THE ECHOISSUE 15 // JULY 2020

PLUS40 years of sound engineering // Interview with Scott Arnold // Employment rights and tax status // Cute kittens!

SHOWCASE: SIX

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COVERSix the Musical(© Johan Persson)

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THE ECHO

Showcase: Six the Musical

took a punt and asked to visit the theatre tolook around, which Mike kindly obliged. I madefriends there and gradually worked myway into the fold of the crew, working in all techdepartments, but with a heavy focus on audio.Mike was generous enough to let me loose onsome light sound design duties and contentcreation for shows in the studio theatre. Theseed was planted.

The TRP was a major producing house andmany of the first-class national tours were (andstill are) built and co-produced there. This gaveme amazing access and opportunities to meetthe big gun freelancers and Sound Designersfrom London, many of whom are close friendsto this day.

From Plymouth, I made a conscious decision torelocate to London after interviewing for theNo.3 sound position at Miss Saigon, playing atTheatre Royal Drury Lane. Over the next fewyears I followed a natural industry progressionof sound operating and freelancing, movingthrough the ranks. I then branched off inanother deliberate direction towards production

Spending an hour with the wives of Henry VIIImight not, in the first instance, make you thinkmusical theatre, but that is exactly the topic ofhit musical Six: a journey exploring the untoldstories of these women. With a cult followingand a rapid proliferation of productions openingin Australia, UK and the USA, as well as more inthe planning, this is a busy time for sounddesigner Paul Gatehouse. We caught up withPaul as the production was mid-preview periodon Broadway.

What was your route into theatre sounddesign?I became intrigued by sound engineeringthrough work experience at my local theatre,Theatre Royal Plymouth. I was heavily into musicand live performance at school and was lookingfor an outlet to turn that hobby into a career.After initially volunteering at a Hospital Radioservice, I then got in touch with Mike Palmer,the theatre’s Head of Sound at the time. Thetheatre used to transmit audio-describedperformances via an ISDN line – (rememberthose!?). During testing of that line one day, I

Sound Designer: Paul GatehouseComposers: Tony Marlow, Lucy MossAssociate Designers: Charlie Smith (UK), Josh Millican(US), David Tonion (AUS)Production Sound Engineer: Josh Richardson (UK),Dillon Cody (US)Sound operator: Sarah Sendell (No.1 London), WillMiney (No.2 London), Josh Millican (A1 New York),Kate Munchrath (A2 New York), Gemma Johnston(No.1 UK Tour), Monty Evans (No.2 UK Tour), Anusha‘Switch’ Matthews (No.1 Australian Tour), Ghiovannade Oliveira (No.2 Australian Tour)

DOMINIC BILKEY

Six the Musical 2019, with Jarneia Richard-Noel, Courtney Bowman,Danielle Steers, Natalie Paris, Alexia McIntosh and Vicki Manser.(© Eleanor Howarth)

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work. I was intrigued by all the developing techand began programming and assisting for MickPotter after working for him as Head of Soundon the Saturday Night FeverUK Tour. This led to aworking relationship as his Associate for overten years, taking me all over the world, involvedin hundreds of productions.

My design career developed out of my busyassociate work and through a long-standingworking relationship with Cameron MackintoshLimited (CML), I was presented withopportunities to take on new versions of histitles, and from there I’ve been working as a full-time designer.

How did you become involved with Six?George Stiles, who I’ve worked with many timesthrough his writing work with CML (Mary Poppins,Betty Blue Eyes), approached me with a projecthe’d become involved with as executive producer.It was an offer that came completely out of theblue. Kenny Wax, another exec producer, sent mean early demo of one of the songs on YouTube andI loved the hook of the song.

There had been two previous iterations, onebeing the initial student production that thewriters Toby and Lucy put on at the EdinburghFestival with their mates, and then a semi-produced showcase at The Arts. Kenny, George,

and Andy and Wendy Barnes (our third set ofexec producers) teamed up, assembled acreative team and fully produced the first UKTour, which incorporated a run at the followingEdinburgh Fringe and a short residency at TheArts Theatre in London.

The show has grown speedily with multipleproductions now open throughout the world.What was the process in getting here?We set about designing the ‘staged concert’concept from the brief given to us by Toby andLucy. It needed to feel like a Beyonce concert,heavily influenced by her Live At Roseland showin New York and provide a platform for TheQueens to tell their stories. The book and songswere fully formed. We had productionrehearsals with full band and sound at DanceAttic in London, before tech’ing the show at TheNorwich Playhouse, which was a tight squeezeto say the least! During the course of the run inNorwich, and through to the Ed Fringe, it wasclear that excitement was building throughsocial media and a solid fan base was formed,which then resulted in an extension to the tourand a transfer to The Arts, as an official ‘WestEnd’ run.

How has the show developed since this initialinception?As we’ve grown in size, we’ve been able to add

more production elements which reinforce theimpact of the story telling. Through costume,set, lighting and sound it puts the centralcharacters in a really strong place to get theirmessage across. The biggest change for soundwas in the move to Broadway, we were able touplift the design to an object-based processusing d&b Soundscape, with fully tracked vocalobjects (using TiMax D4 Tracking) for TheQueens. This allows the audience to lock on towhomever is the focal point and also addsdimension to the multi-part harmonies andgroup BVs.

How did you achieve the show prior to usingd&b Soundscape on the Broadway production,and what changes has Soundscape made?For the non-Soundscape version I used a matrixof speakers upstage of the band to giveinstruments a localised element, which we wereable to replicate even further with Soundscape,but without needing the source speakers.Vocally, with Soundscape the tracking is a gamechanger. Your attention is immediately drawn towho is singing or speaking and it again elevatesthe dynamism of the performance. The movingsound image reinforces their demand of yourattention at all times.

When we transferred to Broadway, as part ofthe Soundscape uplift, we turned the system

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into a 360 version and made the addition ofsurround speakers, which enabled us to widenthings out in every dimension again. We use theEn-Space algorithm within Soundscape oncertain track elements to give them earlyreflections and depth, and dynamicallymanipulate objects via OSC from QLab aroundthe room to add extra dynamics to theorchestrations. These would be sweeps, risers,pads, booms, etc. Lots of ear candy and popproduction elements that Tom Curran, ourOrchestrator, has brilliantly put together.

What were the biggest challenges for you onthis show?More of a conscious design principal than achallenge, was to make sure the sound of theshow was narrative led, even though we are in apop concert setting. In other words, get thevocals to have a crystal focus within the highSPL and dense music sound-field. This led to anearly decision to use handheld vocalmicrophones for the whole delivery of the show,which worked in harmony with the pop iconimagery.

The premise of the show is that The Queenscompete in a competition to become the leadsinger of the group (called SiX) bydemonstrating who had the worst experiencesduring their marriage to Henry VIII. The Queens

Paul Gatehouse

Seeing a showgrow to whereit has, in thetime it has, isincredibleand I feelvery lucky tobe involved.

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address the audience constantly through thefourth wall, so even when they speak to eachother we are always being included in theconversation. The use of handhelds reinforcesthis concept well, as opposed to only usinghandhelds for songs and other head worn micsfor dialogue.

With a strong design concept based aroundnarrative storytelling with handheld mics, whatis your relationship with the directors Lucy Mossand Jamie Armitage like?They have really clear ideas about the sound ofthe show and what their influences were. Intruth, it’s the same music as I love and listen toeveryday, so we really all knew what we wereworking towards from the get-go. I have abackground in studio production and I mixrecords, so a lot of those techniques and stylisticchoices are in the design of the show. Especiallyin the vocal production which is tight and slick,with layered multi-band and broadbandcompression from the console and plug-ins.The low frequencies are also really key, I spend alot of time working on the management ofthose key aspects.

Can you tell us a little about the shows dynamicand the sound that you have created for theshow? It has a great arc. It opens out from pre-show

music which is made up of contemporary popsongs re-styled in Tudor instrumentation, intoan all guns blazing concert opening whichintroduce the characters. We transition thougheach Queen’s solo number styled on pop divasof the day, moving through many musical stylesfrom Ariana Grande to Emily Sandé. Then weramp up through to The Queens comingtogether as a group in the title song Six andthen pump up the energy again with theMegaSix.

What were the challenges of working with alive band, balancing music and vocals? Whatabout sound effects?As we know, when working at high SPL thefrequency balance has to be on point, or it won’tbe able to be loud enough with a sound thatthe ear perceives to be balanced. As I mentionedbefore, dynamic and spectral management iswhat allows you to do this, especially in arelatively small space such as a theatre. Bydesign I have really clean sources from electricdrums, DI’d instruments and track so I can sculptthis with a high level of dependency. Thehandhelds (with DPA dfacto 4018VL capsules)also give me a tight pop vocal sound.

We then have a clear road map of the mix of theshow, so once the car is tuned up, the mixer canthrow it around the corners with confidence

and add to the dynamic excitement of theperformance.

Sound effects are minimal, we don’t re-createany sonic environments as we are directlyplanted into one, the concert world. The four-piece, all-female band are onstage and theaudience are our real-life crowd. We seeeverything that happens in real time so don’tneed any aural cues to help tell us what mightbe going on.

