Set & Costume Design: The West End

Over Christmas I attended two shows in the west end, which is when I realised how incredible the set and costume design is for these productions. With clear character style and incredible detail, both performances exemplified spectacularly how we can create these 3D cartoon environments. The use of materials as well as technology within each performance really amazed me, and is definitely something I would like to find out more about from a professional perspective, as to the process behind stage design. The inventive ways of presenting for instance a sailing boat in Dick Wittington and flying carpet in Aladdin showed well how mechanics and sculpture can combine with illusion and theory. 

Dick Wittington

Costume





The stage



Aladdin

With a very different tone of voice to the former, Aladdin successfully translates a middle eastern ancient city into its set design. Going to the theatre this year I found myself fully amazed by the scope of effort and skill that goes into these productions. 

The magic carpet scene proved how vast technology and design has come in recent years, with a very convincing floating carpet and open sky. There is big commotion amongst audiences as to how they actually achieved it, making the show a lot more popular, which is another way that design is presented as facilitating the success of the musical.