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Lifetime Achievement Award for Delstar's Founder

$Lifetime Achievement Award for Delstar\'s Founder$

At this year's ABTT Theatre Show, various product and achievement awards were presented at a reception after the first day of the event. The lifetime achievement award was given to Paul Sadler (pictured) of Delstar Engineering and was presented by Jeff Phillips, who was a key personality and driving force at the Royal Opera House for many years before his retirement.

During his career at the Royal Opera House, Jeff worked with Paul on numerous occasions, a typical example of which would be the installation of heavy duty point hoist winches sandwiched onto the fly galleries for the Ring Cycle and used to operate Paul's engineering design for a lifting, hinged, turning platform.

Jeff recalled in his presentation speech, "When I first visited [Paul's] factory, I was curious to see an enormous yellow fabrication resembling an old horse drawn ploughshare. I later learnt that it was indeed a plough but this one was dragged along the bottom of the Atlantic, towed miles behind a ship laying transatlantic communications cables. My visit was to discuss a particularly tricky installation of a new forestage for a modern opera with three orchestras. It required the removal of the existing orchestra pit floor and replacing it with a mechanised forestage/orchestra pit floor which had to be completed between the end of the performance on Saturday and the beginning of the next performance on Monday. A hair-brained scheme but I am pleased to say the he and his team triumphed and the curtain went up on time although there was a bit of scurrying around the music stands while the orchestra was tuning up. The forestage was used for many, many performances until the opera house closed for development in 1997. This was apparently one of his first theatre jobs.

"Another challenge he accepted of our behalf was a complicated design for Swan Lake by Yolanda Sonnabend comprising mobile spiral staircases, gateways and set pieces with intricate swirling and interleaved metalwork resembling jungle foliage - not so much mechanical but nevertheless highly artistic and true to the design."

Paul specialises in modern theatre hydraulics and is now acting as associate engineer for Delstar Engineering, the company which he founded in 1978. Since its formation, Delstar has been a major contributor in the design and manufacture of automated stage sets and theatre equipment worldwide.

The complexity and variety of projects that Paul has worked on are unsurpassed in the industry. Just the West End shows he has helped to make possible include Phantom of the Opera, Time, Chess (one of the first automated sets on the West End), Munity on the Bounty (which featured a huge trench in the stage), The Lion King, two productions of Oliver!, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Starlight Express and of course the much-loved production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with the magical car that flies thanks to Paul's (and the Delstar team's) very ingenious engineering solution. Paul has worked closely with designer Stephan Lazaridis, knows the London Coliseum inside out and has mounted many operas on its famous stage. During his career, he has also worked alongside a host of designers and directors on countless National Theatre productions and Glyndebourne operas and has collaborated with Hans Schavernoch on open air Bregenz opera festivals, in the Staatsoper and with numerous other international theatres.

Paul is a chartered engineer, he continues to be actively involved with the running of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers eastern area, acting as treasurer for the organisation, and is a technical associate of the Royal National Theatre. It's genuinely hoped by many in the profession that Paul will continue to contribute to and support the industry for many years to come.

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Lifetime Achievement Award for Delstar's Founder

10th July 2009

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