Good Luck Studio is the brand-new dark comedy from the award-winning Mischief, the team behind the global smash hit The Play That Goes Wrong and the BBC comedy series The Goes Wrong Show. It focuses on the final night recording of Wibble the Dragon – a show massively over budget and under written. With one hour to film 16 pages and an audience of children getting more and more impatient, the cast and crew know big cuddly heads are going to roll… The show features a lighting design by long-time Mischief collaborator David Howe, who approached WL to supply a variety of fixtures.  

Good Luck Studio is written by Henry Shields, one of the core Mischief Theatre writers, and directed by Henry Lewis, another core Mischief writer. Also joining David as part of the creative team is Set Designer Sara Perks, Sound Designer Alexandra Faye-Braithwaite and Composer Richard Baker. David comments: “The show is set across three locations during the last recording of a popular, yet equally disastrous, children’s TV show; with these being the studio itself, the control gallery and the in-studio medics office. As such, the audience get to see several scenes more than once but played out from different angles in the various locations.  

He continues: “My brief as lighting designer was to achieve the different looks between the ‘recording’ on the colourful set and the ‘off air’ moments. As this is supposed to be a children’s show, it was huge fun creating a colourful colouring-in book look for when we were recording “Wibble”. This meant I was able to heighten the use of colour and texture of the magical world, only for it to vanish and change in the action to the rather mundane/non-magical workplace of disgruntled actors”. 

As the show was built to tour, this meant David’s design had to use a combination of the house equipment within each venue as well as fixtures which were then supplemented by WL. The lights he drew on from WL mainly consisted of Ayrton Diablos, GLP Washes and a collection of 70º Source Fours. He explains: “I’d first used the Diablos on a previous Mischief show, Magic Goes Wrong. I was really impressed with them as a unit: they were super bright, with effective shutters and a great colour mix. This is a production that is all about contrast – intense colour for the ‘on-screen moments’ and bright ‘working-light’ for the off-screen scenes so I knew I needed a fixture that would be super quiet, which is a necessity for a play like this, as well as offer versatility. 

He adds: “When it came to the GLP Washes, these, again, were bright and able to create strong rich colours as well as the tungsten and neutral colours I need. The wide Source Fours were being used with bold breakup pattens as part of the off-air working-light ‘look’. As it has been for months now, availability of kit continues to be a huge issue in the industry. That’s why it was so great to work with someone like Andy Cullen at WL who made several alternate suggestions and helped me find the exact equipment I needed”.  

A fun fact about the show is that the concept of the play is set around seeing the same period of time from different viewpoints, this meant that all the digital clocks in the studio and gallery had to be centrally controlled by the lighting desk, so when actors refer to the time the clocks are always correct. The digital clocks were made by Emily Holmden at the Mercury Theatre using LED Tape whilst Programmer Ed Locke made various magic sheets and macros enabling a second sequence of time cues to run throughout the play.  

Good Luck Studio was co-produced by The Mercury Theatre Colchester and Salisbury Playhouse, opening in October and finally ending its tour last week at the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford.  

David concludes: “This was another brilliant show by team Mischief and a joy to light. I’d like to say a big thanks to; Production Electrician Sammy Emmins, Lighting Programmer and Tour Relighter Ed Lock as well as the resident teams at the Mercury, the Playhouse and WL for their support”.  

Photos courtesy of Pamela Raith.

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