There are a couple of accented moments withelectronic phone-style FX, when Henry ischoosing his latest wife from the Hans Holbeinportraits, depicted in a mock Tinder scene byswiping left and right.

What is your favourite moment in the show?My favourite moment is what we call The Re-Mix, when the Queens, led by Parr, reclaim theirvoices from history and realise that competingand comparing themselves is pointless, and theyre-write their Her-story from that point to theend of the show. It’s an electric moment whichalways lifts the roof.

Did anyone else work with you?We would be nothing without our teams!Bringing a show from the Fringe to Broadwayhas involved a lot of people mucking in and

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going above and beyond in the early days. I can’tthank Charlie Smith, my UK Associate enoughfor putting in a crazy amount of work on themultiple productions that we’ve rolled out soquickly. Associates cover so many skill bases,drawing, logistics, programming, contentcreation, mixing, the list goes on. Become agood Associate and you’ll never be out of work!

Our New York team, Josh Millican (US AssociateSound Designer) and Kate Munchrath (A2Audio), did an incredible job of helping me toscale up the show for the biggest version we’vedone to date. And I have a great team ofProduction Sound Engineers around the globe,Josh, Kelsh, Dillon, Joe, Alan and David whoconstantly innovate and refine the process.

Luckily, every person on the team and everysound operator who works on the show reallyloves it and our creative team, production staffand companies around the world have anamazing family feel. Seeing a show grow towhere it has, in the time it has, is incredible andI feel very lucky to be involved. •

MORE INFOsixthemusical.com@paulgatehouse

Natalie Paris as Jane Seymour(© Eleanor Howarth)

The future of audio? It’s going to take a village

The old ways are unsustainable and the futureof our industry lies with the people of ourvillage, so says Scott Arnold, managing directorof Autograph Sound.

I sat down with Scott in a coffee shop inAutumn 2019, with the hope of expanding on athrow away comment he made during a paneldiscussion at PLASA London. He said thattheatre sound is working in an unsustainableway, but what I realised as we chatted was thatthis idea is fuelling a big change in howAutograph approach their position in theindustry. I quickly discovered two other things,Scott is a man with true passion, and theconversation was never going to pause longenough for me to grab a coffee! We chatted forhours about his passions; his work, his familyand his unshakable belief in Autograph andeverything Andrew Bruce has built there.

“I think it’s well known that I have suffered withanxiety and panic attacks for years. I am able to

manage my symptoms now, but 20 years ago, Iwasn’t so well equipped. Andrew saw that andgave me the time and the space to recover. Backthen it wasn’t OK to talk about mental health,we didn’t have the openness that we have now,so Andrew’s understanding really had an impacton me, along with the care and understandingof my wife, I was able to pick myself up andcarry on. I’d only been at Autograph for a fewyears when I realised couldn’t go on. I’d justmoved house and I couldn’t leave my room.Andrew recognised something in me andinvested in me. Now, twenty years later, he’sasking if I want to be managing director. I thinkit’s important for us all to understand thatwhen you invest in people they can goanywhere and be anything. If I didn’t have thatsupport and care, who knows where I’d be today.That’s why I think it’s so important to talk aboutit, so that people can see; if I can do it, they cantoo.”

It’s Scott’s personal experiences that have

ZOE MILTON

Scott Arnold

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focused his approach nurturing his team atAutograph.

“We have seven Mental Health First Aiders(MHFA) on site. It’s easy to say, ‘come and talk tome’, but it’s not always simple to talk to theboss. Talking is therapy: sitting and chattinghelps everyone. So we make sure that everyonewho comes into the building knows that optionis available to them.

It doesn’t have to be a specific mental healthissue; it might just be something that’s makingyou feel uncomfortable. We’ve also provided adedicated phone number, so our people can calla person and talk, if that’s easier for them. Wemake sure everyone knows the number.”

“We have close ties with Back Up, the technicalcharity. They’re such a great organisation. Theyare there for you if you have a physical injury orillness stopping you from working, but they’realso able to help you if you have a mental healthissue that is affecting your work too. It’samazing to see the difference in people thathave had that support, they go from beingclosed down and quiet, to going off like a rocket.We have to look after each other. We’re at anadvantage here because our people areenthusiastic and want to succeed. So, if they arehaving a problem, they’re more likely to ask forhelp.”

Scott sees the entire theatre audio clan as avillage, not just the employees of Autograph. Heis determined to protect and nurture the peopleof that village.

“The West End and a little bit of New York areour village, nothing can happen really withoutsomeone knowing. There’s always a linkbetween us all, someone you know, who knowssomeone else… There are obviously positivesand negatives to that, but I prefer to concentrateon the positives. We are all about ourrelationships, it’s what I spend my days doing. If Ican walk into the warehouse and say hi to ayoung person, ask them about their day andhow it’s going for them, it’s great. It has such a

positive effect on both of us. If six months later, Isee them in a theatre, working on a show, thenall the better. “

“Autograph is a place where people come towork, and stay for years, which is great becauseour staff are an important asset to us. But ifsomeone has the courage to see that they’velearnt all they can and it’s time to leave, thenthat’s brilliant too. We’re so excited to see ourcolleagues follow their dreams.”

“We’re all passionate about our industry. Thepeople who succeed in theatre are the peoplewho push to get things done, they stay laterthan they’re getting paid for, they send emailson their day off and they go the extra mile tomake sure that the show goes on. But you canbegin to rely on that, to expect that. So no timeis allowed for doing the show in a sustainableway. Budgets are being squeezed constantly andthat inevitably leads to a squeezing of people.”

How can we protect our teams?“I think it comes down to communication.Often, the people in charge of costing a showbudget have no understanding of whyequipment and people cost what they do. It’sdown to all of us to be more visual, morepresent and have those conversations so thatwe can educate producers and production

The Autograph summer party

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teams. If the rest of the teams understood whatwe were trying to achieve and how ourequipment did that, surely there would be morewillingness to make the budget available.”

“We have relationships with designers,producers, show staff and manufacturers. Wecommunicate with all of them and we all haveour part to play in fixing things for the future. Idon’t think we can sit here and say, ‘well,Autograph need to fix this, Producers need tochange that.’ It’s not that simple.”

“We’re all working towards making theatremore sustainable in all senses of the word.Manufacturers are developing new equipment,radio mics for instance, they’re taking up lessroom, physically and spectrally, but we still needto get used to the new pay structures. We’removing away from single use batteries, thenewest transmitters all come with rechargeable,integral batteries, but even this isn’t a smoothtransition, we are still explaining that thebatteries aren’t free, that they’re an expensiveconsumable, at least once a day, even thoughmoney and resources are being saved onpurchasing mountains of AA batteries andlicences!”

“It takes all of us, working together, to make theshow happen. Autograph are making changes,

we are involving ourselves with companies likeStage Sight to help educate the next generationof sound engineers, allowing children that havenever stepped foot in a theatre the opportunityto work with our fit-up teams all across thecountry, we’ve had students in Bristol andScotland.”

“If we have a big, five week fit up in a theatre,we’ll get hold of Stage Sight and they work withthe local schools to get applications for workexperience in. When you look at our village, itisn’t as diverse as it could be, it isn’t reflective ofour society. By teaming up with Stage Sight andtrying to employ people based on merit, we’retrying really hard to address that balance.”

“I believe Autograph has an obligation toeducate. When you’re in a hire companywarehouse, you’re exposed to lots of equipment.You’re learning all sorts, and importantlymeeting lots of people, you’re learning how tocommunicate. Even if you have your sights set

on being a designer, you still need to know howto coil a cable. We’re very lucky to have Jim, he’sso good at mentoring and developing youngtalent. It’s great to see kids that started off inthe warehouse a few years ago out in the WestEnd being Production Engineers and AssociateDesigners. If you can successfully communicatein that environment, you’re going to get work.”

“We have purposely tried to employ morewomen at Autograph. We’re still findingnegativity for women in some roles. But we’renot taking women on because we’re trying totick boxes, we’re taking them on because they’refantastic and there isn’t anyone better for thatrole.”

It was clear from chatting with Scott that theAutograph team are proud, passionate andplanning for the long term. It is going to takemore people with the passion that Scott exudesto ensure our industry can sustain itself, growand develop. •

When you look at our village, it isn’t as diverse as it could be, it

isn’t reflective of our society.”

What are you working on currently?Before Coronavirus I had just put in a show called OneJewish Boy at Trafalgar Studios. It’s a really excitingpiece about anti-semitism in the modern-day world,and one of the most tech-heavy shows I’ve ever done.Unfortunately, it got shut after the first week... I’musing this time off to work on a few small short filmscores and read up more about that area, as well as allthose mundane tasks that pile up after a time, such assorting out laptop storage and hard drives...

What is the favourite part of your work?I really love meeting and working with a wide varietyof people! This community is so collaborative andvast, and I am so happy to work in an environmentthat can show off the talents of everyone regardlessof who they are. The sound design industry is such asupportive community, everyone is there to help youout and teach you what you want and need to know.There is nobody that I know of that doesn’t likegiving knowledge if you need anything. I know I couldcall anybody and they will try to help me straightaway.

