The third delusion, is of ‘Thomas Clark’ a humble Handyman who has big dreams, he has goals of been an engineer. He is quite sweet and innocent, often taken advantage of by others in the office, especially the character Simon who’s cruel and unkind and pushes him down for been ‘just’ a handyman. Sam is full of self-doubt and hopes that he can eventually be an engineer, though it’s a difficult task for him and he sees it as though he is reaching for the stars, which constantly are out of his grasp.

We began to look at Frantic Assembly Learning to Fly techniques and how to make him Tom Fly in space.

These lifts became a main part of the delusion, they were all very pretty but ultimately lead to nothing. We just kept putting them in so they looked nice. We looked at pieces of contemporary dance such as Christopher Bruce’s ‘Swansong’ We soon realised even though there was movement there was a narrative been told. That was something we were missing. We focused on building a narrative within the scene and made sure that each section told a story.  This brought more substance to the delusion.

 

We also stopped focusing on lifts and started working on ground work, where we created the delusion of anti-gravity techniques, by having him held down or in place allowing him to shift his weight more easily and fall through the air with people to catch him.

 

We never intended on truly hiding those who were lifting, we’d have them in plain sight but in black attire. It never really seemed necessary and we’d simply allow the audience to use their imaginations and focus purely on Tom.

 

However we began to look at Black Light Theatre and their work with UV lights, which allows them to totally hide everyone moving the set and the actors around. The UV lights added yet another layer to an already beautiful scene. It became an integral part of the design of the scene, we then added UV paint to our hands to create stars that Tom would search for and they would come together to create a beautiful galaxy that Tom would dance with, but never be able to touch.

 

National Theatre Discover (2015) Frantic Assembly Masterclass: Learning to Fly. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4mXhW7TXQ8 [accessed 29 April 2017].

Philip Chambon (2011) Swansong Choregraphed by Christopher Bruce. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=038BdfaaVVs [accessed 29 April 2017].

BlackLightTheatre (2009) The Best of Black Light Theatre. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L7-cLP9AOc [accessed 29 April 2017].