Leading Light with…Malcolm Rippeth – Part One
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Lighting Designer Malcolm Rippeth
Our Copywriter Adam went to meet Malcolm Rippeth.
Shakespeare’s Globe is undoubtedly one of London’s most iconic theatres; allowing audiences to experience the Bard’s work similar to how it would have first been performed. It sits on London’s Southbank and, as I walk to the main entrance, is being swarmed by tourists about to embark on a guided tour. As I enter the building, it strikes me that it was just over a year ago when WL supplied the first ever lighting rig to the venue. The person who designed the rig is the same individual lighting the last show of this current season. That person is a certain Malcolm Rippeth and he has agreed to become this month’s Leading Light.
I sit down with Malcolm who has taken an hour away from technical rehearsals of Boudica – the only new play of the season: “It’s a bit intense as we’re gearing up for the preview on Friday. I actually think this is one of the most ambitious shows to be performed in this space since I’ve been involved here”.
A very young Malcolm with his sisters.
As time is of the essence, we soldier on and, as always, start at the beginning. Malcolm explains: “I was born in Newcastle but raised in small towns & villages around the Darlington area. I was the youngest of three children, with my big sisters 11 and 8 years older than me so I was pretty much left to my own devices”. Malcolm did not come from a theatrical family – far from it in fact. His mother and father actually owned a corner shop which he lived above. He comments: “It was like something you’d see in Open All Hours! My parents would pick the goods from the shelves behind the counter and it was full of the village regulars. It was definitely of its time!”. And initially living in a small village meant that Malcolm had a somewhat restricted experience of the outside world. He recalls: “I had an enjoyable upbringing. That said, I didn’t really grasp that the rest of the world existed so it was a case of living in blissful ignorance”. Despite living in such a small community, this wasn’t going to stop Malcolm’s interest in lights. As a matter of a fact, he remembers two separate occasions, both when he was aged five, that would ignite his passion for lighting.
Billingham Forum was Malcolm’s first experience of theatre.
The first one, bizarrely enough, involves a Brownies group. He states: “It was the winter of 1978 and my mother was a Brownie leader. Part of her duty was taking the Brownies to the panto at Billingham Forum. The night she took them, she couldn’t find anyone to babysit so took me along as well. So there I was, my first time at a theatre, sat in my bright blue jumper among a crowd of 600 girls in Brownie uniforms. Rather inappropriately, when the panto dame came on and had to pick on one of the audience members to come on stage, I was the (un)lucky one! I remember being dragged on stage and my mum turning a new shade of red”. Yet, for all of his mum’s distress, it would prove to be a worthwhile embarrassment: “I remember being stood on the front of stage and looking back into the audience and not being able to see a thing other than the glare of the lights. I then looked down and stared at all of these fixtures beaming up at me and I was just wowed by them all”.
And it would appear that not long after this initial brush with lighting, Malcolm would soon be undergoing an equally influential experience. He states: “That winter was known as the winter of discontent. There were a lot of strikes going on at the time and, as a result, frequent power cuts. I was still living above the corner shop which was lit solely by one fluorescent tube; although my friends thought living above a shop was pretty cool it wasn’t a space which held any special charm for me. When the electricity went, however, my parents would light the shop with candles, paraffin lamps and torches. I remember walking down one night into the shop and being surrounded by this different array of lights and becoming mesmerised by the transformation of my everyday space into a magical one. I think I realised right then the power of lighting and what it could achieve”.
The University of Hull where Malcolm studied Drama.
The magic of the corner shop was soon to be a distant memory as Malcolm’s family were to up sticks and move to a nearby town. Malcolm’s father took a job as a school handyman whereas his mum became the assistant warden in an old people’s home. The move away from the corner shop was to be the first of many. Malcolm recalls: “It was strange as, every time I started a new stage in my academic life, I always seemed to move towns! For instance, just before starting primary school, I moved. Then it was secondary school and I moved again. And then it was sixth form and…well you can see the pattern emerging!”. Despite this frequent change in school, this didn’t disrupt Malcolm’s growing passion for lights. He comments: “Following my experience being on stage at the Brownie panto, I decided to try my hand behind the scenes. As a result, whenever my secondary school put on a play in the school hall, I volunteered to light it. All my school had were 12 lights – a mix of Patten 23s and 45s. It was a good starting point and I remember skivving out of class any opportunity I could to work on a show”.
As Malcolm approached Sixth Form, he admitted that he “more or less knew I wanted to be a designer”. Although his A Levels choices were not the most artistic. He recalls: “I chose Double Maths, Physics and Theatre Studies. I thought this would be a technical approach to lighting. That said, halfway through I realised that Further Maths wasn’t something that I really wanted to do so dropped this and took up English instead”. Malcolm’s education was certainly veering towards a more artistic selection and this was cemented when he decided to study Drama at the University of Hull. He states: “Despite studying Drama as a whole, I really wanted to specialise in lighting design. The course knew this and, as I was the only person on my course who wanted to light, I was essentially the resident designer for all shows. The university had a really good studio theatre and, as someone who had no formal training in lighting, I used both the space and productions to learn as I went along. It was a case of trial and error and it was hugely beneficial”.
The now-closed Man in the Moon Theatre on Kings Road, Chelsea where Malcolm worked as Technical Manager. It was demolished in 2003.
Having had what he describes as “an amazing three years”, Malcolm graduated from Hull and made the move straight to London aiming to become a freelance lighting designer. However, reality was about to hit the ambitious young graduate very hard. He comments: “I moved to London despite having absolutely no contacts whatsoever. I literally got a train down and got off with no advice and certainly no career plan. Looking back, there certainly is a fine line between brave and naive!”. So instead of lighting shows, Malcolm found himself working in a bar (with his previous jobs in Hull being at a nightclub and a fish factory). He worked in the bar for six months, during which time the lighting work seemed elusive. Thankfully, he had a flatmate who was able to offer him some sound advice: “As luck would have it, my flatmate was a careers advisor. Having seen me fall into a cocktail-making lull, he sat me down and said that my dreams of becoming a lighting designer would go nowhere fast at my current rate. He said I needed to have a plan; a feasible way for me to achieve my goal. Something must have worked as I began to start planning out the next steps there and then”. The first of these was to knock on the doors of venues to see if they had any lighting work available. One of these was the Man In The Moon Pub Theatre which was situated on King’s Road before being demolished in 2003. Malcolm comments: “I knocked on the door of Man in The Moon and the Artistic Director opened it. I spoke to them about my current predicament and they told me that they were in fact looking for a new Technical Manager. I got the job there and then!”. And following his appointment as Technical Manager, Malcolm not only began to light shows in the venue but also all across the London fringe. He states: “I’d decided I was really going to make a go at it now and lit as many shows as I could. I did a lot of work at the Battersea Arts Centre and the Gate Theatre. One of my highlights was lighting a version of The Tempest at the Grace Theatre in Battersea (now better known as Theatre503) in 1997. We managed to tell an epic story in what is an extremely intimate space with a tiny rig”. While Malcolm’s feet were firmly situated within the London fringe theatre scene, every summer he would work on the Edinburgh Fringe; in particular with a pair whose career hadn’t ‘risen’ as of yet: “In their early days, I worked on Mel and Sue’s shows both in Scotland and on tour. I was essentially their lighting and technical manager. We had a great time working together and none of us knew how big they were going to be back in the mid-nineties”.