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Billy's bedroom in Billy Elliot


dAJb

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I saw Billy Elliot recently and wondered if anyone could satisfy my idle curiosity about the lift/revolve with Billy's Bedroom and Kitchen in it.

It is a pretty tall piece anyway and has to sit low enough when under the stage to allow the bedroom floor to lift above the handrail on separate lift.

Does it compress in some way or is it just sitting in a really deep hole under the stage? Also it often rotated when lifting up and down was this purely for artistic reasons or did it relate in some way to the way it lifts?

 

Just curious if there is anyone here who works/ has worked on the show that knows.

 

dAJb

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There's a good video on youtube of it operating which shows how it works quite well

 

 

Thanks for that, it shows the height well. I'm still left wondering if the trap room is that deep across the entire stage or whether an extra deep hole had to be dug for it. I don't see any obvious way that it could compress.

 

The other two lifts (one in the video and one upstage) don't need to be nearly as a deep as nothing much taller than a person goes on them that I recall.

 

Sadly this presumably means it will never tour in its current form.

 

dAJb

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I have a recollection that they had to dig down a bit. I was lucky enough to be able to have a look around the stage when I was involved with BYT two years ago but unfortunately we weren't allowed to explore sub stage. The first time I saw the show, it suffered a show-stopping breakdown but that doesn't seem entirely unusual with show automation...
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In my experiences most of the large west-end houses have 4m substage depth (at least) as when they were built they had a whole wealth of machinery underneath (bridges, cuts, traps) and the bigger the house the deeper the facility. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a venue the size of the Victoria had a substantial under stage that they designed this piece to fit in to (since this was the originating theatre) rather than having to dig an extra deep hole?
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IIRC under the stage isn't that deep. Certainly not 4m. I was no2 sound when Sweet Charity was there back in the 90's.

It was more like 3m and covered most of the stage, but not all. But it could have changed since.

 

Jon

 

Having just watched the video, I seem to remember a section that was deeper..............but it was a long time ago!

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