Adlib laughs loud with Mrs. Brown’s Boys
- Details
Adlib has been involved with Mrs. Brown’s Boys live since its very first theatre tour in 2000, and since then it’s become a multi award winning TV show and a massive arena live show phenomenon.
The show has continued to invest in production values and technology to keep everything moving forward along with the humour. Adlib’s director and account handler Dave Jones looked after the audio elements alongside senior account manager Dave Eldridge who oversaw the lighting & video requirements. Jones comments: “We are immensely proud to have worked with Brendan and the cast over the years and to see the concept grow and develop. We’ve enjoyed a fantastic, very honest relationship for over a decade and it has been an amazing journey”.
For this latest run of arenas, Adlib’s project manager Kevin Byatt returned to oversee the team.
Lighting was again designed by Mike Summerfield, who has been on the Mrs. Brown production team for some years, each tour creating something new and original.
He chose Martin MAC Viper Wash and Viper Profiles for the primary moving lights. These gave him both the tungsten emulated warmth that suits elements of the show and all the features needed to create additional dynamics.
There were three main overstage trusses - front, back and mid.
The back truss was loaded with MAC Viper Washes and profiles plus Claypaky Sharpy Washes which were used to hit a 24 inch mirror-ball rigged on its own personal truss and flown in and out at strategic moments.
The mid truss contained a row of Viper Washes to fatten up and enrich the overall stage wash, and then on the front truss, 14 more Viper Washes were added, together with four Viper profiles for keylight and specials.
A tab-track truss was flown in line with the downstage edge of the set carpet with returns on each side, so the tabs could draw open and then be concealed from view.
Atmospherics for the final scenes were supplied via two DF50 hazers left and right of stage.
A Road Hog Full Boar was Mike’s console of choice, fully networked with a second desk for backup, and Mike also controlled six set practicals (wall lights) powered from an Avo ART2000 dimmer, together with all the stage lighting.
The video factor of the tour expanded dramatically with the 2015 shows, a trend that has continued. Taking what is basically an intimate theatre presentation concept into arenas means that the IMAG screens are crucial to conveying all the facial expressions and punch lines that deliver the comedy so brilliantly.
With the screen direction they also aimed to bring some distinctly televisual touches, as they were effectively shooting a live sitcom.
Iain Christie headed up the camera team as systems tech and lead camera operator, while Eric O’Carrol cut the camera mix, created from four Sony HXC-100 cameras fitted with Canon HJ40 lenses.
A new addition for this tour was the pre-show Fan-Cam, which worked well as an audience warmer and allowed the video team to capture some truly hilarious moments and great characters in the audience. They could key in graphic images designed by Conor Gibney over the live picture from the console’s on-board media library.
Audio crew chief Alan Harrison led a four-strong Adlib sound team of Hassane Es Siahi (FOH engineer), Shona Steadman (monitor and stage engineer) and systems engineers Steve Norman and George Puttock.
Two 16-deep Coda AiRAY arrays made up the main hangs, with 8 x Coda LA12 / 4 ViRAY downs for the side hangs plus a centre cluster of four Coda ViRAY. They used TiRAY in / outfills and eight SCP-F subs, with two hangs of 8 ViRAY a side for delay, (three of 6 in Glasgow), completing the system. The system was powered by 36 x Coda Linus 10 amps with inbuilt DSP.
For zonal and EQ control they utilised three Lake LM44s at FOH feeding a pair of LM26s and a Focusrite Rednet.
The FOH control, a DiGiCo SD10 with SD rack, was also clocked by the Big Ben at 96kHz, with a Lake LM44 for EQ inserts, a fully redundant dual QLab system for cues and stings and a MacBook at front of house using a DAW to perform virtual soundchecks.
The monitor console was a DiGiCo S21, taking post mute stems from FOH of the Boys, the Girls and Mrs. Brown’s mics, blending these with various QLab stings, VTs, etc. The monitors comprise two flown L-Acoustics ARCS per side.
The mics are DPA d:fine 66 headset directional mics for the cast, with Brendon using two DPA 4061 omnidirectionals (main and spare), which sound “fantastic” enthuses Alan. The RF system was Sennheiser EM2051 receivers with SK2000 bodypack transmitters.
(Jim Evans)
