Apocalypse with audience

Tonight was the Tree of Light show, which I was supposed to help power by pedalling furiously on a fixed bike. In fact, after yesterday's technical rehearsal I couldn't be involved (long ladders/my knees) so I saw it this evening from in front. For something that had taken so much money, work, enthusiasm and planning, with the involvement of many musicians, singers and dancers, I found it oddly unengaging compared with some of the other large scale events that Oxford has staged. In some lighting the huge cuboid 'tree' did not stand out well from its vast cuboid background, so the structure appeared more as a wall of light. (If you follow this link you can just make out a white-clad cyclist in the box between the X and Y of oxygen on the right tower.) Nor, sadly, could we hear the singers' words, which should have told us the story of the tree's life and destruction.

But when theatrical smoke and clever lighting made it all seem to burn down the audience did gasp.

My contribution to bright.