that if in doubt, to get the manager to phone me. The following day another row ensued, finishing with him threatening to phone Julian Rees who was now the Technical Director. This was a very big mistake on his part as he collected his cards later that day!

We now had a new lady Assistant manageress acting as manager. Her name was Pauline Lorraine She was fab, just fab. She knew what she wanted, she knew how to get it, she was the best thing ever to happen to me or the Lyric, she was just a breath of fresh air. She drank, she smoked and she could be hard nosed if ever needed. She was the best of the best. Her Robert and Alison and Steve at the Royalty were the very best of the Best.

I can’t remember when, but after a period of time Pauline was not promoted to manager but moved sideways to The Cambridge Theatre under Ken Rowecliffe that I had worked with for a while at the Queens. It was a shame and I did object. To replace her we got a lady called Alison Hays. She was also just fab, very good looked and could be just as hard when needed. We would work together for the next 6 or 7 years very well. She knew how to run a tight ship and how to get the best out of people. I enjoyed working for her very very much.

A quiet time now passed rewiring the last of the dressing rooms when it was announced that the Chief Electrician at the Globe, (It may have been renamed the Gielgud by now) was retiring. Julian asked me while Mark and I were rewiring on the 3rd floor if I had any thoughts. I put forward, out of Mark’s hearing, that I thought Mark would be good for the position. There were two reasons, the most important was that he was ready and capable and would make a good Chief LX. The other was that he had been at the Lyric long enough. Also we had been together long enough. It was not a personality clash simply that we needed a break. Theatre crews work very closely together and sometimes after a few years they just can’t get on one another’s nerves, and we had, looking back, I think reached that stage.

Julian took my recommendation and so for the second time Mark took the long walk. Well in truth it was not a long walk it was the theatre, almost next door. He made a success of it, as I knew he would. His only problem, yet again, was Master Carpenter, but that is another story outside of the scope of this book. Mark would after a year trade up and be at the Queens theatre, my old stomping ground!

I for the very first time ever could have my pick of a Deputy Chief LX. I chose Tony Priestly. I could not have chosen more wisely. He was, to come be “my very best man”. But that was still some years in the future.

Tony and I got along very well, he looked after the lighting rig very well and we both looked after the building as well. We did a whole rig clean under his direction, he was a very competent board operator and knew the galaxy very well. Sadly he did not get to light many Sunday concerts unlike David C as they always wanted the Chief LX to light them. But on the board you could hardly ask for anyone finer.

It was announced that 5 guys would close and Ain’t Misbehavin would be the next show.

The department had had very little time to work on stage equipment; we had spent most of the time in the backstage dressing rooms. I had hoped to go dark after Five Guys but it was not to be. Inevitably this would always be the way. The best I could do was surround myself with the best of the best and hope for the best. The Get out was a nightmare. The fitting up of the show five years before must have had many changes and this showed by the cabling routes, which were all over the place. 72 extra circuits had been added by the daft concept of putting them over the door to the entrance to the fly floor.

Why anyone would do that is a complete mystery! One explanation I heard was that one of the previous Chief Electricians spent so long in the pub that the installation electricians just took the easiest options and the production electrician would not care for what followed. So every time one had to climb a ladder and stand on a heap of cables just to reach those 72 sockets and there was only one socket per circuit, if one burnt out that was just too bad. A few years later Tony P. and myself would be responsible for getting them duplicated onto the clearing floor on the other side of the stage and also having boxes with two sockets per circuit. (Thank god we did for that facility was used extensively on the show “Maddie” )

(04/03/1995) The get out started, and the LX began taking the booms on stage down. They would obviously be in the way to get to the get out doors. The Master carpenter and Production carpenter told us to clear off and go to the front of house. We did, half an hour later they were screaming for us to remove the booms…

The get out proceeded at a snail’s pace. I think it finally finished at about 5am. I had persuaded the hire company for the following show to deliver the lighting rig on the Friday before. The Avenue crew were kind enough to lend a hand that afternoon and we had stashed it all wherever we could. I thought we should have a shower and a break, when I returned the good old crew were hard at it rigging the front of house as they wanted breakfast at 8am, an idea I should have thought of.

At 9 am when the production staff arrived all the front of house lighting was up as were the first three on stage bars. Doing this was in my opinion the very best way of doing a show change over. You knew the kit was on site, you could get on and just get it done. There were no other people in the way. And best of all the production electrician was not there to get in the way either, and he then would look very stupid in front of the rest of the production crew. The carpenters then also had a straight run at fitting up the set on stage. This was a system I had developed at the Royalty and proved an instant success at the Lyric, I believe it may have been adopted across other theatres in the west end also.

It was unfortunate that the lighting designer was in some ways more of a lighting director. He had entered that post from a different route to most. He had not come up the electrical route but more the stage management production management route. The scrollers (Colour change units placed in front of a stage lantern to allow the colour on stage to be varied) were quite a new device and were controlled by a new protocol which our lighting board did not have. A converter box had been made especially for The previous show Five guys. This device, although very good, did not work perfectly. The board and the scrollers had to be tweaked to make them work properly. We did not have enough time during the fit up to do this which would lead to difficulties during the lighting plotting sessions. We were against time and with a theatre that was not ready for a quick fit up on this scale. The idea of using some of the equipment from the previous show should have been a good one if it had not been for the fact that it had not worked well on that show. The lighting designer, although having been responsible for the previous show, was not aware of these shortcomings and was not technically minded enough to grasp the problem when it was explained to him. We took an instant dislike to one another! I had not liked my dealings with the previous show’s producer Cameron Macintosh. I found his production department had a condescending attitude and a poor relationship with the theatre crews. For example, I was once questioned by some of them on why the same electrician had earned the same amount for six weeks in a row, the answer seemed obvious to me. He had done the same amount of hours. As I did not want to do the same late nights on Friday and Saturday the other two crew did as they wanted the overtime and I did not. As the company manager had signed the time sheets I could not quite see why the jobs were so interesting, but I guess that in itself was why.

By day two of the fit up we were falling out big time. Tony was trying to protect me as a good Deputy should. Julian came down to sort it out but as we were agreeing that the LD was ‘difficult’, and I knew that he was listening on the other side of the curtain I knew my problems were over!

