Located in deepest Norfolk, Metalman is a new venture by former TPi Award-winning company, Hangman. Having been in full scale production for nine months, its first sets are now out on the road, and for the expanding workforce, life is looking good.

Specialising in “360° set design and construction”, the operation pulls in everything from fabrication and modelling, to soft goods and Hangman’s stalwart design capability.

The value of the close proximity and working relationship between Hangman and Metalman was proven recently when the Celtic Man set left Metalman’s shiny new facility and headed for Ireland and North America. Based on the success story of last year’s Celtic Woman, Celtic Man will be touring the US in 2008 under the stewardship of show producer, Sharon Browne.

The set comprises a main multi-level stage with a 50ft x 30ft footprint scenically treated to look like a ship wreck on a rocky outcrop. The main sub-stage was fabricated and erected at Metalman before Hangman’s 3D modellers and carpenters moved in to turn the system of risers and steps into a fully developed rocky island. Once the GRP and timber began to take shape, Hangman’s scenic artists provided the finishing touches to all the 3D elements, flooring and drapes.

Although Hangman and Metalman continue to operate separately, the integration they can achieve simplifies the design and production process enormously — a fact that Browne admits she took into account when selecting the two companies for the Celtic Man build. “We looked at other combinations of soft goods and metalworking companies for this set, but in this case we couldn’t see a more efficient way of coming up with the set that we wanted,” she says. “In the end we were definitely proven right!”

Alan Chesters, the co-founder of both Hangman and Metalman, explained the business strategy behind the new venture: “We’ve always designed the set fabrication elements but haven’t had the facilities to realise them ourselves. The new business means that not only can we offer the complete set at a more competitive price, but also keep an eye on the manufacturing process from drawing board to loading the trucks. If something isn’t looking exactly how it should we can spot that immediately and reassess it there and then.”

Other projects undertaken by Metalman this year include a highly compact and tailored DJ set with stainless steel collapsible desks and ‘hubs’ designed by LD Tom Lesh for The Chemical Brothers. Making it sturdy but still ‘tourable’ and very lightweight made it a tough brief but the final set — including a 10-deck low-level rolling platform — looked extremely impressive and worked a treat.

Thriller was a touring theatre design by Jonathan Park, with whom Hangman has worked in the past on projects such as Roger Waters and Live 8. In this case, Metalman worked to Park’s designs, building a custom aluminium bridge piece with a combination of timber units and aluminium units for access. The scenic department at Hangman then went to work on the set to hand paint the artwork to visualisations produced by Park.

Hangman has also introduced Metalman to one of its longest standing clients, Iron Maiden. For their last festival run, Metalman re-designed and manufactured parts of their existing set to enable the band to give festival fans their ‘full on’ live production with a set change in under five minutes.

Metalman’s life may be in its infancy but clients already include James Blunt, Bullet For My Valentine and Funeral For A Friend as well as a bespoke, precision engineered installation for the reopening of the South Bank in London. In addition, the company has already built up a stock of rental items which can be combined with custom-built pieces. These have been used this year by Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado, OMD and many more.

The current wave of activity has Hangman and Metalman’s Sam Booker in an excitable mood: “The versatility and integration that having a metalworking and fabrication facility allows us is fantastic. We can design everything together, make it and fit it. The whole set can be erected in situ so clients can see it in its entirety before it goes out on the road. More importantly, we can be sure that it will all work together before it gets to rehearsals. I think we’re the only company in the country that can do this.”

Metalman’s new fabrication manager and chief welder, Carl ‘Roo’ — a veteran of not one but two Scrap Heap Challenges — is enjoying life at the sharp end of the production industry. He said: “It’s great to have the facilities and people here to be able to produce pretty much anything we want in-house. We never know what we’re going to get from one day to the next and although the deadlines can be pretty tight we love a challenge. Bring it on!”

The increasing client base of Metalman has also meant that it has taken on a full-time CAD operator, Toby Mendes-Houston, who brings with him a wealth of experience from the architectural and quantity surveying world.

Although the projects are on a similar scale to those he has been used to, the world of production has brought new challenges — not least the fact that so many elements are measured in imperial rather than metric!

www.hangman.co.uk