The RSC's Hair and Make-up Department has six full-time and one part-time members, with Brenda Leedham heading up the team.

Brenda took 'A' levels in English and Stagecraft, before starting to study for a B.Ed in Speech and Drama at Goldsmith's College in London. She learned her hair, wigs and makeup skills at Stratford. Now all members of her department have trained as hairdressers and learnt wig-making and make-up skills before they join the RSC. They have a 20-week trial period when they first come to work for the department.

The wig-making process
At the beginning of the wig-making process for a production the designer talks to the Wig Department about his views of the characters in the play, pinpointing those he thinks may need changes to their hair in the show. Brenda and her team decide the best method of achieving the changes within the time and budget available. This may mean arranging a haircut, hair colour, hair extensions, or making pieces or wigs.

Some wigs may be recycled from wigs in stock, and some made from scratch. First there is a fitting session with the actor who's going to wear the wig. 'We make a shell out of cling film and sticky tape wrapped around the actor's head. Depending on the size of the actor's head and the thickness of the wig, it can take about sixty hours to make a wig from start to finish', says Brenda.

The wig's foundation is made out of a nylon net [called 'lace' in wigmaking]. The hair is attached to the lace by tying a small knot using a hook, like making a rug. Hairs are knotted individually into the fine lace at the front. At the back of the wig, working on thicker lace, two or three hairs are knotted together. Several holes are left empty or the finished item would look like fake fur, not hair.

Make-up effects
The department is also reponsible for make-up effects (although unless specialist make-up is required most actors will apply their own stage make-up).

Due to the blood-thirsty nature of Jacobean and Elizabethan tragedies, there are often requests for for bloody wounds, blood effects for daggers, blood bags or smearing using glucose, sugar and fruit colouring (black treacle is used to darken the blood).

In the past this has included fitting daggers with small tubes filled with blood and making blood bags that spatter blood spectacularly all over the stage when a character is slashed by a sword.

Prosthetic parts
The team may also be required to make unusual prosthetic parts of the body such as the nose in Cyrano de Bergerac.