aristophrenic:

somethingsarenotuptous replied to your post: my life is awesome.  i went to a cabin pressure…

What is a recording like? I don’t imagine they record the whole thing in one go…right? Do they go through the whole thing multiples time in full or stop and start and re-do sections and such?

hello!

they let people in, and we waited in the bar area for about an hour. production guests (ie friends and family) are let into the theatre first, then everyone else.

david tyler (the producer) came out first, asked us to laugh and applaud so the sound technicians could balance/check the levels. he went over a few bits of housekeepiing (turn your phones off, don’t take pictures, the fire exit is that way) and then introduced the cast.

two episodes were recorded. they record them all in one go, or as close to as possible. so, the theme tune starts and ben starts with CABIN PRESSURE, STARRING STEPHANIE COLE etc etc. THIS WEEK, blah blah blah.

they go through the script, if they noticeably fluff a line then they’ll pause and say it again. if they get the giggles (I’M LOOKING AT YOU CUMBERBATCH) then they run away from the microphone and try to laugh silently before returning.

once they get to the end of the script ben does his THAT WAS CABIN PRESSURE STARRING STEPHANIE COLE AS CAROLYN BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AS MARTIN ROGER ALLAM AS DOUGLAS AND JOHN FINNEMORE AS ARTHUR ALSO STARRING THREE OTHER PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES HE WILL REPEATEDLY FLUFF UP ON, TO THE POINT THAT WE ALL WHOOP AND CHEER WHEN HE FINALLY GETS IT RIGHT THIS WAS A POZZITIVE PRODUCTION FOR THE BBCCCCCCCCC bit.

then david tyler comes out and makes them redo bits that either had technical problems or need different timings, or once, “there was too much laughter”. 

then we had a 20 minute interval where i basically sat flailing at my proximity to the microphone (finnemore! cumberbatch! allam! cole! all within groping distance uh i mean spitting distance).

the second recording was pretty much the same as the first, except they did the retakes out of order, so that ben could do his first and leave early, so he could rush and get to the airport and fly to tokyo.

that was probably more information than you needed and/or wanted. 

IT WAS SO AWESOME

FUN! So glad you got in AND got front row seat!