#: locale=en
## Tour
### Description
tour.description = Join us in an immersive tour of the King's Theatre, Edinburgh using 360 degree photography, video & archival media. Capital Theatres, Tom Duffin & 3DScotland
### Title
tour.name = King's Theatre Edinburgh
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INFO
LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET, CONSECTETUR ADIPISCING ELIT. MAECENAS CONGHE EROS MAGNA.
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Royal Visits
This plaque at the entrance of the building commemorates the number of times The Kings Theatre was graced by the presence of the Royal Family. You can see that before her ascension to the throne the queen and her sister enjoyed frequent visits to the theatre that bore their father's title. She made her last visit in 1969, hopefully sharing her love of theatre with her daughter Princess Anne.
Staircase (class system):
The Kings marble staircase, like many older theatres, still retains the remnants of classist system of access. The richer and nobler members of the audience, able to afford the Dress Circle would enter through the main entrance and up this grand staircase in luxury. The higher tiers, entered through side doors and ascended much less glamorous stairwells to their lofty positions, thus befitting the price of the seats and their lower social standing.
Dome Fresco
In 2013, Capital Theatres commissioned renowned Scottish artist John Byrne to redesign the domed auditorium ceiling of the King’s Theatre as part of the building’s ongoing restoration and redecoration, creating a unique and beautiful new public artwork. John Byrne’s beautiful design is a vivid and colourful play on duality, light and shade, the sun and the moon, rich in theatrical motifs and featuring the opening lines from Jacques’ famous monologue in As You Like It ‘All the world’s a stage’.
The Upper Fly
Where the weights are put into the cradles to counterweight the scenery and curtains - these old cast steels were made by Halls of London, theatre suppliers of distinction.
Humphin these around all day when the loading is being done must be a tiring day at the office.
Carnegie Stone
Construction of The Kings Theatre began in 1905. In August of 1906 this memorial stone was laid by Dunfermline born industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Later that year The Kings would open with its first ever production, Cinderella.
Royal Visits
This plaque at the entrance of the building commemorates the number of times The Kings Theatre was graced by the presence of the Royal Family.
You can see that before her ascension to the throne the queen and her sister enjoyed frequent visits to the theatre that bore their father's title. She made her last visit in 1969, hopefully sharing her love of theatre with her daughter Princess Anne.
Cruikshanks Room
This room was the boardroom and head office for The King’s Theatre Company and later The Howard & Wyndham theatre company after their 1928 merger. It is named for the Cruikshanks family. William Stewart Cruikshank being the builder who constructed the theatre. His son Alexander Stewart Cruikshank would manage the building from 1908 to his unfortunate death in 1948
Hi I'm Leoni and I've been a followspot operator on two of the Kings Panto's. The first was Mother Goose in 2012 and then Jack & The Beanstalk in 2016
Followspot for those that are not familair with the term, is a big powerful light (the big ones you can see in here) positioned in a tiny birdsnest of a room at the back of the upper circle. They are used to highlight the principal members of the cast throughout the performance.
Being manually operated means we have control over a range of things:
the intensity or brightness, the size of the spot - using an iris we can light just the head and shoulder of an actor or the full body which is head to toe.
There is a colour magazine on the front of the spot which holds six colours. So especially in Panto for dramamtic effect let's say the fairy or love interest may be highlighted in light pink or light blue and the vilian may be lit in green or red. The followspot can also pan and tilt to reach any part of the stage so the actor can always be lit.
Before the Panto opens to an audience we have rehearsal and a tech period and it's within that time where a followspot operator learns all of their cues. So that's knowing throughout the performance which characters they will be picking up at what intensity, size, colour etc.
After the first couple of weeks it becomes like muscle memory so there's not really any need to use your cue sheets anymore. But what I love about Panto is the freedom that the cast get to have with the show.
So yes, there is a script but on the odd occasion you can guarantee that there will be some ad-libbing and it's those moments that really keep you on your toes as an operator because you're never quite sure what they're going to do.
There's been times for me where I've been laughing so hard at something happening in the show that I've had to fight with myself to hold the follow spot still. And there are a few occasions where the actors play around with you a bit and they do something completely different to try to catch you out.
I can honestly say that working on Panto has been one of the highlights of my career and it's one that I won't ever forget.
Staircase (class system):
The Kings marble staircase, like many older theatres, still retains the remnants of a classist system of access. The richer and nobler members of the audience, able to afford the Dress Circle would enter through the main entrance and up this grand staircase in luxury. The higher tiers, entered through side doors and ascended much less glamorous stairwells to their lofty positions, thus befitting the price of the seats and their lower social standing.
The Depuy Stage Manager
or DSM is in charge of 'calling' the show. It is their job to ensure that all departments peform their cues at the right times in the show in the right order.
They do this via a series of discreet lighting signal and verbal communications. Where possible departments will have a discreet 'cuelight' a simple box with a red and green light on it. From their master control station at the 'DSM Desk' in the corner the DSM is able to signal each of the departments using these lights. Red for Standby, Green for Go.
Where this form of communication is not possible then verbal signals are given over headsets or radios. The DSM has to incorporate both these actions as well as following the script and the show to keep time. It is truly a job for those that can multi-task.
The Fly Floor
This is where the scenery for the performance is controlled and manipulated, and unlike the rest of the technical aspects of the theatre, what happens up here has hardly changed in the last 50, 60 even 100 years.
Each curtain or part of the stage scenery is hung from these ropes you see here, when they are brought into the theatre through the loading door on Tarvit St. They are then carefully counterbalanced with weights so that there is very little effort required to pull them up and down.
