ITV Chooses Richard Martin Lighting For Hit TV Show Mongrels

Mongrels is a British puppet-based sitcom series, first broadcast for BBC Three, which after its huge success has recently been commissioned for a second series.

Definitely one for the more ‘mature’ viewer, it uses classic humour styles such a slapstick and farce to create a bold, mischievous, upbeat, surprising and colourful show.

The series revolves around the lives of five anthropomorphic animals who hang around the back of a pub in the Isle of Dogs, London. The characters are Nelson, a metrosexual fox; Destiny, a self-centred Afghan hound; Marion, a "borderline-retarded" cat; Kali, a grudge-bearing pigeon and Vince, a sociopathic foul-mouthed fox. 

It encompasses all human life, love and its contradictions - relationships, sex, aspirations, desperations and shattered dreams. The show also features cut-aways and flashbacks musical songs and cameo appearances.

Richard Martin Lighting (RML) embraced the opportunity to be involved in something fresh, exciting and ‘different from the norm’, by supporting Lighting Designer Jamie Cairney.

Cairney chose VL3000 Spots for the show which originally set new standards for imagery, beam control, colour and brightness in spot luminaires.

From the first series alone you know you are on to a good thing with credentials such as winning the Royal Television Society Craft and Design Award 2009-2010 for ‘Production Design – Entertainment and Design’ and had a reported estimated 300,000 viewers for each episode.

The show took five years to make. The idea was first suggested between the creator and director of Mongrels, Adam Miller, and the show's head puppeteer, Andy Heath, when they worked on ITV children's show Ripley and Scuff.