LONDON – Nick Gray of London-based creative visual design practice Renegade worked his lighting magic on the latest Eddie Izzard “Force Majeure” arena tour, which has just finished a three month tour around the UK and Europe. It’s the first time that Gray – well known for his work in the fashion world and as LD for rockers Kasabian – has designed lighting for the ‘surrealist’ funny-man, a task on which he collaborated closely with Izzard’s Artistic Director, Sarah Townsend.
More details from Renegade Lighting Design (www.renegadedesign.co.uk):
The stylistic theme for the tour included flourishes of classic 1960s Avengers and Austin Powers, and another important aesthetic starting point was the large portrait format LED screen onstage.
This all needed careful and thoughtful lighting.
Gray wanted to introduce depth and architecture into the performance space and also make large arena spaces with one person onstage look and feel interesting and intimate – not the easiest task.
He also sought to frame the LED screen and accentuate its role in the show as a vehicle for Izzard to communicate with his audience. His delivery involves a lot of concentration and quick thinking by the crowd to keep pace with his cerebral, off-the-wall humor.
Gray created a triple shrinking perspective trussing layout loosely based on pylon shapes, that neatly incorporated the two side IMAG projection screens, linking them on to the onstage LED screen. This unified the space, giving it definition and a proper 3-D feel.
The onstage screen was flanked by two custom built towers, also continuing on the pylon theme, which were used for additional tighter lighting positions. Fixed to the back of the two masts were flexible video strips, fed by content stored on two Catalyst media servers supplied by XL Video, together with the screens.
At the back of Izzard’s center marks was a gently elevated chequerboard scenic piece to break up the void behind the main front-on camera shot and give the two FOH cameras additional perspective.
Gray chose his lighting fixtures with great precision and attention to detail, based on their small size and features.
The design also featured plenty of floor lights that brought a touch of rock ‘n’ roll cool to the space, which was fitting for Izzard’s all-action fast delivery hyper-quick thinking and delivery, and also to accentuate the tallness of the set.
Anything on the floor had to be really unobtrusive, so he opted for 12 Clay Paky Sharpy Washes dotted around the stage, plus 12 Sharpy beam fixtures that were used to create beams and slices of defined light at ground level. “These were ideal” explains Gray, adding that lighting contractor Neg Earth – with whom he regularly works – pulled out all the stops out to get the new Sharpy Washes in time for the tour.
The three V shaped trusses over-stage were each outlined with a row of BB4 LED 4-lites – 72 in total, which added to the general architecture of the space.
On the trusses themselves were 24 Martin MAC Viper profile moving lights, chosen for their gobos and optics, which produce “fantastic” effects for their compact size, Gray says. Also on the trusses were a selection of CP Alpha Wash 1500 moving lights.
At the front, Gray used an advance truss and a front truss above the audience. Four Mole Beams on the front truss were focused into the arena at jaunty angles, their rich wide beams adding a sense of intrigue to the stage for the audience walk-ins and interval states.
The intro and Izzard’s walk-on was proceeded by a two minute lighting extravaganza full of drama and whizzy effects, which then settled down to a series of subtle almost imperceptible lighting scene changes throughout the two halves of the show.
The tour was a great success. Nick Gray says, “It’s been really invigorating, interesting and exciting working on a comedy show. I have learned a lot and ahve been able to bring my experience from working in other disciplines to make this one rock!”
