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Mischief Makers Episode 8: Roberto Surace

*[Upbeat music plays]
Host: Welcome to Mischief Makers, your one stop shop for all things Mischief. Join your host Dave Hearn, as he finds out what makes Mischief... well, Mischief! *Bryony Corrigan: Hello everyone, and welcome to Mischief Makers. Now, I'm not Dave Hearn, I am Bryony Corrigan, and I have taken over the podcast this week to interview the extremely incredible, talented, unrivaled costume designer that is Roberto Surace. Hello, Roberto.Roberto Surace: Hello, Bryony! How are you?BC: Hello darling! I'm very good. Now, I said it properly didn't I that time?RS: Yes.BC: Tell them the motto.RS: Well, a lot of people have a bit of difficulty with my surname. so, the easiest way to say it is, Surace as in Versace. There is no correlation between the two whatsoever, we are in completely different levels of design, I am aware of that, but ironically, we come from very close proximity in Italy, we're from the same area so that's why our names are similar.BC: Are you? The Ace is sort of very Italian then.RS: It's very Italian. I mean, Italian names they're all over the shop, but when it comes to regions, there are some names that you know are from a certain region. I think mine is pretty Calabrian, and that's obviously where my dad's from.BC: Very good. But obviously, you're not speaking in an Italian accent, you are in fact speaking in an Australian accent.RS: *[exaggerates his accent] In an Australian accent, yes.BC: Australian darling!RS: Australian doll! Struth!BC: Doll! So, you grew up in Australia?RS: I did, I grew up there with Italian parents. My parents are the ones that migrated over to Australia in the 50s, and I popped out in Melbourne, that's where I'm from.BC: He popped out.RS: I popped out.BC: A wonderful pop.RS: I'm sure my mum wasn't too happy about it, but you know.*[BC & RS laugh] *BC: Yes, your mum may not have described it as a pop.RS: Probably not. Probably screaming Italian obscenities at my dad.BC: So how old were you when you...how long were you in Australia for?RS: I grew up there till I was...well forever, as long as I can remember. And I moved over to the UK in 2006 when I was 29. IBC: 29!RS: I know, I was a baby.BC: You're still a baby!RS: Well, not really, Bryony Corrigan.*[BC & RS laugh] *BC: Babes, 27RC: Yeah, you're the baby, not me.*[BC & RS laugh] *BC: So, What made you.... why London? Why did you come? Why did you leave? Australia’s great! Why would you leave?RS: Australia is great, Australia is wonderful and it's a beautiful country. I miss Melbourne, I miss the way of life, I miss all that sort of stuff, but it was a decision I had to make to decide what I wanted to do with my career and to be a designer. I knew that it was highly possible that I could have achieved being a designer in Australia, but sadly we don't have the same sorts of industry like we do here or like New York or anything like that, we don't have the mecca of theatre. So, I just thought, well, I need to go try my luck and came here and that's what spurred me to get my degree over in Melbourne and then soon after I moved over here.BC: Was your degree in costume design? Or in fashion design?RS: In theatre design, so set and costume. It was a three-year course at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and majored my third year in design. You basically get into the course at the time, I don't know if the structure is still the same now, but back then the core group of people that they selected for the course were a group of designers, a group of stage managers, a group of lighting designers, a group of sound designers, and every element of production, and then we all came together. The beauty of that was we also got to, in our first year and a bit of second year, we got to do different roles. So in one of my shows I was a stage manager on it, for instance, and then another one I was a lighting operator and got to do all the different other aspects of working on a show which was unbelievably helpful.BC: Yeah, that sounds really helpful.RS: It was really good.BC: Do you think that all of those different aspects of theatre crossover in some way? Like if you know about lighting design, then that could influence your costume design?RS: Absolutely. It's really helped in the way...when I approach or design, especially when it comes to fabrics and choosing fabrics and stuff and thinking about how it's gonna be lit, and if a certain colour is going to be thrown on that fabric, will it change colour. Especially when you've got some lighting designers like to use different shades, like a lot of red or a lot of blue or whatever the scene is. If you put a different colour fabric, that colour, the light that's thrown on it will actually completely change the fabric. So, you've got to keep all those things in consideration when you're choosing everything to do with anything that goes on stage, absolutely.BC: That's key. Is there a no no? Is there one costume design no no that you're like, you can't, I don't know, wear black clothing on stage or white clothing? Is there like a colour that's just like, you mustn't.RS: I tend to not use white unless I have to, because it is so bright. If I'm doing a costume that is white, I will choose something that's more... the fabric needs to be an off-white or a cream, or it has to get dipped. A lot of tricks that can be used is, like if you've got a white shirt, you dip it in tea and it just knocks the edge off, so then when you sing on stage, it looks perfectly white, but up close it's got a little bit of a merk to it.BC: Wow.RS: But with some items, you know, when you need white, you need white. So, you just have to go with the white and see what it does onstage, and if it is too bright, then you just knock it back. But there are certain things like in The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, in act two for Ruth's spotty little top she wears, that was a special print for the show.