Drama

It’s very easy within the arts to get ‘categorised’ and I suppose, unsurprisingly, for quite some time I was known as a ‘dance person’ design-wise. So I didn’t design the lighting for a ‘straight play’ until 1985 at The Royal Court. Since then my work has gradually evened out to be fairly equally spread across dance/opera and drama. My work in the area of drama includes many plays with the National Theatre and the RSC and numerous theatres around the U.K. and more recently a number of West End and Broadway productions.

People often ask what I like working on best of all, and the answer is simple; I enjoy the difference and counter-point between these different disciplines all of which, in the end, still fall under the category of theatre work. One of the most difficult aspects of working as part of a creative team, is the expectancy for each new production to be original work. Keeping the work fresh and innovative is certainly helped by juxtaposing dance/opera/drama and even film, because although the demands of each performance discipline differ, there are always overlapping techniques and ideas.

P.M.