Beautiful Thing

"A touching, urban love story, full of warmth and humour. Teenage boys Ste and Jamie are neighbours. Both are being bullied, Jamie at school and Ste at home by his violent father. One night, when things get too much, Ste seeks refuge in Jamie's flat and, sharing a bed, the boys strike up a new relationship. Together they come to terms with their sexuality and explore their feelings alongside their Tina Turner loving, rebellious friend Leah and with the much-needed emotional support of Jamie's lioness mother, Sandra, and new 'young man' Tony."

Jonathan Harvey's play Beautiful Thing was the week 10 production by the University of York Drama Society (DramaSoc).

I joined the show in the role of lighting designer. I had been drawn to apply by the London-based setting, as lighting an urban environment is something that I had always wanted to try. My design pitch consisted of 'London urban grunge, but technicolour'.

Throughout the process, I was given mostly free reign to design the show however I deemed fit. The main areas of direction given were in relation to specific colours being used to represent the different characters. I made use of the RGBW Sabre Spot LED lights that I had recently gotten working on Archangels to independently light each of the set's three doorways. This allowed me to change their colour during the disco transition sequences, whilst keeping them as the character-relevant red, yellow and blue throughout the scenes themselves.

In total, over ten custom lighting effects were programmed for the show, from various colour shifts to flickers, as well as chases. Effects programming was an area that I had limited experience in, and this show seemed like the perfect opportunity to expand my knowledge in the area. It was also my first time out-rigging lights - adding additional rigging bars to the Barn's set-up, in order to create a 'sun at a low angle' used in evening scenes.

One of the main motifs to my design concept was to use low-level LED lighting during daytime scenes, in order to give colour and detail to the shadows cast across the stage. This was particularly evident in the morning and evening scenes with their blue and pink fill-lighting respectively.

The show was a great experience for me - a chance to further my own skills, and to create a lighting design that was brighter and more colourful than my usual designs!