The show was trying to hitch a ride on the back of Five Guys but effectively that bus had already left! I think it ran about 6 months! From mid march 1995 until the end of September that year Out it went and I don’t think any one missed it. The get out as I recall was uneventful the best bit was a complete clear out this time of the entire show and rig along with the kit from 5 guys. The only cables left were the ones from the advance bar over the front of the stalls to the PS fly floor. I think even the D54 cables from the lighting board at the back of the gallery to the dimmer room had to come out. Also the D54 to DMX 512 converter boxes were stripped out and good riddance to them is all I can say. This had the advantage that we hopefully would never see them again. I think the get out this time was done in the day time and not overnight. I think we then had the rest of that week Dark (closed) before the next show of Hobson’s choice came in on Sunday the 9th of October.

(07/10/1995) After all the hassle of the last couple of Musicals it was a pleasure to just settle down to a 6 week run of a straightforward play. It was supposed to take us up to Christmas, and then the Same production company would give us another play from Chichester. Unfortunately the second play could not be produced but  head office insisted that the producer honour his contract. I don’t know if this was a wise decision or not! The result was that as Leo McKern, Could not do the last 6 weeks, so a new Actor had to be found and very quickly, to play the part of Hobson. Frank Thornton stepped in almost at the last minute. Sadly it showed. He, we felt, was none to well, and he faced the problems of following a great actor that the part was almost made for, and also, that the play was never intended to run for that long. We staggered on playing to almost, at times, empty houses during a very cold winter over a Christmas period when that kind of straight play would probably never have done that well any way. Darren was the on duty electrician for the first night party, he got very drunk and managed to be sick in the theatre bar that was being used for this. It was the last in a line of misdemeanours. We would have had a clear council inspection some months earlier on 5 guys, a thing that every good chief electrician dramas off but very rarely gets the chance to achieve, and we would have done it, if Darren had not left stubbed out cigarette butts by one of the followspots. Anyway, now he had to go. He was in tears and could not see that whatever he said or promised it would make no difference. I could not have saved him this time even if I had wanted to. He just was not capable of keeping a promise. On top of this he had been caught sleeping in the theatre overnight. A definite no no. We were entrusted with the keys but should never use them for this purpose, or at least never get caught using them for that purpose. In truth I was glad to see the back of him. He was lucky and transferred to the Gielgud as Dayman LX. Tony and I talked it over afterwards and decided to employ a girl called Jodie Chapman. She was pretty, clever and a breath of fresh air to what had started to become a rather dull tired Department.

The crystal Chandeliers at the lyric were so much better than the bear bulb decorations at the queens. Extra overtime at Christmas to clean them. Nice Christmas little box that one. Just take em down stick em in the dishwasher in the bars, and don’t have a drink that night! Apart from one Christmas when Tony P. suggests lifting a bucket of soapy water up and down on the ones in the foyer to clean them because it will be quicker than the dishwasher. We should never have listened to him, It fell apart in the bucket and took over two hours of pub time to reassemble!

The end of January 1996 finally arrived and we said goodbye to Hobson and his choice. It’s a fine play and it was a good set including a trap door set in the stage for the workshop below the shop in the play.

Hobson’s Choice was I think the last proper show that I did at the Lyric with Tony as Deputy. We went dark for a for a couple of weeks and once we had taken out Hobson’s choice over a couple of days, Tony, Jodie, and myself, settled down to wire the last 72 circuits of dimmers that had been installed for 5 guys over the doorway on the fly floor, to also be on the clearing floor. This was done properly, much against the wishes of some people, so that there were two sockets for every circuit on the clearing floor side. The boxes were enormous and it must have cost a lot more, but it did mean that should a socket ever burn out it could be replaced at leisure. This was an absolute godsend when we came to do Maddie a couple of years later. Also at this time I was busy automating the house light and Independents, so that both of these could be plotted into the lighting board. I also had added the ability to control the house lights through a key switch and dimmer in a box in the prompt corner, which would prove very useful on the show Tap Dogs when the lighting board was brought down on stage. I had also with Tony’s help started to build a new cue light system which was electronically controlled and was a copy of an Idea that I had seen on Annie at the Victoria Palace. This project was modular and would take many months to complete. All the control cards were hand built as I recall with over 500 solder joints on each one of the thirteen cards. It again along with a new headset system would prove invaluable on the production of Maddie.

The prompt corner was a project that we all worked on together with Tony, Then David and finally Paul all contributing to its success over the years.

I think if my memory serves me correctly that over that winter we had done four Sundays in a row for Nica Burns producing comedians from pick of the fringe Edinburgh. One of which was Lee Evens. I think we then did 6 weeks of him at the Lyric as a one man show. The only notable things were a very large neon sign at the back of the stage with chasing lights that flew in and out during the show and a big set of treads (stairs) in the centre. These treads had a false platform half way down that he would fall through at the beginning of the show and disappear. It was just a hole with a crash mat at the bottom that was covered with paper. One morning a set of contractors working front of house tried showing off by making a grander entrance than they intended by falling through the platform when showing off as the set up of the show including the covering of the hole had already been done. This of course proving the rule of theatre that if it is nothing to do with you then don’t ever play with it! The result was great laughter from us and a big surprise to them. We pretended not to have the key to let him out for a while just to teach them a lesson. The only other memorable thing about the show was it had a rising microphones at the front of the stage, reminding me of the old variety days at the Victoria palace which had been removed before the musical Annie, which had been operated from the sound position on the side of the dress circle. I do remember another one coming from the Palladium stores for I think mother goose at the Victoria Palace, but apart from that you would never see them any more, as microphone technology had moved on. A great shame really, as just like paging a microphone cable there was quite a skill involved in it. To get the microphone to rise to the correct height just in time as the artist walked down stage and the whole movement just like moving scenery could be quite magical. These on Lee Evans had been made to be powered by a battery drill and it worked surprisingly very well. We had had difficulties with the producer of this show as he insisted on having his own production electrician, who would show almost instantly that she knew very little about her trade, and did not know one type of lantern from another. Not only this but the producer insisted that she work the lighting board. We had come across this producer before at the Royalty and his attitude if anything had got worse and not better. This production electrician had no idea how the board worked, and poor old Tony had to do all the plotting for her! Then to cap it all she did not even turn up for the first night. and he had to do that as well. The producer had referred to the LX department as old farts in boiler suits, well at least we were there to do his show!