[BC makes a surprised gasp]RS: But the actual fabric onstage, it looks like white with blue, red and grey dots, but the fabric itself, when you're looking at closely, it's actually off white. It's got a little bit of a dirty lemony colour to it, but then on stage it looks perfectly white, but it's not glaring.BC: Wow. So, is that just because if you put one character in a clean white, your eye as an audience member will just be immediately drawn to them rather than anything else?RS: Yeah, it can pull focus, it can do a lot of things. If that's what you want it to do, for that particular scene, then absolutely go for it because that's what you want. But if you just want it to blend in and just want it to be part of the look and the ensemble and the picture, then no I'd never used straight white unless it was absolutely necessary.BC: Interesting. I've just thought that I didn't... Dave usually does this thing where he gets...This section is called Getting To Know You.RS: We just jumped straight in, didn't we?BC: We just jumped straight in and I kind of loved that. But I really want you to do a jingle.RS: Oh god, a jingle, a jingle, a jingle!BC: You've got to do it. So, the section is getting to know you. So, you've got to do a getting to know you jingle.RS: All right. What's coming to mind is Mary Poppins for some reason is what's coming to mind. I'm thinking.... I'm thinking, I don't know, I'm thinking Step In Time?[BC laughs]RS: Hold on, hold on. [to the tune of Step In Time] Cut, cut, cut the fabric stitch in time,
cut the fabric stitch in time, need a costume on stage now, cut the fabric stitch in time![BC & RS laugh]RS: How's that for a jingle?BC: Babes!RS: It's costumey! There you go.BC: I loved that! That's fantastic.[RS laughs]BC: That should be like your, it should be something that follows you around, like your theme music.RS: Oh no! I could think of many other songs that probably should follow me around and should be my theme music, and that's not one of them, no.[BC & RS laugh]BC: Oh my god, I love it. Well, there you go Dave, you can chop that in wherever you want. Perfect! Well, back to the interesting stuff. So, you didn't necessarily always want to be a costume designer, did you Roberto? What were you originally going to be? Did you dabble?RS: I wanted to be an actor.BC: You dabbled in the acting.RS: I dabbled. I did a song and dance and I did a few little bits and pieces and stuff as I was growing up. When I was a teenager, I was heavily involved in doing some training to be an actor, and dancing and singing and stuff, I wanted to be in musical theatre, that was my everything growing up. I did a lot of Am Dram productions of various musicals in Australia and played parts and sung my little heart out on stage.BC: What was your favourite part?RS: In Am Dram, I think it was Tommy Djilas in The Music Man. That was one of the best productions I've ever done, it was so much fun, and it was an awesome company. It was back in 1997, I remember it well because as we were just about to perform, Princess Diana died, and I remember like...BC: Oh!RS: It was hardcore. Like we had people crying, it was awful.BC: And that was just at your performance? [she laughs]RS: Well, yes from my performance, probably, it was a get me out of here, but yeah, there was that. And then I ended up getting an agent when I was about 18, I think it was and I started doing a bit of extra work. So, I was actually on Neighbours a few times doing some extra work and you can still see me in the background, I've actually got it on my hard drive those little bits.BC: Why have I not seen this before?RS: Oh, I keep this quiet. Then I landed this lead role in a Pepsi commercial which screened in Egypt and Lebanon in 1999, I think it was, 98/99, and apparently it was all over both countries and I had to speak in Arabic and Egyptian, Lebanese Arabic or whatever, and did it all and stuff. Tiny quick funny story, when I was actually in Egypt travelling in 99, I actually got recognised by some staff members on the cruise ship that I was on. They were like, oh my god, you're the Pepsi guy, and I was like, yeah, I am.BC: No! [she laughs]RS: It was my two minutes, I wouldn't even say 15 minutes, it was like two minutes of fame and I had these Egyptian girls running after me going, oh Pepsi, Pepsi! And I was like, all right, all right, calm down!BC: Oh, wow. Can we find this? If we were to scour YouTube, can I come across that Pepsi advert now?RS: No, I've got it on my hard