Theatre lighting in britain today

The paper describes current stage-lighting practice in Britain. It sets out the capabilities that theatre people expect of their electrical installation, and the means available for fulfilling their demands are considered. Amongst these, the thyristor, as the latest dimmer, has opened the way to a more general use of presetting in the design of lighting controls for theatres, both large and small, owing to its relatively low cost. At the same time, the development of magnetic stores has now made it possible, for the first time, to remove the labour of plotting and reproducing lighting changes involving several hundred dimmers; this enables the operator to concentrate on interpretation and timing. The developments covered in the paper lead to the conclusion that caution must be observed when basing new design, in any way, on today´s practice or the stipulations of today´s users, since these are unlikely to include sufficient reappraisal of the essentials. Stage lighting, and certainly its recent offshoot television lighting, has too short a history to have established any absolute truths. The paper is based on the work of the author and his colleagues, and takes into account direct experience of the work of others in this field in many countries during the past 35 years.