Light Console

As a part of my research, I have restored to working condition the 60-way Light Console built in 1946 for the Theatre Royal, Bristol, UK. The console is owned by Jim Laws, and is currently housed at Rose Bruford College. The restoration project has been sponsored by a grant from the Society for Theatre Research and sponsorship by Electronic Theatre Controls.

I have collated some information on each of the 17 Light Consoles made in the table below – click the links for details of each one. Some additional general information and links to other resources appear below.

Dates of Manufacture, Removal and Preservation:

Console	Installed	Last Known Date	Preservation
Original	1935	Removed from Palladium in 1949	V&A Theatre Museum collection, London.
S’Carlos Opera House, Lisbon	1940
South Shore Icedrome, Blackpool	1946
Theatre Royal, Bristol	1946	Replaced by PR control c.1962	Owned by Jim Laws. At Rose Bruford College.
Palladium Theatre, London	1949	Replaced c.1969	V&A Theatre Museum collection, London.
National Opera House, Ankara	1949
Palace Theatre, Manchester	1949	Replaced by Light Palette in 1981	Preserved at Gerriets, in their Vogelsheim factory in south-east France.
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London	1950	Replaced in 1975	Jim Laws.
Empress Hall, Earl’s Court, London	1950
Stoll Theatre, Kingsway, London	1950	Moved to ‘Talk of the Town’ (old London Hippodrome) in 1958
Festival Hall, London	1951	Removed by Jim Laws c.1975	DHA Lighting, London.
Coliseum, London	1952
Aula Magna, Caracas	1954
Adelphi Theatre, London	1954	Converted to something equivalent to a CD in 1962
Her Majesty’s Theatre, London	1954	Removed by Greg Hamlin in 1978.	Greg Hamlin private collection.
Plaza Cinema, Caracas	1954
Theatre Polski, Warsaw	1955	Reported as ‘recently removed’ in 1983

Other Light Console Resources:

• The Strand Archive
• A student dissertation on the Light Console.

Miscellaneous Light Console Documentation:

• A scanned copy of a Light Console manual, in PDF format.