Tony Banfield
Lead Modelmaker and Scenic Artist
Lead Modelmaker and Scenic Artist
Tony has made twenty-one model theaters for clients all across the world including in the UK, USA, Norway, Switzerland and Portugal.
His first experience of theatre was at the age of five when he recalls being taken to an immense building, climbing hundreds of stairs and emerging into a fantastical palace of red plush and gilt. When the orchestra tuned and the footlights set the gorgeous velvet curtain aglow he knew he was hooked - a victim of the ‘red and gold disease’. And when Peter Pan soared magically through the air it was no surprise - for it was clear to him that in such a place anything was possible.
The very next day he started to make his first theatre out of an old shoe box, and before long this was replaced by a hand-me-down Pollock’s cardboard theatre in the Victorian style of ‘Penny plain, Tuppence coloured’. Eventually he started work on his first rickety theatre complete with fly-tower, revolving stage and fan shaped auditorium. But then he grew up, and for a while he put aside all thoughts of model theatres.
But he never forgot his childhood dream and years later, having worked as a set and costume designer, he decided to use his design and model making skills to make the model theatre he’d always dreamt of as a child. And so he entered the astonishing world of the miniaturist model maker.
Nine months later he completed the first prototype theatre. Before long he discovered that other kindred spirits wanted one too. Since then he’s continued to craft intricate models like the one shown on the left, which is based on London's Old Vic Theatre as it would have looked in 1871.
His first experience of theatre was at the age of five when he recalls being taken to an immense building, climbing hundreds of stairs and emerging into a fantastical palace of red plush and gilt. When the orchestra tuned and the footlights set the gorgeous velvet curtain aglow he knew he was hooked - a victim of the ‘red and gold disease’. And when Peter Pan soared magically through the air it was no surprise - for it was clear to him that in such a place anything was possible.
The very next day he started to make his first theatre out of an old shoe box, and before long this was replaced by a hand-me-down Pollock’s cardboard theatre in the Victorian style of ‘Penny plain, Tuppence coloured’. Eventually he started work on his first rickety theatre complete with fly-tower, revolving stage and fan shaped auditorium. But then he grew up, and for a while he put aside all thoughts of model theatres.
But he never forgot his childhood dream and years later, having worked as a set and costume designer, he decided to use his design and model making skills to make the model theatre he’d always dreamt of as a child. And so he entered the astonishing world of the miniaturist model maker.
Nine months later he completed the first prototype theatre. Before long he discovered that other kindred spirits wanted one too. Since then he’s continued to craft intricate models like the one shown on the left, which is based on London's Old Vic Theatre as it would have looked in 1871.