Six weeks later the show had been so successful that it was going to transfer to the Apollo theatre next door as we were going to have the Show Tap Dogs.

(18/03/1996) Tony was leaving to become Chief Electrician at the Gielgud theatre as Mark was going to transfer as Chief LX to the Queens. During the Sunday shows I had met a guy called David Draude who was then working at the Apollo theatre as Dayman. I had taken an instant liking to him and had as they say decided to keep a close eye upon him. We had had a few drinks together and had become friends. So David was working at the Apollo Tony was going to the Gielgud Mark was already at the Queens, Then one night David said in the pub that he was now going to Cambridge not the Lyric as Deputy. I said well we’ll see about that! At 7pm I left the pub phoned Julian and after a bit of stiff talking It was settled. At 7.05 I walked back into the pub and told David that he would be with me from Monday.

The next week David was at the Lyric in the afternoons and Tony at the Lyric in the Evenings. For the get out Tony did the get out at the Lyric for Lee Evans and David did the get out at the Apollo. Then Tony did the get in at the Apollo of Lee Evens, and David did the get in of Tap Dogs at the Lyric. In the previous week We had between us put in a new prompt corner control of the house lights at the Lyric so they could be controlled from a memory desk and manually from the lighting board or the prompt corner. This had involved rerouting one of the old multicore cables from the lighting board to the dimmer room to where the house dimmers were in the rectifier room. Because I had made this in a modular system we only had to swap two of the edge connectors over on the PCB to allow the master control from the lighting board to the prompt corner which would mean that when the temp lighting lighting board controlling the Veri-lite was moved on stage rather than the position at the back of the gallery would mean that no one would have had to sit up there just to work the house lights. The connection box in the dimmer room was paired to both desks and once the plotting was over the lighting control for the conventional lights were transferred to the Veri-lite desk. Alistair pointed out that this was a first that a Veri-lite desk would not only control the moving lights but also the conventionals and the House lights. So my design and install of this saved the cost of another operator and made life far less boring. It also allowed the house lights to be controlled from the prompt corner and also our lighting desk’s on stage riggers for future shows.

It should be noted that we managed to get the neon sign for Lee Evens out of the Lyric in one piece but it was broken on the way into the Apollo. So the old fart in a boiler suit did good.

The get in of Tap Dogs was a nightmare. Everything about the show was heavy, including the moving light desk and flight case after flight case of moving lights. At the Royalty it would have been a breeze, with the motorised hoist just out the truck on the tail gate then straight onto the stage and wheel it where you wanted! But at the Lyric we only had two flights of very steep very slippery old stone steps from the street to above the stage, and then a wooden ramp with wooden bars across it to stop the crew slipping , but of course was no help at all with flight cases on wheels.

27/03/1996) Tap Dogs was not a show I liked. As usual the Chief LX was in demand during the previews when training was done on the moving light desk. Jodie and David went on the course while I remained running the Lyric. I was not too worried as I did not like the concept of this new innervation to enter into theatre lighting. We were the very first theatre to not have a Veri-lite desk operator and be left with the kit to just maintain and operate them in the world. David and Jodie did very well, and with the new House light control allowed us to achieve this. With the board moved down to stage so they could look up and see what the rig was doing and then the DSM moving to the lighting board position to see the stage better the whole thing did seem to me to be completely arse about face, which privately was about what I thought of the whole of Tap Dogs. There was a part where they danced on boards with microphones which was supposed to control the lighting. The second time they visited us a year or so later it did work but this time it was very hit and miss. The producer had all sorts of odd ideas trying to make the theatre look like a building site, including having up lighting of the pavement lights behind our workshop. IMHO if a show has to resort to this kind of gimmicks then the chance of it’s success is not high. Add onto this that it did a tour of Ireland then the chance of it making money was low. River Dance had in my opinion already taken all the audience that would want to see this kind of show.

These new moving lights were a complete pain. One tested them late in the day at 5pm. They always then had a problem, Always for some reason number 205. We renamed this one Peugeot, and a cantankerous bastard. Every night it was the same. Every night we were late for tea! Every night the lantern had to be replaced. The problem was that the lighting board could not hold all the information to control the lights. This information was held in the light itself. So before a light could be changed all its information had to be downloaded from the light to the board, then the light had to be changed, then the information up loaded and then calibrated and every cue checked. It was very new equipment and it just was, as  like, a lot of new things, very cutting edge and just not that reliable. I just thought the whole thing was just not worth it. Today they are a lot better, the lighting board is now powerful enough to know what every thing is doing. Like the old Rank Strand desks of yesteryear they were the best at the time but the D54 control protocol may have been the first but soon a copy (DMX 512) would be better and so this would be the same with moving lights. The odd thing was that by the late 90’s the clammer for new seemed to ignore reliability which had not been the case in the late 70’s. Perhaps it was the introduction of the PC in the intervening years but it now seemed acceptable that things sometimes “crashed”. No Strand M.M.S. had ever failed like these moving lights did.

The moving light was my nemesis, those and followspot operators just made life a pain and stopped me from just getting on with the two great joys of life, building useful things and drinking beer!

Tap Dogs lasted about 6 weeks, the crew were from Australia as well as the cast. David and Jodie enjoyed it, and I was glad to see the back of it. The get out went without a hitch.

Before Tap Dogs at some point we had rehearsed By Jeeves and for Drury Lane We had built a dimmer rack for the old idea of late night theatre. In the end it was never used but we did get to test it during these rehearsals. It would eventually end up some years later at the Palladium by which time David was then Chief LX and used it in the rehearsal rooms there.

Next after tap dogs was Ferry Across the Mersey, again with moving lights but this time the production Electrician stayed with the show to operate them. Now this was a doddle, no follow spots and we could give the house light control to the production Electrician. Big drinks all around then.

Ferry was great fun and Gerry Marsden was a lovely guy to work for. Apart from his guitar tuner who had to work harder than anyone else. Gerry was mad on golf and would take anyone that liked the game to the nearest course at his expense wherever the show might be. As I say he was a real Gentleman to work for and with.

