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Phantom still filling night with music
The iconic chandelier is ready to be hoisted to the Hippodrome roof, high above the audience as the final touches are added to the huge and breathtaking sets THE world's most popular musical has
arrived in Birmingham for an eight week run – its final venue on the
25th anniversary tour. The show ended its run on Saturday and then the first of a staggering 22 45ft artic trailers – making it the biggest show on tour at the moment – arrived at the Hippodrome the following day and after three days of 24 hour working, the curtain opened on Wednesday, March 13. Playing the Phantom is Earl Carpenter, last seen
at the Hippodrome in The Three Phantoms with Matthew Cammelle and John
Owen-Jones and before that as Javart in the excellent 25th anniversary
tour of Les Miserables. Carpenter, incidentally, replaced John Owen-Jones
who left the tour in September, and this is his third spell in the role
after starring twice in the West End production at Her Majesty's
Theatre. His Christine will be Katie Hall who was seen in
both I'd do anything and Your Country Needs You on BBC TV. Other West End star s in the show include Simon
Bailey as Raoul and Angela M Caesar as Carlotta.. The show has racked up an impressive set of
statistics since Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical based on the Gaston
Leroux's 1909 novel first appeared on 9 October 1986 starring Michael
Crawford and Sarah Brightman. It became the longest running show in Broiadway
history on January 2006 when it celebrated its 7,486th performance
overtaking Cats. That became 10,400 on its 25th anniversary on 26
January this year. It reached its 10,000th performance in the West
End on October 2010. The show has collected more than 60 major theatre
awards including seven Tonys , three Oliviers and the Most Popular
Musical Audience Award, voted on by the public. It has grossed £3.2 billion worldwide, more in
revenues than any other stage play or film in history and has been seen
in 145 cities in 27 countries playing to 130 million people. This stunning new production from Cameron
Mackintosh, directed by Laurence Connor, has been designed by theatre
and opera legend Paul Brown which means the sets are big and spectacular
. . . and did I mention big? For example the curved wall set, an impressive 7.5 metres high is made up of two trucks, wireless controlled motorised moving sets, which weigh just over 10 tonnes – which means even the new, solid Hippodrome stage has had to be strengthened underneath. The trucks each contain four friction drive
motors which are connected to the Automation desk by Bluetooth
The cast have 25 tonnes of lights and scenery
dangling above their heads on the grid up in the flies - and the
audience don't escape the thrills of danger either with more than half a
tonne of chandelier hanging over the centre stalls – the two wires
holding it up did seem fairly strong mind you. Just to give some idea of the scale of the show
there is a cast of 37, a technical and creative team of 29 and an
orchestra of 14 – smaller than the 29 piece Broadway and West End
orchestrations but still larger than most musicals use on tour. Other facts include: SETS AND PROPS The two scenic theatre boxes at the either
side of the stage weigh just over a tonne each. There are 50 Automation cues for the scenery. There are 43 separate Flying cues throughout
each performance. There are 44 candles in the Masquerade Ball
scene. The chandelier is suspended from the ceiling on
two Automation controlled chain hoists and weighs just over 0.5 of a
tonne. There are 632 individual strings of beads on
the chandelier. There is approximately 25 tonnes of lights and
scenery suspended from the grid over the heads of the acting company. LIGHTING AND EFFECTS There are more than three kilometres of multi-coloured
cable to power the lighting. There are 390 individual Lighting cues at each
performance. Nearly 250 kgs of CO2 a week is used to make
the low smoke effect. More than 400 pyrotechnics of different shapes
and sizes are used each week. WARDROBE There are ten loads of washing per show with
the wardrobe department using over 10 kg of washing powder and 15 litres
of fabric conditioner in each city. 10 cans of spray starch are used per city. It takes four hours of ironing per show to get
the costumes ready. Each ballet dancer uses between two and six
pairs of pointe shoes per city Approx 360 pairs of pointe shoes will be used
for the tour. It takes two trucks alone to move the
costumes and wardrobe supplies. There are over 2,500 costume items used (this
includes full costumes, shirts, gloves etc.) on each show. In total
5,000 items are toured to include spares and understudy outfits. 110 pairs of shoes are worn every show. There are 11 wardrobe staff members on the show,
including dressers. Christine's masquerade dress has over 4000
Swarovski crystals on it, which are all applied by hand. There are more than 120 pieces of jewellery. There are 36 hand made venetian mask for the
masquerade scene. There are 45 hand made hats There are more than 100 different types of
buttons.
The show runs at Birmingham Hippodrome from Tonight, 13 March to Saturday 4 May and two extra matinees have been added to cope with demand on Tuesday 2 April and Tuesday 23 April, both at 2pm. |
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