The raked stage and lack of stage left wing space has always been a ‘niggle’ at the Mayflower Theatre. Touring productions have just had to cope, because it is the main touring theatre for the central south coast area.

The touring requirements of Miss Saigon are such that a substantial refurbishment would be necessary to shoehorn the production into the theatre.

Unusual started work at the beginning of May with a team of six production engineers and riggers led by Simon Tiernan. The completion date for the works was July 25th. Whilst carpenters removed the stage floor, Unusual were removing the existing flying system from the stage left wall. Once the stage decking was gone, Unusual removed the stage steelwork and set it aside for reuse after the building contractors had completed the necessary works for a flat rather than raked stage installation. Unusual also designed and built a forestage extending just beyond the front of the proscenium arch.

One of the primary objectives of this refurbishment was to gain wing space stage left by moving the counterweight sets over to the stage right wall. However, the roof was pitched on the stage right side and it was necessary to remove the pitch and square off the roof over this side of the building to maximise flying performance. Unusual designed, fabricated and installed all the steelwork for this substantial programme of works.

Unusual’s installation included the winch gallery stage left, the loading gallery stage right and the main fly floor stage right. All access ladders were designed, fabricated and installed by Unusual.

Prior to the refurbishment, The Mayflower had 67 flying sets with 160mm centres cradles. For ease, speed and safety, Unusual installed their 200mm centres front loading cradles. The flymen can now add or remove a slab weight with two hands without having to perform a contortionist act associated with side loading of cradles. Operating noise is reduced with nylon shieves. The stage right wall now has 55 single purchase counterweight sets and the winch gallery stage left has 12 electric winches with pendant controls. All flying sets are ladder bars rated at 600Kgs.

The Mayflower Theatre now has a building where the stage floor area has been optimised and at the same time, the workable cubic capacity over the stage has dramatically increased. The new 3 metre wide fly and winch galleries offer opportunity of installing temporary storage systems for productions requiring extra capacity under the galleries.