Based on the film A Private Function by Alan Bennett and Malcolm Mowbray, Betty Blue Eyes is written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman with music by George Stiles and lyrics by Anthony Drewe. Starring Sarah Lancashire, Reece Shearsmith and an animatronic pig called Betty, the show is being directed by Richard Eyre, choreographed by Stephen Mear, designed by Tim Hatley and the lighting is by this year's Olivier- and Tony-award winning lighting designer Neil Austin.
To light the show, Austin is using a wide selection of equipment from White Light's extensive and diverse rental stock, including a core moving light rig of ETC Revolutions, Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots and VL2500 Washes and DHA Digital Light Curtains, plus a conventional rig including ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, standard Par Cans, Rainbow colour scrollers, L&E battens, Atomic strobes and more.
The show uses four followspots from Robert Juliat, two Aramis from the front and two Super Korrigans from the sides. He has also joined the many lighting designers who have come to rely on the EvenLED LED cyc light to brighten their skies; in this case the panels run around three sides of the stage and are run from a Green Hippo HippoCritter media server that can fade the EvenLED smoothly under sixteen bit control.
The entire rig, including smoke machines from Look Solutions, haze from Cirro Strata machines, low smoke effects from LeMaitre and set practicals from Howard Eaton Lighting run through a City Theatrical ShowDMX wireless system, and video playback from Catalyst media servers, is controlled from an ETC Eos system.
White Light's Dave Isherwood worked closely with the lighting designer, both to bring the rig in on budget and to create several custom products that the designer required for the show, including a new egg-crate louvre grill for the DLCs (manufactured for White Light by City Theatrical in New York), and a new high-output discharge version of White Light's VSFX cloud projector complete with mechanical dimmer and colour changer.
Working with Neil Austin on the show is a team including programmer and associate lighting designer Rob Halliday, assistant lighting designer Rachael A Smith, production electrician Stephen Reeve and his team including Pete Lambert and Chris Dunford, as well as production managers Jerry Donaldson and Chris Boone.
"We are delighted to have been chosen once again by Cameron Mackintosh for this new show," comments White Light's managing director Bryan Raven, "continuing our long working relationship with them that includes the ten year run of the original Miss Saigon, the ongoing West End run of Les Misérables, and the more recent touring productions of Mary Poppins, Miss Saigon and Les Mis. It is great to be working with Neil Austin once again, and also to be involved with a show choreographed by Stephen Mear, the only choreographer White Light has ever employed for the Dancing With Light show that launched us into moving light rental all those years ago."
(Jim Evans)