drive, maybe I'll show you one day.BC: I've got to see this; this hard drive is like a miracle holder.RS: It isn't very good.BC: It's got all of this!RS: It is a miracle holder, it's a Mischief miracle holder because it holds all the information to every Mischief show, and if I lost it, I'd be crucified, I would be dead. It's a very important piece of kit for me, that one.BC: Oh, wow. Well, we must not ever lose that. [she laughs]RS: No, we must not.BC: So, that's amazing. I had no idea that you'd done those things. Was it hard to learn that Arabic?RS: I keep things quiet! It was good because the production company was actually from Dubai, and we had one of the creators or producers or whatever was over from Dubai for the shoot, and he was helping me with all the lines phonetically. But he said, look, don't worry about it if you don't get it right because we're going to dub you with an Arabic actor when we go to edit it back in Dubai, so as long as you mouth it right, then we're fine, and I was like, oh ok, cool. And then it was like a couple of months later when my agent sent me the video, this is back in video, no DVD, this was a proper video.BC: A video.RS: It was video, and I watched it, I put it on, and it was my voice in Arabic. And I was like, what the fuck's going on? What the hell's going on here?[BC laughs]RS: I spoke to my agent, and my agent said they were so happy with the way you spoke it in Arabic that they didn't want to dub you, they didn't need to. So, I was like, alright sweet!BC: Brilliant! Just really good at accents! So, what caused the move from acting? Cause given you were doing very well, clearly. Why did you decide to go, no actually, you know what not that, I want to be a designer.RS: Well, I mean, I think design was always ingrained in me from an early age. I was in my second year of high school and we went to the Melbourne production of *The Phantom of the Opera. I was 12 I think I was, 12 or 13, and I didn't really know what I was going to see, it was probably my first real...the first time I'd ever gone to see that scale of production as big as Phantoms, it's like late 80s at this point, 88, 89, something like that. I didn't really know what to expect and so I just sat there with my classmates and watched the show, or was going to watch the show, and as soon as it started, everyone that's seen it, the beginning when you've got the auction and then the chandelier gets raised and all the fabric gets torn off that beautiful proscenium arch, and then they all start walking in those beautiful costumes from that opera, fictional opera, and I just was like, oh, crap, this is what I want to do. And I was mesmerized by Maria Bjornson’s absolutely amazing designs, she's been a massive influence on my aesthetic and I really, really value what she's achieved and what she did. But tragically, she did lose her life when she was in her late 40s, and she was lost way too soon, but her legacy with Phantom lives on and she will always be a huge influence and a huge starting point for me in my career. And so that's where I discovered design, discovered the beauty of it and what you can do onstage and it was always in the back of my mind of something that I wanted to do, but then as I grew older I realised. So the acting, I was never...I wasn't getting auditions, and I got seen for one of the Australian productions of Les Misérables, the 10th anniversary, I got down to the last 30 guys, all this sort of stuff, and I never kept getting in, never kept getting in. Then when I was living in Germany for a few months, I was spawned to audition for this German musical called Tabba Lou Lou and Lily, and I was up for the lead role and it was all done in German, it was all spoken in German, and I was given the songs to learn in German and not a clue what I was singing about.[BC laughs]RS: I went to the audition in Dusseldorf and it was between me and this one other guy, German guy for the lead and he ended up getting it, which rightly so, he was German, absolutely, made total sense. But at that point, I just went no, this is not,BC: That's it.RS: That's it. This is not, I can't do this. I don't think I had enough drive or enough of the ambition to actually see it through to becoming an actor.BC: Sure.RS: But then after that, I went back to Australia and then that's when I got into my course. And I was like, well, this is making more sense for me now, I'm finding my niche and I'm finding where my eye is actually, where it needs to go. And there we go, that's it.BC: Wow. And so, you mentioned Maria, the one that's designed for Phantom, have you got any other people that massively inspired you at the time? Or still inspire your work now?RS: Funnily enough, I've gained a lot of inspiration from ironically, fashion designers. I'm a huge fan of Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Eva Saran, all those old school mentors of fashion who just created the most beautiful work back in the 40s and 50s and all that sort of stuff. Alexander McQueen, like genius, absolute genius.BC: Yeah.RS: But then also looking to a lot of Hollywood designers like Edith Head or Kelly, Adrian, all these amazing designers from the golden age of Hollywood that just created some beautiful pieces.BC: Yeah.

