From the keyboard of Dr Jan

I’ve seen Jesus Christ Superstar (the musical) twice this week at the New Victoria theatre in Woking, Surrey, UK.

The first time was on Saturday, with my parents and Ruth. Herod was played by an understudy whose name escapes me (sorry!). We were seated near the front of the Royal Circle.

The second time was on Tuesday with Avinash, Chris and Mrs Chris. Both Jesus and Judas were played by understudies. This time we had seats near the front of the stalls.

Tuesday’s performance was an order of magnitude better. Judas and Jesus were both amazing, and both far superior to the ‘advertised’ players I saw on Saturday. The whole show felt much more passionate and emotional. Some of our party cried near the end of the show, that’s how emotional things were.

Pontius Pilot was fantastic in both shows.

I first saw JCS way back in my youth when I worked part time at The Beck Theatre in Hayes, Middlesex, UK. I was one of the ‘Beck’s Techs’ team. I was working on one of the follow spots for the show, so I saw it 8 times in one week.

It had a huge impact on me!

Tony Shippen was on the other follow spot. Tony was far more experienced than me with the follow spot and could do amazing things with it. Famously, he opened up, head and shoulders only, on a person with dark skin in a complete black out. He knew where the spot was pointing just by how his arm felt.

Normally, the follow spot will light the entire body of a person and follow them around the stage. This is relatively easy to do, because the spot is large and you have a small margin of time (before the person walks out of the spot) to react to movement.

For the JCS production, head and shoulders was the largest aperture used. Several times we were highlighting just the head. So, it was a very challenging job.

During one scene Jesus discovers the merchants in the temple and runs from side to side of the stage, throwing over the tables on each side of the stage as he reaches them. For this, I was focussed on Jesus, head and shoulders. Tony was also focussed on Jesus, head only, but only when he was actually throwing a table. So I was following Jesus all the time, Tony was highlighting him whenever he stopped, when we were creating a kind of halo effect. It’s quite a feat to keep up with someone rushing around the stage like that.

The other big challenge for me was to pick up Mary Magdalene, head only, in a total black out when she sings ‘Could We Start Again’. Obviously, if you miss, it looks extremely naff as you wave the spot about trying to find your target. So it’s important that you point the spot exactly at Mary when you open up. I managed it every show, which really impressed Tony. Until I explained that I used a piece of gaffer tape stuck to the wall (next to the spot) exactly where a stray beam of light from the spot fell when I was lined up.

Damn, that was a good job