"Chris J Dixon" wrote in message
...
I only recently discovered that ABBA's Supertrouper was all about
a follow spot.

Likewise I only learned it a year or so ago. Until then I thought it was the
performer rather than the light who was the Supertrouper. But the first line
*is* "Supertrouper lights are gonna blind me", which should have given the
game away.

In his spare time my great grandpa (who died long before I was born) used to
work as a follow-spot operator in his local theatre in his spare time - and
in those days the lights were carbon arc which got very hot. The carbon rod
used to burn down during the performance and had to be replaced during the
interval using a pair of tongs. Apparently in those days a lot of theatrical
lighting using very narrow-beam spotlights on objects that were referred to
in the script - "You'll find my cigars on the mantelpiece", and a light
would illuminate the cigars. It all sounds a bit contrived and force-fed,
and it must have been a nightmare lining up all the spotlights and maybe
moving them from illuminating one object to another on cue, when you
couldn't actually turn the beam on (because it would be seen by the
audience) to adjust it until it was correctly lined up.