Big Bagnor Household – From Wicker Man to Tin Man

10 February 2015

Suddenly, it’s eviction day and  sadly we are about to lose Trev and the rest of our house mates with whom we’ve been sharing the amazing journey along our very own yellow brick road of The Watermill’s refit.

Unlike other house mates, we have all enjoyed a great relationship, especially in this, the last week, when we are all now working together in the same space – the Neptune team trying to commission all the component parts into one complex operating system, and The Watermill team turning a building site back into a theatre.

Tuesday must have looked bizarre to any casual observer. With most of the doors open into the theatre, we were trudging through the snow bringing in the set for The Secret Adversary. Meanwhile, the rest of the site was having the heating units all pushed up to maximum for testing.

As soon as we could close the doors, it was amazing how quickly the theatre went from freezing into the region of it being so hot everyone was stripping off – not a problem we have had before!

At the same time, confused engineers were hunting for units that have now disappeared behind fake stage walls, and then were caught up
in the middle of a magic rehearsal on stage with the cast.

Today, as the final part of the hand-over, I had the joy of the introduction to the master control panel which I suspect may take a while to get to grips with. I was initially amazed by some of the heating zones labelling. When I saw ‘P and O Circle units’ I thought, having been in The Watermill for a few weeks, the contractors had changed their terms of reference to that of the theatrical stage terms of Prompt side and Opposite prompt. Had we suddenly created a collection of Thespian builders with all that could entail? No, it turns out it was as simple as which row of seats in the theatre the unit was placed above.

However, my favourite, and the simplest piece of the system, the unit in the foyer that brings warm or cool air down the side of the staircase had the legend of Tin Man.

So here we are about to start the technical rehearsal for The Secret Adversary, hopefully nearly back to normal because as someone once said, “There is no place like home”.

Lawrence T Doyle
Production Manager