A Corporate Day Out (from the library)
Up at eight am for a nine o’clock start to Lisbon for a corporate show tonight. Four of us travel down by people carrier, two have gone ahead in the truck which carries the props while the stage and lighting guys travel in another truck. At first I thought it was going to be a small scale show but things have changed and actually it is going to include several of the many illusions in Luis’s repertoire. One of these is the Smoke Chamber Production and this is one of the few props that I know how to assemble. That is what I do when we arrive.
We are working with a major corporate catering company, one that we have worked for many times before. I always prefer it when we know the people (and in this case the venue) we are working with (and in.)
It is great watching the Team go about their business. It has all been done many times before and each member gets on with his or her own bit of the set up. The longest time of all is spent setting the lights.
By half past four most of the preparation has been done. There are odds and ends to complete but everyone is pretty relaxed.
Our part in the evening is due to start at ten o’clock so it comes as a little shock when at twenty past eight we learn that everything has been moved forward an hour, especially as three of us are in a restaurant in the Vasco da Gama shopping centre a little walk away from the venue. No problem. I don’t have anything to do in this show so the other two (younger and fitter) guys rush back and I eventually join them in plenty of time for the off.
In then end, the dinner takes so long to serve that the show actually starts half an hour later than the original start time…such is the way of the corporate world.
Once underway, everything went according to plan. I was a little surprised to find that Luis was working in English and wasn’t getting the response I was used to in some of his patter pieces and I started to speculate that maybe the audience were mostly foreign and thus Luis didn’t have the “star” appeal that is normal in Portugal. Wrong (as usual)! He was asked to present the show in English by one of the bosses who wanted to show consideration to a visiting (and I guess, bigger) boss who spoke English. The fact that the vast majority of the audience didn’t fully understand what was being said didn’t seem to be of concern to the decision taker. Such is the way of the corporate world…
Anyhow the whole thing went well and a smooth strip down and packing of all the props saw us all back in the (very nice) hotel by 3.30am.
Using a small video camera and a big screen card manipulations are visible to large audiences and surely one of the best ever versions of sawing through...
We are working with a major corporate catering company, one that we have worked for many times before. I always prefer it when we know the people (and in this case the venue) we are working with (and in.)
It is great watching the Team go about their business. It has all been done many times before and each member gets on with his or her own bit of the set up. The longest time of all is spent setting the lights.
By half past four most of the preparation has been done. There are odds and ends to complete but everyone is pretty relaxed.
Our part in the evening is due to start at ten o’clock so it comes as a little shock when at twenty past eight we learn that everything has been moved forward an hour, especially as three of us are in a restaurant in the Vasco da Gama shopping centre a little walk away from the venue. No problem. I don’t have anything to do in this show so the other two (younger and fitter) guys rush back and I eventually join them in plenty of time for the off.
In then end, the dinner takes so long to serve that the show actually starts half an hour later than the original start time…such is the way of the corporate world.
Once underway, everything went according to plan. I was a little surprised to find that Luis was working in English and wasn’t getting the response I was used to in some of his patter pieces and I started to speculate that maybe the audience were mostly foreign and thus Luis didn’t have the “star” appeal that is normal in Portugal. Wrong (as usual)! He was asked to present the show in English by one of the bosses who wanted to show consideration to a visiting (and I guess, bigger) boss who spoke English. The fact that the vast majority of the audience didn’t fully understand what was being said didn’t seem to be of concern to the decision taker. Such is the way of the corporate world…
Anyhow the whole thing went well and a smooth strip down and packing of all the props saw us all back in the (very nice) hotel by 3.30am.
Using a small video camera and a big screen card manipulations are visible to large audiences and surely one of the best ever versions of sawing through...
posted by JJ at 2:33 PM
1 Comments:
Ive got to say, that the pendragon/steinmyer Clearly impossible saw throughs one of my favorites too.Its a prety close second to the copperfield buzz saw.
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