What would you change about the industry?I guess, the normality of ‘burning yourself out’constantly, as proof to show you’re doing well.Sometimes when I do a show and I feel happy andnot stressed, I actually begin to get anxious thatsomething bad is going to go wrong and that Ihaven’t put in enough effort to wear me out. I feel alot of people are acclimatised to the norm that wemust be exhausted 24/7, running around constantly,and if you aren’t it somehow feels like you’re failing. I

think it’s important that for an industry that is verypro-mental health, that we practice what we preach,and start looking after ourselves more. It should bethe norm to be happy and enjoy your job!

What’s your top tip?Communicate constantly and give yourself a break ifyou need one. Remaining clear with everyone aboutwhat’s going on in your team eliminates thepossibility of letting them down in the future. Also,when tension build-up you cannot underestimate theability of a 10-minute walk in the fresh air. Being inthe dark and dust can heighten tensions, it’simportant to get outside when there’s a break toreset and allow yourself to carry on working at suchhigh quality for a long period of time!

What are you listening to at the moment?I’ve been listening to lots of coding music recently,which is really interesting as it’s another way toexperiment with composing but without necessarilyfalling into what sounds best for the ear andtraditional composing techniques. I’ve been reallyenjoying listening to how bizarre the world is at themoment and using the overwhelming quiet streetsand wonderous applause on Thursday’s as a chance torecord, and also to really listen to how rich andbeautiful natural soundscapes are.

Mini profileBETH DUKE

What is your current (or recent) project and role?I’m currently working as music supervisor andcreative producer for a new musical called Magdalen.

What is the favourite part of your work/process?I love dissecting a script and envisioning theinstrumentation and sounds that will best underscoreeach character’s emotional journey.

What would you change about your work / theindustry?At the time of writing, I dream of the day whenpeople are packed into theatre seats again, andpreferably enjoying a glass of wine without a facemask on... But It would be great to see more paidapprenticeships to pair emerging talent with highlyexperienced sound designers.

What’s your top tip?I use Spotify a lot to create audio mood boards, andtheir recommendation tools are a goldmine fordiscovering new music.

What are you listening to at the moment?Nicolas Jaar Cenizas.

JULIE BLAKE

Mini profile

Zoom H5I love this portable recorder because, even withthe built-in microphones it is great quality, it islarge enough to be easy to operate (smallerones can be SO fiddly!), but still small, and itdoubles as a good and reliable soundcard forwhen I’m on the road. Most times I’mcomposing, ideas start as a little sketch recordedonto this from my piano or guitar – or even mejust singing into it on the street. Also great forrecording interesting noises I hear whenwandering around – material to subsequentlyabuse in Abelton. I realised ages ago that havingsomething in rehearsals that you can just bringout in a moment of creative impetus to makerecordings in rehearsals is more important thanwaiting for a time you can bully people into astudio. The Moment being more important thanthe sound quality in many cases and no onewants to hang around for you in rehearsals. Ithas two XLR inputs so you can put posh micsinto it as well. Best of all it looks like a prop froma Doctor Who episode. I try to have it on me atall times.

A few of my favourite things

NICK POWELL

Nick’s work as a composer and sound designer intheatre includes: The Lehman Trilogy (also West Endand New York – Olivier Award Nomination for SoundDesign and Drama Desk Award Nomination forOutstanding Music in a Play) The Tell-Tale Heart andOthello at the National Theatre; Julius Caesar at TheBridge; Solar at Klangwolke; The Ferryman (Tony AwardNomination for Sound Design and Drama Desk AwardNomination for Outstanding Sound Design), TheNether, X, Unreachable, Get Santa! and The Vertical Hourat the Royal Court; Lanark at the EdinburghInternational Festival; Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodiesand Dunsinane for the RSC; 27, The Wheel and TheWonderful World of Dissocia for National Theatre ofScotland and Edinburgh International Festival. Nick also writes extensively for TV and film. He is halfof OSKAR, who have released two albums andproduced art installations for the V&A and CCA, aswell as written live soundtracks for Prada in Milan. In2017, he scored Bloom, the opening event of theEdinburgh International Festival and theGuggenheim, Bilbao’s 20th anniversary celebrationReflections. His chamber piece Cold Calling: The ArcticProjectwas presented by Birmingham Rep with theCity of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

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Squire Telecaster Made in Korea S998232I bought this guitar when I was really youngbrand new for around £100 around 1990 andI’ve had it ever since. It’s been thrown around,cried on, bounced off stages and generallyabused but it has always survived and I still useit on most things I do. Recently, I realised (withsome horror) how long I’d owned it, so I thoughtI would celebrate our relationship by giving it amakeover. I took it to Stairway To Kevin inDenmark St and gave it The Works, includingnew Fralin pick-ups and now it soundsAMAZING. I love it like a sibling (we do still havebad days but we’re in it for the long haul). Oneday I’ll learn how to play it properly.

OK, this will sound corny but… final one is…collaborators! Sometimes, you’ve got to go to your ‘cave’ andgo through the horror of solo creation – be itmusical or sound design or whatever, but, assomeone riddled by self-doubt, I am completelydependent on the support and the buzz ofbouncing ideas off other creative people. I’m notgoing to do a list of names but I’ve beenincredibly lucky with who I have ended upworking with, be it the engineers and associateswho have been so supportive at working outhow to technically bring ‘back of a fag packet’ideas to life, to directors, writers, designers,lighting designers, video artists, actors and theamazing musicians who through their skills andthrough creative conversations and late nightsstill keep the juices flowing. Oh, and the fightsare important too!

It’s been a few years since I first stepped footinto the quiet still of a dark theatre. Thepossibilities held in that silence still have thepower to excite me today, but much haschanged in the intervening years. Not only interms of technology, but in the way we do ourjobs. The technology at our fingertips meansthat we are much quicker to adapt and much

more flexible with what we can achieve. I satdown with Richard Sharratt, Jane Bloomfield,Tom Marshall and Vicki Hill to ask about theirfirst mixes and what they think has changedduring their careers.

I spoke to Richard Sharratt first, Richard startedout in 1978 and has mixed and designed someof the best shows seen by London audiencessince then, not least of which was mixing FOHfor the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics.

Richard SharrattMy first shows were in Rep’ at the SalisburyPlayhouse. I was an assistant electrician, doingmostly lighting but also the occasional bit ofsound. This involved playback from a couple ofRevox A77s. I then moved onto the LiverpoolPlayhouse as deputy chief electrician. We hadBose 802 speakers, a Tascam 8:2 mixer and RevoxA77 reel-to-reel tape machines (with photo-stops) and not very much in terms of liveelements. If you only have two possible sourcesof sound FX you can only have a SFX bed and the

First and last: forty years ofsound engineering

ZOE MILTON

occasional spot cue. There was no option to havelayered sound effects the way we can today.

At the Liverpool Playhouse I had my first musicalmix. They planned three shows Chish and Fips, ATale of Two Cities and Blood Brothers, anddecided to splash out on some soundequipment. The production manager looked in afew catalogues, ordered the bits and, as theboxes arrived, told me to get on with it. I wasyoung and keen; it was all very exciting. Once Igot my teeth into the boxes of audioequipment. I came to realise that sound wasactually much more interesting than lighting.Lighting involved dimmers, 15A plugs and nastyhot, sharp things whereas sound was a bit moresubtle with its delicate, expensive lookingequipment connected up with XLRs, jacks, multi-pins plus different sorts of flex for mics andspeakers, if you were lucky.

Radio mics were still quite new to theatresound. The mics were placed on the lapels of theactors’ costumes. We only had eight and in

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End mix, with Barbara Dickson at the LyricTheatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. The run only lastedsix months. We still only had eight radio mics.They were non-diversity Micron systems. Wehad to array the receivers across the consolemetre bridge. And we had to lift and turn themin order to avoid dropouts.

The PA was the newly introduced Meyer UPAsand USWs with Revox Piccolos for delays, fedfrom a Klark-Technik DN700 delay unit. I thinkthe mixer was a Trident Trimix. Jonathan Deansspent many hours cable-tying the PSU cablesinto a position where the hum becameacceptable. We did have a Lexicon 224 though,still my favourite reverb. There was only onesound effect that I recall. An air gun was firedtowards the rear of the stalls, as if at a statue,and the sound of it hitting its target was madeby me hitting an Anglepoise lamp with ascrewdriver. It got a laugh every night.

After the age of the Revox, Carts became thestandard playback medium. For each show youwould have a pile of Carts lined up and you hadto be very careful to get them in the right orderand not knock the stack over. I did that once, notonly did it make a horrendous noise, but you’vethen got to get them all back in the right orderbefore your next cue!The show control was entirely different too, we

Liverpool there wasn’t a No.2 backstage to fitthem. I think head worn mics arrived some timecirca 1984, maybe for Starlight Express? Iremember Siobhan McCarthy going into thestudio at Autograph to do experiments withhead worn mics around that time.

