Carols, Costumes and Christmas

Costumes, Christmas & Sparkles

Creating stunning outfits is all part of the job for freelance costume designer, Angela Whatling. Here Angela explains what’s involved in the day-to-day job of a costume maker at the Mercury theatre.

Image credit: Marc Brenner

Have you always wanted to work as a costume maker? I have had a couple of different careers prior to becoming a costume maker. I was previously an accountant and then an early year’s practitioner until one day someone asked me if I could do anything for a job what would it be? I answered that I would like to make costumes for a living, which I had been doing for a few years for my daughters and local amateur dramatic groups. The question stayed with me and I started to look at how I could turn my dream into a reality.

How did you get into the line of work and what would you advise those who are interested? Getting started wasn’t easy but fortunately I had friends that worked in theatre and work started to come in slowly, it was the Mercury Creatives scheme that really helped my career. The scheme taught me a lot about starting out in the industry especially the importance of networking, along with areas such as finance, marketing and contracts. The whole scheme really helped, and my mentor Corinna Vincent was great, she gave me the confidence to believe in myself as this didn’t come easy to me when I was starting out. I wouldn’t be working in this industry or be as successful without her.

Would you recommend a career as a costume maker? As for career choices I love it and would recommend it to anyone interested. Each working day is different and there are many ways of being creative. You never know what the next project might be, and by bringing to life a designer’s drawing and seeing it is a thrill each and every time a new creation is put on the stage.

Also, in my experience, I’ve found everyone in the industry to be very friendly and supportive. Are you part of a team of costume makers and designers at the Mercury? I am a freelance costume maker and supervisor and have my own studio at home, however I am always happy when I’m in the workroom at the Mercury alongside other freelance costume makers and the two permanent members of wardrobe staff. They have become great friends as well as colleagues.

The Mercury are respectful of freelancers and they make us feel as included as any permanent members of the whole production team.

What are the day-to-day activities of a costume maker? Each day is different it could be dressing a show, creating a pattern, fitting costumes onto performers, maintenance, or making the costumes.

Image credit: Marc Brenner

Image credit: Marc Brenner Image credit: Craig Fuller

How far in advance do you work to make a costume for a theatre production? Work varies as some costumes are needed urgently. At the Mercury, costumes are made in the four-week rehearsal period for a show, while pantomime is started earlier due to the number of costumes and fitting it around other productions.

Are there any costumes you have created that you’re proud of? I am proud of all my creations however some I have more of a fondness for especially when they have been challenging to make. A few years back I made Princess Auroras dress (from Sleeping Beauty) and her finale dress, which had over 3000 sequins attached by myself on it.

The actor playing Aurora cried with joy when she first saw it and you could hear the audience gasp when she came out for the finale, that was a great highlight. Also making a stunning red dress for Lola in Kinky Boots. Is there a costume that you would like to make for a particular production? I would love to make a show girl costume or design and create something for someone flamboyant like Lady Gaga or Kylie Minogue.

What is the largest theatre production you’ve been involved with? I have had some amazing opportunities so far and worked in many theatres all of which are magical to me. I guess the one most famous would be Sadlers Wells. For me it’s more about the production and what is being performed and required from me, the harder the challenge the bigger the satisfaction.

What are you looking forward to working on in 2022/2023? The Mercury have some very exciting productions planned for the rest of this year and 2023 which I hope to be involved in, and as a freelancer who knows what new project will come along. It’s what makes it exciting!

Image credit: Marc Brenner

You can marvel at the costumes this Christmas at the magical Mercury panto of Beauty and the Beast. Running from Saturday 26 November 2022 to Sunday 15 January 2023, this classic tale is as old as time and is unmissable family fun. Suitable for ages fiveyears-old and over, tickets cost £15 - £32.50. For more information visit: www. mercurytheatre.co.uk/event/ beauty-and-the-beast or see the listings on page 40.

A Christmas Carol in Colchester

‘They were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city... Here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up...’ (Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’)

Supported by Essex County Council’s Arts and Cultural Fund, the Christmas Carol Experience is to bring an interactive festive trail to Colchester. Here we find out more from the Christmas Carol Experience team.

