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Cue: November 1979 [Issue 2]

Viewing in Alphabetical Order -- View in Page Order A Multi-Purpose Sound System (David Collison) The O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, is undoubtedly one of the major theatres in Canada. Not only is it the home of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada who both perform seasons there every year, but it is an important venue for tours of musicals and plays and for international entertainers of the calibre of Harry Belafonte, Liza Minelli, Liberace, Tom Jones etc.  A Restoration and the Birth of a Festival at Buxton (Derek Sugden) Buxton is a very special place. It was a Roman Spa used in Elizabethan times where Mary Queen of Scots took the waters whilst a prisoner at Chatsworth. It had its heyday in the eighteenth century when the Duke of Devonshire built the Crescent and reached its zenith at the turn of the nineteenth century when Matcham built the Opera House in 1903.  Advert: CCT Starlette 1000 & Minuette 500 Advert: CTL Control Technology Ltd. Sound systems S.M. Communications systems Lighting systems Audio-visual systems Advert: Donmar Sales and Hire At our sales shop in Covent Garden, you will find one whole floor of Rank Strand Electric lighting equipment: lanterns, control, spares and accessories - all on display in a walk-around, self-service showroom. Downstairs we display and stock a comprehensive range of Hall Stage equipment.  Advert: TBA Lighting Autolycus - Chalybeate springs eternal It has not gone unnoticed that the gala opening night of the first Buxton festival went off in gloriously, incorrigibly theatrical fashion . The Minister for the Arts, Norman St. John Stevas, one of the evening's lesser lights if you glanced down the guest list, expressed himself greatly relieved when the replacement principal soprano in Donizetti's 'Lucia di Lammermoor' came through the ordeal unscathed .     Autolycus - Enter pursued by a growl The rebuilding of the new Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, West London (opened by the Queen in October) has prompted a good deal of criticism from disgruntled local ratepayers, some of whom have contributed unwillingly to the theatre's costs. Why, they demand, has Hammersmith Borough Council lavished 3.2 million on rebuilding the Lyric, not to mention a £320,000 grant for the first year, when down the road the Riverside Studios, also subsidised by the council, is already successfully providing 'theatrical amenities for them as want it'.   Autolycus - Revivals, survivals and many happy returns 'Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis?' Rubbish! Hang around anywhere in show business, at any theatre, fashion- show, or discotheque and everything is exactly as it was - and us with it. If the British ambition in terms of work is 'less of just the same for more money', our aspira- tion for our leisure pursuits is obviously 'more of just the same for less effort'. Autolycus - Spanner in the wireworks The 'Fringe' at this year's Edinburgh Festival was bigger and, some would say, better than ever before. But the hasty con- struction of auditoria in buildings which were never intended to house a theatre is not without its problems. Generous spirits would describe what happened at the 'Wireworks' as a slight technical hitch. Those who don't mince their words, including our man at the Fringe, likened the incident to 'a complete and utter cock-up'. The old Wireworks factory, just off the Royal Mile, is a popular venue because of its close proximity to the Festival box office. The group which hired it was planning to stage anything up to nine shows a day and thus a good deal of money was involved.  Back-stage at Buxton (Iain Mackintosh) When a new theatre is built or an old one completely renovated it is customary to prepare a simple description of the auditorium and stage which is then posted in theatrical directories for the benefit of managers, both business and technical, who thereby can calculate whether the theatre will fit their pocket and their show the theatre's stage or pit; However, in this instance, very little has been done to the stage area beyond general refurbishments. Hence, orchestra pit apart, previously published guides to the technical installation of the Opera House, Buxton, still apply. Book Review - Pit, Boxes & Gallery (Francis Reid) PIT, BOXES & GALLERY. The Story of the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, by lain Mackintosh. Published by The National Trust. £1.75 (by post from the Theatre, £2.00).  I first read Pit, Boxes & Gallery on the eve of an interview for the job of Administrator of the Theatre Royal at Bury St. Edmunds. I am writing this review of the book at my desk in the Administrator's office below the 1819 scene dock and the absence of my window is the only nit that I can pick in the superb Richard Leacroft drawing which re- creates how this theatre must have looked for at least its first decade.    Book Review - What Was it really like (Frederick Bentham) Lighting in the Theatre, Gosta M. Bergman (Published by Almquist & Wiksell Inter- national, Stockholm, Sweden) Theatre Lighting in the Age of Gas, Terence Rees. (Published by The Society for Theatre Research, 14 Woronzow Rd. NW8)    Book Review: Tempered with reality (Brian Benn) THE STAGING HANDBOOK FRANCIS REID. 160 Pages, published by Pitman, price £3.95. One of the most difficult types of book to review is that of specialist technology, aimed at a wide spectrum of readers. It is a statement of how things are, and apart from comment of style, presentation and errors in fact, the reviewer is forced to read it all most carefully in order to judge its success as a source of information. This can be a dreary chore.  