Each rope has a brake lever which needs to be unlocked before the Fly Man pulls up or lowers the scenery. On a busy scene change there will be several fly men running around up here, pulling on bits of rope, pulling brake levers and moving to their next task.
The job was traditionally done by sailors who had the gnarly hands for the job and also had a way of communicating by whistle which was perfect for this job too, and is the reason whistling is deemed to be bad luck backstage.
Watch the video of the fly men doing a scene change by clicking the camera symbol above.
Do check out the Upper Fly Floor above which is where the counterweights are loaded onto the cradles.
Pyro Corner - where they let off all the flashes, bangs and wallops
The Paint Frame
is where the backdrops for theatre productions are painted by hand. Instead of running up and down a ladder the artist (and Jim is some artist) uses the rope and pulley system to bring his canvas into the correct position to continue the painting.
The history in this one corner of the building is amazing when you think of how far and wide the paintings have travelled that were painted here, and how many people have seen each of them.
I wonder what happens to the old ones after a run of performances is complete?
Stage FX
Hi there, my name's Andy.
I work backstage at the King's Theatre in the electronics department. And when it comes to Panto, first thing I've got to do when I come in is make sure that everything is reset back to the start of the show.
Make sure it's all working as well. Most importantly, all the lights, all the smoke machines, all the pyrotechnics and special effects, just make sure they're all working properly, and as they should be, and get them all ready and set for the start of the show.
During the show. it's skooshing smoke for Grant's entrances and doing the scene changes, making sure that lights on stands and things are out the way so that the scenery guys can get their stuff in, and then moving lights back if they need to be back behind doorways or whatever. And then just make sure that everything else is running smoothly for the show. Make sure that everybody else is okay.
And then at the end of the night it's switch everything off and usually head off home and look forward to coming into next day. To do it all again. It's just good fun.
Sound Desk:
Hi I’m Stewart McGill,
I’ve operated Sound at The Kings Theatre for over 20 Panto’s. Sound can be one of the hardest jobs but also one of the most rewarding as you get to work closely with the cast and you have to learn the script so that you know where their lines are going to be in the show. They may have lines off stage or they may have to get the timings right for sound effects.
At the end of the night once you have done a clean show and there’s been no no mistakes it is one of the best feelings in the world.
Lighting Desk (LX)
Hi, I'm Moira McInnes and I'm a senior technician at Capital Theatres and I have worked at The King's since 1990.
The job I'm going to tell you about is the lighting operator for a Panto. So the day starts about two hours before a show begins, we come in and we start by switching everything on. And that can take anything from five minutes to 20 minutes. Because, during pantomime, you may have noticed there is an awful lot of lights, there is an awful lot of lighting equipment.
So we have to go around and switch all the different attributes on and then we have to switch on the lighting desk. Once the lighting desk is on, we then do a 'rig check' so every single light that you see, we have to make sure that it works and it works in the right way for doing a performance.
So we run through a set of cues that bring up every different kind of light in a different time, so that we have the time to check them all. Once we have checked all of the lights, invariably something won't work, so we then go about getting ladders or access equipment out. And we start checking that we make sure that the light or the lamp's been changed. If it's a moving light, we have to then take that whole unit down and find one that we've fixed earlier, and put it up again.
Once we know that all of the lights are working, and that they're still pointing in the right position we then set about setting up the rest of the equipment on the stage. Once I'm happy that my show and my desk is ready to go for a show, my next thing I have to do is wait till the half hour. Now we call it the half hour, it's not half an hour, it's 35 minutes before the show starts.
We all amalgamate on stage and we put in the scene that you will see when you walk in through the doors, and we'll put the lights up for that. At this stage the boys will have put their equipment and stuff on stage so that you walk into a set piece.
The next thing we have to do is it's "beginners" which is five minutes before the show starts, I need to be on my desk, making sure that everything that I have I need. And I'm ready to go.
Once the show starts it is fairly full on now. In that there are hundreds of cues that are queued by someone called the Deputy Stage Manager who has a book with a list of where every cue needs to go. Once you've done a show a couple of times you then know yourself where every cue needs to go. And it's just, it's so fast that some scenes can have 50 to 100 cues within two to three minutes. And it's as simple as going on his go which is Go go go go go, go go go go.
Once the show starts, that's it you are fully locked in and need to concentrate fully. So it doesn't help when Alan and Andy and Grant can go off piste slightly. So you still have to keep your wits about you to just make sure that they don't throw you a wobbly.
Until the end of the show I make sure that all the lights need to be in the right position in the right way. Sometimes during the show a moving light can decide that it doesn't want to work. So I have to be very aware of where it is, what it is, and how to move it and reset it during the show so that the audience don't notice that there's a problem.
At the end of the show, we wait till the audience clear from the auditorium and then we clear everything down back to the very beginning. Once we've done that we either reset for the next show, or we get to switch off and we get to go home. That's pretty much what I do.
Thank you
I wish we'd put away the Christmas Deccies Box
Orchestra Pit
Under the stage these rooms and the hydraulic scissor lift are turned into The King's orchestra pit. Normally capable of holding up to 35 musicians, during Panto there is barely room for the 5 members of the band as they have to share space with all the equipment and possible spares needed to keep the show rolling non-stop for 2 months.
The talented Panto band usually have to work around and alongside pyrotechnics, flashing lights, trap doors and crash mats. All while never missing a beat to keep you dancing in your seats.