Based on the hit 2000 film, Billy Elliot: The Musical is set in a northern
mining town during the 1984/5 miners' strike. It tells the story of young
Billy, who discovers a love of dance then fights to make his dream of
becoming a ballet dancer a reality. The musical has a score by Elton John,
with book and lyrics by Lee Hall and direction by Stephen Daldry.
Lighting Designer Rick Fisher is responsible for the lighting of the show
once again, with his design having won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk
Award for Outstanding Lighting Design in New York. Working with him on the
tour is Rob Halliday as Associate Lighting Designer and Programmer,
repeating the role he filled on the US tour and Dutch productions of the
show.
Regarding the rig used for the tour, Rick comments: "While the look of the
show has remained fairly consistent since it first appeared in the West End,
the rig has evolved over the years as new technology has appeared and we
have adopted new solutions to help make it more practical to tour. This rig
is based quite closely on the one we designed for the non-touring Dutch
production, which is streamlined so that every light is working as hard as
possible. No-one wants to tour with any extraneous equipment!".
Key elements of the rig include the Vari-Lite VL3500Q Spot, VL3000 Wash
fixtures, VL1000AS fixtures and Martin MAC TW1s. "The big change we've made
this time is to replace all of our Source Four scrollers with Source Four
LED v2 Lustr units, and our scroller Pars with ETC D60s", explains Rob.
"This has dramatically improved the reliability of the rig, made it quieter,
let us use the lights in new ways since we can now live change from any
colour to any colour and, as a bonus, uses less energy than a tungsten rig.
The new colour controls in our ETC Eos Console, particularly the calibrated
colour library, made it very easy to deal with this change. The Lustrs, as
always, are amazing in a completely understated way: they just work,
generating rich, vibrant colour or a tungsten warmth that feels like it's
coming from a traditional Source Four".
Another LED lighting fixture added for the tour are tiny Gantom
tunable-white LED spotlights as footlights across the front of the stage.
Rick comments: "In the West End, we have footlights that flip up during the
show, something that we can't achieve with the shallowness of our touring
show floor. Instead, we're using the Gantom fixtures. They're like tiny,
incredibly neat birdies - so discreet they are barely visible to the
audience - but because they're always there we can now use them to help us
in more scenes".
As well as making the show look visually impressive, the rig also has to be
easy to set-up, take apart and tour as Billy Elliot travels across the UK
and Ireland. Rob comments: "Our Production Electricians Gerry Amies, Chris
Dunford and James Leatherby along with our Touring Team of Emma Davis,
Joseph Theobold and Helen Trow plus the support of everyone at White Light
overseen by Jedd Hamilton did a great job of setting things up during a
pre-rig at White Light's Wimbledon base and then during our opening stay in
Plymouth".
Rick adds: "Billy Elliot will run for a month or more at each venue, but the
load-in time is extremely tight so we have to be able to get everything up
and running very quick. We could have achieved that by cutting the rig down,
but we wanted to ensure that each city gets a really first class production
of the show - the best possible for the audience - and I think everyone
involved with the tour has done a really great job of achieving this".
The show is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, where it has
received rave reviews. Its next stop will be Sunderland, the 'home' of Billy
Elliot, followed by Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester and Birmingham
through to May 2017.
Rick comments: "Once again, we had a fantastic experience of working with
WL. They managed to provide what we required, all within budget and on
schedule. The touring rig featured little intricate changes that made a huge
difference in terms of its actual delivery and WL was able to provide a
solution every time".