No headpine

WHAT designer Imogen Cloet calls her "baby show" is coming along nicely in the Gulbenkian Studio theatre.

On my way to meet her, I pass a splendid-looking pop-up town panorama being installed for Northern Stage Ensemble's Christmas show for the under-sixes, The Happy Prince.

This adaptation of an Oscar Wilde short story comes from the same creative team as last year's The Elves And The Shoemakers, with Adel Al-Salloum directing.

Cloet has designed the Newcastle company's seasonal shows before, including The Selfish Giant. She's sitting down on the job during the set-up, a result of injuring her foot in the run-up to the Royal Shakespeare Company's premiere of Keeper Of The Flame, which she also designed, at Live Theatre.

Two such diverse projects opening within weeks of each other are a good indication of her versatility. Cloet herself doesn't differentiate whether she's working for young or old audiences.

"A lot of people dismiss children's theatre as being at the lower end of the scale, but I think it's really important," she says. "I always enjoy doing it and put in as much thought as into all the shows I do."

The Gulbenkian has the advantage of being an empty box that she can shape and decorate to create the environment she wants. Usually this means extending the setting from the stage into the audience. Sometimes there's a little pre-show area, where youngsters meet the characters.

Cloet has known the story of The Happy Prince since she was little. It seems an unusual choice for a Christmas show, she says, because it's so sad. But, as with The Selfish Giant, Annie Wood's adaptation remains optimistic, as two angels come down to earth on a mission to find the two most precious things in the world.

She's aware that adults often enjoy these shows as much as the youngsters they bring with them, so there's a need to avoid dumbing down to appeal solely to a youthful audience.

"The principal design concept is like a children's pop-up book with people coming out from the pages," she explains. "Because it's like a collage and pop-up, we decided to print the whole set instead of getting it painted, so we got that 2D quality.

"We found a company in Byker that makes displays which could print it. They're used to doing big photographs and billboards and must have found it strange to have me arriving with a model with bits of paper stuck on it, saying, 'here's the artwork, make it 25 times bigger'. They're used to people just handing them discs with all the information on. But they've done a great job."

Freelance designer Cloet has been based in the North-East since 1994. She studied at Hull University. "I wanted a broad view instead of just going to art college," she explains.

"I did a lot of design while I was there, and a lot of work in the holidays. Then I got an Arts Council design bursary to come to Northern Stage."

She's continued to work for the company, designing the recent premiere of Noir at Newcastle Playhouse, which earned a Barclays Stage Awards best design nomination. "That was quite tricky because it was set in so many locations and was very filmic. I had to create a machine for the staging," she says.

She has designed for shows at Live Theatre as well as for productions in London and Leicester. Earlier this year, she spent several months in France, assisting the designer of an opera production being staged in Venice. Usually she designs both set and costumes. She's also worked on short films.

Once The Happy Prince has opened, she's off to London for the opening of a production of The Selfish Giant she's designed. "It's the third time I've done the show and you want to retain elements of the work from previous productions. It had a kind of magical atmosphere. You want to change that without losing it or diluting it."

She doesn't have any particular ambitions, not, she says, because she's unambitious. "But it's more important for me to work on projects that are interesting and work with people who have a good creative partnership," she says.

* The Happy Prince: Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle, from November 21 to January 10. Tickets 0191-230 5151.

Published: 15/11/2003