David and I had formed a very good working relationship. The problem as always with a department of three is that it will often lead to one person being on the outside. it had been myself and Julian at the Queens. Then David Corbett and Steve, with myself as the outsider.The Royalty of course did not suffer from the problem as it had a staff of only two per department. At the Lyric it had been to a certain extent Mark and Darren followed by Myself and Tony, and Now David and Myself. David and I would keep getting in earlier and earlier to be there before the other one, just because we could. We worked hard, drank hard and had a fine old time.

It was announced that By Jeeves would be leaving the Duke of York’s theatre and returning to us. I have always believed that should it have come to us before Tap dogs that it may very well have been a great success. Gerry the chief LX at the Duke would be the production LX. One of the few that I had real admiration for. We met for the first time Alan Auburn. He was a real Gentleman and showed his caring instantly and not for the last time for the crew at the production meeting. I think now that again all our hard work on the theatre was building a real reputation for the theatre and doing something to give the west end a better reputation as well.

Jeeves was a fantastic show, one of the best ever written, and one of the best I have ever done. Along with Annie at the VP they are my all time favourites. Both were well thought out and had terrific music and Lyrics and story to them. The lighting designer and the sound and the acting and direction of By Jeeves was one of the best experiences I have ever known. To give the impression that the audience were sitting in a small village hall the balcony was closed off. A black gauze stretched across the auditorium at a height level with the Upper circle and so the chandelier and the advance bar were out of use. Making our life even easier. A whole new wrap around lighting bar was installed around the upper circle; it looked fantastic. a really beautiful job.

Sadly one of the most stupid of women to own the theatre insisted it was to be removed at the end of the run of the show. I refused, the then technical manager got the Master Carpenter to remove it.

We all loved By Jeeves, and we were for only the second time since Barnstaple, actually sad to see a show finish. David loved it, we all did. Sadly the public did not, and after such a short time it was gone.

After Jeeves the Lyric was closed (went dark) for a refurbishment. This was an odd time because the architect thought that as chief Electrician I would be doing the electrical work required for his grand plan and that I would want to work with him earning money for what were as far as I was concerned just daft ideas. One of which was to lower all the lights in the auditorium by 18 inches!

Part way through the refurbishment which included a new switch panel for all the front of house circuits the buildings manager brought in a top producer to show him the work that had been done. This producer freaked out and declared that he had never had a success in a blue auditorium and that it must be changed back to red! The Architect was sacked, the refurbishment drifted from 6 weeks to 16. The whole of the auditorium and front of house bars had to be repainted again. All the seats that had intended to be replaced with lovely high backed blue seats were now cancelled and we were now stuck with the old ones being recovered in red again.

The whole auditorium ceiling was going to have to be painted again, back from gold and blue, to light brown.

During the refurbishment David Draude did manage to get the horrid wooden ramp for the get on to the stage replaced. David was and still is one of those get on and do it kind of guys and will always remain one of the finest five deputies and have had the pleasure of working with. Unfortunately while he was working to fit this new aluminium ramp the Kango drill that had been borrowed to excavate part of the old stone steps was stolen. He took the blame on the chin, and then the club hammered out the rest of the work himself. He was, as I say, one of the most determined individuals I have ever come across.

During this refurbishment time we did also manage to get finally a trunking up the centre of the stall to the sound desk position. This should in theory have made our, and the sound Department’s life so much easier. We would have liked traps set in the carpet but unfortunately that was too costly. Especially after all the changing of minds over colour schemes, which lets face it only a person of small perspective and large ego, that had never actually worked in a theatre, could ever show any interest in. Unfortunately while the floor was up one of the sound engineers laid cables through the trunking and then out of the lid for the next show but one! These cables would ruin the straight run that after years of dragging cable over the rubble floor under the floorboards of the auditorium we had just worked and fought so hard to illuminate. During this front of house refurbishment I would again fall out with the head of the works department. Last time it had been over the painting of a corridor at the Royalty. This time it would be after having fitted new light fittings to all the front of house toilets there was a load left over. So I used them backstage and they looked very nice  they looked. I didn’t know he was going to use them in another theatre. In other words he was stealing from our budget as far as I was concerned. He told me to take them down! I told him no chance, in a much less polite form.

I think it was about this time that Jodie transferred to be with Tony at the Gielgud and Darren Transferred back to the Lyric. For the next two shows in some ways this was to prove a good thing, and in fact he did a very good job plotting Maddie with Basher Harris, it did not work out so well in the end. If we had kept Jodie and given her some training on plotting the lighting board I think she would have done just as good a job. Sadly I don’t think she stayed long after her transfer. I lost touch with her. I like to think she enjoyed her time at the Lyric, and went on to fulfil her potential. If David and I had not been so wrapped up in our refurbishment of the Lyric I think she might have stayed and become a very fine theatre electrician.

To demonstrate how absolutely useless some of the contractors still were all those years after the fitting of Air conditioning at the Queens theatre where the sensors controlling it were placed on the incoming and not the outgoing air. This time we had at long last got permission for the radiators in the dressing rooms to be replaced and also to have thermostatic valves on them, so that we as the LX dept would not constantly get complaints of the rooms being too hot or too cold. Well 13 radiators were taken out! And 12 new radiators fitted, the water turned back on and the contractors went to lunch! The mess really was quite extraordinary .

It was very unusual but we knew the next two shows that we were having. Marlene and then Maddie. We could actually plan the change over between those two shows before the fit up of the first, and as the refurbishment was running so late we were glad we could.

Marlene was being produced to a tight budget and they were going to use the old American lecos on the Advance bar, which although we had hidden during the refurbishment the lighting designers had found out about and it was back in place again. Along with the tacky bars around the Gallery. David had persuaded the hire company the deliver the lanterns for the second show early just as I had taught him. I did one better and asked if we could use them on the first show and that is what we did, and saved even more time and effort.

