Following its critically-acclaimed, award-nominated run at Theatre503, BU21 has recently transferred to Trafalgar Studios. The show follows six Londoners in the aftermath of a fictitious terrorist attack and is based on real testimonies gathered from a variety of terrorist incidents. Having supplied the original production, White Light was called upon again to provide the lighting equipment for the show’s West End run.
The lighting designer for the show is Christopher Nairne, who is the current recipient of OffWestEnd’s Best Lighting Designer Award. He comments: “The director and designer settled on a stripped back look for the show: a bare black stage with grey ash built up towards the corners, and a semi-circle of six chairs for the PTSD support group which features throughout the play. I wanted to create a design that evoked the banality of group therapy with hints of the apocalyptic nature of what had occurred.”
As many of the earlier scenes are monologues, Christopher lit these sections with a simple centre stage spot, with dimmer specials on the chairs behind to ensure that all of the characters on stage were still involved in the action.
Christopher adds: “I have worked with the director before and we were both keen to use fluorescent striplights, which ultimately became the anchor of my design. I suggested a total of six so that they could become representative of the six characters on stage. They were also useful for the therapy scenes throughout the play as using them all at once gave a much brighter state”.
Having designed the original production, Christopher was invited to recreate his work at Trafalgar Studios. He comments: “Helpfully, the two venues are fairly similar in terms of scale and technical specifications. The key difference is that Trafalgar 2 is semi-thrust, so we knew that some reblocking would have to take place to allow for sightlines and entrances. Also, the lower rig height meant that the shorter throw distance limited our beam spread.”
Alongside the striplights, Christopher used a visible line of par cans as a backdrop; the rest of the rig consisted of small fresnels, Source Four profiles and birdie uplighters.
BU21 has now opened in the West End and once again achieved critical acclaim including an array of 4- and 5-star reviews. Christopher comments: “The show is a really powerful piece of theatre and one which I’m extremely proud to be a part of. I am grateful to WL for being so accommodating during both the original and current run as it has certainly made the whole process run much smoother.”
BU21 runs at Trafalgar Studios until 18 February.
Photos courtesy of David Monteith-Hodge and Tristram Kenton.