RS: And you just sit there, and you go, wow. The beauty with those designs is you always see things, you always notice the design and you notice what the actor or the performer's wearing, but it doesn't detract from the performance, and that's what I think is key. You can still appreciate what somebody is wearing, but it's not wearing them, they're wearing it, and then they're still able to be the character. And that's what I always strive to do with my designs, I never want to do something that's going to completely overpower, unless it's scripted and unless it needs it, but it's always going to be a compliment to the acting, that's been my key.BC: That's very interesting. Because I never really thought about that, about it having to match the performance in a way and not detract from the performance. That's really interesting. I remember I was having the chat about what Chemise should be wearing in Groan Ups because I guess that's one instance where the costume should be quite... can speak for itself.RS: Oh, absolutely.BC: We had a lot of fun with it didn't we.RS: We had so much fun sorting that out. That was a laugh, god it was a laugh.BC: That was such a good one. We should telll everybody how you became involved in Mischief in the first place. How did that begin?RS: That's going back like jeez, nearly five, six years ago now, I think it was.BC: Surely more than that?RS: It was 2014 when I first became involved. So, at the time I was working for, and still am obviously, for Kenny Wax our wonderful producer. I was a head of wardrobe on the musical Top Hat, which he produced at the Aldwych Theatre which ran for a bit over nearly two years, and I was employed as the head of wardrobe, and that's kind of started my relationship with him and the company. And the show closed, and by then I was asked to take on the role of costume supervisor for the UK tour because that show was obviously designed by someone else, and I took that on and got that ready. And there was one day I was in the office and there was the then general manager, Adam, was just doing something in the office and he goes, go talk to Kenny about this show that's coming in. And I was like, what are you talking about? He then said, because he needs something done with the costumes, I don't know, but it's a thing, and I could never get the...obviously I'm referring to The Play That Goes Wrong.BC: Yeah.RS: But I never could remember the name. So, I always called it The Play with No Words every time. So, I was like, what's this play with no words? I don't know. It just wouldn't sink into my head, The Play That Goes Wrong for some reason.BC: I think that if it was called the play with no words, it would be so different.RS: So different. But I went into Kenny's office and I said, Kenny, what's this show, this play with no words, what's going on with this? And he goes, I need some work done with the costumes, and I said, well ok, and he goes, look, we're going to be playing in Southend-on-Sea, go down and have a look at it and meet the cast and see what you feel and see how it goes and come back and give me a report. So I trotted down and saw a matinee performance with obviously the original members of Mischief, all you lovely folk and saw the show and laughed hysterically because it was the first time I'd ever seen it and obviously the shock value was there. Even when I watch it now, I giggle, but I don't laugh as much as I did that first time because I sort of know what's coming. I met all the guys backstage on their break between shows, measured them all and came back to London, and I was like, Kenny, the show needs a redesign mate.[BC and RS laughs]BC: It needs a reworking.RS: It needs a reworking, and half the costumes are falling apart. And he goes, okay, all right, here you go, get on board, take it on. Then I think obviously after meeting with the guys, they obviously liked me as well and agreed to have me come on and redesign and rework The Play That Goes Wrong for the West End transfer, which obviously was meant to last three months...BC: And is still there.RS: Apparently.[BC laughs]RS: So, yeah, did a rework of it and got it ready for the West End transfer and that was that. But then once they announced the extension and a cast change of the show, then I got to do it again. When I did it the first time, I didn't actually have much of a budget, it was basically designed to run for three months. that was the premise, Kenny didn't want to spend too much money and rightly so. So we just did what we could in a very short amount of time, but then when I did it again, I actually got to then design it properly and give it a good once over, and now it's a well-oiled machine. We've had to do a lot of overhauls on that with lots of fabrics that obviously are not available anymore, not available from the original production but also, you know, we get fabrics printed for the show, this fabric that gets loomed specifically in a mill up in Scotland, especially for the show.BC: Wow.RS: Bits and pieces that can only be purchased for The Play That Goes Wrong now, so it is a proper West End show now, which is great.BC: I know! It's crazy, and not only that, but all of the other ones since, like Peter Pan Goes Wrong you designed for, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Magic