How did the Christmas Carol Experience start? The Christmas Carol Experience began life as a live-performance show in 2016 and was performed in the atmospheric and historical chapel at Layer Marney Tower. The cast of performers have been coming together every year since, except 2020.

This year we decided to embark on an exciting project to bring the musically accompanied story to thousands more people, by transforming it into a digitally accessible, freely available experience throughout Colchester, 24-hours a day during the Christmas period.

How many years has the Christmas Carol Experience been running? The performance has been running every year since 2016 (except for the Christmas of 2020), when despite our optimistic preparations, the restrictions at the time wouldn’t allow for it. Over time, it’s moved from Layer Marney - where it spent its first two years - to touring a variety of venues across Essex and Suffolk and annually features in a charity concert for local causes. This is the first year since its inception that we are transforming the experience for the city centre, alongside running our usual live performances.

What can visitors look forward to during the six weeks? With their phone in-hand and a pair of headphones, visitors will listen to the single-actor narration, bringing life to a raft of well known and much loved Dickens characters, accompanied by the Christmas Carol closeharmony vocal group composed of professional singers.

Supporting the 12 chapters of our retelling will be the installations of work by eight local artists and four local community groups. The variety and creativity of the artists involved in the project is incredibly exciting and showcases just some of the talent and imagination around the county.

The trail brings together interactive and thought-provoking digital animation, mosaic and textural weaving, abstract oil painting, millinery and lacework, beautiful glass painting, and multidimensional illustrations.

What form is the production going to take? We’re presenting an audio narration of an original adaptation of Dickens Christmas Carol, which will take people on a twelve-stop festive trail around Colchester centre.

At each stopping point - which can be engaged with as standalone points of interest or part of the full route - a currently disused shop window will be transformed into a moment of Christmas magic. A QR code will lead to a narrated chapter of the story accompanied by a beautiful mix of original and

favourite classic Christmas music, while within each window, one of our eight local artists and four community groups will produce a thought-provoking and creative installation that represents the story, themes or characters of the chapter.

How will people be able to take part? Anyone visiting Colchester will find our Christmas windows throughout the city centre and they can listen to the musically accompanied chapters by scanning the QR codes at each location.

The artwork will be audio-described and the chapters captioned for those requiring it. The full narration is also something that will be available to those with reduced mobility to access at home.

How has the Arts and Cultural Fund helped your organisation? The Arts and Cultural Fund has been invaluable in allowing us to run the festive trail at the scale we have planned this year.

Do you have any future projects you could tell us about? During December we’ll be touring our live production around the county and further afield. These performances include venues in Bures and Dunmow, and also a very special new theatre dining experience in the new Colchester café, Patch.

For future projects, we have plans to bring the festive trail to other Essex cities and towns and showcase local artistic talent and creativity, as well as continue the tours of our live show.

The free Christmas Carol Experience trail is running from Wednesday 16 November 2022 to Sunday 8 January 2023 in Colchester city centre. For more information visit www.christmascarol festivetrail.co.uk

A Winter Window Wonderland

The Grand Theatre of Lemmings will bring a magical Winter Window Wonderland alive this year with a light festival featuring bands, street theatre and much more. Here we talk to The Grand Theatre of Lemmings to find out more about them and what they have planned.

How did The Grand Theatre of Lemmings start? The Grand Theatre of Lemmings was set up in 1984 after the founder members met working at an alternative theatre company in London, and after two years of touring with them we decided to establish The Grand Theatre of Lemmings. That way we could take our own brand of slapstick comedy and tour the theatres and festivals in both the UK and worldwide.

What can people look forward to? The Winter Window Wonderland is on in Manningtree from Thursday 1 December to Saturday 24 December and on each night an illuminated window will be unveiled, just like an advent calendar.

On Saturday 17 December we’ll have a winter light festival with street theatre, illuminated bands, stilts and much more. Also, they’ll be a family light parade from 6.00pm with local drummers, lanterns and banners. All the preparation for the event will be taking place during November and December.

How will people be able to take part? With workshops taking place in November and window displays, a light parade and street theatre in December there’s plenty for people to enjoy. Also, it’s an open access event so we don’t have limits on numbers so people can turn up and enjoy themselves.

