It’s all peachy in Greenwich

After a few weeks at home during March its great to be getting back into designing a theatre show. This week I have been down at Greenwich Theatre opening the International tour of James & The Giant Peach.  This lovely little kids show with new music by a wonderful composer, Harry Sever is set to tour the middle east, Hong Kong and a few other dates in the UK. 

The show has eight cast in it with the music on play back machines to keep the tour small.  With New set being built out in the UAE and Hong Kong the show tours in suitcases so all of the audio equipment needed had to be compact enough to fly and yet still deliver the show.  Early on in the process it became apparent that touring a sound console with much of the shows settings scene by scene would be needed. My usual Go To for this size of show would be a Yamaha QL1 however this was proving to large to fit in a case that would go the in Aircraft holds and be under 30KG!  On looking around I discovered the Alan & Heath QU desks.  The 16 frame was small enough to fit the bill and just about fits the show with every input in use!

The great thing about these consoles is that they can present themselves as a sound card to software like figure 53s Q lab all over USB so theres no need to carry an audio interface. The MIDI to the desk also travels over USB so less cable to fit in. We are using a little MIDI control box from “That Little Box” again powered by USB so the whole front of house set up from the UK dates can tour in a Peli case overseas. This does mean that the back up qlab system isn’t tracking with a easy switch however after giving it some thought its the price we have to pay for the portability I think. 

Ive been impressed with the sound of the console for its size and budget and it suites the show well.  We’ve had to do some clever routing to get a radio sub group and use of the four DCAs is a little complex but worth persevering with.  The other Challenge the show presented was that of locally sourced radio mic systems for the overseas dates. In itself not an issue however touring mic capsules for consistency would mean looking at mics with several different connections for Sennheiser, Shure and other etc. I selected a head set from Proel that again for the budget we’ve been very happy with.  They come with three adaptors to Sennheiser mini jack, Shure and AKG so kind of covered most of our options. the headsets themselves are a little big even at there smallest (I don’t know who they make these for with massive heads!) but nothing a little Hellmann and transpore won’t sort out. over all tonally they seen OK once in the right place, they can be a little dull if the capsule is to far back but quite open and rounded once moved forward. 

I had a great time with this fun little show creating sound effects, its always great to see the Kids reactions to shows like this and Seussical, it makes it all worth while. Now the show is off to The UAE for 3 weeks before returning to play Ipswich and Edinburgh next month. Catch it while you can.  Im off home for a week or two before beginning my next projects at The Lowry in Salford and designing a new production of Parade in Manchester. 

James & The Giant Peach