The size of the microphones was a limitingfactor. Until the Sennheiser MKE2 came out,mics were too big to be head worn. SonyECM50s were the norm, They measured nearly12mm in diameter and over 20.5mm in length,so they went on the clothes and the whole unit,transmitter and mic, was swapped from actor toactor. Generally, the cast swapped thembetween themselves, so you could never beentirely sure what you were going to get whenyou opened the fader.

I had very little clue what would work, so we didthings that might be frowned on or laughed atby people more in the know. Luckily, AndrewBruce came up to see Blood Brothers. He took itand me, to the West End. That was my first West

I had very little clue what would work, sowe did things that might be frowned on orlaughed at by people more in the know

Richard Sharratt

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had no mix compression, no gates or reverb aspart of the desk. If you did need reverb or aspecific effect, it was outboard. EQ and gainwere set on the channel, so no recalling adifferent EQ with your mic swap. We made flip-up paper legend strips for the channels to helpus remember mic changes. We only had 24input channels, so once you had a band and afew mics on the actors, that was it, there was nospace for massive multi tracked, layered soundeffects.

I think the focus of the audience was differentthen. At home, theatregoers would be happylistening to a mono speaker on their TV sets,which were showing a very limited choice ofprogramming – pre-VHS even, they didn’t havethe breadth of choice of modern audiences.There wasn’t the expectation to be as immersedin the show and the storytelling as there istoday. Our main aim was to try to makeeverything heard as clearly as possible, which,when you’re relying on just a handful ofrelatively untrustworthy radio mics and somefloat mics, could be tricky.

Although the technology was nothingcompared to what we have now we did have asense of being at the cutting edge. There wasalways some new, hugely expensive device thathad to be cajoled into doing what you wanted.

Bernouilli drives for playback, auto-locating 1/2"tape machines, Cadac desks with programmableVCAs, diversity radio mics. Things were made towork through improvising, because they had tobe. Going to B&Q on a Bank Holiday, buyingdrainpipe, cutting it into angled pieces and glue-gunning speaker drivers on the end to makedelays for Phantom of the Operawas just oneexample of what we had to do to make thingswork.”

In the late 70s and early 80s manufacturerswere not creating equipment specifically fortheatre. Everything needed to be adapted to suitthe very different needs of theatricalperformance. Until Abe Jacob convinced JohnMeyer to design the UPA-1 speakers weregenerally unsuitably large for centralproscenium positions. Speakers were not theonly things being adapted for the theatre, in the80s microphone placements were still beingrefined, and radio mics were still an expensiveoption, so their use was limited, and floatmic’ing more common. I asked Jane Bloomfieldwhich innovations she best remembers fromthat time.

Jane Bloomfield“It was just so exciting. We were all having fun,such interesting times. I was lucky to be workingwith some clever people, like Martin Levan, who

were really thinking outside the box, thinkingabout everything and pushing equipment to itslimits. On Starlight Express in Tokyo, we weren’tgetting the level we needed from the cast mics,so Martin handed me a piece of wire, a coathanger or something, and said try what you canto get them closer to the mouth. The Japaneseteam and I did all sorts of metal work to make aframe to get the mic closer and it was close toworking, but we were overloading the capsule,so Martin got them to put a resistor in-line andwe got there! It was always so fascinating to beworking with him. Months later the footagecame out of Madonna using a boom mic, butwe’d been using them on our tour across Japanfor a long while by then! Even when we workedon Napoleon at the Shaftesbury Theatre in2000, he was still doing unimaginable things,taking speakers out of their boxes, pointingthem into the dome and using computersoftware for sound playback. Being aroundpeople who were excellent meant that you werelearning all the time. We would just try thingsout.”

Of course, adapted equipment was notimmediately trusted. As new techniquesdeveloped and technology became more widelyused, reliability inevitably increased. Having agreater trust in your equipment allows a teamto use it more effectively. Building on the

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advances of the 70s and 80s meant that thenext generation of sound engineers werecoming in at an advantage. Our nextinterviewee, Tom Marshall explains how it feltto be part of this new wave of shows andequipment.

Tom first entered theatre as work-experience onMiss Saigon in 1993, it was that experience thatreally cemented his desire to work in theatresound.

Tom Marshall“I have to admit that prior to this I’d barely setfoot in a theatre and the idea of a sound systemlarger than a Revox and a few microphones hadnever entered my mind. I remember beingblown away by the huge amount of top-endequipment and watching the engineer’sprecision when it came to running it all. That’swhen I knew I wanted to work in theatre sound.

Half a year later I was offered the No.3 positionon Oliver! opening in the London Palladium in1994. I loved everything about this job, the show,the people, the theatre and of course theequipment. Designed by Mike Walker and PaulGroothuis, and run by Richard Brooker, thesystem was pretty much all analogue. A hugeCadac J-Type, arranged in a horseshoe shape,with over 90 channels, controlled the show. I’d

heard of these desks and spent a bit of timecleaning and testing them when I was on workexperience at Autograph, but I’d never reallyseen one in action. It was awe inspiring, almosta living beast that had mood swings like thebest of us, and we the team, were its caretakers.

Backstage we had what was, at the time, theWest End’s largest collection of RF channels, 32Sennheiser SK50’s with 1046 receivers. All usingthe large rechargeable battery packs whichmade them a considerable size by today’sstandards. That combined with over 100 micheads for all of the cast made it feel like youwere running the biggest, most lavish soundsystem in the world. Cast mics were allSennheiser MKE2 Red dots. Towards the end ofthe run, Mike managed to get hold of a veryearly demo DPA 4060 – complete with theoriginal Teflon cable and we started to introducethem into the show. No one was double mic’dand as backstage engineers we had our workcut out making sure that nothing failed.

It seemed a completely bonkers idea to me,but then I suppose it must have been

bonkers to anyone brought up on analogue

Tom Marshall

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There was very little processing as part of thesystem, Mike and Paul’s ethos was to keep insimple and embrace the light reinforcementstyle that was popular in the early 90s. FOHsound effects were on four Denon CD carts,each one held a CD with a share of the showssound effects so that more than one effectcould be played at once. Paul has oftenreminded me that if a sound effect neededchanging it would be an overnight operation.Imagine that when programming multiplesound effects on QLab in the blink of an eye.After I’d paid my dues, I was taught to mix theshow. This was like being given the keys to theRolls Royce and asked not to scratch it. Everymoment was incredible, precision was key. Notto mention the ability to gently tap the deskwith a Motorola when it stopped passing audio;or mixing whilst reaching over the top of thedesk to re-plug a channel that had gone down.Of course, we had a small amount ofautomation – namely VCA groupings – thanksto the Cadac software, but looking back, eventhis now seems somewhat basic andagricultural to program.

Overall, we took pride, we cared immensely.Maintenance of the gear was a regular thing,but then again, so were overtime contracts!

The first time I became a No.1 was an incredible

feeling. Back then it really felt that one had towork ones way up the ladder for much longerbefore that position was offered to you, so whenI was finally taken aside and given the role on abrand-new musical I was over the moon. Iremember feeling a sense of apprehension too:could I do it? Could I set up a mix? Could I run adepartment? All of which I gradually figured outand settled into these roles with ease.

I was lucky enough to always open new showsso my experience of being an HOD was never asa take-over, and I think it’s fair to say that thehighlight of being a No.1 for me was the initialproduction period. From the start of rehearsals,through fit up, tech, previews and press night itis an emotional (and sometimes physical)rollercoaster that can have you buzzing onadrenaline one day and almost on the verge oftears another.

The last show I ever mixed was a production ofChess in Toronto. Designed by Richard Brooker, itwas the only time I ever got to mix a musical ona DiGiCo SD7. Since then I’ve been designingmyself for almost ten years. The equipment Iregularly specify has moved to an entirely newleague compared to that on my first job. Iremember when the idea of a digital deskemerged and one was going to be used intheatre for the new production of Martin Guerre

at the Prince Edward. The folk at Autographwere pioneering a new innovation in desks, theSoundcraft Broadway, and hats off to them forall of their efforts, but my personal reaction wassomewhat negative. In fact, it seemed acompletely bonkers idea to me, but then Isuppose it must have been bonkers to anyonebrought up on analogue.

These days I don’t even bat an eyelid when itcomes to stringing bits of DiGiCo together onBNC. I now don’t think twice about piling amultitude of audio devices and softwaretogether that all runs on a telecom cable. Backwhen I started, 90 input channels took upapproximately 20 seats at the back of theauditorium and we couldn’t be certain that thedesk would handle the demands of the show.Now I start planning a show with at least 120channels of input processing from the off,removing just the bare minimum of expensiveseats. I learned from Mike, Paul and Richard thatkeeping it simple was the key, and I still aim toattain that, even if I do indulge in the odd plug-in here and there. With the audio spendingmost of its time in the digital domain, we arenow able to bring all the facets of the recordingstudio to the bench, something that couldbarely be imagined on my first show.

Mic technology has advanced hugely too,

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especially when it comes to cast mics. As wemove forward, technology has allowed forsmaller and smaller mic heads with very little, ifany, compromise in audio quality. The same canbe said for the transmitters too, modern digitalpacks are in another league both in size, abilityand battery life when compared to the ones Iused twenty years ago. I’d say that the 32transmitters I first encountered on Oliver!wouldbe a minimum amount on a large musical now.Not to mention the now standard practice ofdouble mic’ing for redundancy.

