Bright for Comedy (BFC) – Production Manager Lawrence and Old Time Music Hall

25 January 2012

It was 1987 and I must have been about 3 years old (!) and had just started lighting shows, when my mate Alan J Green production manager at a tiny theatre in Berkshire asked if I would like to light an “Old Time Music Hall” working with a young girl about 4 years old (!) who was going to produce and star in it.

I first got an insight into Music hall at the Players Theatre, then under the arches in Charing Cross, as a student, helping to pay my way through college, doing anything from collecting glasses to working the cloakroom. I loved the bizarre comedy and the fact each act had a set time. The whole place shook as the trains went over at regular intervals. You always felt sorry for the newcomer who lost the climax of their act to the thunder from above and the clinking of glasses and the chandeliers.

On leaving college, I went to work in theatres just in time to catch the dying days of variety shows, where acts would come in sometimes moments before they were due on stage. In the lighting box you would be handed a running order of the act with simple lighting notes, hundreds of other electricians had seen before you – “dark blue and spot” for the ballads “pinks and yellows” for the up-tempo numbers and the note which was, and still is, my favourite “B.F.C.” Bright for comedy.

Then I met Miss Helen Watson and we got on like a house on fire. Incredibly this year is the 25th annual production of hers I have now lit and it’s also no secret how my career changed after all that earlier contact with The Watermill Theatre. Not only is Seasonal Sauce a great joy to work on, but it is normally one of the first shows the Assistant Stage Manager moves up to become Deputy Stage Manager.

Last week in the staff room the team were shrieking with laughter and singing excerpts from many years of shows they had all worked on, to much headshaking from the newer members of staff who have yet to work with this collection of “Nerve Over Talent”

Hope you all enjoy our 25th. I have lit it with plenty of “B.F.C.”

Lawrence T Doyle – Production Manager