Goes Wrong, Groan Ups, TV, all of it! We didn't let you go.RS: I'm not complaining!BC: Do you have a favourite one that you've designed for? Quite a few people have asked this question.RS: It's really hard. Obviously, The Play That Goes Wrong cause that is the mother ship, it's the first one. But I think the one that I really, really enjoyed designing the most was actually Groan Ups I have to say.BC: Ah! You get the whole three different...RS: Three different time periods and it was the only one that we've done where we've actually had an evolution of and a journey of characters, because it's so narrative based as opposed to all the other fast shows which are equally as amazing and actually as fun to do, but I really enjoyed it. I don't know if that was because just to do something different, but it was just working as an ensemble, as us altogether. We were very much driven by our character work and where we were going and what we were trying to say with each period of the show. Plus, also working out the physical aspects of what everyone needed to do, even though it was fast, but it wasn't as physical as The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan and all that sort of stuff. So, from that aspect that probably was the one. From an over-the-top crazy costume aspect, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, it's the fantasy one, it's the telling of the great story of Peter Pan and obviously, like creating all these fun costumes that are completely sort of pantoesque, but still remaining within the Cornley Polytechnic world was really, really fun.BC: Well, that leads us nicely into some of the questions from the web. So, I've got a few here. Emma Richardson wanted to know; how do you go about designing the costumes that need to be destroyed? So, for example, maybe the Peter Pan clothes rip, and the one that comes to mind for me particularly is the snowman costume on TV.RS: That's a whole different discussion. The snowman is a whole different podcast.BC: No, it is, isn't it!RS: Let's just say that. But we can talk about it, but it is its own podcast.BC: It's true.RS: It's true. Well, that's an interesting question because obviously there are the costumes that are scripted to go wrong but then there are the ones that are non-scripted to go wrong, which actually go wrong by themselves, and then we have to re-engineer them so they don't. So, something that's scripted, you've got to work out the engineering and what needs to happen with it. The clothes rip in Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a perfect example, the thing that I needed to find out first was, where is it being ripped from? How is it being ripped? What direction? How's the actor moving? How are they going to get out of it so it's a clean rip? So that was all engineered, so everything rips from front to back. So that one is mainly done with popper-tape, a strip of fabric which has actually got little plastic poppers and they're sewn in the various points and when it rips, it actually falls off the body, over the body. But it still had to stay, this is the tricky bit, it still had to stay done up while the whole scene was being played out beforehand, and there's a lot of action going on beforehand around the bed.BC: So much!RS: The bed drops...BC: The dancing...RS: Sometimes it just can't be helped. So, if they get unpopped, they get unpopped, if it gives the trick away, it gives the trick away. But we try to still keep it as much as intact as possible so then that way there is a shock factor. The ones that aren't meant to rip, for instance, simple thing, a pair trousers in Comedy About A Bank Robbery, it's the trousers that Sam wears in apartment one at the end of one, when he's pretending to be Mr...Oh my god, what's his name?BC: Freeboys.RS: Mr. Freeboys, oh my god! It's been so long.[BC laughs]RS: When he's pretending to be Freeboys with Caprice and Mitch, those trousers that are originally made for Dave to wear were, I knew what needed to be done, but obviously when we got to stage and he was doing all the action, eight shows a week, it got to a point and they just completely fell apart. So I had to get them remade and we remade them in a way that the inside is lined with a stretched jersey, which is like a very strong t-shirt fabric with lots of lycra and gusset, which is the thing that you call that gets put into the undercarriage or under the arm or something like that. I then printed the same as the top fabric, which was wool, but we printed that on lycra, so it blended in so we could give a lot more room into the underneath, because there's a lot of leg spreads and a lot of stuff going on there. And then the trouser was actually cut just marginally smaller than the jersey underneath, sorry, I meant the opposite, larger. So, the jersey underneath was the one that was taking all the strain and the top fabric was taking as little as strain as possible. So, when he was stretching, it was the jersey that was stretching and not the actual fabric.BC: Yeah. I mean so much of designing for Mischief shows must be about movement and all the trips. Otherwise, you're going to be repairing a costume every day, right?RS: Definitely, the gags dictate what needs to be done. For instance, again going back to Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Caprice's Hungarian-attaché design,BC: The dress!RS: The dress, originally it was going to be this gorgeous 50s inspired gown, very European, done up at the back and stuff. But then, obviously realising the action where first of all she has to open it on stage to reveal her pregnancy bump and reveal her clothing underneath so then Warren realises that it's her and not the Hungarian attaché. Also, the fact it needs to get wet every show with litres of water, so that fabric is made out of complete polyester, it's synthetic, it's flammable.