You wait for ages for a show to come along - the last one was WWRY in June - and then two come along at once!

So the 16th of September saw me going to my first shoot in Glasgow - Theatre Guild were performing The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.  This was my first time in the New Athenaeum theatre (which was lovely), and the first time I had seen Theatre Guild.  Having said that, I had known Billy Love - for many years the director of Theatre Guild - through the ROSS Summer School.

I really enjoyed this show - bright (brightly lit), (generally) happy, lovely accessible music, just great fun.  That was shown in the final CD, which had over 200 photographs on it - another first for me!  So well done to everyone in Theatre Guild!

The next night's show really couldn't have been more different.  Not in how well it was performed - both were excellent - but in the style of the show.  This was Jekyll and Hyde, by Limelight Productions, in the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline.

Where Whorehouse was bright, Jekyll & Hyde was dark.  Moody lighting predominated, with (slightly) brightly-lit principals, often in front of chorus dimly lit in monochromatic red or blue.  An audience's delight, a photographer's nightmare!

Having said that, I was quite pleased with the end results.  I never was able to drop below ISO1600, but noise reduction software helped make a good job of the photographs.  There are a few where there is significant motion blur, but since they normally coincided with Mr Hyde being rather nasty to the good people of London, the motion blur almost helps the atmosphere along!

Also, as ever, the Carnegie Hall presented the challenge of what lens to use.  The 24-105mm gave good wide coverage, but wasn't enough to get really good close-ups.  A borrowed 70-200mm would have given first-class head and shoulders, but couldn't come out far enough to see the whole stage.

Maybe I need two cameras and two lenses :)

So, have a look at the pictures and tell me what you think.  As an interesting post-script, I put a few of the pictures onto a photographers' website to invite constructive criticism.  The name of the show was in the title.  Jekyll and Hyde got 65 views; Whorehouse got 160!  Must say something about photographers :)