Stephen Fry's Live at the Lighthouse director - Geoff Posner producers - Geoff Posner, Jeremy Salsby, David Tyler designer - John McHugh moving light operator - Andy Dobbs console operator - me! gaffer - Bob Dawkins This was one of the most complex shows I have worked on from the lighting point of view.  A live 3-hour telethon from the ground floor of the London Lighthouse.  We converted most of the ground floor into what effectively became a studio complex with various events happening in each area. Thus, the foyer became a linking and interview studio, the cafeteria the phone-in area, the main hall a comedy and music venue and finally the  garden was roofed in and became a huge performance space for music.  Other areas used for links and sketches included the conservatory, a dressing-room and even the pavement outside.  Cameras were expected to roam anywhere. The whole area was open to the public so cabling and fixing of lights was a major safety issue.  We had two lighting control positions and my console operator (Andy Dobbs) and myself ran between the two depending on what part of the building was 'live'. Hours before we went on air one half of the twinset generator (from a very reputable company) blew up quite spectacularly and no replacement was available.  The resulting mains spike destroyed the digital mixer in the scanner so a temporary lash-up had to be cobbled together by the engineers and the vision mixer.  Geoff Posner remained commendably patient.  I certainly wouldn't have in his shoes. My gaffer and I did our sums again and agreed that no, we weren't overloading the genny - we were only drawing about half its capacity.  The genny operator remained baffled and had no idea why it blew up.  Apparently they sometimes do that. Meanwhile, just in case, I switched off the electric heaters in the garden in order to reduce the load and the performers and audience froze in the chilly November evening.  I spent the whole night wondering if the 'good' half of the generator would hold out and what the hell we would do if it didn't.  Certainly a night to remember.