Oliver!, Imagine This, Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia! and Cats
Our theatre work breaks down into three main parts: Touring, West End shows and stage engineering. The first two components concern making the creative product - the show - work in a venue and the third component addresses the need to make venue work better when receiving the creative product.

The creative team are those with the vision of the experience that they wish to deliver to the audience. The degree of technical understanding amongst creative teams varies enormously, so the process of realising the vision falls in the first place to the chief interpreter, otherwise known as the production manager. The production manager has a wide range of technical experts ‘on-call’. This is where Unusual Rigging fits into the picture.

Our core area of expertise relates to anything that is suspended or supported, whether it is light or heavy, small or large and whether it has to move or not. Our remit goes much further in some cases.

Our working lives are governed by two absolute ‘givens’. The show will fit into the venue and the curtain will go up on time. We are solution providers for a wide range of technical experts and understand the essential need for good teamwork to make it happen.

In making the statement that the show will fit into the venue, it is fair to say that this can be achieved with varying degrees of ease or difficulty. If a show is going on tour, the designer will be aware of the size of the smallest venue, but is not necessarily going to be aware of the technical restraints of any particular venue. The way, in which the show is actually going to fit, and operate, in a venue is down to the technical planning and expertise of the production manager and the team from Unusual. The team is normally comprised of an in-house structural/mechanical designer and a rigging project manager. They will map out a solution for a much larger team to implement.

Scale
The scale on which this operation takes place is by no means small. In 2008, Unusual provided specialist services for over 80 show moves including the tours of Cats, Starlight Express, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mamma Mia! and Mary Poppins. New West End installations included Gone with the Wind, Oliver!, Imagine This and preparation for Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

The requisite amount of experience, expertise and organisation that is required to deliver an output of this scale and complexity breaks down into to two distinct parts. The provision of workable technical solutions and the operational support to deliver them.

Technical solutions
Technical solutions are provided by a mix of Unusual’s design team and the project riggers. Unusual is very much like an iceberg – most people only get to see a very small part of it. Behind the scenes is a comprehensive resource to keep the shows rolling. The design team of six carry out all site surveys with the senior project manager and thereafter, they provide all drawings for manufacture and installation. All structural calculations are done in-house and in terms of detail, nothing is left to chance. In taking this approach, Unusual are best placed to take on board the expected raft of changes, which usually crop up. It is said that the first casualty of war is the plan and in our case, the necessity is for a detailed plan to start with, so that it is reasonably easy to understand what has to change. Fast solutions are essential because lighting, sound and the set are all waiting to suspend their gear. Adaptability is a cornerstone of Unusual’s offer.

Oliver! - Theatre Royal Drury Lane
The nature of the technical solutions varies. One example is Oliver!, which opens in December 2008 at The Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The set will obviously fit into the theatre but it important to note that the positioning of each scenic piece has a relationship with another piece. It is part of the design. Once the scenery is in place, the lighting has to be positioned to light the scenery. Within the design process, there is no obligation to ensure that anything lines up with existing flying sets or any other infrastructure. This is the problem that is given to Unusual to solve. It often involves comprehensive adaptation of flying systems and the design, manufacture and installation of mechanical diverters. The Theatre Royal has nearly 150 flying sets which should make life easy with 25 pieces requiring counterweight flying. However, with a capacity of only 150kg per cradle, all of these flown pieces except for the most basic of softs are too heavy for single sets, so alternative solutions were provided. Inevitably on a show of this nature, the grid was packed tight, so precision was essential. The fact that an existing flying set is positioned 300mm downstage of the desired fixing points is of no use at all. The set has to be diverted to address the precise position.

Imagine This - New London Theatre
Running consecutively just up the road at The New London Theatre is the fit up of a new show Imagine This. The basic fitting and loading problems as illustrated for Oliver! exist, but this show has one very large piece of scenery, which can not be hung from the flying system. The ceiling is 14 metres by 8 metres and weighs 4 tonnes. Such is the scale, hanging points have to go back to the core building structure. 12 motors were used and the piece was dead-hung on 40 points.

Touring Productions
Just to reinforce the iceberg analogy - Mary Poppins has a tour move in the middle of the Oliver!/Imagine This fit up period. Mary Poppins is most definitely one of the more complex touring productions in recent years. She was flying in Birmingham on Saturday evening and then in flying rehearsals on Tuesday in Edinburgh. The only way to deliver a schedule of this nature is to send a team of riggers into Birmingham to get the show out and remove all ‘customisations’ within the venue. Meanwhile, another team with a duplicate set of kit turns up in Edinburgh to coincide with their Saturday night show getting out. As soon as it is out, the prerig starts for Mary Poppins and all things being well, the theatre is ready for the first trucks arriving from Birmingham on Sunday morning. The rigging team would then stay in Edinburgh until the show opening on Thursday. On top of the Mary Poppins move, Unusual was also moving Mamma Mia! from Helsinki to Istanbul. In mid November, Cats comes back to life for a German tour into Cologne and Frankfurt. Getting the right type of people with the right skills onto a tour move is essential and one of the strong points of Unusual. On the weekend of June 9th & 10th 2007, Unusual even had ten show moves going on consecutively!

By mid October, the set for Imagine This is more or less complete and ready for cast rehearsals prior to previews at the beginning of November. The Theatre Royal Drury Lane has a slightly more complex situation going on. The first part of the Oliver! rig is in place and from October 8th, Unusual is now fitting up French and Saunders, which opens on the 15th. During the 3 week run, ‘non-invasive’ work continues on Oliver! above the French and Saunders set during the daytimes. It is then back into full fit-up mode once French & Saunders finish their run on November 8th.

Operational support
Instrumental in the successful implementation of all of these solutions is a substantial operational support team. In the office, the operations team of five ensure that the specified resources are applied to each project. Whilst Unusual have a pool of ten full time rigging project managers, there is also a roster of around seventy riggers available to Unusual to crew the projects. The operations team book them and make travel and hotel arrangements as required.

The investment in equipment to carry out this amount of work is enormous. At our base in Northampton, we have our own industrial estate with a team of twelve, who staff the warehouse, steelwork fabrication unit, the electrics store, the wire rope shop and the lifting gear maintenance workshop. Unusual have the largest specialist stock of equipment for hire in the UK. The equipment that is sourced for all the theatre project work either comes from Unusual’s hire stock, is a custom made solution from Unusual or is a third party product. The operations team and the warehouse/workshops work together to assemble the kit of parts required by the Rigging Project Manager and arrange shipment.

Whilst this portrays the picture of Unusual Rigging’s involvement in playing their role in bringing creative product into venues, there is much more going on in the background. Staying with Unusual’s involvement in theatre, there are three designers working full time on major installation work due to start on two new venues next spring. Working in AutoCad and AutoDesk Inventor, Unusual expect to produce well in excess of a thousand 2D/3D drawings over the next few months.