We started on the Sunday with the fit up of Marlene in the Morning, I think as usual we had got  the kit in on the Friday. The refurbishment front of house was still running behind and scaffolding was still up for the decorators to continue repainting the roof. The cleaners’ lights had been moved to the side of the auditorium, one of those classic contractor mistakes where once the scaffolding was taken down you had to risk life and limb to change the lamp! But in the meantime the follow spot operators had to be under the scaffolding to operate the follow spots with a head room of about one foot, great a temperature of about a zillion degrees, and all just to paint a different colour for the cherub!

The fit up as far as we were concerned, was going well, until the director and set designer fell out! Then it just got better and better. A long day’s work followed by two queens falling out on stage, and after us all laughing as they pulled the set plan so hard between them that they tore in half, we were sent to the pub for half an hour by the producer. Back we came, and they were still yelling and shouting at each other. Out we were sent again, this time an hour later we were just sent home. And the moral of the story might be that, as a director you should not choose your boyfriend as set designer, especially if he does not get the proper theatre stage ground plan!

I think the show lasted about 6 weeks. The Lyric just seemed to be going through one unsuccessful show after another. The west end was stuck on just a few successful musicals and not much else. I know that this show only had a short booking but it just did not, one felt,  fill the bill terribly well. From my own personal point of view it did not do much for me. The subject just seemed to have been covered too many times before.

The get out was a breeze. out in just a few hours and with the advance bar lighting remaining the same I think we had the Front of house completely re-rigged by about 1am and the stage stripped by 2am. I think we had a break and then went on with rigging the overheads and had breakfast at about 9am Sunday morning. This was just the way to do it overnight with no one else around. Gerry again was the production electrician, he did pinch my bottle of port given to me at the end of By Jeeves. He was found fast asleep on a set of black clothes in the stalls bar bless him!

(07/09/1997) Now Maddie we knew was going to be a nightmare. It was the biggest show lighting wise and probably set wise ever to go into the Lyric. On top of that it had the famous lighting designer Basher Harris. He had lit ShadowLands at the Queens.

We were given the plan and David and I thought it looked a bit odd with lighting booms on one side and Lighting ladders on the other side of the stage. We put the circuit number on and were just congratulating ourselves and discussing whether one preferred Booms or ladders when Gerry arrived and pointed out that there were Booms on both sides and ladders on both sides!! There was just not enough space on the ground plan to draw them. One did wonder how on earth if they would not fit on a scale drawing the lighting designer expected them to fit on a full sized stage. It was a great boon that myself and Tony had fitted those extra socket paring across from the fly floor as we could now pair all these ladders and booms by using this facility that some had thought not worth the effort.

In the end we needed another 80 ways of dimming and the only place to put them was on the clearing floor on the prompt side. It was also good that when we left the Royalty we took with us a set of camlocks and a breaker which we had fitted in the Lyric dimmer room. We got the works dept to fit meters on the stage main. With the extra dimmers we were now at 272 dimmers and were using every one, with 24 of them being used twice! Making a grand total of 296 ways of dimming. It made one think that the New theatre in Barnstaple had 12 ways, and the Northcott 120. Drury Lane about 300.

We worked day after day and night after night. David and I one night were so tired that between us we could not even work out how to pair up the circuits to the truck. After an hour we just went to bed and the following morning we did it in 5 minutes. Darren was doing well plotting with the lighting designer but they wanted David the deputy chief. I refused, partly because it would destroy Darren’s confidence, partly because it would make no difference, and also because I needed David to work with. One of the biggest shows ever and we only had the three of us plus a production electrician to do it all in four or five days.

The lighting was ridiculous, There was a super trouper follow spot at the back of the gallery which was used for 10 seconds just at the end of the show. More kit kept arriving and in the end the hire company refused  to send any more! The only way we could get anything that we needed was to send something back. This on top of the fact that we were also using our own kit that was not on the books!

We had rigged and re-rigged, lit and relit the show so many times that the install was just a mess. Many of the cables were too long, or just chucked in. There was of course no money, the budget had been so over spent that the producer just had nothing left. David and I volunteered to come in on the Sunday in our own time and clean the mess up. That was the great thing about David; he cared just as passionately as I did to just get the job done. The lighting designer said he could do it with some extra time. I pointed out to the production manager that if the LD showed his face not only would we instantly turn the lights off, and go home but we would send in a bill for the entire day at double time! In the end the LD did not come in on the Sunday, and David and I cleared up the mess and did get paid for it. It was interesting just like the overnighters at the royalty for the rehearsals of Sunset, after a time no one but the dedicated actually want any more overtime.

Finally we got one night where David and I did not have to work late. The show finished and we headed to the pub! The result? I fell asleep on the train going home and ended up in Milton Keynes. I seemed to have arrived in some mad Dante’s inferno, I could not find a cash point, so in the end I just went to sleep and then caught the train back into work to start at 8 am again…………

The crowning glory of all this madness, was that the Lighting designer then left after the first preview leaving the Assistant lighting designer to relight the show over the next week.

The show was not a success and apart from keeping a couple of dimmer racks that the hire company did not want back I don’t think anyone profited from it at all apart from myself and David that had shown ourselves what a big show we could do with a very small crew. The head sets and cue lights worked perfectly and the show would not have been possible without them. The ability of the board operator to switch himself and the LD out onto separate ring with the followspots was a real time and temper saving bonus.

David had learnt how to put on a big show, which would help his career and helped him to become chief LX at the London Palladium and finally Operations manager for the entire Group. I was very proud of him and all the work we had done at the Lyric to allow such a huge show to be fitted up so well and quickly. Darren had shown how well and dedicated he could be and would be ready soon to take over from David as deputy. The production manager Paul O’Leary had been on the same ABTT course as myself at Paddington in 1977, and he had been Chief LX at the Adelphi at the Same time that my wife had been there as LX Dayman. He promised that he would look after us should he ever be Production Manager on another show that I would be doing! Well It was nice of him to say it, the likelihood seems just as remote now as it did back in those days.