[BC & RS laugh]RS: It doesn't shrink, there's nothing natural about that fabric and costume whatsoever. So then it can get wet, and then it gets put in the hotbox between shows and it's dry for the second performance, because we've got to turn it around as well because on a two show day...BC: That's the thing as well, they got to be easily washable all of them, don't they?RS: Yeah.BC: Because as soon as one show's over...RS: You're straight into another one.BC: You want unsweaty, unsmelly costumes.RS: The thing is, we do have a lot of doubles for things like shirts and tops, everyone's got a double for that sort of stuff. Some people, depending on the performance, some even had quadruples we've had to do in the past.BC: In terms of the TV, obviously that maybe became quite different to designing the stage shows, and also how do you decide between making it yourself and designing it, or hiring a piece specifically?RS: That comes down to...the TV show was a completely different kettle of fish for instance. Firstly, we weren't making costumes that had to last eight shows a week, so I got away with a lot more that you didn't see on camera.BC: Sure.RS: Obviously there's not as much time, so that's where you have to start to pick what is going to work to get done as a make, or to hire or to buy. With this series, obviously every episode was completely different, a completely different time, a completely different place, genre, every week was like doing a brand-new stage production, as you know.BC: Yeah.RS: So, some of the pieces I picked purely out of aesthetic, I just made a note of this is what I want to do, and I want to get this one made. Some of them were designed based on what I could find, if I could find anything that would either work or would fit one of you guys, and in the timeframe that I could. Then what I could find at the, we got a lot of our costumes from Angels, which is a very famous costume house in Hendon, I would spend hours looking through their stuff trying to find what I needed.BC: I love going to Angel. It's like going to heaven, you're just going down all these aisles looking at amazing costumes from every era you could possibly imagine.RS: And every movie you could imagine. There's a whole cage upstairs, which if we end up going, I'll show you next time, there's a whole cage, which is all the stuff that is not for hire. There's a box at the very entrance of that cage and it says Helen Mirren, The Queen.BC: So cool!RS: I found out that was the hat that she wore when they did the funeral, the Princess Diana's funeral, that black hat, so that hat is just sitting there. You're not allowed to hire it, you're not allowed to touch it, it's just there.BC: It's just there?RS: You just look at and go, I just want to look in that box and just look at it, but you can't.BC: But you can't, it's in a box. That's it. I wonder why they've kept it then? Just cause?RS: It's probably like one day they'll end up in a museum or something.BC: Yeah.RS: Who knows why it's there, but it's just one of those important pieces in cinema history that they preserve for that reason.BC: Perhaps they'll preserve something that you've designed one day? I guess they are preserved now in some way.RS: They are. All our Mischief stuff, we've got our storage cage where we have all the shows currently stored in, and we've got so much stock now which is great because when we do a cast change, we first look to the stock, my wonderful team who look after the shows for me, they're in charge of all that, we go there first and see what we can find. We keep everything that's in good condition and that's not either too sweaty or too soiled and we can reuse again. Anything that's dead, sadly we cut up and throw away, it's heartbreaking, but if it's dead, it's dead, you can't use it again. Some places that are nondescript and non-specific I send away to a costume house in Bristol and give it to them so they can use it for their stores, because they're very good to me and they're very good to us, they've helped us a lot over the years. But anything that's like specific for a show, it just gets cut up and thrown away.BC: Wow. That's incredible, it's quite sad to hear that, but good I suppose. Now, Adam Standen wonders, which cast member is the most difficult to dress? Is anyone particularly fussy?RS: Oh god, you're all fussy, you all do my head in, all in different ways.[BC laughs]RS: In one way or another, you all do my head in. But the thing is, it's good, you listen to what I say, and that's what I appreciate.BC: True.RS: You trust me enough to know that I'm never gonna put you in anything that was crap. Well, I think I don't anyway.BC: No, you don't.