There’s an amazing feeling as show mixer, eitherwhen opening a show or learning; when whatseems like an endless barrage of informationsuddenly starts to form into some kind of shape.The mist clears and you finally begin toremember what’s coming up next instead ofeverything seeming the same. It’s a specialmoment when you begin to critically listen towhat you’re doing with your fingers, as opposedto throwing faders around in a blind panic; andthen there’s the excitement when you realise

that you’ve not looked at a script for over fiveminutes! As with any mental and physicalexercise this usually improves exponentially, andbefore you know it, you have control. That’s theeureka moment. For me, the most amazingfeeling comes when you, the desk, the cast andthe band are all at one. When you stand behindthe desk, lock into what’s happening onstageand let your subconscious take care ofeverything else. There’s nothing like this feelingand when you mix a great show it’s an elationthat I’ve never felt anywhere else. Trulyrewarding.”

As we approach the present, we speak to VickiHill. Vicki graduated from LAMDA in 2014. Herfirst mix was the West End transfer of CuriousIncident of the Dog in the Night Time, designedby Ian Dickinson for Autograph. I asked Vickihow she felt when she left drama school andhow she coped with the pressure of learning anew show.

Vicki Hill“It was my first mix and I was using a DiGiCoSD9. The show was largely playback off QLaband Ableton, but some sequences were alsomic’d. I had just graduated and it was HUGE tobe behind a desk in the West End.

My experience until that point had been

Even though the advances in technologyhave been vast, the core responsibilities ofour sound engineers hasn’t changed much

Vicki Hill

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dep’ping and sound No.2 on Sunny Afternoon(non-mix). I had operated a few shows atLAMDA, but it was a really big step for me, forsure. I am, to this day, very grateful for theopportunity.

You need to be prepared to learn how you learnbest. When I’m learning a mix, I need to watchsomeone do it, make some notes, then practiceto get the muscle memory in. Some people arebetter when they colour-code everything, otherpeople use number systems. The more youknow about what works for you, the faster you’lllearn the mechanics of a mix, then you’re free tolisten properly and do the real work. A big onefor me is how to recover from mistakes. It isheart-stopping when you drop a line or misfire acue; you feel like the entire audience is lookingat you and that everyone is going to hate you.They don’t, obviously. But if you drop a line thenproceed to mess up the rest of the number,that’s when you’re not doing your job. We’re allhuman and as long as you own up to yourmistakes, nothing terrible is going to happen.

An important skill for a No.1, that is less wellknown, is the need to teach other people to mix.I suppose that follows on from me learning howI learn: you then have to either ask your No.2 orNo.3 how they best learn, or you have to helpthem find out! That’s the big challenge, because

it is so important that your team feel confidentin their mixes. You will inevitably be exhaustedfrom getting through tech yourself, but it is sorewarding to watch your department ace theirfirst solo mixes. I always like to think back to theNo.1’s that I enjoyed working with and try toemulate their approaches.

Recently I’ve been out with the Kurious Tour forCirque du Soleil, in China with Evita but mymost recent West End job was on The LehmanTrilogy at The Piccadilly Theatre, designed byNick Powell and Dom Bilkey.

The system was much more complicated from asound point of view; we were using d&bSoundscape to create a really natural soundingplay, whilst making sure that the actors(performing in a glass box) could be heardevenly around the theatre. We were alsorunning everything via a Dante network, whichwhilst not new to me, was a big change fromwhen I first started. We were also using theShure ADX1M packs to double-mic the threeactors on stage.

Lots of things were very similar too though. Iused DiGiCo desks for both SD10 for Curious andSD10T-24 for Lehman, We were also still usingQLab to drive playback.

The time gap between Curious and Lehmanwasn’t huge, and so a lot of the componentparts were really similar. I am interested to seewhere we are in another five years' time. I thinkmore and more emphasis will be on object-positioning and creating hyper-realism in sounddesign. I think this will mean all sorts of thingsfor the skills that will be required of No.1’s interms of programming, and also in terms ofkeeping on top of actor blocking and changes. Ido wonder how this will work for touring and Ilook forward to seeing these great designs thatwe’ve had in the West End transfer to differentsized houses around the world, and how thataffects the work done by our PSEs and touringdepartments”.

Even though the advances in technology havebeen vast, the core responsibilities of our soundengineers hasn’t changed much. Goodteamwork, excellent communication skills, theability to remain calm when things go wrongare all important factors. The ability to teachyour mix onto the rest of your team is reallyimportant too, again, showing that calm underpressure and helping your team achieve thatsame sense of elation as you have when you acea show mix.

I asked Tom, Jane and Richard how they feltwhen they are stood behind a desk, and how

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that has changed throughout their careers.

Tom: “I think that learning to mix an existingshow is far harder than setting up a mix. There’svery little, if any, live rehearsal time, althoughthese days MADI recordings are a huge asset tothe process. I’ve taught many great engineers tomix shows over the years and I always use thesame methods that I had been exposed to. Acalm approach that requires both parties to putin the hours to climb the mountain. That alsoinvolves protection and positiveencouragement, even when things aren’t goingto plan. Behind the desk, with a musical at yourfingertips is categorically no place for shoutingor aggression, and I made a concerted effort tonever let this happen. It’s another greatmoment when you see someone go fromabsolute panic, to calm concentration in thespace of a week or so. Yes, it’s frustrating attimes (and occasionally embarrassing) but youhave to support them no matter what andwhen they get it, like you did. When you can sitback in your chair it’s a huge accomplishment,and a huge feeing of proud relief.

The tools we have today are incredible, but theexpectation of the equipment and the peoplehas also changed. As a designer I have to be ableto produce and adapt on the spot and it’ssomewhat taken for granted that this is

achievable, even if it means attempting to bendthe laws of physics on a regular basis!

With much shorter tech and rehearsal times theshow staff are expected to achieve top qualitywork in a very short space of time, somethingagain that often gets overlooked as a hugetechnical skill. With producers putting showsout for smaller and smaller budgets the notionof having the right amount of show staff doesfall by the wayside, especially when it comes tobackstage. Years ago you would only ever havejust one radio mic runner if the show had lessthan a handful of cast, whereas now it seems tobe the norm. Of course, we too evolve, we haveto, and by surrounding ourselves with the techand the right people we manage to achieve ahigh standard of theatre audio in almost anygiven circumstance”.

Jane: “Throughout my career I’ve worked withbrilliant, talented people. I’ve always felt guidedand nurtured, I think that’s been a reallyimportant part of my development. Workingwith Rick Clarke was a real joy because he wasso adaptable, it made being on his team somuch easier because everyone was happy, therewas no bullishness, it was such fun. Now I workon ships, The Norwegian Star for the last fewyears and it’s the same, I’m not in a bricks andmortar theatre but this allows me more

freedom, I’m trusted and pretty much left to myown devices. It means that you have much morespace to develop and make the show your own.

If you were to ask me what has changed for meover my career I would say not very much really.I’ve always worked with great people; I’ve beenguided throughout my career and I’ve never feltdictated to. I get the feeling, especially withbigger, more commercial shows that you needto have a greater understanding of the businessside of things now. There was always a sense ofbeing part of a bigger machine, but perhapsnow that is a slightly more important part ofthe job.”

Richard: “In Rep’, I especially remember thesense of support and everybody mucking in. Youwould be spending your days as part of a bigfamily of cast, stage management, carpenters,wardrobe, etc. and socialising together. It wasexciting and at times terrifying - so I guess notmuch has changed there. I think the openingnight of Phantom and the Olympics OpeningCeremony are the most scary shows I canremember.

Theatre is always evolving, but fundamentallythe job is still the same, you’re still openingfaders and mixing what comes to you as part oftelling the story”. •

We’ve looked at some of the benefits of beingself-employed, and of working as a limitedcompany, in previous issues of The Echo. Butwe’ve never looked at being an employee, andhow these types of employment compare toeach other. Nationally, the UK workplace ischanging too, with the rise of zero-hourcontracts and the gig economy. And withCoronavirus lockdown, and the launch ofgovernment income support schemes, some ofour notions about which is the best form ofemployment have been turned on their head.Coronavirus will impact our private andprofessional lives for a few years at the veryleast, so this feels like an appropriate momentto look at financial aspects and employmentrights of how we are employed, and indeed, howsome of us often misclassify ourselves.

It’s important to remember as you read throughthis article that employment law, the rights youhave under employment law, and your statusunder tax law do not always align logically.

This is a bit of a deep dive, and full of technicalinformation. To help you make it through the

article, we have also included some photos ofcute animals.

The main types of employmentEmployeeBeing a full-time or part-time employee of acompany is what many consider to be thetraditional method of being employed. Those ofus who work for theatres, for a venue, may be ona full or part time contract of employment.Those of us who work on shows are more likelyto be employees on a fixed term contract, or arolling contract, depending on whether theshow is anticipated to have a short or long run.There are many benefits for the employee toboth these forms of employment, from tangiblebenefits like holiday pay and pension schemesto less tangible benefits such as a sense ofsecurity and the ability to predict one's income.There are very firm rights for employees underemployment law, which protect them fromunfair dismissal, mandate sick pay andredundancy pay, amongst others.

