After about four months in development, it’s time for the fifth Penny Dreadfuls show at the Edinburgh Fringe. And once again I’ve selected a totally boss soundtrack.

It’s back aboard the sketch train this year, but we’re still contemporary so there’s some pretty amazing beats rocking our scene breaks – in particular I’ve been able to indulge my fondness for electro/glitch/mashup nonsense as well as the usual film and game scores:

“Arriving At Jacinto” – Gears of War 2, Steve Jablonsky
“Hero” – Kung Fu Panda, Hans Zimmer & John Powell
“Bulletproof” – La Roux
“Playgirl” – Ladytron
“Tuff ‘n Stuff” – Yes Giantess
“Genesis” – Justice
“You’re The Best” – Joe “Bean” Esposito
“Go To Hell” – Doom, Clint Mansell
“‘Introduction’ From Suite Punta Del Este” – 12 Monkeys, Paul Buckmaster
“Vanished” – Crystal Castles
“Suffocation” – Crystal Castles
We use the theme to Lingo (season 2) for What’s In The Box?
“The Normandy” – Mass Effect, Jack Wall & Sam Hulick
“I Was Made For A Heavy Cross [Kiss vs Gossip] – Copycat
“Las Vegas / End Credits” – Rain Man, Hans Zimmer
“Cole’s Fourth Dream” – 12 Monkeys, Paul Buckmaster
“Sunshine (Adagio In D Minor)” – Sunshine, John Murphy & Underworld
“Gorillas!” – Mirrormask, Iain Ballamy

I’ve used our preshow house music to really get the tempo up with some of my very favourite glitchy/grimey bits and pieces:

“Zero” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Cold Hot Emotional [Katy Perry vs Whitney Houston]” – Mark Johnce
“Mr Crowley Might Like It Louder [Dada, Obernick & Harris vs Ossy Osbourne vs Amanda Blank vs Major Lazer ft Nicky Sky & Ricky Blaze]” – Mark Johnce
“Bubblicious” – Rex The Dog
“Black Fag (no version)” – Crystal Castles

The crowning glory is almost our postshow noise, with the insanely catchy instrumental version of Ricardo Autobahn’s video mashup extravaganza, followed by the wonderfully thumping music to the Inception trailer:

“The Golden Age Of Video [instrumental]” – Ricardo Autobahn
“Mind Heist” – Zack Hemsey

I’m extremely pleased to have part of Sunshine in there (something I’m increasingly comfortable calling my favourite piece of music ever), and I’ve finally managed to get Zimmer’s stonkingly bobbins 80′s score to Rain Man crowbar’d into a show. Plus there’s montage music straight out of The Karate Kid, so everyone’s a winner.

Do pop along to see us if you’ve got a moment – we’re on all month in Pleasance One. There are funny bits and awesome tunes.

UPDATE: Our Superstar Producer Idil assembled a Spotify playlist, which I’ve added to with as much as we can find on there.

Aeneas Faversham Forever had it’s first performance all the way back in March at the venerable Bedlam Theatre in Edinburgh, with a quick stop at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. Since then it’s changed a lot and all for the better, if winning Best Comedy at the Brighton Fringe Festival is anything to go by.

This time the boys Dreadful have written an actual play rather than a series of sketches, which certainly makes lighting it a more rewarding experience. We recently held our official Edinburgh previews at the lovely Greenwich Theatre to the largest audiences we’ve ever had and it went down really well. There are still a couple of extra-special final touches that will get added to the production as it makes its way Fringewards, but we’re in great shape.

This week we’re on at the Newbury Comedy Festival, and next week we’ll be in a field somewhere in Suffolk at Latitude. Then it’s up to the wonderful Pleasance Two in Edinburgh for a whole month; please do pop along to laugh at the jokes and gasp at the gobos.

Linkage:
The Penny Dreadfuls / backstage blog
notlikecalvin portfolio
Photo gallery @ Flickr
Book online at edfringe.com

With so much quality on-stage, the show sold out a couple of days in advance, and the Pleasance was packed to the rafters with comedy cognoscente. The Defensive had some brand new material and Pappy’s held a meat raffle. An exhausting, wonderful, amazingly good value-for-money night, which is why we’re doing it again in April. (Although the current naming convention dictates the next one should be called Sketchatron vs Predator, apparently we can’t have that.) Book now!

I was a little too busy to listen live to the third episode of The Brothers Faversham last Friday night (see above), but the fourth and final episode is pushed over the airwaves tonight—you should be able to listen again for the next week. There’s a second series on the way, so I’m told, and the boys are appearing in all sorts of exciting projects in the coming months; keep an eye on the Backstage Diary for info-treats.

We took Radio to the Brits Off Broadway festival at the lovely 59E59 theatres in New York City. It was fairly awesome. Sure, the New York Times may not have liked it that much, but they printed one of my photos so that was fairly awesome, too. NYC was a fascinating, enormous place and I’m certainly going back there some day.

The Penny Dreadfuls performed several times in the run-up to the Fringe, including shows at Latitude Festival and a very special send-off gig at the Soho Review Bar (where we learned the shocking truth behind the mechanics of pole dancing!).

Then it was onwards to Edinburgh!

This year Kandinsky presented Gavin O’Carroll’s play On Wonderland. The simple coming-of-age story of a girl who can’t believe her eyes, performed by the quite stunningly talented Kerry-Jayne Wilson, was a very moving little piece in the Baby Belly Caves, almost in the same spot that Enola occupied two years previously. My photographs are at Flickr, but I’ll add them to notlikecalvin soon.

