The Centenary
Celebration offered a unique opportunity and a unique challenge. Unlike, for example, a musical, there was no script, score or indeed any real precedent
to copy. An evening's entertainment had to be constructed from scratch. And on
such a huge stage as well – there are five and half thousand seats in the Royal Albert Hall!
From the very beginning
it was intended that the evening would be structured around a series of short
documentary-style films shown on a giant screen - perhaps inspired by an occasion a few
years ago when the Schola sang at the world premiere of the 3D version of Titanic!
Two Vaughan parents who work in the film and TV business, Adam
Scoffield and Flavia Ritner, amazingly agreed to help make these films - remarkable given
the amount of time they must have known it would take - and around 18 months
ago we began to film, starting by interviewing on cameras many Old Vaughanians
and former staff. Scripts were written and pupils were slowly but surely filmed
speaking the narration. More than 100 pupils took part in the filming process.
Filming is an
incredibly time-consuming activity; for example, one day was spent at
Westminster Cathedral - from which there was perhaps 20 seconds of footage
shown on the evening. Another entire day was spent with two Old Vaughanians,
John Sankey and Terry Denett (who very bravely also appeared on the stage on
the evening) filming in the former grounds of Beaumont College where the
Vaughan had been evacuated to during the war, again just for a short passage of
footage on the evening.
Many more hours were
spent researching the Vaughan’s history and collecting and creating graphics
and photographs to add life and colour to the films. Slowly but surely the films took shape. A film about sport was made by another parent, with an Old
Vaughanian presenting from his sports anchor desk in Doha! Using the history of
the School written by Peter Brennan in 1995 we also created an illustrated
brochure of the School's history and brought the story up to date. Hannah Staff
worked very closely on this, alongside the Fetherstonhaugh Publishing company.
Meanwhile, numerous
ideas were considered for the musical items and eventually the programme began
to come together. To make it into the evening the music had to be short, reasonably
accessible, and not too challenging to play - the difficulties of performing in
the Royal Albert Hall were sufficient without playing hugely difficult music!
That said, the fanfare composed especially for the occasion (and which
brilliantly used the school and the Albert Hall's resources) was quite tricky!
The composer of that piece was Dr Philip Wilby - Miss Wilby's father. (We have
two famous composers related to our music staff as Mr Jackson's grandfather is
Francis Jackson, a legendary figure in the church music world and another
greatly respected composer).
There were numerous
technical aspects involved in making the event run smoothly. The films were
projected on to the 30 foot screen from one of the audience boxes whilst the
men who controlled them were hidden in the basement of the Albert Hall. They started
each film on a cue from the show caller, John, who sat next to the lighting and
sound people on the desks at the back of the arena, giving instructions from
the script. Adam Scoffield was at the hall during the day with the computer
equipment needed to edit the films if it proved necessary. Flavia Ritner was
also present for the rehearsals to time everything (it would have been disastrous
to discover that we were over time) and also to add last minute tweaks to the
script. The script for our brilliant host, Stephen Cole, was run to an autocue
controlled by a chap called Danny who sat in the ‘bull run’ as they call it –
just be the entrance to the stage.
There were 200 microphones
on the stage, all running to the desk at the rear of the arena from where they
were mixed by the Albert Hall’s in-house sound team – the difficult acoustic of
the Albert Hall makes unique challenges, especially when you were mixing live
music, live voices plus video sound. Lighting was also controlled by the
in-house lighting team of the Albert Hall, following the script – they were
left to light the show as they felt best, according to the suggestions given.
The school crest was shone onto the famous ceiling mushrooms (installed to
improve the hall’s trick acoustic and of course referred to by John Lennon in
‘A Day in the life’) using a device called a ‘Gobo’ – these had to be made
specially.
Also contained in the
ceiling of course were the 1500 balloons, each with the school crest printed on
them, that were released at the end of the final hymn! Although I spoke to the
balloon man a great deal on the phone we did not meet on the day as he worked
away in the dome of the hall, inflating the balloons only once in the ceiling.
He would also have been last to leave as he faced the challenge of lowering a
device down from the ceiling to blow down the several hundred balloons that
would be caught in the acoustic mushrooms and never reach the boys gathered below! I wonder if he then ran around bursting them all?!
All these various
technical aspects were controlled by the stage manager, a wonderful lady called
Maz Bryden who came to work with me for the final couple of weeks of the
preparations. She was simply invaluable in controlling the many complicated aspects
of the show and allowing the music staff on the day to concentrate on the
music. The Albert Hall provided a team of around 20 technicians who ensured
that the stage was set as we wished and looked after the challenges of the day,
all led by Mo Crowe who was our show manager at the Royal Albert Hall.
All of this help meant
that the day itself was actually easier than the average large concert we put
on! It was made easier still by having the help and support of the entire
teaching staff, all of whom at some point were involved in chaperoning the performers
and then bringing the rest of the School into the Hall at the appropriate time.
Seating and ticketing in the Albert Hall is very complicated as more than a
thousand seats are owned by the ‘members’, individuals (such as Her Majesty the
Queen!) and large companies who have bought boxes and stalls seats and have the
right to attend whatever they wish. They were not all terribly quick at
returning their seats to us and so it became difficult to know how many could
sit where. It was a major relief to see the whole School safely sat in the Hall
waiting for the show to start! Particular mention should be made of Mr Kehoe who looked after the arrangements on the evening for the School. And credit for the ticketing of the event belongs to Hannah Staff who worked closely with me to ensure that everyone ended up sat in the right place.
The involvement of so
many individuals was the reason for the show’s smooth and error free success
and it is good to have the chance to thank them on this blog even if time did
not permit them all to be thanked on the evening. I would also like to thank
all the performers of course. It was wonderful to have with us so many Old
Vaughanians for the evening. Many played in the orchestra or sang in the choir.
Perhaps most impressive were the greatly accomplished, confident performances
given by the Old Vaughanians in the musicals medley. And comedian Dominic
Holland delighted the audience with his very funny routine about a maths test
from his school days!
If you missed it then
its available on DVD! And if you were there, then thanks for coming! And many
thanks for the countless messages that were sent in the days following and that
continue to arrive. It is lovely to know that the work of all the people mentioned above was so well received
and so greatly appreciated.