I spoke with Ollie Young, currently head ofsound on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at

Employment rights and tax status

GARETH FRY

This article is for general guidance only and is not asubstitute for professional advice where specificcircumstances can be considered. Whilst every efforthas been made to ensure the information containedwithin this publication is correct, the author and theASD does not accept any liability for any errors oromissions contained herein, or any action taken ornot taken in reliance upon the information providedin these articles. As with all things relating to HMRC,multiple caveats and conditions apply to everythingbelow.

An online version of this article is available in theResources section of the ASD website and will beupdated occasionally to reflect changes in the law.

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the Palace Theatre, London. “I prefer being on aPAYE contract to being freelance. Even on a shortrun show there is usually a sense of financialsecurity, which enables me to plan my life. Ireally enjoy my job, being a No 1 Sound Op, and Iget a sense of satisfaction from seeing a showthrough from its first preview to its last night.Producers often seek that from an employee,someone they can count on to really look afterthe show. And they often reward that byoffering you work on their next show.”

What are the difficulties of being employed?

“It can be difficult to take the holiday you areentitled to on a short run. For a smaller showthat has a limited run of, say, five months youmight accrue two weeks of holiday. If you takethat in the middle of the run you end upmissing a significant chunk of the run, and a lotcan happen in that time. And your holiday coveris up to you, the employer doesn’t arrange it, youhave to find cover and you have to train them. Itcan be frustrating, you may not have built up aroster of people who could dep in for you, whoare really familiar with the show and the politicsof the company. So whilst no-one will sayanything, producers are keen for you to waituntil after the show has finished, and take yourholiday then. On a show with a largerdepartment, or with a longer run, that’s usually

easier – but even then we have to judge whenwe take holiday around the other people in ourrelatively small department, and any other staffchanges or re-casts that are happening.”

Some people also do freelance work on top oftheir employment. Is that something you do?

“I did it a bit when I first started out. But it wasstressful. I notice that a lot of freelancers areconstantly on the phone, talking about dates,trying to sort out their next gig. That neverreally appealed to me. Another advantage ofbeing employed is that it was easier to get amortgage, so when I bought my flat I spent myfree time doing that up, and making it worthmore when I eventually sold it. I was then ableto do the same with our last house. That’sobviously not something that I’ll reap therewards of until later on in life, but financially Ihope that it will prove better in the long run.”

As Ollie says, employees typically find it easier toget mortgages, or to re-mortgage, and oftenmay be offered a lower rate of interest. Otherlines of credit are also easier to access too.

For the employer there are many benefits too,there is a direct line of accountability betweenemployer and employee, as well as a degree ofcertainty that an employee is in it for the long

term, as much as we can talk about that in ourindustry. For employers whose focus is profit,these benefits may outweigh the cost, andcertainly employees are expensive foremployers. For example, for an employee to takehome £650 per week, the employer will have topay out £1021, which includes the employer NI(£98), employee NI (£86) and tax (£132),employer and employee pension contributions(£55). And that’s before holiday pay, andpotentially sick pay and maternity/paternitycosts are factored in too.

An employee is more likely to have a moresecure contract, union representation andcollectively bargained agreements, which makesit harder for an employer to fire or renegotiatethe terms of employment; or to rapidly expandor contract the size of their workforce.

Outside the theatre industry, we see employersmoving away from this model, with companieslike Sports Direct using zero hour contracts(where the employees are on a similar contractas an employee, paid by the hour, but withoutany commitment from the employer to providethem with hours to work), or Uber arguingunsuccessfully that its drivers are freelancersrather than employees. Fortunately, in theatrewe’ve seen very little of those sorts of moves.

One key benefit of being employed is the sheersimplicity of it – your pay arrives and all the taxand NI has been calculated and paid to HMRC.You have a clear idea of your income and it willlikely remain fairly constant over the course ofthe year, with no nasty surprises as the end ofthe financial year. As we’ll see, self-employmentand personal service companies may havefinancial benefits, but they come with a degreeof complexity, and require financial planningand knowledge.

Self employed This form of work is most common for peoplewho work by the day, or across multiple projectsand employers, which covers a vast array of jobtitles. We’ve covered the nitty gritty of beingfreelance in detail. tinyurl.com/asd-tax

In essence, the freelancer negotiates a rate or fee,and a ‘contract for services’ with a company, andthe company has no financial commitmentsbeyond the negotiated amounts. The freelancer issolely responsible for making tax and NI paymentsto HMRC, through filling a self-assessment formeach year. Self-employed people have very fewrights under employment law: there is no sick pay,holiday pay, pension contributions, there is no rightto claim unfair dismissal or take maternity orpaternity leave, unless these things have been

specifically negotiated for in a contract, which isvery rare in the UK.

For an employer to bring on a freelancer for£650 per week, the employer would only pay£650 per week, rather than the £1,021 for anemployee. Typically a freelancer might expect toreceive what on the surface might appear to bea higher wage than an employee for doing thesame role, but this hides the fact that thefreelancer will have to pay income tax and NI,and cover sick days, holidays and pensionsthrough their earnings, as well as the cost ofequipment and other expenses. A freelancerwould need to be paid £915.50 per week in orderto receive £650 per week once they’ve set aside20% for income tax, 9% for Class 4 NI, and paid£3 per week in Class 2 NI. This is a slightly roughcalculation as personal allowances and NIthresholds mean that you might only pay 25%of your income towards tax and NI, but that issomething you can only calculate at the end ofthe year, which makes it risky to save less thanthis.

Freelancers can also deduct a range of theiroutgoings to reduce the amount of tax and NIthey pay, though HMRC is strict about what canand can’t be deducted. Employees cannot claimexpenses against their tax and NI (though somecompanies allow specific expenses to be

VAT

Being VAT registered is completely separate toyour employment and tax status, and bothfreelancers and businesses can be VAT registered,but not employees.

Find out more about when you must become VATregistered, and the benefits of it, attinyurl.com/asd-vat

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claimed in the course of work). An employer ismore likely to provide the premises andequipment required to do an employees work,and less likely for a freelancer. Freelancers find itharder to obtain mortgages and credit thanemployees, and are often required to presenttwo to three years of tax accounts, certified byan accountant, to prove their sustained incomelevel. This can obviously prove challenging theearly years and has also proved problematic forpeople who have held a full-time post for manyyears and then gone freelance, only to discoverthey can’t then move to a new house becausethey don’t have any accounts to back up theirmortgage application.

Another key distinction between beingemployed and being freelance is that as afreelancer you pay tax and NI according toHMRC’s schedules, which means they need tocarefully save the correct amounts, and payHMRC, along with the correct forms at thecorrect times. This is onerous, and requires achunk of time, or to spend money on any

accountant to figure it out, or to invest insoftware that can manage it. Accountants arevery useful for this and typically may onlycharge a few hundred pounds for a self-assessment return – but crucially they can oftensave you considerably more than that byadvising you, which is especially useful whenyou are just starting out and don’t fullyunderstand the system. There’s a range ofsoftware out there, such as Freeagent (10%discount referral link: link below), allowing youto manage your bank account, allocate costs tocategories, issue and track invoices, and many ofthem can submit your self-assessment (and VATif you choose that too) to HMRC for you. tinyurl.com/freeagent-referral

Are you self-employed or an employee?The ASD occasionally receives emails frommembers who are normally freelance but arebeing required by their client to be taken on asan employee on a short term contract, withtheir earnings taxed under the PAYE scheme,and with NI deductions taken. This can cause

consternation that this will result in financialloss. It is clearly beneficial to be on a fixed termcontract in terms of employment rights.Financially, when you calculate your self-assessment you are asked (in the Employmentsection) to declare how much you’ve alreadypaid via PAYE, and so you pay correspondinglyless income tax and Class 4 NI, so in the longrun you shouldn’t lose out financially on thatfront. But of course, the extra tax and NI is stilldeducted from your wages, meaning you haveless in your pocket to spend in the moment,which can be tricky if finances are already tight.Additionally, whilst you are in PAYE employ youcan’t claim back expenses relating to that work.Those can be considerable, and it can getcomplicated if you have regular business costslike premises hire or a business mobile phonecontract.

