Peter Pan Comes Home

On December 27 1904, at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, J.M. Barrie staged the first-ever stage performance of his magical story, ‘Peter Pan’.

    Nearly 105 years later, the little chap returned to London, rather fittingly in Kensington Gardens, where Barrie is reported to have drawn inspiration for his masterpiece, and just a short walk from his old home on the Bayswater Road.

    The impressive, purpose-built Theatre Pavilion accommodated just over 1,000 people and hosted over 100 sell-out shows during its summer run, ending on September 13.

    Due to various construction restrictions within the park, a successful build relied heavily on each respective department not putting a foot wrong during preparation and set-up.

    James Tebb of Thames Audio, the show’s main sound supplier, explained: “Before the legs of the structure were connected to the metal dome at the top of the tent, all the cabling from the sound, lighting and video departments had to be patched and fed through the leg of the structure. We spent weeks doing things that we weren’t able to test.

    “Once this was done, we mounted all the flying, all the sound and all the lighting within what we call the Cupola, at the bottom of the construction, whilst suspending the whole structure four feet in the air using a crane. Only then could we cable everything up... and it worked!”

    Powered by MC2 amplification, the 360° PA system was provided by Funktion-One and EM Acoustics. There were 10 hangs of Funktion One Res 4s with R4D downfills; the subs were 218s and Minibass. For the surround sound there were 25 EM Acoustics EMS61s, plus MS122s as spot speakers. Additionally, Funktion-One F55s were designated to the special FX.

    Main sound engineer Jem Kitchen worked at FOH a Digidesign Venue D-Show console while his number two, Tracy Campbell, operated the radio systems for the 21 cast members (Shure U85s with DAB heads).

    Campbell worked from a separate Yamaha DM1000, also at FOH. Playback was generated using QLab version 2 on Macs, and run optically through the DM1000, making the entire playback chain digital. No monitoring was required for the production.

    Once it was clear that the show was of sufficient scale, the general management team, PW Productions, brought in experienced sound designer Gregory Clarke to pull the whole thing together sonically.

    Clarke explained: “I have worked with EM acoustics equipment an awful lot over the past eight or nine years and it’s absolutely phenomenal equipment — the sound effects elements are largely run through the EM speakers.

    “The principle system is, of course, Funktion-One and I knew this was an ideal environment for it because of the lack of ‘nasties’ off-axis, the precise control, and the fact that their equipment sounds absolutely fantastic.”

    This production relied mainly on the heavy dialogue and strong storyline, which is fairly faithful to Barrie’s original. This meant that projecting a clear vocal sound in the arena was imperative.

    “I first used the Funktion-One kit in Regent’s Park, which is another very difficult environment, but it came up absolute trumps, so I knew I could get the vocal quality,” continued Clarke.

    “If you want to jump in a BMW, you put your foot down and off you go, but if you want something really special, you get an E-Type — it’s slightly more difficult to drive, but the results are prodigious.

    “The real problem came with the acoustics of the tent. It was revolting to start off with, but there was a lot of discussion about the way forward. We called in an acoustic drapes specialist, Acre Jean, who did a phenomenal job. We knew what the problems were, but we needed a second opinion.

    “You don’t know exactly how an arena like this is going to react to reinforced sound until you are in it and have an audience. The producers invested very heavily in the acoustic treatment and we now have a very sweet sound.”

    Despite the absence of any ‘numbers’ as such, the production has plenty of spectacle. The score, written by renowned film music composer Ben Wallfisch, is tremendous. Wallfisch, who is also an experienced orchestral conductor, generates plenty of light and shade; the music never feels static and it works perfectly in conjunction with the CGI to create some outstanding filmic moments as well as some clever subtleties throughout the show.

    “The orchestra was recorded at AIR Lyndhurst,” informed Clarke. “The main PA is broken up into five zones and, while we do the normal mono vocal thing, the orchestra was recorded in such a way that it was effectively done on five microphones.

    “The idea was that instead of presenting the audience with a stereo image, which is very difficult anyway in a 360° configuration, it’s split across the five zones.

    “The composer wanted to immerse the audience into the orchestra. It was as if the orchestra was in amongst them to a certain extent. Again, a stereo image won’t really do that. It was mixed in a very special and slightly risky way, and the results are more exciting than mono or even stereo would have been.”

LIGHTING PETER PAN
The lighting rig was provided by White Light and designed by Mark Henderson. The basis of the set-up comprised a moving rig of Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200 washlights, Vari*Lite VL1000TS and VL3500Q spotlights, Martin MAC 700 Washes and Spots, and MAC TW1 tungsten washlights.

