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 Durham
Marenghi
Lighting Designer
While still at school in
1974, Durham Marenghi started his interest in lighting design at the
amateur Preston Playhouse in Lancashire - the proud owners of a ten
channel electronic lighting desk alongside Junior 8 wirewound dimmers.
"I was given the pantomime to light," explained Durham,
"and the local paper gave me my first ever review: 'atrociously
lit by Durham Marenghi'. I took this as a personal challenge and have
been trying to prove the critic wrong ever since."
Durham worked in provincial
theatre at the Belgrade in Coventry and Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford
before moving to the Young Vic in London as resident lighting
designer. "For my first show I had nervously designed a very
'safe' rig. We sat down to start lighting and the director asked to
look at every circuit and what it did. He then kindly informed me that
there was nothing there he could use, told me to have another go, and
said he'd see me later that evening!"
"I now had two choices:
resign, or persuade the crew to re-rig the entire show to my original,
more innovative ideas and take the risk of being laughed out of the
building. I took the latter course, the director returned and
thankfully approved of the changes and the show garnered wide critical
acclaim. I even got a review in The Times - 'the first of The
Durham Marenghi's apocalypse like changes' - which was a distinct
improvement on my first critique!"
Durham then moved to the
Adelphi Theatre and freelanced lighting West End plays for which he
was paid mostly in T-shirts and poster credits. "The car launch
industry had just developed and the amazing Gary Withers had his
Imagination offices across the road in Maiden Lane. Andrew Bridge, who
I had met at Guildford, was Imagination’s resident lighting designer
and for the next five years I worked as production electrician for him
and other top designers including the legendary Joe Davis. Joe is
fondly remembered not only for his art but also for his fine sense of
humour with quotes such as...'My wife didn't know I drank until one day
I went home sober'."
Having made many friends and
contacts Durham took the plunge into designing again and for the past 20 years
his work has taken him all over the globe. He has lit such diverse
shows as the 'The Wall' in Berlin with Abbey Rosen, the closing
ceremony of the Hong Kong hand over, stadium events in Oman, opera
broadcasts from Red Square and Classical Spectacular in Australia.
Durham celebrated his seventeenth wedding anniversary in April
2001 with his
wife Jennie and has two teenage children, Robert and Helen.
First published in
Entertainment Technology online magazine. |