HMRC specify that technicians are normallyPAYE earners unless specific circumstancesdictate otherwise. HMRC says that: ‘Someone isprobably self-employed and shouldn’t be paidthrough PAYE if most of the following are true:• they’re in business for themselves, areresponsible for the success or failure of theirbusiness and can make a loss or a profit• they can decide what work they do and when,where or how to do it• they can hire someone else to do the work

Employees typically find it easier to getmortgages, or to re-mortgage, and oftenmay be offered a lower rate of interest

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• they’re responsible for fixing anyunsatisfactory work in their own time• their employer agrees a fixed price for theirwork – it doesn’t depend on how long the jobtakes to finish• they use their own money to buy businessassets, cover running costs, and provide toolsand equipment for their work• they can work for more than one client.’tinyurl.com/gov-selfemployed

The ‘what, where, when and how’ part of this isimportant – and this is referring to the work youare being paid to do, not to your work in general.But there are certainly times when this outlineisn’t conclusive. HMRC provides an online tool tohelp you determine your correct employmentstatus, and HMRC say they will honour theoutcome of this tool.tinyurl.com/gov-cest-tool

It is worth bearing in mind though that the toolhas received considerable criticism and hasapparently ‘been shown to return the wrongoutcome in the most straightforward ofemployment status cases’. tinyurl.com/asd-cest-tool

But are you really a worker?We often may refer to ourselves as self-employed which may be true for our tax status,

but not for our employment rights. There is afurther category known as a worker. The keydifference between a worker and being self-employed is whether you are personally beingemployed to fulfil work. Or to put it anotherway, do you have the right to send in asubstitute to do your work if you can’t, or don’twant to? If the arrangement is with youpersonally, then you are a worker and not self-employed for the purposes of your employmentrights. This is important because you are thenentitled to many additional rights, such asannual leave and sick pay. Confusingly you maybe self-employed for the purposes of tax, but aworker for the purposes of employment law. Youcan work out whether you are a worker usingHMRC’s guide.gov.uk/employment-status/worker

Limited companies Increasingly, freelancers are setting themselvesup as small businesses, predominantly aslimited companies. These offer marginalfinancial benefits for higher earners, whichHMRC are often trying to diminish. We took adeep dive into this. tinyurl.com/asd-limited

For our purposes, you are typically an employeeof your own company, so the companyemploying your company has little to no

obligation to you, as they are not employing youat all – they are contracting your business toprovide a service. The contract negotiatedbetween the two businesses can encapsulatemany aspects of how those services areprovided, and what happens if things go sour.Tax wise, your company will be paid what youhave negotiated between yourselves, and yourcompany will have to pay corporation tax on theprofits you make – currently 19%. Once themoney has been paid to your business, companydirectors typically pay themselves using twomethods.

Firstly, as an employee of the company, yourcompany would typically pay you a small PAYEsalary, typically either just below, or at, theminimum threshold at which tax and employeeand employer NI is deducted. Secondly, as ashareholder, the company would pay you adividend, which doesn’t have NI deducted, and istaxed at only 7.5% (remember, it’s already had19% corporation tax deducted from it).

For many people, this may financially be similarto being self-employed. But for people who earnenough to be in the higher rates of income taxas a freelancer they might pay less tax as alimited company. A limited company isadministratively much more complex to thanbeing self-employed, and requires an

WORKING ABROAD

Working abroad can typically be divided into twocategories: when you (or your company) areworking abroad for a UK employer, and when youare working abroad for a non-UK employer. Solong as you are not out of the country for toolong, working for a UK employer means you willlikely be paid in Sterling, and be subject to UKemployment rights and tax laws. If you areworking for a non-UK employer, things get morecomplicated as you then have to also considerhow local laws for businesses and employeesinteract with UK law. We touched on some of thisin our Working in the USA article in issue 14.

As a UK freelancer working in, for example,Germany, for a German employer, there aremultiple tax hurdles to overcome to avoid beingtaxed as both a German employee and a UKfreelancer. This can often result in you not receivingpayment for three to four months whilst the UKand German authorities send various forms aroundto be stamped. Instead, if you remain in theemployment of a UK company, the Germancompany pays for your services to that company.This applies equally if you work for a UK companyemploying you as a freelancer, or for your ownlimited company. These business-to-business (b2b)payments don’t involve the complexities ofemployment laws in different countries so requirerelatively little paperwork. It’s not all plain sailingthough, some countries like France don’t allowroyalties to be paid to a company.

Some people also set up additional companies inthe USA to better deal with local tax, employmentresponsibilities and immigration policies there.

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accountant to submit audited accounts toCompanies House, which is more costly thanpreparing a self-assessment.

I spoke to Tom Lishman, who started off as afreelancer and became a limited company.

“I converted into a limited company in 2003when the Labour government encouragedfreelancers to do so with tax incentives, asHMRC felt it would be easier to police us as aworkforce. Those incentives were removed aftera couple of years, and HMRC have beenprogressively reducing the benefits ever since.However, it is still advantageous to work as aPersonal Services Company (PSC), as it creates aclear delineation between your personalfinances and your company finances, andbetween your company and your client. Apartfrom the extra administration involved therehasn’t been a disadvantage of being a limitedcompany. I always felt that having my owncompany made me seem more legitimate andestablished – although recent events regardingcoronavirus support have proved me wrong!”

“Increasingly, clients are insisting we form ourown limited companies, and won’t employ self-employed freelancers. This is happening in thecorporate sector, in Film and TV, and with theBBC, and is creeping into the theatre sector, with

another large hire company recentlyannouncing they would not engage the self-employed anymore.”

There are a number of reasons for this shift.There is the issue of liability – who isresponsible, and who pays (or whose insurancepays) when something goes wrong. It’s hard fora company to pass the buck if it’s to a freelancerthey’re employing, but a lot easier to pass it onto their sub-contracting company. A companycan significantly reduce their employee andpublic liability insurance costs if they replace alltheir freelance contractors with separatecompanies who each hold their own insurancepolicies.

But a huge shift has occurred recently inresponse to the changes to the IR35 regulationsthat were due to come in this April but havenow been deferred to 2021.

IR35IR35 are HMRC’s rules that endeavour to ensurethat individuals who provide services to acompany pay the same tax and NI as anemployee would. They were initially aimed at theIT industry where individuals were providingtheir services via a limited company, but onlyworking for one client. HMRC’s view was that theemployers were avoiding paying employer’s NI

and providing employee benefits by doing this,and the individuals were paying less tax. The2021 changes to the regulations would changewho determines the workers employmentstatus, i.e. does the worker meet the ‘what, when,where, how’ and other criteria that wouldnormally apply to a freelancer. Currently, youdecide. In the future, each of your employers willdecide on a project-by-project basis.

The financial and legal liability is also moved tothe employing company. If they wrongly classifysomeone as exempt from PAYE, HMRC willrequire them to pay the additional income taxand NI rather than the worker.

It was expected that vast swathes of peoplewho had previously worked out of a personalservices company, would be forced to be paid ona PAYE basis, and would not be able to claim anyrelevant expenses against tax, consequentlylosing a large chunk of their income. Perversely,this only affects their tax status and not theiremployment rights, so as a ‘deemed employee’they still would not receive holiday pay, sick payor pension contributions.

To take a hypothetical example, you havenegotiated a fee of £5,000 for a job, which isthen deemed to be within IR35. So, you will have£1,000 tax deducted, and £421.66 Class 1 NI

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deducted, leaving you with £3,578.34. Now, justas with our freelancer who was pulled into thepayroll earlier on in the article, you can factorthese outgoings into the self-assessment acompany director fills out each year, and youshouldn’t lose out. But, let’s imagine that youexpect to run up £1,000 of expenses over thecourse of this project – you can’t claim theseback as you can’t claim expenses againstincome as a PAYE employee. But you’re left withonly £2,578.34 in your pocket from your initial£5,000. To add insult to injury you don’t get sickpay, holiday pay, or any of the employmentrights an employee would have. By contrast, ifthe same job had fallen outside IR35, your£1,000 expenses would mean you would only betaxed on £4,000 profits, only £1,160, so you’d beleft with £3,840 from your initial £5,000.

The changes to IR35 were instigated in theprivate sector in 2017 and caused havoc. Despiteprotestations from large businesses, andorganisations like IPSE, HMRC have pressedahead. In some acknowledgement of thepandemonium this change was going to cause,as the Coronavirus pandemic snowballed, theydelayed its implementation for 12 months.

As we’ve discovered, employees are far moreexpensive for a business to employ than afreelancer, so businesses are not happy about

these changes. In the above example, youremployer will have had to pay 13.8% Employer’sNI contribution on your behalf and cover theadministration costs of your payroll. But morethan that, they don’t like being investigated andfined by HMRC. So already, many largebusinesses such as Barclays and Lloyds, havehalted completely the use of externalcontractors, even if they can prove that theygenuinely fall outside IR35.

Whilst in theatre it is already fairlycommonplace for freelancers to be told theymust go on the payroll, that doesn’t tend tohappen for people who work out of personalservice companies.

Tom: “I think we’re increasingly going to seeHMRC investigating us to see if we fall insideIR35 rules. Employers like the BBC already askpeople to provide a list of equipment they willbe supplying, to demonstrate one of the criteriathat they’re exempt from PAYE. Increasinglytheatre employers will want concrete prooffrom us – for every single job, as every single jobhas to be assessed whether we should be PAYEor not. We’re going to need to re-examine someof the terms of how we’ve been employed inthe past to ensure we don’t fall into the greyareas, where employers push us into being onthe payroll to play it safe. The wording of each

contract will become really critical.”“The rules regarding employment changeregularly, and it’s critical to have an accountantas they keep track of all these changes. If you’redoing your own accounts and includecalculations based on the wrong rules, HMRCare more likely to notice you, and investigateyou. HMRC need to cover the costs of theirinvestigations so they will try very hard to findwhere you owe them more money.”