    A generic rig featured more than 100 ETC Source Four profiles and Source Four PARs, Rainbow colour scrollers, CCT Minuette Fresnels, Birdies plus four High End Dataflash strobes and two haze machines. Nick Simmons operated from an ETC Eos console driving ETC dimmers.

    The CGI featured in Peter Pan was outstanding, as one would expect from CGI specialist, set and costume designer William Dudley — one of the most innovative names in British theatre over the past 35 years, with seven Oliviers and a BAFTA to his name.

    For Peter Pan, graphics rendered on 300 computers (the same ones used in Spider-Man) were beamed from the 10 projectors that surrounded the perimeter of the arena on to the 360° video backdrop.

    Dudley took me through the entire process: “There are three stages to the process, each of which requires a separate piece of software. We use Adobe Photoshop for visualising objects, creating shapes and collating reference — all kinds of historical illustrations were used.

    “Then there’s the major 3D stuff: this is called Cinema 4D, one of the five major pieces of software that are commonly used to make feature films, adverts and illustrations.

    “We make animations from the 3D, then we take that into Adobe After Effects — the three products work beautifully together. When this is done, it is mastered and then taken on to the hardware guys at the projection end. There’s a core team of four: Alan and Alex Cox, who calculate the beam angles and placement, then myself and Matthew O’Neill, who is the CGI technical director; we do the animation and modelling in CGI.”

    There were two main supplier companies handling the set build. WorldFab provided the steelwork for the structure of the set (chief engineer was Matthew Genner) and all of the woodwork was provided by Hertfordshire’s Setup Scenery, chiefed by Mark Wilsher.
   
AIRBORNE
Due to the huge amount of flying within the show, initial production rehearsals took place in a special aerialist facility in Woolwich. Headed by director Ben Harrison, these were followed by 10 days of technical rehearsals in the arena itself and finally there was a short preview period. The aerial work was done by Ben Haynes, Lee Stevenson and Ali Johnson, all of theatrical specialist company Freedom Flying.

    In the roof or the arena there were six winches; four lifted travel track systems and two straight lift systems. These were all mounted on truss and linked to the main Cupola.

    The aerial team of five was headed by Nick Porter, and the ASMs also lent a hand for the bigger sequences. I spoke to Ben Haynes about some of the challenges they faced and how they met their specific targets. He explained: “We were contacted in January and asked to provide workshop ideas and equipment to get people off the ground.

    “We worked with the creative team from a very early stage; the director wanted people in the air acting out his ideas, so we put together a combination of systems and worked out how to make his vision happen.

    “The hangar was effectively a workshop-type environment; we soon realised that the formation we were using and the moves he wanted to achieve were proving tricky, so we went away with that knowledge to build and modify. We then put the exact formation in the hangar environment, so we had a head start when we got to the tent.”

    A big ‘thumbs up’ must go to casting director Alison Chard who also did an excellent job. Jonathan Hyde played a great Mr. Darling and an even better Captain Hook; Itxaso Moreno gave a very funny and slightly ‘punk’ performance as Tinkerbell, and Ciaran Gellgren was born to play the lead role of the ever-youthful Peter Pan.

    There was a particularly good rapport on stage between Moreno and Gellgren which reached a climax during an emotional scene where Tinkerbell had deliberately drunk some poison that Hook planted in Peter’s medicine and the only way she could be saved was with the help of audience participation.

    A chorus of ‘I believe in fairies!’ filled the arena with a whisper at first and then as the music built and Tinkerbell began to respond, the whispers became yells and the kids were off their seats all over the arena screaming it at the top of their voices. When the voices screamed loud enough and the music reached crescendo, Tinkerbell leapt back into action and flew around the arena with Peter to a standing ovation; another memorable moment with a huge filmic quality.

    My favourite part of the show was undoubtedly when the cast appeared to fly over London during their journey to Neverland; Fleur Darkin’s choreography worked beautifully and the score was particularly emotive at this point.

    London landmarks including Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral looked incredibly realistic on the screen and all of these features helped create a wonderful intimacy within the arena. The audience were made to feel like they were part of each and every scene throughout the show.

    The next stop for Peter Pan is a string of performances overlooking the Thames on the O2 site in North Greenwich this December, which promises an expanded production — with a deeper projection screen — and plenty more wide-eyed fans. Shows in San Francisco are set to follow next May.
TPi