All the activities will be advertised in advance, either through social media or on a more local level with leaflets and posters. If anyone would like to know more we can also be contacted at: lemmingstheatre@icloud.com How has the Arts and Cultural Fund helped your organisation? Quite simply, the Arts and Culture Fund gives us the opportunity to grow the festival, employ artists and practitioners and deliver a great family arts event which also helps to further embed us in our local community.

Do you have any future projects planned? Currently, we’re planning on producing a children’s theatre and storytelling festival in Tendring in 2023 but we’ll release more details about it sooner to the time.

To find out more about The Grand Theatre of Lemmings or the Winter Window Wonderland visit: www.lemmingstheatre.co.uk

What kind of art practitioners have you worked with in the past? We’ve worked with a wide range including Walk The Plank on Sparks Will Fly, the Essex Olympic Project and Danny Boyle on his 14-18 Now Armistice project on West Beach in Clacton.

We’ve also worked with 100’s of local creative practitioners and artists as we ran The Tendring Children’s Carnival for 10 years. We also regularly program a huge range of outdoor arts companies into festivals. Have you held an event like this before? Yes, we’ve held festival events in all five of the major Tendring towns. Currently, we’re touring an event to 16 Essex libraries, festivals and schools as well as nationally and internationally.

‘Lost’ historic map found in family home

An original map by John Walker which was thought to have been lost is now in the Essex Record Office (ERO) after it was discovered in 2020 in a family home.

The survival, discovery and purchase of the twenty-seventh map by John Walker is of great importance to the ERO. The ‘lost’ map was privately purchased from the former owner thanks to the Friends of National Libraries which covered the full cost.

In the 1960s the County Archivist of Essex, K.C. Newton, and his deputy, A.C. Edwards, wrote The Walkers of Hanningfield: Surveyors and Mapmakers Extraordinary (Chelmsford, 1985) which explored the works of Essex’s famous father and son cartographers, John Walker.

Between 1584 to 1628, the Walkers produced 35 beautifully coloured and surveyed unique maps. The maps are prized in Newton and Edwards words as “outstanding Elizabethan and Jacobean estate maps by two gifted cartographers” and now more than half of the originals are preserved at the ERO in Chelmsford.

However, Newton and Edwards could not find any information about the whereabouts of a unique coloured map by John Walker junior as it hadn’t been seen since 1925 and all they could conclude was “original now lost”.

The map was made for the estate owner Stephen Beckingham and known to cover 266 acres in the two adjoining parishes of Tolleshunt D’Arcy and Tolleshunt Major and was characteristic in the Walkers colourful approach. Unfortunately, a black and white photocopy was all that was available to historians.

However, in November 2020 it was revealed that the original map had been hung on the wall behind glass in the home of the direct descendants of the Beckingham family and was now available for sale.

Having purchased the Walker map, it became apparent that during the 20th century part of an 1876 Ordnance Survey map - at six inches to the mile - was framed with it and had been marked with the field boundaries of the Walker map as they later appeared. Both the Walker and the Ordnance Survey maps have been removed from the glass frames and are now retained in the original form as a single map which can be viewed on request at the ERO.

Richard Anderson, ERO Archive and Collections Lead, said: “This map of Tolleshunt D’Arcy and Tolleshunt Major is not just an elegant artefact but a source for domestic architecture, cartographic history and local studies.

“Given that it’s been hung on a wall for so long, the colouring of the map is remarkably well preserved. It’s unlikely that the opportunity to acquire a map by John Walker will ever emerge again and it is thanks to the Friends of National Libraries that it can be kept publicly and permanently available at the ERO.”

The ERO is to mark its acquisition with an article for the Friends of Historic Essex and an image will be available at Essex Archives Online.

For more information about the ERO and forthcoming events please see the ‘Events Listings’ on page 40 or visit: www.explore-essex.com/ places-to-go/find-whats-near-me/ essex-record-office

Map of Beckingham estates in Tolleshunt D’Arcy and Tolleshunt Major in Essex by John Walker, 1616.

Images courtesy of ERO