We’ve prepared some examples of how similarlypaid roles might pan out in real life. It is veryimportant to point out that these figures do nottell the whole story. Factors like being able toget a cheaper mortgage, job stability, etc, mustalso be considered.

You can see from the table (right) a few things:• The higher your expenses are as a self-employed person, the less income you pay taxon. This encourages investing the profits backinto the company.• You need to be earning about £15k pa more asa freelancer to take home the equivalent PAYEincome. But there may be considerableexpenses as a freelancer that can be claimed,which as a PAYE have to be paid for out of yourtake home pay. To look at one example, a PAYEemployee on £60k will have paid £16,560 taxand NI to HMRC. A self-employed person who

43

receives £60k of income but spends £20k onexpenses and investing in their company, willonly pay £8,400 in tax and NI. This potentiallyallows the company to grow in size andcapacity, and potentially earn more money. • Running a limited company is financially onlymarginally better than being self-employed foran income of £30-60k, but this is usually offsetby increased accounting costs. It only reallybecomes advantageous when annual incomeexceeds £75k. As discussed, there are otherbenefits to becoming a limited company whichmay lead you to do this, or you may be forced todo so because your client requires it.

Impact of CoronavirusAs Coronavirus shut down our industry, andmany others across the country, the governmentset up a variety of income support schemes fordifferent types of employees. Initially thegovernment offered full and part timeemployees 80% of their salary, up to a cap of£2,500 per month – which works out as amaximum of £576 per week (£462 after tax andNI deducted!). It took a week of heavypetitioning, including from the ASD, for thegovernment to realise that freelancers wouldalso need support too. They did this with thinlyveiled threats about making the world harderfor freelancers after Coronavirus passes,whenever that might be, and reluctantly

Table 1: Annual income vs Take home payTake home pay is calculated once all taxes and NI has been paid. These calculations do not include pension contributions. For the limited company,this assumes a salary just below the NI threshold of £8,788 per year is taken, with the majority of income drawn from dividends, and that all moneyis taken out of the company each year. A spreadsheet containing the full calculations is available: tinyurl.com/asd-tax-spreadsheet

unveiled a package that would allow forfreelancers to claim a grant of 80% of theiraverage monthly trading profits, paid out in asingle instalment covering three months, andcapped at £7,500.

To be eligible their profits (not income) must beless than £50,000 in the 2018-2019 tax year andmust have traded during the tax year 2018 to2019 (which ended on 5th April 2019), and morethan 50% of their income must have beenthrough self-employment.

For those who worked a mix of PAYE andfreelance work, you may be eligible for one ofthe two schemes, or for neither, depending onthe ratio of work, and when it happened.Notably, this grant is seen as income, so youmay well end up giving 29% of it back to thegovernment in tax and NI!

After that, the £7,500 becomes £5,325, whichworks out as £409 per week. Self-employedpeople can continue to work and still claimunder the income support scheme, and they canalso claim universal credit.

Whilst these schemes provide welcome supportfor employees and established freelancers, thosewho have started out as freelancers after 5thApril 2019 can only claim universal credit, and

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those with limited companies receive very littlesupport. As you’ll remember, limited businessowners are technically employees so can claimunder the furloughed employee scheme, buttheir PAYE income will typically be a smallpercentage of their income, and so the supportis too, with most people likely to receive theequivalent of £135 per week. There are ‘bounceback’ loans, which are interest and payment freefor the first year, and whilst they are very lowinterest you will still need to pay them back.

The government isn't providing support fordividend payments because they believe largecompanies will take advantage of it, andbecause HMRC claim they can’t confirmpeople’s income from the different dividendsthey might receive. They have said they have noplans to provide support for small businessowners. Before the outbreak of Coronavirus, thefinancial advantages of being freelance or alimited company director, may seem tooutweigh the benefits of being on PAYE,depending on your job and personalcircumstances. However, the reverse is true interms of support you might receive, withemployees receiving almost £330 per week morein financial support than limited companydirectors or the newly freelance. Of course, it isof limited use to compare these numbers if thejob you do falls squarely within one type of

employment or another.

The different types of employment havedifferent advantages depending on your incomeand circumstances. As table 1 demonstrates, thedifference between salary or income and theactual take home pay is considerably differentbetween PAYE and being either freelance or alimited company. But where they are furtherapart still is in terms of the responsibilities youremployer has towards you, and nationwide weare rapidly moving towards employmentmethods where these are reduced. As this

happens it’s increasingly important to ensurethat the contracts we negotiate cover theeventualities we might face. And the things wedon’t imagine will ever happen to us, like aglobal pandemic shutting down the entireindustry for months and months.

We are still learning about the Coronavirus. Weare learning that whilst it can be no worse thanthe flu for some, for others it can, oftencombined with secondary infections, leavepeople ill, and unable to work, for many weeks.We are still learning to what degree people

Table 2: Furlough income support, per week, after tax and NI deductedFor the freelancer, the income is the average income over the last 3 years. For the limited company, this assumes a salary just below the NI thresholdof £8,788 per year is taken, with the majority of income drawn from dividends. Other factors can affect the eligibility and extent of the incomesupport schemes and grants, and it is unclear how long they will last for, or how they might change over time.

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contracts might also cover ownership ofcontent, clearance of music, subsequent use of adesign, whether and how it can be modified. Aclassic clause that is missed from operatorcontracts is what happens if you terminate yourcontract early – who will pay for the crossoverweeks when someone is learning the showfrom you. Whilst some of these clauses mightbe covered under agreements made by BECTU,Equity, SOLT, UK Theatre and others, many ofthose agreements were hammered out yearsago when working practises were different totoday. Unfortunately, the ASD is legally notallowed to develop a standardised contract thatcould be used. tinyurl.com/asd-contract

In the coming months and years we are goingto encounter more grey areas and bumpy roadsthan we’ve encountered in recent decades, andwhilst we can face many of these challengeswith a sense of community, with the ability toconcede things that we wouldn’t normally tohelp our industry get back on track, there willalso be times when we will need employmentlaw to help us to make it through. As individualmembers it comes down to us to ensure thatwe are employed correctly, understand ouremployment rights and financialresponsibilities, and can adapt this knowledgeto deal with the times ahead. •

are barely fit for purpose. Some companies arevery responsible and issue detailed contractsthat are really clear and effective. If yourcontract is shorter than four pages, it does notfall into the latter category. With the upcomingchanges to IR35 the wording of our contractswill become critical to ensuring we are taxedcorrectly and fairly.

The majority of employment-related enquiriesthe ASD receives from members usually comesdown to this conversation ‘What does it say inyour contract?’, ‘It doesn’t say anything aboutthis in my contract’. In these grey areas, there isroom for arguments about money andresponsibilities, and it is often members whofind themselves losing money and, in theprocess, falling out with producers, a.k.apotential future employers. It is difficult whennegotiating a contract to ensure that everyeventuality is covered – and even the bestcontracts I’ve seen didn’t cover the eventualityof a pandemic.

On the ASD website (link below) you can find anextensive list of clauses that your contractshould contain, and how they might be worded.These include areas such as these: paymentterms, what happens if the production ispostponed or abandoned, liability andinsurances, crediting and job titles. Design

who’ve had Coronavirus build up an immunity tohaving it again. The strategy of ‘flattening thecurve’ is not about stopping people from gettingCoronavirus, it is about making sure people don’tall get it at once. Consequently, only a smallpercentage of the population have contracted it,and just as most people get a cold virus eachyear, we will be living with Coronavirus for manyyears to come. Now more than ever, it is going tobe important to know about your rights as anemployee, or as a worker, or as a freelancer, orcompany director.

Crucially, if you can show that your employmentis as a worker rather than on a self-employedbasis, you may be eligible for sick pay if you needto self-isolate. If you can show you are self-employed (that you have the right to substituteyour presence with someone else), this may helpif you suddenly need to self-isolate and sendsomeone else in to do your job. If there is asecond wave of lockdowns in the future, andthey exist in a similar form to now, how will thework you take on between now and then affectyour eligibility for those schemes? Will thechanges to IR35 change how you might beemployed for future projects?

Many of us are often employed in variouscapacities on word of mouth, with ‘letters ofagreement’, or with paper-thin contracts that

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ASD Equipment Loan Scheme

THE ASD HAVE TEAMED UP WITH THE NATIONAL THEATRE AND SENNHEISER TO ENABLE ACCESS TO EQUIPMENT THATWOULD BE FINANCIALLY OUT OF REACH FOR MANY, AND OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF NORMAL THEATRE HIRE COMPANIES.

NEUMANN KU100 BINAURAL HEADSENNHEISER ESFERA STEREO MICROPHONESENNHEISER MKH416 RIFLE MIC IN RYCOTESOUND DEVICES 722 2-TRACK FIELD RECORDERZOOM F8 8-TRACK FIELD RECORDERSMAART V8 FULL ANALYSIS SYSTEM

Members can borrow equipment for up to a week free of charge.Terms and conditions apply.

See www.theasd.uk/equipment-loan for more information.