Real magic is going on in the RSC’s costume props, footwear and armoury department as festive show The Red Shoes goes on stage
There’s fairytale magic afoot within the RSC costume department.
Wondrous garments and splendid shoes are being weaved and hammered… Could it be the work of mice and elves in the night? Er, no actually, it’s the handiwork of some very talented real-life humans. Herald Arts has been invited to the Costume Workshop on Waterside to see what goes on behind the scenes for The Red Shoes.
Given the title of the show, perhaps unsurprisingly the first thing we spot as we enter the brightly-lit costume props, footwear and armoury room is some rather impressive footwear… From remarkably cute slippers shaped like otters, dagger-heeled red stilettos to, um, bloodied ballet slippers.
Playwright Nancy Harris has reset Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale into the 21st century, which runs funtil 19th January in the intimate surroundings of the Swan Theatre.
Directed by Kimberley Rampersad (associate artistic director of the Shaw Festival, Canada) in her RSC debut, The Red Shoes is both a magical story and cautionary tale of pride, vanity and how we all deserve to dance how we wish to dance. When an orphaned young woman (Karen) is taken in by some local do-gooders (Mariella and Bob), she is expected to be seen and not heard. Dazzled by a pair of beautiful shoes made by a magician-cum-shoemaker, she sees the chance to do and be so much more, but soon her feet betray her, taking her to places she does not wish to go.
Helping that come to life are around 30 craftspeople employed in the Costume Workshop, headed up by Alistair McArthur. There are five main departments: men’s costume, ladies’ costume; then three more teams: dyeing and painting, jewellery and millinery, and lastly costume props, footwear and armoury. There have been costumes made on site since at least the 1940s – which adds up to an awful lot of wimples and breeches.
The Costume Workshop is located opposite the RSC theatres in buildings behind the Grade II-listed former scene dock of the Memorial Theatre, which was constructed in 1887. The once notoriously higgeldy-piggeldy collection of rooms was given a massive £8 million overhaul a few years back, creating bright and airy spaces, and was completed in 2021. Back in the here and now, two of the costume props, footwear and armoury team – Vicky and Lynda – are concentratedly stitching away at some flamboyant headdresses, one a deer and the other a swan – while head of department Alan Smith welcomes myself and Herald photographer Mark. He’s been with the company an incredible 35 years.
“Luck had a lot to do with it,” says Alan of how he ended up with the plum job. “Right place, right time. I started here as a trainee in 1989.
”Like a hapless Alan Davies on QI, it’s not long before I make a confused gaff mixing up a prop with a costume prop.
“There’s a big difference between the two,” says Alan, something he’s undoubtedly had to explain many times previously.
“So a costume prop is something that is worn, and a prop is something that’s made by a completely different department.
“Props are things like furniture and suitcases and all that kind of stuff, whereas costume props are worn. That includes weapons and footwear.
“So this department is split into three kind of distinct areas: costume props, which are the things like the headdresses – although they are actually a collaboration between three departments – but anyway, costume props are things like that. “Then there are also items like sword belts and all that kind of stuff,” Alan pauses here, temporarily losing his thread, distracted by an actual thread that has made its way into his ear – a hazard of the job it would seem.
“Where was I? Oh yes, all the armoury – stuff used to fight – is made in-house using all sorts of different materials.
“And then there’s all the weird stuff: dog’s tails, furry wings and Captain Hook’s hook and all of that kind of thing. The footwear side covers basically from the knee down, including garters, spats and Richard III’s legwear.
“Whether items are in stock or bought in, they all go through the department, and are subject to amends and tweaks.”
Talking to Alan, you get the sense nothing would faze the department – no request too outlandish no design demand impossible. There seems to be a very fluid approach to the work and a lot of can-do spirit involved.
“It’s about finding a solution, that’s what it’s all about,” says Alan of the work. “I don’t think of myself as particularly artistic, I consider myself more of a problem solver. This is what I want it to look like, how am I going to make it look like that? So it’s not having this big artistic vision, that’s down to the designer. And Vic and Lynda are more artistic than I am.”
Both Vic and Lynda have also been with the company a fair few years, and have backgrounds in technical theatre and or textiles.The team don’t usually commence making until each production has started rehearsing, around six weeks before it opens, so lots to do. And they usually hear what’s on the season ahead the same time as the public.
Design-wise though, costume head Alistair will meet with the director and designer to devise an action plan.
“We get involved when there has been final design sign-off, and then that’s when we get an idea what it's supposed to look like. With Red Shoes the designer Colin Richmond did a presentation,” explains Alan.
The team have been given the prompt of ‘delicious darkness’ to work to – while the animal headdresses are part of a ‘beautified taxidermy’ theme.
“The unfortunate thing was we were deep into doing Othello at the time of the brief, which was quite a demanding show, so we had to put it on the back burner a little bit,” explains Alan.
