Wah! Wah! Girls is a musical with its roots firmly planted in the East End, written by acclaimed playwright Tanika Gupta and directed by award-winning Emma Rice. The inspiration behind the show is World Stages London - a two-month celebration of London's diversity, involving a series of shows created by leading UK and international artists.

The new musical is a collaboration between Sadlers Wells and the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Playing at the Peacock Theatre until 23 June, Wah! Wah! Girls is inspired by the world of the Mujra dancers – combining the flair of Bollywood with the realism of 2012 London. The score is by composer Niraj Chag, with stunning dance sequences choreographed by Javed Sanadi and Gauri Sharma Tripathi.

For sound designer Simon Baker, the production has involved the challenge of weaving together a very modern and wholly electronic score with a Bollywood-inspired soundtrack, complete with the associated high-end production values and delicate underlying themes. Part of the Kneehigh Theatre Company team, Simon was brought in by director Emma Rice. He explains the challenges:
"This project represents something a bit out of the ordinary in that it is not a big glitzy musical, but a new musical designed to reflect London's cultural diversity. As such, our creative brief was a bit different to usual – involving a very short production lead time. With an entirely electronic score and no live band, you lose some of the flexibility we are used to having – and the key was to avoid it sounding like karaoke or just a playback show.

"We knew that we would be working to very tight timescales and playing three venues, and I therefore wanted a system that would give us the continuity needed. The technical rehearsals were at Stratford East, and we then transferred to The Curve for the previews, before the move to The Peacock Theatre for the main run. I therefore wanted a system that we could easily adapt and manipulate, which would nevertheless deliver a big, high quality sound. Unlike some other line array systems, the d&b audiotechnik Q-Series needs very little work to get a good result, combined with its compact size and warmth. We used 23 x Q1 cabinets, together with B2 and E18 subs for the main system, supported by E3s and Meyer Sound UPA-1Ps. There are also some Meyer Sound MSL2s upstage for FX and the system is controlled by Yamaha's DME64.

"The console is a relatively simple DIGICO D5T12 – we didn't need a large channel count with no live band on stage. The Orbital team, led by Keith Hutchinson, did a great job – they have been very supportive of the whole project, bending and flexing to help us work from what was an initial guess list of what we would need into the final system. It was pretty tough through the rehearsal period, as we needed to get the tech in place at a very early stage – but it came together really well.

"The key new ingredient for me on this show was the Ableton Live playback system – as the essential element to stitch the different musical elements together seamlessly as a continual rhythmic arm in the background. With no MD, our Sound No 1 is entirely responsible for the entire playback function, and we needed a system that would be very flexible and controllable, remaining always musically in time. This was the first time I had used the Ableton system, which is much more multitrack and digital audio workstation based. Every instrument is played out as a separate track, we can loop bars, we can seamlessly stitch the score together – it's brilliant. There are whole sections of the score where we switch between actual Bollywood soundtracks and the show's own under score. These sequences can last for up to 10 minutes, and they all need to stay in time, which makes it very difficult. Ableton enabled us to get round this.

"The audience reactions have been terrific and the box office amazing – despite the critical reaction, which has been more mixed. But for a brand new musical, with a mission to appeal to the East London community in particular – we seem to have more than achieved our objective!"


The plan is for the musical to move back to Theatre Stratford East for September and then onto The Hall For Cornwall shortly afterwards.