(01/11/1997) Next we had over Christmas a show called Cyrano de Bergerac. I don’t remember much about it apart from the fact that it had two production electricians. The LD was a very nice and competent person. He had worked his way up through the Electrical route rather than the university route. During the lighting sessions both production electricians had gone out Christmas shopping when one of the lighting battens blew all its lamps. The modern ones could do this as all the lights were wired in series. The LD asked if I had any that I could fit. I answered that I had although they would not quite be the correct ones. After fitting them one of the returning production electricians complained that they were not the correct ones and that he had some on order. The LD sorted him out! Yet another off my list! The only other odd thing about Cyrano was that the Actor playing the lead was very fussy about his dressing room. We never found out why but no one was ever allowed in there alone. And never after he had set up his false nose! He kept all the previous ones stuck on the wall by his dressing room mirror, and kept a careful count to ensure no one had stolen one as a souvenir!

(22/03/1998) The next show was Called “Closer” and it came from the national theatre and it had moving lights and they kept going wrong, right at the end of the first act with the Immortal lines of “Why don’t you fuck off and die you fucked up bitch.” The moving lights were supposed to light the actor in the middle of the stage. Well they did not half the time the bloody stupid things would point upwards at the grid instead. Great, why ever would one have these things, and on a straight play at that. Time after time I said why don’t we just rig a couple of specials. No, on, on, we would persevere. Eventually whatever the problem was resolved itself. David loved the show, personally I could have left the whole pretentious claptrap behind. One of the main problems was that we were still running a strand desk with a converter to allow the control of moving lights.

We had an advance bar over the auditorium which like most of those devices was used both for lighting and sound. We had had two at the Royalty theatre. The one at the Lyric had now been fitted with a safety wire like the Royalty for the Zip up tower and was as safe as houses. But the rule was whoever went up the tower could say what he liked. If you did not like it, well you could always go up there yourself and have a chat with the person at the top of the tower. This show was again Darren’s turn to plot, and David exercised his full privileges to comment on Darren’s manhood while he was up the tower focusing. The production manager was starting to blush, when Darren went up as well to tell David he was not impressed. I eventually, once I had just managed to stop laughing, pointed out to the production Manager that if he was worried, he could of course, also go up to the top of the tower and state his own point of view.

I think David really fancied the leading lady. He even got the front of house poster to keep at the end of the run of the show!

Next in November 1998 came ” An Ideal Husband” David had already done the show twice before. Each time he had done the show at the Duchess theatre and at the Apollo, he had fallen asleep in the stalls and snored his head off during the dress rehearsal. So this time the Company manager asked him to leave, which we all thought was very funny. It was a nice quiet little play with which to enjoy Christmas with, and to see in the last year of that century. Little did I know how much my world was to change over the next 14 months.

One of the things that I do remember about An Ideal Husband was that it had Richard Todd in it. It is funny how years later one should meet him, after having seen so many famous war movies that he had appeared in. He once when just about to go on stage slapped the manageress’s thigh and said those immortal lines “Nice bit of thigh that!”

Ironically An Ideal Husband was David’s last show with me at the Lyric. He was offered to become Chief Electrician at the The Garrick theatre. He sort of offered to stay at the Lyric, but I knew his time had sadly come. We had had some great times together, we had even at one time been on holiday together but now as they say his bus was at the door. He brought me a very nice leaving present, which should really have been something that I should have done for him. He had been a true gent, he was single at the time and in many ways although married so was I. We had worked, played, and drank together with exactly the same work ethic as one another and we had improved the Lyric in many ways. He was the last of the great five deputy Chief Electricians that I had the privilege to work with. They were all in their own ways just as good as one another, but no one was ever better than David. I think with the loss of David to the Garrick, something went out of my life forever.

Darren was promoted to Deputy Chief electrician at the Lyric, and I was persuaded to take a girl from Australia called Jonnell. She was quite competent but had a bit of a weight problem. She did not weigh enough to be able to swing the tallescope. She bless her heart must either have put weights inside her shoes or kept eating as a week or so later she could operate the telescope alone and so the job was hers. An ideal husband would take us through the Christmas of 1999, It would also be the last happy Christmas with my first wife Michelle.

Next up was a show called Animal Crackers. It was now March 1999. The Lyric was still looking for a show to run for a decent length of time. And this was not going to be it. We had a new master carpenter, after the previous one had moved to that graveyard for down and out goings ,  the Duchess Theatre. Her name was Sue and she was very very good. George and Peter had swapped Deputy Master carpenter slots between the Lyric and the Queens Theatre. So I was back with Peter after 10 years. Only Johnny H was left from the original Lyric crew.

The only thing I can remember about animal crackers was the enthusiasm that everyone but myself had for it. The cast and production management worked very hard on it. Sue had to fly one of the cast as if they had been caught up in the house curtain. There was a load of slapstick and very good dancing. It was based on the Marks brothers. Which was probably my problem with the whole show. I don’t find that sort of comedy funny. Sadly neither did what audience that we could crowbar through the door to see it.

The Lyric needed a hit, we had done some successful plays but little else sadly since Five Guys. I think everyone was feeling the need for “a success” and it just would not happen. It would not happen until Thriller by which time I would be long gone from that stage.

It was May 1999, sixteen years since I had left the Victoria Palace, on a “Bright sunny Monday morning in the middle of May”. Ten years since I had left the Queens, and six years since I had left the Royalty. I had now been at the Lyric Longer than any other theatre. Sadly I was neither happy nor grateful for all that I had, which was selfish and ridiculous. I had a good well paid job. My mortgage was paid. I had money in my pocket, and yet I was not happy. I was not unhappy, I just was not particularly anything. I guess I missed David D. We like David C. had worked so closely together to achieve things, and then suddenly, and for the last time, that struggle, and camaraderie was gone. All the work that I could do in the Lyric was done. I should have moved on. A bigger theatre and start again? No I thought not, I could not face doing it all over again. I did not want a very big theatre, big musicals, big headache, big rewards, but what would I do with them? I was to a certain extent stuck. I had played all my tricks, and showed them all well worthwhile, but I was now tired of the game. On top of all this My Marriage was slowly failing. My wife and I were just slowly drifting apart. We had gone on holiday to Whitby, and it just had not gone well. I was bored, she was bored, we just wanted different things. She was interested and wanted to become an actress, the very people I might work with, but would never really understand.

06/06/1999) Jonell was going back to Australia, she was as I say very competent and helpful, I would miss her but now I was to strike some real gold with a guy called Patrick, who had been recommended by David D. He was as I say a real gem. He worked and played hard, and would be a real help in the stormy days of the following year or so to come.

