Big Bagnor Household – Week 3 – The Wicker Man

22 January 2015

For weeks, in all weather, the team from Synergy have been hard at work in the car park. First they drilled boreholes, then they created trenches and then all the interconnecting pipework arrived to join them up. Now, it is starting to look like nothing ever happened.

However, now my favourite bit of the works is about to start, the idea that I think is brilliant, not only because it is so simple, but because as soon as you enter the foyer you will see it and it’s already being affectionately nicknamed The Wicker Man by the production office.

When you come into the Foyer the first thing you see is the spiral staircase which takes us up to the circle on the first floor, the dressing rooms and technical areas on the second floor and above this is what we all call the lantern.

Now, most purpose built theatres do have lanterns – so it’s a term we all tend to use –probably dating back to the days when theatres were lit by gas. It was a unit fixed on top of the “fly tower” over the stage that could be opened in case of emergency; the theory was that if there was fire and smoke it would be drawn away from the audience.

Anyway, whatever it’s called, it is the highest point of the foyer – and also the warmest. So with the simple use of a fan you could bring all that heat back down to warm the ground floor in the winter and, if you put some louvers up there, in the summer they can be opened to allow hot air to escape and cooler air to come in.

That’s what we are going to do – but not with boring ducting. We are going to have two tubular fabric “snoods” dropping down either side of the staircase so the air can permeate gently out.

These will be fixed to the outer side of the spiral staircase and we will be forced to resist the temptation to turn the fans up to full tilt so we can have them flailing about like those air driven advertising signs you see at festivals. Hence, the affectionate name – The Wicker Man.

Lawrence T Doyle
Production Manager