I had a thrilling day last week in Manchester looking at the model box for the play at the Final Design Meeting. This was the moment when all the different production departments of the theatre (Lighting, Sound, Stage Management, Workshop, Wardrobe, Wigs and Make-Up, Props, etc) gather round the model box and look at how in practise they are going to realise Jaimie Todd’s design on stage.

It was like being given membership of the magic circle - solutions for the staging of: Canary Wharf; a drainable ditch; heavy rainfall; a rain of underwear; flying aeroplane seats; LEON pissing himself, were discussed - not in the contorted, mixed-metaphorical language of dramaturgy - but with pragmatism and calm. Refreshing for once not to think about why LEON’s pissed himself, but how he’ll manage the quick costume change afterwards with such a wet crotch.

Jaimie’s set is quite brilliant, and contains some spectacular surprises. I won’t spoil them by showing the model box in its fully unfurled state, but here’s a partial view of the state of the stage towards the end of the first scene:
 
The set has loads of things that fly down from the gigantic metal web at the top of the auditorium. On Jaimie’s box, these objects ascend and descend on pieces of thread. Coupled with several other concealed interactive features, these lend the model box the pre-adolescent appeal of a multi-featured

Despite the sanity with which the team discussed the design, I get the impression that this is going to be one of the more spectacular productions the theatre has mounted. I’ve been proudly telling people that we’d run out of flylines, though I think I may have slightly misunderstood: I can’t write in anything more now that flies. Indeed, it’s getting very late to add anything drastically new to the script, certainly in design terms.

Though redrafting certainly isn't over - there’s another draft due in two weeks time. On Tuesday I met Jo and Sarah at the NT (where Sarah is directing Matt Charman's Five Wives of Maurice Pinder), and I came away with lots and lots to think about. The big thing about the last draft was about being clear with myself about the characters – their backstories; the details of their quotidian engagement with the world; the staging posts on their journey. The effect of this was to turn parts of the play into an 18^th century novel – with characters explaining themselves with uncharacteristic verbosity. Lots of discoveries were made by doing this, but the job now is to find a way of wading in, cutting the big messy river-nests of exposition out, yet releasing the emotional ripples of this background into play’s directional flow (to use a very very contorted metaphor).