On Saturday I went along to a special backstage tour at the National Theatre on the Southbank, organised by Google Local’s London team.
Although backstage tours of the theatre complex take place daily throughout the week, our visit included a few areas which are normally out-of-bounds to group tours. We started with an opening talk in the auditorium of the Lyttleton Theatre, which is notable for being the only one of the three performances spaces at the National Theatre to have a traditional proscenium arch – although we were soon to discover that’s where the traditional aspects of this space end!
If you’re familiar with the areas of a theatre that the audience don’t normally see, you’ll know that these buildings are usually a rabbit warren of narrow corridors and that they generally have very little space off-stage – usually there’s only a narrow area to the left and right of the stage with a few feet available behind the backdrop. When designing the Lyttleton, architects Sir Denys Lasdun and Peter Softley took this into account – the stage here (which currently houses an elaborate and ornate set for the new play People, starring France De La Tour and written by Alan Bennett) has removable walls on three sides. Behind these walls are cavernous spaces where props and scenery are stored until they are needed, at which point they can be simply wheeled onto the stage. This allows for the Lyttleton to accommodate the most elaborate examples of the scenery-makers art without having to compromise on size or scale.
Staying front of house the next place that we visited was the upper circle of the Olivier Theatre – the National Theatre’s largest auditorium which can accommodate an audience of over 1,150. This proved to be quite a priviledge because we had the opportunity to sit in on 15 minutes of the technical rehearsal for the new production of The Magistrate, a farce starring John Lithgow and which opens this Wednesday, 14 November. Obviously I can’t disclose that much about it but suffice it to say that the set, inspired by the skyline of 18th century London, is one of the most breathtaking pieces of staging that I have ever seen.
The Olivier is the National’s most up to date theatre space and is tricked out with the latest technologies – for example, it’s ‘fly tower’ is entirely electronically controlled rather than being operated by the standard rope and pulley system. This allows it to accommodate large three-dimensional pieces of scenery weighing many tons, rather than the straightforward flat scenery which you would be accustomed to seeing in this overhead space – it must be quite disconcerting for the actors walking beneath it at times!
The next stop (and where the regular National Theatre backstage tours take place) was a visit to the areas that sits around a hidden courtyard at the rear of the complex – here natural light floods into the workshops and the dressing rooms that are arranged across five floors of the building. The first room that we got to see was the area where the 9 members of wigs, hair and makeup (known as WHAM) practice their art – the National Theatre makes all its own wigs, and the staff here can spend up to 100 hours creating an elaborate example (which are all made with human hair sourced from Poland). They are also responsible for the lengthy transformations that saw Benedict Cumberbatch become ‘the creature’ in 2011’s production of Frankenstein, for example.
Our journey then took us down a floor to the workroom where materials for costumes are dyed, and also where they get the lived in look – the technicians here are experts at ‘distressing’ items of clothing, adding stains, tears or simply making a jacket look a little threadbare. Around the corner a small team make hats and other small props such as jewellery, prostheses and the like.
The largest area of the workshops is given over to the costume department – here the large team (numbering nearly 50) consists of designers, pattern cutters and seamstresses who create all of the costumes required for new National Theatre productions, supplemented by materials drawn fom the National Theatre’s huge store near the Oval. Presently they are working on the final fittings for costumes required for The Magistrate, as well as the winter production of Hansel and Gretel (which involves simple geometric shapes printed with folds, buttons and so on to give the production a two dimensional, storybook look).
I really enjoyed my visit backstage at the National Theatre – it was a fascinating experience which gave me a new appreciation for the huge amount of work that goes into lavish stage productions. You can find out more about going on a tour at the National’s website here. They’re very reasonably priced – a standard ticket only costs £8.50 with a group tour ticket dropping to £7.50 per person. You can also hire out costumes from their warehouse at the Oval for parties – there’s more information on that here.
Google Local’s London team organise regular events in the city, and it’s quite straightforward to get on the shortlist. Keep an eye on this page on Google Plus for more information, and you can also follow their Twitter feed here.