Next was a show called Tango Passion. Well passion, no one felt for this. We had hit an absolute, all time low. The Cast were all arrogant. They actually thought themselves great entertainment. At the pinnacle of their careers. I just thought they were a bunch of boring old talentless foreigners. I know the show was grabbed because of the failure of Animal crackers, but it was just not good enough for a west end show. But those in it did not seem to realise. Thank goodness it finally finished and we could just put it out of its misery and chuck it out to an ignoble death.

It was The End of September 1999, and at long long last, we were going to get a decent show. Comic Potential written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn. It was not a complex set, but it was very well lit by the Chief LX from Scarborough who had stepped in when the LD was unwell and Alan  showed his kindness by allowing her to light it in the west end. Mick Hughes had lit By Jeeves brilliantly and She did the same for Comic Potential. The show would have the longest run at the Lyric since five guys named Moe. It was a good play, only slightly suffering from a science fiction moral concept that had been dealt with several times before, in various Television Science fiction series. It was funny and tragic, well acted and well produced.

This show would be a turning point in my life, we were short of crew at the time and as my wife was out of work, I employed her part time on stage. It was an odd time where she would know part of the show that I did not. I remember being taught the cues by her before she left, after the beginning of the run of the show.

By the end of the run of Comic potential I would have left her, and be living in Leighton buzzard. The show ran well, and was fun to work on.

Comic Potential came to an end. Big changes had come and gone during it’s run. It was a very good play, but sadly not a great one. It had a good and successful run. An awful lot more had changed for me, and for the crew which could, in many ways, have made several plays. I was now separated from my wife and living in a rented house in Leighton Buzzard. I had for a short time lived at David D’s flat in London. Darren and Patrick were now happy in the  electrics department, and without their help, my own life changes would have been a lot more difficult. One example was when I was moving to Leighton Buzzard due to train difficulties, and I could not get into work that Saturday, Patrick carried both shows by himself. He also had put some overnight work my way before I had left my wife.

The new millennium had happened and I had made new friends. We had even been away in May to Instow all together. David D was now chief Electrician at the London Palladium. At this point Dave C. Dave D, Steve M, and Tony P, and Mark W, Were all chief electricians. They had all been at one time my Deputy Chiefs. I like to think I taught them all something that helped in their promotions. The truth, in reality, was that I was such a crap chief Electrician that our head office had to give the best to keep the theatre that I was at operating. When they could not stand it any longer they escaped and took their reward and another unfortunate had to take their place for a time, before they too got their reward. I do like to think that I was fair and just most of the time, and shared whatever was going around, as had my previous chief electricians in their own ways.

It would be another irony that after comic potential should end, and  during it’s run that I should acquire the ability to laugh again.

Brief Encounter (09/09/2000) Twenty three years since I had started at the Victoria Palace, over half a lifetime (at the start of writing this book) and what a lifetime it had been. It was unfortunate that Patrick would be leaving to go as Deputy at the Apollo theatre, and I would be stuck without a Dayman just as this new show was due. Sue the master carpenter suggested a lad who was nicknamed Tiny. I was not keen, it was obvious that stage dept people have no idea of the complexities of an electrical department. Darren kept moaning about it. I was still stuck and decided to give him a month’s trial. Darren went ape, and I for once lost my temper with a member of my own crew. I was sick and tired of putting up with Darren. I had promoted him from second Dayman to Deputy Chief LX. All he could do was show his ingratitude. He was right. Tiny was a useless pain, but he was still, at the end of the day my decision, and not his. Like Tiny, his days were numbered. Jenny Seagrove was brilliant in the part and in a way gave me food for thought, go back or go on. There was no choice, there was a risk, but happiness and a great reward were waiting.

Brief Encounter finished in the September Just before I went to Robin hoods Bay. The next show was long day’s journey into night. I don’t remember much about it apart from It again, would have pointless moving lights in it (Which yet again would go wrong for no reason), and I think it may have had the same lighting designer as Ain’t misbehavin. I am fairly certain I met the production crew for a meeting on stage after I had had a small car crash

Tiny departed and we started the fit up of, Long day’s journey. It was during the middle of the fit up, I would be going on a two weeks holiday to America with my new girlfriend. David D was brought in to cover, and by the time I returned we had an agency electrician for a few weeks which was quite a novelty. He just worked the lighting board and helped on stage and that was about it. About the middle of December we got a new Dayman Paul Roughton, from The Theatre Royal Drury lane. I liked him straight away. He was honest, hard working, wanted to fit in, the only problem was that yet again, Darren did not like him. He did not trust him, thinking he would be another Tiny. He would not even share evenings off with Paul and I had to reach a compromise with them both, to start with, that Paul would not get an evening off. This lasted for a while, and then yet again I had to have it out with Darren so we all got one extra evening off when possible.

I enjoyed the evenings off, and the time we had over Christmas. For the first time Christmas again seemed to have a meaning. We had worked hard that year, taken some frightful risks and come out on top. I had for the first time ever been abroad to America, I had two great holidays in Instow and Robin hoods bay, and had fallen in love again.

The Next show was called Busy Day, I unfortunately again remember little about it, (Irony again I was having my own busy days) I, and all the rest of the Electricians, past and present, had done so much work in the Lyric that now it was just a stock formula to change one show over to another. Get the next electric rig in on Friday. Change over the front of house rig to the next one, while the stage were getting out. Get out, the on stage rig, rig the next shows on stage overnight including flying it ourselves out of the way. Have breakfast, rig what one could until lunch time then change crew at 2pm and go home.

(05/03/2021) Semi Monde

This should have been a simple little play, that should have taken hardly any time at all to fit up. The play itself had not been done for many years. Having watched it one could see the reason why. It had for some reason, that a simple mind like mine could not figure out a dome in the roof that flew in at the beginning of the show and then flew out again at the end. Why as I say I have not the faintest idea. I remember that one of the incoming companies announced at tea time on the fit up Sunday that he was. “Going fly his dome now!”