Clarkson Stanfield and the Spectacularists (Anthony Pugh) Clarkson Stanfield died, full of honours, in 1867. He got his first retrospective at the Royal Academy only three years later. It was accorded him, one supposes, more for his fame and respectability as an easel-painter of great moody seascapes, romantical battle scenes and melodramatic mountains than for his remarkable contributions to the English theatre, whcih began some fifty years earlier, and whose effects certainly didn't end when we got to Cinerama and laser-painting on clouds.  Correspondence (J.B.Smith) Your note of Balearic Horseshoes (page 31 of the very excellent first issue) prompts me to write about another horseshoe which I came across on a visit to Funchal in Madeira, in September 1978. The newly restored Teatro Baltazar Dias had, so we were informed, been reopened shortly before our arrival with a performance of 'Twelfth Night'. This was directed by Dr. Leopold Kielanowski.    Elvetham Mysteries (James Laws) Pastoral - Historical - Evangelical - Electrical Tuesday, 5th September 1978 Phone call from Mike Flanagan of the Christchurch Players concerning the lighting of an open air production in July '79 called The Elvetham Mysteries. Etonne-Moi said Diaghilev The exhibition of Dance costumes of three centuries (called 'Parade'), put on as part of the Edinburgh Festival by the Theatre Museum of the V & A reminds us poignantly of just how glamorous ballets used to look.  Find me an ASM (Dorothy Tenham) In a publication like 'Cue' which is obviously going to be read by working theatre people, there is a danger that I am about to preach to the converted. To the converted, I apologise in advance. To the yet unthinking few, I ask you to consider the evidence and hopefully arrive at more positive and constructive conclusions than the converted have done to date.  Oh, Panto, I Love You (Francis Reid) Pantomime is probably Britain's only truly indigenous theatre form. Its roots may be international but the annual Christmas grafting of vaudeville performances on to a fairy tale base, within a framework of fairly rigorous traditions, is uniquely British. Product News - A star is shortly to be born E.D.C. of Wareham, Dorset, are manufacturers of the Cygnus & Minkom radio microphones. They are shortly to add to their range with the Sirius system, which utilises the Shure R97 microphone element in a hand held transmitter section, with an audio compressor and interhal aerial. There is no trailing antenna. A range of coloured sleeves and windshields is available.    Product News - Silent Tipping It is high time that we had an interval, or at least made an attempt to woo you non- technocrats back from the ... . wherever you go between CUES. So what better than to consider the seating? Race Furniture Limited have supplied the tip-up pedestal chairs for the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in London .  Product News - Testing, Testing, E.M.O. 'The majority of faults in professional audio systems occur in interconnections.' So say E.M.O. of Durham City in their description of their new cable tester. We would certainly agree that the most tedious and time consuming breakdowns are in leads that have developed faults . The E.M.O. tester wil check 3 pole XLR and Jacks by plug-in fuse links and other continuity problems by use of test leads and should be a great time saver.  Product News - Wolsey CUES C.T.L. (Control Technology) Ltd. of Maidstone, Kent, have made the Stage Managers Communication system and special Facilities Boxes for the new Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.     Product News: Multi-mini-luminaire complexity The Pattern 123 is dead - long live the Model 803, and Model 833. And Microspot, Minuette 6" Theatre Fresnel, S.F.R. J.F.R. and Spotpak. If there's anyone we've left out, we'd be glad to hear from you in time for our next issue. The point is that the choice of Bread and Butter 500 watt Soft-Edge spotlights has never been so wide and diverse. We hope to correlate performances in a later issue, meanwhile we will establish the pedigrees of the runners in the soft beam stakes for fill-lights costing less than £50.  The Apotheosis of a School Gymn (Francis Reid) I have no immediate plans to commission a new theatre - I have a theatre already, thank you very much, and although it is rather old it can teach most of them younger upstart playhouses a thing or two. However, if I were needing a theatre I think that I would just pop up to Edinburgh and knock on the door of some chaps called Law and Dunbar-Nasmith (they have a likely young lad name of Colin Ross associated with them, but he has not yet gotten his name on to the brass plate).  The Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (Roderick Ham, Architect RIBA AA Dipl.) The Ipswich Theatre Company worked for many years in the old Mechanics Institute under very trying conditions. The public found there quite a pleasant auditorium with, despite less than perfect sight lines, a theatrical atmosphere which made a contribution to their enjoyment of the productions.