delicolor Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Just heard a story on Simon Mayo Radio 2 about someone who works in a post-WW2 1000 seat theatre with a studio down south begging forgiveness for releasing the drencher during an am-dram show of The sound of music a long time ago. Apparently he had just flown in a cloth and thought that being warned about the drencher release mech previously was a wind up as he was told there was a big water trough up in the flys and he couldn't see anything. Needless to say the filthy water from the header tank caused serious problems and the theatre had to close for a while to sort anything out. Also needless to say, the confessor wishes to remain anonymous... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 As long as it happened on the line "raindrops on roses.." in the song "My favourite things" then it was OK.CheersGerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Definitely less calamitous, but a customer of ours got over-enthusiastic with the hazer during a dance school performance in a school theatre. Turns out that when the fire alarm triggers, a trapdoor is opened above the stage, we think the theory was for it to act as a chimney and let smoke escape from the auditorium. Only problem was that this mechanism hadn't been operated for years, and the trapdoor folded downwards, so there was an avalanche of assorted muck and debris onto the stage. Luckily none of the dancers were standing directly underneath it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibbothegreat Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Happened on opening night of an Edinburgh International Festival show a few years back, at one of the larger venues, and as the house was already open (the intention had been to lower the safety curtain). Remarkably, the show opened only a little late, due to a stupendous response by the whole tech community in the city, and the lucky happenstance of having a whole weekend's supply of towels sufficient for a couple of large dance companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth A Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 This happened to us in Newcastle one morning. I remember getting a wake up call at 10:00 to get to the theatre. Same thing as Gibbo's - drencher instead of safety curtain was released. Unfortunately directly underneath was LX1 full of VL2000 and 3000s and below that a fully laden pit. ! Amazingly the only thing that got permanently damaged was the drum skins! Moving lights with a hair drier soon worked again! Poor maintenance guy! Never knew what happened to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Tec Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 Many moons ago I was closing down the stage after a get out , had my hand on the safety curtain release handle, just about to pull it and someone in the auditorium call out night Guy ,So moved away from the controls to return the call then I stepped back to drop the curtain and hit the drencher ! Luckily all LX and house tabs was gridded and the mechanism slow to respond so by the time it started dripping I had pull the stop handle !!! It only dripped for about 2 days and we was dark so not too much damage done .I never lived it down though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shez Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 We were just talking about this this morning - how many venues still have functioning drenchers? I believe many were decommissioned when theatres converted to electric lighting but assume there must still be a few out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianknight Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 We were just talking about this this morning - how many venues still have functioning drenchers? I believe many were decommissioned when theatres converted to electric lighting but assume there must still be a few out there? It's my understanding that if the theatre has a fire safety curtain then it should have a drencher in working order too - as ever, happy to be corrected... A venue I'm involved with didn't realise their drencher was disconnected after building works on the site they share, it was only when the fire inspector turned up and asked to check the pressure that they discovered it wasn't working. As a result, they've had to do remedial works to ensure the proscenium entrances to the forestage are sealed and fire "tight" so that he was happy and there's a plan afoot to re-instate the lantern that was removed 40 odd years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glyn Edwards Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 A venue I'm involved with didn't realise their drencher was disconnected after building works on the site they share, Is that a venue not far from my own? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stagemanagement Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 As long as it happened on the line "raindrops on roses.." in the song "My favourite things" then it was OK.CheersGerry It was apparently on "ford every stream" from Climb every Mountain; so even more contextually accurate..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathanhill Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 We were just talking about this this morning - how many venues still have functioning drenchers? I believe many were decommissioned when theatres converted to electric lighting but assume there must still be a few out there?Wycombe Swan, opened 1992, had iron, drencher and smoke lantern. Not sure I would want to pull the drencher release to find out if it works! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 I too have had a drencher released in a venue. It was last night of (amateur) show, and the crew had gone to the bar area to set up the noise etc for the after-show do, and the instruction left was last actor out please close the tabs. Tabs were Hall electrified with the open/close/stop buttons on stage left. The drencher is on stage right by the iron drop. Somehow, this actor managed to get this mixed up. To make matters worse, the iron and drencher controls were only just reachable by a tallish person on tippy-toe, and this actor was distinctly non-tall... Edited to add: Although the iron got a regular workout, the drencher never had, probably ever, so the water that issued forth was rank, probably been in those gently rotting pipes for decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seano Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 I've seen it twice, both about 20-odd years ago. Once in the Bradford Alhambra, half-asleep cassie trying to raise the iron and going for the wrong lever. No serious harm done luckily, it was a pretty bare set, no tabs and no band in the pit (and surprisingly inoffensive water, given the evil reputation drenchers have). I was at the FoH sound desk, and mildly surprised when the iron did go out to see a minor waterfall coming off the DSE. The front-fills were mildly moistened but unharmed, and a couple of birdie transformers had to be swapped out. The other time was during an interval change, behind the iron, of a London Contemporary Dance Theatre (wonderful company, sadly no longer with us) triple bill at the Sheffield Lyceum. That was even more lucky - the piece that had just finished was "Fall Like Rain" and gawd knows how much water had just been emptied out over the stage anyway. (No idea how much but the tank was at least twice the size of the one touring with 'Singing in the Rain' around the same time.) Hilariously, that was the touring stage manager setting it off after getting tangled up in a one-man Laurel and Hardy routine with a stage brace in prompt corner. He was much mocked, but got away with no consequences beyond an extra few minutes with the squeegies and mops that were already working and a few drips off the back of the iron during the following piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 When we were at the Ashcroft in Croydon in 2012 we were all told where the drencher handle was and *not* to touch it except for the right reasons - apparently drencher and smoke lantern were in working order and the iron deffo got bounced every night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 We decided that we should test ours - as it's had been in place since 1959. The iron works fine, but we never tested the drencher. So when the engineers were in doing the annual service on the flying kit and mechanical gizmos, I asked, and they said they could, but then hit a snag. Normally there would be a drain ###### so you close off the valve to the spray tube and put a hose on the drain ######, but there wasn't one. So they fitted one. They connected the hose and we pulled the lever. There was a clunk .... and nothing. It turned out that the release valve up at the tube height had been fitted backwards in 1959, and could never have released the water. The valve itself was also partially made of leather, and had perished meaning that if it had been the right way around, it would not have closed again. So probably a good move we had it serviced and repaired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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