I've been in Brighton for the past week as the sound engineer, stage manager and character performer for Tricity Vogue's one-woman cabaret show "The Blue Lady Sings".

Above is a picture of the venue, the upstairs room at the Hobgoblin in Brighton which is apparently a new Fringe venue for this year. It's a nice wee space, the lighting is pretty basic (LED lights, on or off and if you want to change the colour you have to clamber up and fiddle with the settings on the lights themselves) and the placement of the FOH monitors leaves a lot to be desired...but the sound quality is pretty good and it's a lovely, intimate space which fits our show well.

As for most Fringe venues, there;s at least five other shows a day in the same space with changeover times between 10 - 2 mins depending on how late the previous show is running! After a week we've managed to get our setup - which includes headset radio mic, ukulele through a DI, suitcase with props and special picture frame - completed within 5 mins, and faster for strike time. 

Fortunately the other shows sharing the space have been comedy shows with no real interest in altering lighting or sound states as long as the audience can see and hear them, so we haven't had much to alter except the levels each night - just as well given the turnaround times!

My role in the show, as well as being responsible for sound, is as a visible stage manager, who is worked into the show as the character of a gallery assistant constantly annoyed by a misbehaving painting which comes to life - this is the Blue Lady, Tricity Vogue's character based on the kitsch 1950s Tretchikoff painting "Chinese Girl"

The show has several costume changes and props cues on stage and when I'm not on stage I'm monitoring the sound - definitely not a set-the-levels-and-sit-back show! Plus there's usually two stage managers, one sound tech and one lighting tech. For this show we've had to make do with half the crew - me plus the sound/lighting operator, although as I've worked a lot with Ben it's been a good working partnership.

We'll be doing it all again for the Edinburgh Fringe but every day for a whole month! Might have to sit on more beaches between now and then to recuperate...