Well by the end of Sunday Evening it has all been bolted together, Attached to the flying bars and the counterweights loaded, and still it sat on the deck! Then more flying bars the following day were attached, and still it would not fly. Then lead weights were sent for and still it would not fly! The load in the grid had now reached the point that structural engineers were sent for. Spreaders were designed and four chain hoists fitted. The noise of the dome being flown by four chain hoists was still not enough to scrap the idea. So it was flown in and then levelled as the motors were not in sync, while loud music was played to try and hide the noise. and the reverse procedure at the end of the show. The reason for all of this? An accountant had changed the specifications of the design from aluminium to steel to save money. No one had bothered to check if increasing the weight by over 3 times would matter! Or of course just scrap the idea in the first place. Still we struggled on for a few weeks, I had avoided the whole problem by pointing out that as it went up and down or if you prefer in and out it was a stage problem, I was only responsible for providing power. During this show I was to move into our new house that we had brought in Leighton Buzzard. We hired a long wheelbase transit, and did it all over only a couple of days. There is nothing quite so tiring, as we were only moving a quarter of a mile up the road. As soon as one loaded one lot, then one was unloading it again. In those couple of days we also went from Leighton to Hertfordshire, back to Leighton, then Somerset, Devon, Wilshire, Hertfordshire, Leighton, Hertfordshire, and finally after that Leighton for the last time. One was almost glad to go back to work for a rest. We also did in the same week a very successful powerpoint presentation to Head office staff in the upper circle bar, and were called back from the pub by the manager only a few minutes later as that was all the time the Apollo theatres presentation took. Typical that one of the few times a front of house manager should be so pleased with our work as to buy us a drink we should have hardly any time to drink it .

During this show we were the first theatre to fit the new Telephone system after it had been tried at the Cambridge Theatre. Our Installation had gone quite well, the Cambridge theatre had not. This was to prove very helpful to me only a few months later.

In the middle of June 2001 I found myself yet again arguing with Darren. He could just not accept after all those years of privilege that in the very end what I actually said was not always up for debate, and when push came to shove he would do what he was bloody well told, whether he liked it, or not. He even went to the theatre manager behind my back, claiming that I had had more weekends off than him. I proved that we had in fact had exactly the same. Not that should have mattered. He should have got what I chose to give him. After all those years of sharing everything, time off, overtime, work, space, working the lighting board so he could watch a football match. Saving his skin each time he overstepped the mark, and this was the repayment! I found myself avoiding even being in the office/workshop that I had shared all with the crews for so long. I had never distanced myself like a lot of heads of department do, and never just disappeared into my own office and then just reappearing to issue fresh orders before going back to do more “paperwork”! It was not a style that I liked but I guess that it did have the advantage that people got used to it. It was not for me, and I could not have gone back to working like even if I wanted to. Darren had to go, and go he went, to the Apollo. Paul was made up to the vacated post Deputy Chief Electrician.

We now had a good crew again with Paul and yet another new guy, who’s name was Mikey . Darren’s leaving was caused partly through a change in my own personal life, which he, for some reason he seemed incapable of keeping his nose out of, partly due to his inability to accept that when the world changes you just have to sometimes accept it and change with it. He went to the Apollo I think this time, but I don’t think it lasted too long before he left and went to the Opera House on the night gang! Not a job I would fancy and not one I think that suited him.

(16/07/2001) Now it was “Barbara Cook sings Sondheim”, time to have a go at filling the Lyrics seats, and bring in some much needed Money and reputation back, and to save the poor old Lyric from more embarrassment. Sadly this was not to be. In fact from my own point of view the only amusing episode I can remember was on one famous night, the singer and pianist were playing, and singing, totally different songs and I am not certain that either had actually noticed.

The show was so simple to do that I spent quite some time at the The Theatre Royal Drury Lane (TRDL) working on their new Telephone system. (This system will be gone into in much more detail in the next chapter)

TRDL is a huge building especially by comparison with the theatres on Shaftesbury avenue. We had spent several days there on this project and then Barbara Cook closed, and Paul and I would spend the next Month there before the next show. I was flying between a cottage we were trying to do up in Somerset, and Drury Lane and the Lyric. I remember that the manager one day insisted That I should return to the Lyric because of a power cut. I pointed out with the new emergency lighting system that we had, that the lights would stay on for days. I was as usual not listened to, and had to return. Sadly Julian was not there that day and so the show was cancelled for no good reason other than the fact that the operations director insisted. We were in fact supplying emergency lighting power to the theatre next door across the roof, I checked the consumption and the storage in our batteries and so well specced were we that still we had enough power for at least another 12 hours but that did not matter.

One Friday during this period I was to find David Leach and Mike Brown the Technical manager and operations director trying to test the new telephone system. I had already gone down with David one day to meet the creator of this system in Bristol. They invented me to go to the glass house pub up the street. This was a testing ground it would turn out. The lyric was dark (closed) at the time and the beer started flowing. 3 hours later I phoned Rachel and told her that for once she would have to wait for me at Brent Cross. Both Mike and David thought I could continue as Chief Electrician at the Lyric Theatre and install the new Telephone system. I said that that was just impossible, it had already caused problems on some of the previous shows and I could just not go on doing both. They agreed and I suggested that I should be allowed to work on the telephone system across the twelve theatres and leave the post as Chief electrician of the Lyric. I left the pub jubilant and well pleased with the afternoon. Arriving at Brent cross I jumped in Rachel’s car and told her happily about it all on the way home. I think we spent a long time in our local pub before ordering a Chinese to be delivered to the pub before going off home for a big celebration after a very successful day.

(03/09/2001) Cat on a hot tin roof was the next show and I would be on holiday during most of it’s fit up. There was so much going on that it was becoming more and more difficult to fit it all in. David D would cover me while I was away, but it was just not possible to get it all done. The installation of all the new telephone systems, the running of the Lyric, and all I had to do between our two houses.

We had had a terrific time in America, this time, at least we had a little more money, and our future was now no longer in doubt. We could not afford much but we could take our relations out a couple of times to dinner, and afford to buy them a drink or two.

On returning to England a couple of weeks later, after a weekend to get over our holiday. I went to see the Technical manager in his office in Soho Square, on a dirty wet November Monday Morning, Just over 24 years since I had started at the Victoria Palace as a Student.