“In the meantime, the costume supervisor, Chris Cahill, will start buying stuff, he’s getting fabrics and all that. And then at some point throughout that, Colin will actually come into each room and then discuss what he wants for each item.”
The team are clearly fans of designer Colin, and name 2017’s Roman comedy Vice Versa and 2021’s festive show, The Magician’s Elephant, with its old time circus-cum-Parisienne chic, as some of their fave productions to work on.
“You always get a fantastic design from Colin. His drawings are currently on the walls of the costume department upstairs,” adds Alan.
“He’s obviously worked on the design for months and months.”
Revealing what happens next, Alan says: “Usually stuff does get divvied up – it’s, ‘well, you can do that one, and then you do that one, and then you do this, and then I’ll do that’.It’s a very organic thing.”
Collaboration is very much to the fore too.
“Like with the crow headdress,” says Alan pointing to a particularly sinister-looking black and beaky headdress with netting.
“Claire next door in millinery made the hat, I made the beak and wings and added the tulle – then it went to Claire in dyeing, before going to Helen who puts the finishing touches on it – little bits of paint here and there.
“One the shoemaker’s shoes is supposed to look like an eel. I’m putting some fins on it before it goes to Helen.
“As far as the actual process, it’s kind of like, ‘oh, I’d quite like to do that’. We couldn’t decide who wanted to do which animal headdress, so Vic and Lynda put the names – crow, swan, deer, hare, owl – in a cup, and have picked the names out.”
Alan is loathe to give too many of the secrets of the show yet, but does reveal the costumes to be colourful and fantastical (erm, you had us on ‘otter slippers’ on that one). One of the favourite characters they’ve been working on is Mariella.
“She is like the mother character that adopts the orphan, but she’s just like a do-gooder, and she’s all about social climbing, basically.
“There’s kind of 50s in her costume. Mariella’s got some fantastic dresses, including an amazing yellow leather coat, with a yellow hat and yellow shoes.
“She’s got one Christmas dress, which I’m doing the Christmas shoes at the moment,” says Alan twisting some holly around a red high-heeled court shoe – which I’m surprised to see is an ordinary Clarks shoe – although vintage-looking.
“These shoes are brought in second-hand. We try and be as green as we can – using the Green Book, an agreed eco approach for theatres. So we will buy used and repurpose them; or we’ll see what we have in stock. We try not to buy too much online if we can possibly help it – there’s a lot of second-hand shopping being done.”
He continues: “The shoemaker has a whole load of shoes in the play that are props as it were, not worn. So again, we’re working with the prop department in that they’re sourcing some shoes to go into shoeboxes and things. The eel shoes and bark shoes are worn, so they have been worked on by us.”
Alas despite the wonderful juxtaposition of having a real shoemaker make shoes for a pretend shoemaker, no shoes are actually made at the RSC.
“We don’t make shoes within the department,” explains Alan. “Because if we did that, we would do nothing else but make shoes. That’s all we would do. We’d need a workshop a lot bigger than the one we’ve got. So we adapt shoes.”
And what wonderful adaptions they are too.
Alan is particular chuffed with a pair of orange peel shoes on display fashioned by Lynda – the effect conjured by some cleverly worked and dyed orange leather on white court shoes to achieve the pleasing result.
“We can, obviously change the colour, but also the height of boots, make them taller, make them shorter, take them in, let them out…”
Those ‘orange peel shoe moments’ are Alan’s favourite part of the process.
“When you or one of the team gets something finished and you go, ‘oh yeah, that's really cool, that looks fantastic.’ I love that.”The most essential footwear that the team have had probably the least input on is the red shoes that Nikki Cheung – who plays Karen – must dance in, but there are decoy ones which have a red velvet look with a bit of glitter added.
“The problem with ballet shoes is because dancer is on point, you need to be really careful with the shoe, because they adapt them all to themselves,” says Alan demonstrating how dancer Karen has cut the bottom support of the shoe to make it more bendy.
“So with these ones here, she's obviously taken a piece of this out of here to give her a bit more flexibility, the only thing I've done with these is put some red dye on them, and other than that we don’t touch them – maintaining them is all down to the ballet dancer.”
(Plot spoiler: Alan’s also bloodied up a pair of pumps for when Karen gets her feet chopped off.)
Once the team have made any last tweaks following technical rehearsals, they are on to the next play: Twelfth Night.
Before we head out of the workshop where magic happens, there’s the inevitable last two essential questions: Alan’s favourite show and most unusual thing he’s made.
“Basically I like anything with armour in, but A Soldier In Every Sun designed by Eloise Kazan [from 2012], with amazing Aztec costumes with intricate leatherwork; more recently Cowbois, which with all the guns was great fun to work on.”And grinning at the memory of the most unusual request,
Alan reveals: “A gold lamé bondage suit sticks in my mind, it was for a Webster show. “I’ve done some very strange things,” he adds.