RS: I think that's the beauty of our relationship with everybody in Mischief, that when we're conceiving a show, I think that we have such a good dialogue of what we want to come up with and what we're trying to achieve. And I listen to your input and you listen to my input and we have a discussion about it, there's no ego that's the thing.BC: Yeah.RS: There's absolutely none of that. And we're all working for the end goal, we all want it to look amazing from any aspect of the show. But I think we've got such an open and trusting and honest dialogue with each other that, you know, even if somebody says that they don't like something that I've put them in, we'll change it or we'll find something different or whatever. And sometimes, like you guys have helped me find what I maybe have not been able to find, or given him me a completely different direction or spin on the path that I'm going, and then I go a completely different direction and we come up with the end product and we're all happy.BC: Yeah. It felt like, particularly the Magic Goes Wrong for Bar and Spitzmaus really springs to mind, how much of a lovely open discussion me, you and Nancy [Zamit] could have together. We were discussing how we saw them and what they should be in, and we had loads of fun.RS: And the practicality of it as well, because you guys are just bouncing onstage like crazy bouncing balls, you guys don't stop and you need to be able to move yet we've still got to create these characters that are kind of circusesque type, Eurovision type, just all this like craziness, German craziness as well and all that thrown in. So, I was like, well, I'm not gonna put you in a silk dress am I, that's just not going to work. [he laughs]BC: Yeah.RS: You know, that's when we started moving into that place of leotards and unitards, and then from there I just went into this tangent with all the embellishment and the add ons, the puffer jackets, the corsets, the accordion skirts and all that sort of stuff.BC: Yeah.RS: And then that's how we made these characters alive. For me, it's the wigs that make them alive obviously, the hair just finishes it off and you get these crazy girls that are just like, what are these two? Where have they come from? Seriously?BC: Obviously, wigs are part of the costume as well, aren't they? So, you're also in charge of designing the whole look, everything.RS: If you're not in television, in TV, that's a separate department. We had the gorgeous Carly doing our hair and makeup for the TV show, but her and I did work a lot together. We always spoke about what she wanted to do, and she wanted to look at certain colours and certain looks and all that sort of stuff, and then from there she would work out what was needed. If there was nothing on your head, she did what she wanted, but if there was something on your head, we'd have to work around it to make that work. But for theatre, yeah, it's all down to me. Hair and makeup, shoes, underwear, whatever you've got on your body.BC: Those push-up bras!RS: Those push-up bras, yep.BC: I've got about 20 push-up bras now.RS: I know you do![BC & RS laugh]BC: Gotta make them look good somehow! We're running out of time and that's really annoying me because I feel like I could just talk to you about this all day. But what advice would you give to people wanting to start out in costume design? Or make a career out of being a costume designer?RS: I think the first step is good training. There are some brilliant schools in the UK that do a good solid training and it's a fantastic starting point. It's also a lot of practise when it comes to the skill of sewing, which I think it's imperative that you know how something is made, and a lot of the costumes for Play That Goes Wrong the original production I made myself. I was on a floor on the Strand in an office that was put in, and I was on the floor cutting Sandra's dress out by myself one afternoon and throwing it together. So I know how a garment is constructed, so I have a lot of input with my team and my tailors, my dress makers and we talk about how we're going to make it, and obviously that helps in the engineering for this genre of show, given that how physical it is. But getting up your skills as a sewer is an important starting point, but then I think it's just, learn, learn, learn and getting in and giving up time to learn with other designers and costume supervisors. I did it, I worked for free for years, I was assisting costume supervisors and working with designers and just learning, learning what to do. You've got to put yourself out there and network, and then once you start getting the networking and stuff, then you get remembered and all that sort of stuff, and that's really, really important.BC: Yeah, of course.RS: And just being observant. A lot of stuff of what I've learned is based on just observing, not just being taught, but always keeping my peripheral vision open and learning from a lot of designers and a lot of people that I worked with, and what to do and how to conduct yourself in a fitting, how to work with a director, how to work with an actor, a lot of it is about approach and talking and design and research and all that sort of stuff. There are so many layers to this job.BC: Absolutely. I suppose it ties quite nicely back in with the beginning of the podcast, where you said it's so useful to not just have an eye for costume design, but for every aspect of the theatre world and beyond, to have all those skills to your bow as much as possible and be interested in lighting and set and how they all affect each other is really good advice. So, well, we've got time for our quick-fire questions.RS: Before we do that, can I just ask you a question, Bryony Corrigan?BC: Oh, god. Yeah, what?RS: What's your favourite costume that you've worn.... actually, there's two questions.
