West End performance

“It’s the first time I’ve had to move cable trunking so someone could fly through a stage,” laughs Gerry McGill, contracts manager at electrical contractor AJ Sibthorpe. But that was just what was required during a major refurbishment of the Prince Edward Theatre.

Opened in 1930 in London’s Soho, the five-storey Prince Edward is now owned by Delfont Mackintosh Theatres. The group is undertaking a series of refurbishments of its theatres and a change of shows at the Prince Edward gave the opportunity to carry out the work. The theatre could close for the duration of the upgrade from September to 5 December 2004.

The project involved refurbishment of all front-of-house areas and auditorium; major works to the stage area to accommodate the needs of the new show Mary Poppins; plus an upgrade of the back-of-house areas and dressing rooms.

Kinvara Group firms AJ Sibthorpe and Clic won two contracts on the project. The first was in the theatre: it was the preferred bidder for an electrical subcontract awarded by main contractor Vivid Interiors. This involved the upgrading and rewiring of the electrical installation to the front-of-house areas. It included the installation of merchandising areas and five new bars at various levels throughout the theatre, a full refurbishment of the foyer and box office, provision of power for the toilets and new air conditioning system, plus the upgrading of some auditorium lighting.

The firm’s second contract was directly to the client and involved upgrading of the electrical and lighting systems in the back-of-house dressing room areas. A fact that would prove very useful during the project was Clic previously upgraded the electrical wiring on the Prince Edward during a 1992 refurbishment.

Two factors stuck out in the project, its fast-track nature and the fragmentation of the work. “It’s not like big office spaces, there are lots of little nooks and crannies,” stresses McGill.

Unlike most large projects, the lead-in time for AJ Sibthorpe’s work in the theatre was short. It had seen some design work prior to coming to site, but as Clic’s contracts manager Fred Williams explains: “There were no pre-design meetings and no pre-contract meetings, it was straight in at the deep-end.”

On arrival at site, the firm began enabling works and costings while the design was being progressed. This time allowed for valuable testing of the existing circuits as, to minimise costs, some were to be re-used. “We tested them, proved they were okay and used the existing lighting circuits. During enabling works things were being tested and marked so that we could follow them up afterwards,” explains Williams.

“We had to work quite closely with the consultants on the design,” explains McGill, “because it wasn’t complete before we actually started.”

Electrical circuitry

In the theatre, the LEB incomer enters at sub-basement stalls level, feeding into the central switchroom. The existing dimmer equipment was retained and the main switch panel upgraded, with more circuits added to cater for additions such as glass washers and ice makers in the bars.

From here the main riser carries general and power cabling the height of the building. As it is not a listed building there were no associated problems with cabling routes, however much of the original features have been retained plus some of the routes were solid brick walls. This was overcome to a certain degree by using existing routes, which is when the work the firm completed previously came into play. Plans showing the building’s services had been lost, so trying to reuse cabling was not as simple as it may seem. “When they were altering the structure of the building, often they would expose existing cabling,” explains McGill. “That would be tested or refixed.” The advantage the firm had here was some of the staff who had completed the previous installation still work for it and were employed on this job – they had memory of some of the routes.

Distribution of power at floor levels is generally above ceiling and feeds down. The products used had to be carefully specified. Williams explains: “The local licensing authority are very strict with their requirements and carried out pre-inspection and post-inspection of the work.” The main issue was fire safety and meant the use of lsf cables throughout, which was understood and planned in advance. “[Westminster Council] is good in that they look after so many theatres they understand the problems. The engineer who came here deals with all the theatres down Shaftesbury Avenue, so he can stiputlate quite strongly the materials that we use,” he adds.

There is a separate LEB supply and switchroom for the dressing rooms. Work in this area involved the upgrading of 30 dressing rooms over five storeys – installing showers, new lighting and waist-height trunking with power outlets. 25 W golfball lamps were specified for the mirror lighting, creating a traditional look; again local authority approval was needed for these. An unusual feature was the conversion of some dressing rooms into classrooms; these act as a school for the children in the show.

Location, location

The location of the theatre played a part in the deliveries and site offices. It is in a very busy area of London, with narrow surrounding streets. “You can’t even park without a warden appearing,” stresses Williams. This meant that outdoor site cabins were out of the question, so AJ Sibthorpe and Vivid were based in the theatre foyer for the duration of the project, moving out during the final week to enable works to be completed.

Deliveries were “difficult” and storage space was limited. Close co-ordination with the wholesalers and early morning deliveries helped to overcome problems. For storage, McGill explains: “We brought in enough to do each area at a time. We tried to keep enough materials on site for two weeks at a time.”

Sibthorpe had 10-15 operatives on site at peak. These operated in small teams and moved around the theatre as work demanded. Vivid Interiors had an m&e engineer in overall charge of the project and weekly meetings ensured progress. Communications between team members were mainly by mobile phone.

Williams puts much of the success of the project down to those working on it. The number of operatives on site was limited by the spaces in which they were working so experience played a big part.

Sibthorpe’s foreman has worked on the National and other theatres so knew what to expect. “I think you do need special skills,” concurs McGill. “You need to know the philosophy of front-of-house and back-of-house...you need to know your way around the regulations...you need to know how the dimming systems work. Its not just your average contract.”

“The consultants are very good as they deal with theatres. The architects are theatre architects; they just finished the Prince of Wales before we came here so they are used to dealing with theatre problems. So you’ve got a specialist team that deals with theatres, who know the regulations and know the requirements of the local authority.”