Time to get the props out of the freezer...

Today’s up-date is a bit of a catch up on the things I have been doing which I haven’t yet told you about. I have been out on another propping trip, touring the second-hand furniture shops of Greater Manchester. We had considerable success in Whalley Range where a huge, freezing store offered up 80’s swivel chairs, metal shelving units and some desks which are so near to being right that I bought three.

Two of the chairs are going to be recovered by their in-shed upholsterer, in suitably drab colours. I was assured that he is the best living upholsterer; he certainly must be the coldest living upholsterer – I have rarely been so cold in my life as I was after spending an hour rooting around that place! My hands and feet were frozen numb and I am still working hard to fight off a cold as a result. However, three desks! Two of them will be cut down to size and then I have to decide whether to paint them grey as the model, or to leave them in their existing livery of dark brown wood-effect veneer.

I had a fitting with the actor playing Richard Roma. He tried on a few sharp 80’s suits and although he looked really good in a silver grey double breasted one from stock, we decided to follow the costume drawing and have a light stone coloured suit made for him in the same style .I went off to Leon’s fabric shop in Chorlton for the suit material, then to John Lewis for some posh lining to finish the jacket.

I went into the rehearsal room to look at the arrangement of furniture in the office set; it looks good, but I need to be careful not to choose things which are too big, as the space is quite limited. I made a return trip to the builders in Liverpool to take back the model, and while I was there, had a quick look at progress so far. I commented on the routing of the floor tiles which was more strongly marked than I expected. Builders like designers to come and see progress and then probably wish afterwards that the designer had stayed away! I thought it was cold in the furniture warehouse, but the workshop in Liverpool was sub-zero. How anyone can work in those temperatures is beyond me, but in the world of set building, men are still men! Next up-date will be the progress meeting of the production team – how much progress have we made? I’ll tell you on Wednesday.