The favourite costume you've worn and your favourite costume altogether?BC: OK. Oh, god. That's a really big question.RS: It's hard isn't it!BC: My favourite costume I've worn is.... you know I love Camille.RS: I knew you were going to say that!BC: Camille holds a special place in my heart.RS: She does, she does.BC: But I have to say, I also loved the Wendy costume.RS: Oh, ok.BC: To be honest. I loved doing that play anyway, I loved doing Peter Pan Goes Wrong, but I loved the long curly hair and the white dress. I mean, it was a nightmare the first one with the poppers that we talked about earlier. *[she laughs] * but I really love that costume. I loved wearing that costume because it made me feel good on stage, which I think is such an important thing as well.RS: And with that, it's also like you're playing Wendy, but you're also playing Sandra.BC: Yes!RS: And that's very, very important. It's important to meld the two together, that you're still being this.... you think that you're Patti LuPone on stage on a Broadway theatre, but you're just Sandra Wilkinson who's playing Peter Pan.BC: So true.RS: So that was a good marriage, I think.BC: And then my favourite costume out of everyone's is probably...so hard, there are so many. But I really love the whole look of Comedy About A Bank Robbery, that like 50s vibe. All of Caprice's costumes are super cute, I love it.RS: The ice cream dress is one of my favourites.BC: With the red wig! It just all looks so aesthetically pleasing, that era.RS: Awh! It was a good era to do, it was a brilliant era to do. So much fun.BC: So much fun. I could go...RS: You could go on for hours.BC: About all the different time periods, but maybe we should do another one of these. *[she laughs] *RS: We can! Yeah, why not? Let's do another one!BC: There's just so many! Okay. So, for the quickfire, I'm gonna quick-fire you right now.RS: Okay.BC: Okay, no thinking, you just answer.RS: Okay, okay. Ready.BC: What is your favourite colour?RS: Blue.BC: What is your favourite Goes Wrong episode?RS: The Lodge.BC: What is your spirit animal?RS: Oh, a lemur.BC: I love lemurs! Yes. Who's the bossiest member of Mischief?RS: Oh, oh oh! Henry Lewis. [he laughs]BC: Really?!*[RS continues laughing] *RS: I dunno! Bossy?BC: No, you've said Henry Lewis now, sorry.RS: No, I retract that. I'll say the boys, because they are the bosses, there you go.BC: Yeah, right, it's Henry Lewis.*[BC & RS laughs] *BC: Who's most likely to corpse on stage?RS: You.BC: Me! Probably true. Is a Jaffa Cake a cake or a biscuit?RS: A biscuit.BC: No, you're wrong. What is your favourite film?RS: The Wizard of Oz.BC: Ah, yes, same. North, South, East or West?RS: North.BC: Sure. And finally, who would be the best Mischief person to be trapped on a desert island with?RS: [sighing] You.BC: YES!RS: Of course, you. Because we'd just be running around just going, BABE! BABE!BC: Babe! Shall we make drinks?RS: Yeah! Babe, babe, babe! Quick come watch, we're watching Sex and the City, babe!BC: Oh, my god, we'd be dead, but we'd have fun. Well that is all we've got time for.RS: There we go.BC: It's been 50 minutes but thank you so much!RS: My pleasure, my pleasure!BC: It's so interesting to hear about the costume design side of things, because we hear all about us all the time and this is much more interesting, I think.RS: It's just another layer to our wonderful little family. And it's such a huge responsibility and an honour to create these characters that you all bring to life, but I get the joy and the pleasure of giving the visual too. It's a responsibility in in terms of the audience, that I'm basically telling these audience members who these people are by the way they look. And they're not left to use their imagination, I'm telling them and that's a huge responsibility, so I always make sure I try to get it right, and I change it if it's wrong.BC: And you do get it right, you are amazing. Well, thank you so much.RS: You're welcome!BC: And to everybody who's been listening, thank you. You can keep an eye out for the next episode, and you can follow all the latest in the Mischief world on Twitter @MischiefComedy. So, thanks for listening! Bye!RS: Bye!