Theatre lighting designer Howard Hudson relied heavily on GLP’s X5 LED range to bring to life the Almeida Theatre’s stage production of The Line of Beauty, a portrait of Thatcher’s Britain at one of its most divisive periods.
Based on the novel by Alan Hollinghurst, the production is directed by Michael Grandage, with set design by Christopher Oram. This marked the first time the book had been adapted for the stage.
Hudson’s challenge was to work with a minimal white set, set above a mirrored floor, while telling an episodic story. This required a flexible lighting approach within the intimate London theatre—and GLP delivered.
Hudson used eight impression X5 Compact units and eight X5 Bar 1000 battens, but the real surprise came from the use of three powerful Creos wash fixtures with 18 x 40W RGBL LEDs, arranged in three rows of six pixels each. After becoming established on concert tours and festival riders, this was almost certainly the first use of Creos in pure theatre, demonstrating the effectiveness of larger light sources in confined spaces—even when the tone of the play is sombre (set against the backdrop of 1980s London and the AIDS crisis).
The consistency of the colour palette and intensity control across the X5 Series was one of the standout features, according to Hudson.
The lighting had to constantly adapt to scene changes. In a minimal environment, it’s difficult to predict how light will behave in the space, so we needed a lot of flexibility in angles and zoom. As soon as we started turning the lights on, we saw that everything worked perfectly.
Hudson was working with GLP’s X5 platform for the first time. “The X5 Compact units overhead were the perfect fixture for this scale of space, with only 350 seats and so many scene changes to maintain the flow. They were distributed across the rig and also played a major role in lighting the scenes. They are excellent fixtures, with a huge zoom range—from a tiny dot to a very wide wash”.
Hudson also highlighted the expanded colour palette. “When we needed a saturated colour—for example, at a countryside party that required an ’80s-style blue and a bold red look—they were incredibly rich”.
He was equally impressed with the X5 Bar 1000 battens. “They were fantastic—really beautiful lights. Downstage there was a corridor, and we rigged eight units above it to create a sheet of light. Having both a bar fixture and a wash fixture with the same chips creates a very cohesive result”.
Choosing to incorporate Creos into the project delivered excellent results.
It’s a very interesting fixture. I had used the impression FR10 before, but these offered a more powerful version with a slightly wider beam. Since the set design was very rectangular, we used them as top wash lighting for much of the show. Their integration with the set—a rectangular fixture in a rectangular space—gave me a new way of thinking about lighting. And it worked extremely well. The colour mixing was fantastic, said Hudson.
Finally, Hudson made the most of the double-sided mirrored floor: “We achieved very interesting reflections and smooth visual transitions. In the final scene, we light through the floor and the entire space transforms, filling with light”.
He concluded by highlighting the amount of light generated by GLP products, considering their compact size. “When you don’t have much overhead space, having a larger and more powerful light source is exactly what we’re looking for”, he said. “I also appreciate the sophistication of GLP fixtures in general—much more so than many other manufacturers—which is incredibly helpful when creating a refined and polished show. It’s great to have fixtures that can transition from rock concerts to minimalist theatre thanks to their excellent dimming and colour mixing. Creos fixtures are fantastic, and I really enjoyed using them”.
Finally, he praised the work of his programmer, Fraser Craig, describing it as brilliant, and added: “For both of us, it was very interesting to work with new types of fixtures like the Creos”.
I really enjoyed working with the X5 fixtures. The fact that they share the same chipset makes colour consistency between fixtures much easier to achieve. In particular, the impression X5 Bars and Creos units offer very clean and well-defined colour output. Additionally, the dimming curves are excellent across all fixtures, making it much easier to integrate them into a rig alongside other luminaires, adds Craig.
Pictures credit: Johan Persson
