CAE (Advanced Exam) Listening Test 2

Part 3
15 C 16 D 17 C 18 A 19 B 20 A

You’ll hear an interview in which two people called Neil Strellson and Vivienne Barnes are talking
about their work as set designers in the theatre.
For questions 15–20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear.
In the exam, you have 70 seconds to look at Part 3.

Interviewer: My guests today are Neil Strellson and Vivienne Barnes, who work as set designers
in the theatre. Neil, you’ve worked on a number of well-known plays, especially
comedies and musicals. Was it always your ambition to be a set designer?
Neil: I don’t know about always! Unlike actors, who often become smitten with the idea of
going on stage as children after being taken to their first show, I really stumbled into
designing quite late on. Although my parents did take me to see some shows,
theatre wasn’t a career on the horizon. I mean, I always liked to build things but my
creative efforts were directed towards stuff like treehouses. I did English at
university, so did get to read and understand quite a few plays, but it was pure
chance that a friend asked me to design a set for a student musical he was
directing. It was a thrilling experience, and was what led me to enter drama school
on the postgraduate programme, honing my artistic skills and learning the ropes.
Interviewer: And after that, you came to London. How did you get started working in the field?
Neil: I knew some names of designers to call up to get some work as an assistant. You
can actually make a better living as an assistant set designer than as a designer
because it’s a salaried position. But more significantly, I needed a hefty
apprenticeship period because I’d sort of lost my way a bit as a designer. On the
post-grad course, I got wrapped up trying to assimilate all the various skills. I was
young and very impressionable. This happens to actors too. They come out of
drama school terribly academic, worrying about their voice lessons and
movements. What you need to do is to put all the training in the background and
get some hands-on experience – an apprenticeship’s great for doing that, and I
spent three years doing one.
Interviewer: Now Vivienne, you've designed a lot of successful shows, tell us a bit about how
you work on a production. How does the process begin?
Vivienne: Well, what happens is, the director calls to ask if you're interested and you read the
play to decide whether to take it on. Having an affinity with a play is pretty vital. If
you don't care about it, there's no point in doing it because you'll never come up
with good ideas. After that, you and the director start to have conversations about
things like how to make the scenes flow into one another or how to make the
transition from one visual environment to another effortlessly. I also do a lot of
sketches to try out various schemes until something starts to make sense. These
also show the director where I’m heading. The script generally gives you the lead –
whether you need, say, moving scenery, or whether how the stage is lit is enough
to establish a different sense of place.
Interviewer: Now, you often work on several projects at once. How does that work?
Vivienne: I do about ten plays a year, and used to do more when money was an issue for me
at the start. I don't find it that hard. It's distracting only if one production’s having serious problems. Otherwise, I’m totally committed to each one. Actually, it helps
me to keep coming up with new ideas if I’m constantly changing my focus from one
show to another – there’s a kind of cross-fertilisation goes on – I wouldn’t want to
lose that. And you can also be just a little less nervous on the opening night than
the actors and director, because you do have other irons in the fire.
Interviewer: Now, you’ve both worked on sets that get mentioned in reviews, sometimes getting
a better review than the show.
Neil: Sometimes, yeah. A good set’s not easy to design, but it's not nearly as tricky as
writing a new play. Unlike a lot of actors who claim not to pay attention to reviews, I
keep up with what critics say about all productions, not just my own. That helps you
keep any criticisms in perspective. Maybe a critic’s been harsh on other productions
or has fixed views about set design.
Vivienne: Well, I’ve never actually come across that. But, in any case, there’s no glory in
hearing it was a great set for a dud play, and if there’s a negative review of the
whole production, then the set’s still part of that whole – so you can’t dodge it.
Interviewer: Is movie work something that interests either of you? Neil?
Neil: I’ve done a bit of film work, but I’ve never worked on a really good movie. I guess it
employs the same basic set of skills but there are differences. For the set designer,
any production’s a set of unique problems to solve and that's the most exciting part,
figuring out what’ll make this particular production work. Mostly, that problem
solving’s not as interesting on a film set. In a movie, you design everything as it
ought to be. On stage, you have a limited amount of space and time and making it
fit in those parameters requires the type of thinking I love best, the kind of puzzles I
like to solve. I don’t get that buzz working on a movie, I’m afraid.
Vivienne: Well I don’t know that I’d go along with that entirely because ...