Lucy Kirkwood and Dave Malloy’s stunning musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, directed by Lyndsey Turner,  delighted audiences at the National Theatre over the Christmas season. Alongside an immense creative team including set designer Lizzie Clachan and video designer Ash J Woodward, lighting designer Bruno Poet deployed Martin MAC Ultras to help deliver his spellbinding lighting design.

Bruno had worked with director Lyndsey Turner previously on "Light Shining In Buckinghamshire” by Carol Churchill at the National and on “Faith Healer” by Brian Friel at The Donmar. “Collaboration is the key to a successful musical, and Lyndsey is a director who understands how scenery, lighting and projection can work together to tell a story.” he said.

For The Witches, lighting and projection were needed to transform the physical scenery when required for magical and musical moments. “To put it crudely -  if the physical set describes the “normal” world of Lukes House, the street, a bus stop, a hospital, the Hotel Magnificent and its reception area, ballroom, bedrooms, dining room and kitchen,” Bruno explained, “The lighting and projection transforms these spaces into the fantastical worlds described in the songs and by the Witches spells.“

From the beginning Lyndsey Turner and Lizzie Clachan were keen to close-in the vast space of the Olivier Theatre to make it more friendly to child performers (and audiences), so for much of the show only the downstage part of the stage is used. Lizzie designed a kind of proscenium frame to close the space in even more.  

“A lot of Olivier shows rely on long backlight shots through haze to sculpt and frame the performances.” explained Bruno. “In The Witches the framing was done by more traditional scenery, but the lighting still had to deliver a huge variety of looks and big musical numbers, in spite of very limited places to hang lights above the stage. Luckily Jack Williams the head of lighting in the Olivier allowed me to move lights away from their usual rep rig positions so I could design a rig specific to this show and this set.”

In total 23 MAC Ultras were in action, 11 positioned on the centre stage overhead truss, 6 at FOH, 1 each side as a high slot from the equivalent of a prosarch boom position, and 2 per side as a downstage high side light equivalent.

Bruno’s previous experience with MAC Ultras had been on Bad Cinderella on Broadway, where he also described them as the workhorses of that production. “I love that they have the punch to be able to light the whole stage with one directional light source. For me they are delivering the look of a single 4k HMI in an opera but in a much more useable and flexible form.”

And on The Witches, Bruno confirms they were used in “pretty much every scene”.  

Commenting on the MAC Ultra’s immense output, he said, “They have enough intensity that even a fairly wide zoom in a colour still had impact. Also, we designed custom gobos to look like shadows of the scenic proscenium and the Ultras were bright enough to work well even with a gobo in.”

Bruno’s colour palette for the production included many strong saturated colours - a lot of purple for the Witches, deep blue, red and pinks – for which the LD praised the MAC Ultra’s “vibrant and punchy” colour rendition. “Plus lots of shades of white were used,” he added, “especially warm white which worked very well for a cold LED source".

The MAC Ultra’s next-generation framing system also impressed, with the framing described as “smooth and accurate and pretty straight even at wide zoom. Plus good soft edges on shutters when needed.”

Finally, Bruno confirmed The National Theatre’s in-house SpotMe remote system (from Robert Juliat) was used with the MAC Ultras and MAC Encores. “SpotMe was totally fantastic, the best remote system I’ve used. And I’ve used them all.” Bruno said. “The fact that it’s controlled by a human operating a real followspot means you get by far the best and smoothest tracking. Seemed very quick to set up and program into the show as well.”

Martin Professional is exclusively distributed in the UK by Sound Technology Ltd. For more information please visit www.soundtech.co.uk/professional-lighting/martin/