Gobo manufacturer, Goboland UK, has made a variety of custom and standard gobos for the wartime-era musical Betty Blue Eyes which opened last week at the Novello Theatre in London’s West End.
Based on Alan Bennett and Malcolm Mowbray’s BAFTA-winning 1984 film A Private Function, Betty Blue Eyes is set in the ration-stricken Britain of 1947. It tells the story of a pig, raised illegally to provide the local dignitaries with a feast to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip – a wedding feast out of keeping with the austerity of the times.
The ensuing shenanigans are lit by award-winning lighting designer, Neil Austin. for whom Goboland UK produced coloured glass gobos of the Royal Crest, stained glass windows and a keystone-corrected Union Flag, for use in Vari-lite VL3500Q Spots. Goboland worked with the designer to create a graduated edge iris gobo that makes it possible to achieve a soft-focus, round edge beam that is not normally available from the VL3500.
Goboland UK also created black and white glass gobos depicting the butchers’ shop windows of Barraclough’s and Metcalf’s for ETC Revolution fixtures, and the now familiar ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ motto projected from an ETC Source Four 14° fixture. A number of Goboland’s standard Black Steel Collection Designs were also used for lighting the Ballroom dance scene, again in Revolutions.
Finally, Goboland UK manufactured 8 full colour glass gobos of the Betty Blue Eyes show logo and images of Betty herself for the Opening Night Party, held at the Waldorf Hotel, right next door to the Novello Theatre. Lighting supplier White Light projected the gobos around the room from Mac2000 Spots.
Programmer and associate lighting designer, Rob Halliday, newly returned from the States, says: “We went to Goboland once again because they have never yet disappointed us. Goboland’s Vicky Fairall can take whatever we throw at her and turn it into beautiful gobos, whether it’s a monochrome window or a full-colour, keystone corrected flag. It always feels like we have an extra member of the team when Vicky’s on-board.”
All Goboland gobos were all supplied through White Light as suppliers of the show’s lighting equipment.
Betty Blue Eyes, directed by Richard Eyre, received enthusiastic reviews following its opening night and is currently booking until 22 October 2011.
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