A visit backstage at The Victoria Palace Theatre will witness the most extraordinary rigging installation, which squeezes the set of Tonight’s the Night into the building. The reputation of Simon Stone and his specialised theatre rigging team of being ‘undefeated’ was put to the test! However, the rigging specialists represented only half of the picture. The team of experts at Unusual’s base in Northamptonshire had a mammoth amount of work to do to enable Simon to install the show as planned.

The creative team behind the show had designed the production in the full knowledge that it could physically fit onto the stage of The Victoria Palace. Exactly how it was going to fit was very much in the hands of Unusual’s design team and in particular, structural engineer, Jeremy Featherstone. It fell to Jeremy to design the flying plot.

The start point was to survey the building in fine detail. There was clearly a weight distribution problem and structural work was going to be required downstage to support the heavier scenery. The timber grid could not take the weight of the scenery, so Unusual installed spreader beams from the roof trusses to the proscenium wall. Three heavy scenic elements weighing over 1500Kgs required four slaved cradles each. 10 flying sets were diverted, 5 sets were re-installed to run up/down stage and in the end, all but one of the 38 cradles was used. Numerous drop lines were installed. Over 5 tonnes of additional weights were added into the counterweight system.

The installation period for the show was a maximum of three weeks. The work undertaken by Unusual involved the production of 200 drawings by the design team and nearly 800 hours of steelwork fabrication to ensure that the riggers had the right equipment at the right time.

Unusual is prepared to certify that the stage is full to capacity. Let’s hope it’s the same way in the auditorium!