[David Ashton]

What a boring life you must lead just pressing buttons,now while it is true for ballet, opera and musicals it is absolutely not the case in comedy, I have done about 200 shows with Dame Edna, no 2 shows the same, Spike Milligan and the British actors of that time would delight in tricking me into false cues.The interplay between cast and crew can be part of the show which keeps everyone on their toes and makes every night a challenge."business" and ad libbing are central to many forms of comedy.There is no way I could have endured just pushing a button, so there is another way to do lighting where the operator is very much part of the action, and it sounds soul destroying to me to just be a button pusher, might as well give the SM the go button.Incidentally I think the term Artistic Control is a touch pretentious to describe the operator timing the cues to the stage action, particularly if the op can see the live action while the SM is watching through the video monitor.