The Dreadfuls were back with the appropriately named Aeneas Faversham Returns (we’re still arguing over the title for next year’s show). We sold out right from the get-go and became something of must-have ticket. The boys performed a variety of guest spots, from Lunch With The Hamiltons to 4 At The Fringe for the BBC, plus an extra-special appearance as Crisp-Off judges for grade-A dudes Stuckey & Murray. There are photos from the show at Flickr, but they’ll get added to my portfolio here at some point.

Sketchatron kept me busy for a couple of days in the Fringe, dealing with tech for a whole bunch of sketch acts. Aside from awakening dormant memories of Chock-A-Block, it was great to see the Sunday Defensive once again. I love those guys. Just not in creepy way.

Then the wonderful Illyria had to pull out of their prime-time slot at the Bedlam; with Tom barely back from New York there was just enough time to MacGuyver together yet another version of Radio for a couple of packed houses to enjoy. Although this was the lowest-teched iteration yet – I stole a lantern from the On Wonderland rig to make it happen on the supercheap – it all went very well, just like the good old days.

I got to see some great bits and pieces, too, although it’s never as much as I’d like. Now everybody’s licking their wounds and making plans for next summer. I’m cobbling together a round-up of this year’s reviews, but it might take a while: I’m off on tour for a couple of months with Inspector Sands‘ lovely Hysteria. I’ll be relighting Katherine Williams‘ design over a lot of different spaces – it’s a great piece of work and an honour to be involved. We’ll be all over the place so do pop along if you’ve got the time.

There’s the usual portfolio here at notlikecalvin, along with larger files at the Flickr photoset, both served with a dash of Creative Commons licensing.

An historic event, and it should be pretty interesting to boot!

Radio picked up a couple of well-deserved acting awards for Tom, a second Sunday Times Playwrite title for Al, the Fest-Goers public vote and the lighting design award for me. Awesome.

It really means a lot, that award does. Radio‘s a very simple, straightforward show and it would be extremely easy to overlook the contribution that lighting makes to the overall production. So it’s hugely gratifying for my work to get acknowledged in that way and I’m superhappy as a result. It’s also a real boost and wonderfully encouraging to keep plugging away at this theatre lark.

But enough about me. Radio is next to be seen in New York City as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival. We’ve got a three week run in the lovely 59E59 theatre; please come along if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the Penny Dreadfuls are at the Canal Cafe in London all this week in the three-part tag-team Sketchatron, alongside The Sunday Defensive and Idiots Of Ants. Victorian thrills and more contemporary chuckles are guaranteed!

I’m currently in Leeds, TSMing the Library Dances project – quite different and a lot of fun. Next week Radio has a short run at the Bedlam before showing at the Soho Theatre on October 12th and 13th. After that I’m relighting Simon Wilkinson‘s design for Frozen in Rapture Theatre’s tour of Scotland for a couple of months. And I’m sure that Aeneas Faversham might make another appearance or two.

So I’ve got some stuff to be going on with. I should mention, in passing, my freshly updated CV is only a click away: feel free to get in touch.

This is essentially the second major version of Kandinsky‘s work with the play after its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2005 (which I reviewed), and in terms of staging the bulk of the difference is in the lighting. I wasn’t involved with the Fringe production at all, so my approach here has been neither a direct re-light of that original show or an entirely new design. The structure of the piece – in terms of timing and cuepoints – is largely intact, but the festival venue that we were allocated here is perhaps three or four times larger than the cramped conditions in the Underbelly Caves: while the playing space remains as small as is feasible the lighting positions are significantly further away from the stage, and a complete reinterpretation was necessary.

We finished our run of four performances late last night, and we’ve been absolutely delighted with the audience response. The bulk of Enola‘s theatrical soul comes directly from Al’s text, but it’s topped-off with superbly pitched performances and a very mature approach to the production. I’ll have photographs and more post-match analysis up once I get home at the weekend, but for now we’re going to take in the rest of the Festival, eagerly awaiting the awards ceremony on Friday night. We’ll see where it goes from here.

[ Update! Enola swept the awards: the Sunday Times Playwriting Award for Al, an Acting Award for Ellie and - best of all - the Fest-Goers Award, voted for by all attendees of the Festival: we're so very happy!

There are all sorts of highly exciting things on the horizon for Enola, but until then I've onlined some photographs in the usual place, with some bits and pieces from NSDF over at flickr. Enjoy. ]

LD: The sea is really big.

Set: And wide.

LD: And the noise is incredible. Even though we don’t have a sound designer on this team –

Set: – and we all hate sound effects –

LD: – some aspect of that low roar of the tide has to be present, even if it’s not through sound. If we’re thinking about projection, still, then some of these textures could be taken straight onto the stage: combined, mashed-up, presented as realistic or purely theatrical elements…

Set: An animated sea? Or just the impression of one? I suppose that gives us the possibilty of greater flexibility with the fluidity of the settings. Providing we have an artistic basis for that – it’s got to fit with the overall texture of the piece.

Ld: Of course. I love the grit of the seaside – it’s so British. The whole form of The Sea is one of pre-war British/English, blinkered-vision, civility-against-all-odds. What’s happening is ridiculous, but it seems perfectly normal inside that world, just another thing to cope with.

Set: The sheen of light on the wet sand is fantastic – something so completely unique to this location. If you’re thinking of strong, directional lighting –

Ld: – which I am –

Set: – then having a fairly reflective surface would let you create the same sort of sheen of light.

LD: And opens up possibilities for projection…

LD: Well, that’s given us plenty to think about.