Muscle armour, Roman skirts and wigs – an epic task for the Wardrobe Department

29 June 2012

Life in the Wardrobe Department is often very busy but certainly never boring. When I started here as Wardrobe Assistant 4 years ago, one of my first jobs was to ruin a perfectly good period shirt, cover it in stage blood and dry it with a hairdryer. I remember thinking “someone please ask me what I did at work today”.  That was Our Country’s Good .

We enter the world of Ben Hur with some trepidation, there are rumours of 100,000 costumes – there are only 2 of us! We reason that if 4 actors can play all of those parts, we too will rise to the challenge. So fuelled by coffee and green tea we start, our timescale is very short with a 4 week rehearsal period, but generous considering that we often have only 3 weeks. There is always research to be done, and this show was no exception – leather armour, muscle armour, helmets -surprising what Google throws up sometimes, remind me to clear down the laptop history. I’ve had some very interesting dialogue with a host of people from various LARP sites (Live action role play) and seen things that quite frankly I’m not sure I should have. We learn that there are copious varieties of braid available in Morocco, and incredible leather Roman skirts in Asia. Hmmm….

It’s been a whole new experience for us working on the costume for Ben Hur, and very interesting indeed to witness the evolution of a brand new show. We generally start with a very definite brief, but this time we have needed to be far more reactive to changes with script and character. There has also been a very inclusive approach to costumes with both directors, and the designer present at costume fittings. Our lovely designer Paul has a liking for natural fabrics – (oh the creases!) and we are challenged to find ways to adapt all of the costumes including armour, for super quick costume changes, maybe as little as 4 seconds. Then there are the wigs which need to go on and off, then on again and occasionally fly off mid performance – not at all what we are used to, generally we like our wigs to stay put.

So at the last tot up, we had 63 costumes, that’s not counting hats, shoes, wigs etc etc, and as Ben Hur opens it’s time to start the on-going maintenance of the costume. Last time, I was knee deep in cowboys, the biggest challenge was how to keep them feeling comfortable, but looking grimy and sweaty. Wardrobe are now looking forward to our next production, Thoroughly Modern Millie, all the while keeping the current cast smelling fresh and looking lovely.

Amanda Dooley – Wardrobe Assistant