My pet hate .. stage productions where the actors all use radio mikes.
Bronwyn and I quite often go to Bath to the Theatre there. It is brilliant, as it hosts all the shows as they come out of London and go on tour. I say 'brilliant .. but not the week before last. The show was the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. The set was great, the acting and dancing were great, the orchestra were great ... BUT ... every member of the cast had a 'radio mike' coming down off the top of their heads; huge speakers on either side up in one of the 'boxes'; megawatts of amplification. It would have sounded better coming from a CD, as at least that would have been in stereo! When everyone has a radio mike the sound comes out of both speakers and their voices sound very 'hollow'. And I reckon each member of the orchestra had a mike, as their sound came out of the speakers too. It's the first time the Bath Theatre has hosted a production like that. They do that all the time in Weston. I suppose you could argue that amateurs are not able to make themselves heard across an auditorium, so need radio mikes, but you wouldn't expect professional actors and singers to use radio mikes!
I suppose one could say that it is the job of the sound engineer to keep track of where a person is on stage, and route their radio mike either towards the left or the right speaker system depending on where they are on stage. Would have a job doing that with such a large cast. I wasn't aware of any 'mixing' units in the auditorium.
But this last week Bath Theatre had a company doing Iolanthe. An all male production! The 'fairies' (men) had falsetto voices and sounded as good as any soprano! And just a grand piano to accompany them. And not a single radio microphone in sight! I think this is the fourth Gilbert and Sullivan Opera they have done. Fantastic show!
Anybody else have a gripe about radio mikes?
Hugh