Phantom of the Opera is HERE!

IT'S ENOUGH to make theatre staff at the Alhambra break out in a cold sweat.

When The Phantom of Opera ghosts into town next month, it will be by the far the biggest and longest production to have been mounted there.

For many years, the annual pantomime - continuing in the grand old Laidler tradition - was the spectacular centrepiece of the year.

Backroom staff would spend much of their time planning the show.

But the relatively recent innovation of staging ever bigger London touring productions has seen the Alhambra set new standards year after year.

And by 1998, the theatre was hosting a mammoth 12-week run of the musical Les Miserables which simply dwarfed the panto.

Now the record books are being re-written again.

To put the sheer scale of The Phantom of the Opera into perspective, its 19-week stay will be the equivalent of the Alhambra's previous biggest ever and an average panto run added together.

The show is so colossal that in its early days it used to take Cameron Mackintosh's production crew 12 weeks just to build the highly-complex set.

Happily, these days the preparation has been drastically reduced, although the Alhambra has still had to close its doors for a fortnight while the trucks have rumbled north and the 38-strong of technical experts have moved in to transform the theatre in time for its opening night on April 1.

Glyn Cook, Cameron Mackintosh's technical co-ordinator, who has worked on The Phantom of the Opera ever since the show was originally staged in London in 1986, said things had been simplified over the years to speed up the process.

"It used to be 12 weeks and then we got it down to eight and now it's two," he said.

"We have made a lot of things simpler. There used to be trapdoors in the floors and all sorts but it's not feasible to do that any more for this length of run.

"We've also got faster just through sheer practice."

Glyn has been to Bradford on many previous occasions and enjoys working at the Alhambra - even though the physical size of the theatre causes him the odd headache.

"We could do with it being slightly bigger but it's not too bad and there are some which are even smaller. You end up having to lop bits off the set to make it fit which is not ideal because it ends up not quite looking right," he said.

"We like it here. It's a happy theatre. It'll be Manchester after this and we're not looking forward to going there. That really is small."

Work on preparing the Alhambra for Phantom began almost immediately after Birmingham Royal Ballet moved out after its run of Arthur Part I last weekend. And the army of technicians will be working right through until the curtain first goes up next Saturday.

The first job was to strip the stage down to its bare essentials so that there is enough room to hoist the production's magnificent proscenium arch and start building the lavish set which will turn the Alhambra into the Paris Opera House.

A special container has been erected on the roof of the theatre which houses the mechanism for the opera house chandelier, one of the centrepieces of the musical.

"We use a dummy as well to test out all the computer operations. We used to use the real one which was a bit of a mistake as it costs £30,000 for a new chandelier and we have crashed them a few times," said Glyn.

"There are a lot of technical things going. As anyone who has seen the show will know, the first five minutes is purely scenery moving.

"I basically tie the whole technical side of everything up and make sure all the preparation is done.

"It's a massive show. People thought Les Miserables was big, but it's nothing compared to this. It only took three days to stage and Oliver! last year only took eight days.

"We've got eight carpenters, four engineers, four riggers, two electricians, six sound engineers and six local stage crew as well as two local electricians. They won't exactly be working through the night but they'll all be busy right up until the opening night."

The arrival of a show like Phantom has a major impact on the lives of the Alhambra's own staff.

Its stage manager Martin Wills, who has worked in theatre since 1971, said putting on the production was totally different to any other shows which visit Bradford.

"It's not like a regular tour. It's more like a short West End run so you get all the activities which you normally associate with a London run," he said.

"Years ago you wouldn't have dreamt of doing this level of work but now we've done 42nd Street, Cats, Les Miserables and Oliver!

"It's a different way of working. There's just a lot more of everything to do and we've been stretched to the limit to find enough staff to get the show in.

"Over the years there have just been ever greater levels of sophistication, that's been the main change. At one time you hardly saw any steel used in sets. It was all wood but that's changing. It's a general thing throughout the industry. Technology is taking over."

How the 'Phantom' was brought to life

Impresario Cameron Mackintosh was soaking in a hot bath one cold February morning in 1984 when the concept of The Phantom of the Opera was first put to him.

"Andrew Lloyd Webber telephoned me for a gossip. He dropped into the conversation the idea of making a musical out of The Phantom of the Opera. Even in my prune-like condition, I recognised Andrew had come up with another good idea," he recalled.

After researching existing film and stage versions of the story, the pair decided to base their show on Gaston Leroux's original novel.

When they first announced the musical to the world's press later that year, Lloyd Webber had intended writing his own incidental music but using mainly famous classical works for the score.

But he changed his mind after Australian director Jim Sharman, who has directed The Rocky Horror Show and the London production of Jesus Christ Superstar, suggested he should write the score himself.

In the summer of 1985, Hal Prince was recruited as director and the first draft of the first act was presented on the lawn of Lloyd Webber's home..

Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner was brought in as a collaborator although he became ill and died before the project was completed.

His role was taken by promising young writer Charles Hart and the original production finally went into rehearsal on August 18, 1986 before opening at Her Majesty's Theatre on October 9.

What it takes to put on a show

The show's dazzling replica of the Paris Opera House chandelier is made of 6,000 beads. It is three metres wide and weighs one tonne. The original version took five people four weeks to make.

The Phantom's make-up takes two hours to put on and half an hour to take off. His face is moisturised, closely shaved and the prosthetics are placed, setting immediately, before two wigs, two radio microphones and two contact lenses - one white and one clouded - are fitted.

The show uses 2,230 metres of fabric for its drapes, 900 of which are specially dyed. Tasselled fringes measure 226 metres. They are made of dyed wool weighing 250kg and interwoven with 5,000 wooden beads imported from India. Each one is hand-made and combed with an Afro comb.

Each performance has 230 costumes, 14 dressers, 120 automated cues, 22 scene changes, 281 candles and uses 250kg of dry ice and ten fog and smoke machines.

Twenty-seven articulated lorries are needed to transfer the set between theatres when Phantom is on tour.

There are 130 cast, crew and orchestra members directly involved in each performance.

Phantom has played in 15 countries, with shows being staged in 82 cities around the world. More than 58 million people have seen the show, with gross box office takings amounting to more than £1.5 billion worldwide - £86 million in London alone.

There have been more than 4,500 performances at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.

It has won 20 major theatre awards, including two Olivier awards, an Evening Standard award, seven Tony awards, including Best Musical, seven Drama Desk awards and three Outer Circle Critic awards.

The original London cast recording was the first in British history to go into the charts at number one. Since then it has gone gold and platinum in the UK and United States, selling more than two million copies.

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