ABSTRACT

Scenery is built in a unique way: our business usually dictates that items of set be reasonably lightweight yet strong, and include the potential to be broken down, transported and re-built while avoiding damage to the design. The skills needed to produce scenery have accumulated over a period in excess of 300 years, and scenery-building is a fine example of a labour-intensive, specialist trade. A skilled carpenter who has trained and worked in the building trade, for example, has to learn entirely new skills in order to work comfortably within the scenery industry – and this process of learning afresh can take a year or so (I know, I was that carpenter!).