CABLE STREET 📸
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
"A fantastic creative team – including truly brilliant lighting and set work from Sam Waddington and Yoav Segal respectively"
Musical Theatre Review
"Whole locations are conjured up by the moving around of furniture and an adjustment in Sam Waddington’s atmospheric lighting"
WhatsOnStage
"Backed by wire mesh and scaffolding... Sam Waddington’s dramatic lighting put the emphasis on the actors"
British Theatre Guide
THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF 📸
UNICORN THEATRE
"[The] neon-rimmed set, with its looming rocky mountains and glowing green bridge...comes into its own in a seriously dramatic denouement, as the goats battle the troll one last time with the golden sun rising overhead"
The Guardian
"[The] fresh, neon-edged set reveals clever details as the goats' journey progresses. The all-important bridge lights up as they trip-trap across it, against a backdrop of stars that shift to a pink dawn"
The Stage
"[The] designs feature mountains illuminated with LED strips, nicely echoing the blend of ancient and modern that underscores the show"
WhatsOnStage
"Using fab fluorescent paints and lights, the whole thing is sympathetically lit by Sam Waddington, with some striking shots of colour adding boosts of drama"
Everything Theatre
VANARA 📸
HACKNEY EMPIRE
"The lighting from Sam Waddington is just gorgeous"
theatrereviews.design
"The set and lighting work of Libby Todd and Sam Waddington are well-coordinated and create a distinct atmosphere of a familiar but somehow alien world"
Musical Theatre Review
PUBLIC DOMAIN 📸
VAUDEVILLE THEATRE
"The lighting made the show"
Musical Theatre Musings
"All enhanced by Matt Daw and Sam Waddington’s lighting"
The Reviews Hub
42nd STREET
UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE
"Impressive lighting design"
Musical Theatre Review
"Sam Waddington’s lighting is almost a character in its own right, coming into its own for the Shadow Waltz number but also assisting in rapid scene changes"
The Reviews Hub
MAGGOT MOON 📸
UNICORN THEATRE
"Powerful lighting"
The Stage
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY 📸
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
"Scenes flow quickly into one another with a cinematic speed using Sam Waddington’s lighting design"
The Reviews Hub
"...A grippingly fast pace throughout, which is enabled by Sam Waddington’s lighting design"
The Upcoming
"Sam Waddington’s glamorously dramatic lighting design"
BritishTheatre.com
"Very effective lighting"
British Theatre Guide
WASTED 📸
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
"Joe Bunker's terrific band are as much part of the show as Libby Todd's starkly striking set or Matt Daw and Sam Waddington's exciting lighting."
WhatsOnStage
"Matt Daw and Sam Waddington’s lighting design is particularly effective and makes limitless possibilities arise"
Musical Theatre Review
"Matt Daw and Sam Waddington’s clever lighting adds both location and nuance to the show"
Jonathan Baz/My Theatre Mates
"The lighting design by Matt Daw and Sam Waddington is focused and gives the already energetic vibe the last spur of stamina."
Broadway World
NOT NOW, BERNARD 📸
UNICORN THEATRE
"Sam Waddington’s lighting design skilfully moves the action between the two locations – home and garden – that share Natalie Pryce’s colourful set"
The Stage
THE COUNTRY WIFE
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
"Any aside by a character – this production makes you realise how many there are – is accompanied by a dipping of light. It’s an impressive technical feat by lighting designer Sam Waddington; it also repunctuates the play, giving it the flicker of film. It becomes not only a series of dialogues between characters but a series of internal discussions. With a witty apogee when one aside, frozen in light, consists only of a gasp.”
The Observer
SEESAW
UNICORN THEATRE
"The faltering confrontations between the boy and girl – accented by Sam Waddington’s emotional lighting states – powerfully reflect the extreme highs and lows of young friendship"
The Guardian
TOP HAT 📸
UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE
"Sam Waddington’s lighting design is a lesson in how to light a space of its kind, a delightfully lit production"
Pocket Size Theatre
"Lit impeccably"
BritishTheatre.com
"The lighting ebbs and flows with the music & action, and guides us nicely along through all of the different locations the show demands. Never missing the musical nuances or the costume bling, Sam shows an experienced hand on the lighting"
theatrereviews.design
LUCKY STIFF 📸
THE UNION THEATRE
"Glamorising the emptiness, pools and shafts of wonderful light from Sam Waddington give character and mood"
BritishTheatre.com
"Angular and dynamic lighting... (designed perfectly by Sam Waddington)"
The 730 Review
SUPERHERO 📸
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE
"Director Adam Lenson's work, combined with lighting designer Sam Waddington and sound designer Andy Hinton, is what makes the musical run smoothly and clearly through the various time jumps. Via interesting use of lighting and a slight echo, Colin travels from his memories with his family to the courtroom."
Broadway World
"Lenson’s triumphant direction of a fiendishly complicated web of strands in the story, punctuated with near-perfection by Waddington’s 300 or so lighting cues, is a miracle of stagecraft."
BritishTheatre.com
"Cinematically lit by Sam Waddington, who manages to create a Marvel-worthy apparition."
Exeunt Magazine
"Usually details like the lighting and sound are good enough to support the performance but not quite good enough to stand out as their own craft. In this case the lighting was as original and exciting as the rest of the musical. Many of the scene changes and mood settings relied almost completely on the lighting. Sam Waddington, lighting designer, demonstrated a level of craft and skill that matched the efforts from all involved."
The Weekender
"The constant change of setting and flashbacks could prove a challenge. However, through clever direction and a clever lighting plot, this was overcome easily."
Musical Theatre Musings
THE SORROWS OF SATAN
TRISTAN BATES THEATRE
"Sam Waddington – that upcoming genius of the theatre – lights it all with his customary brilliance and economy, and is especially adept in opening up the different ‘layers’ of the script."
BritishTheatre.com
"Sam Waddington’s lighting designs are kind and responsive, allowing in the second act for the quick switching of states and the opening up of a more performative space."
Live Theatre UK
ANYTHING GOES
UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE
"The lighting (Sam Waddington) is very sympathetic to the piece. It conveys location and time of day whilst maintaining the delicate balance between visibility and atmosphere. Expertly achieved."
theatrereviews.design
THE GREAT DIVIDE 📸
FINBOROUGH THEATRE
"Light and darkness (controlled expertly by Sam Waddington) play their part, whether for beauty and atmosphere or to establish the grinding repetition of factory work and the horror of fire and smoke."
Jewish Renaissance
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE 📸
LANDOR THEATRE
"Sam Waddington lights proceedings with a sure eye and real skill, so that shadows dance and hover in an appropristely romantic/spooky way depending upon the scene."
BritishTheatre.com
"Both the set and period-but-greyish costumes are given brush-strokes of class in Sam Waddington's richly toned lighting design."
Londonist
"Together with a striking yet simple Art Deco set design by Andrew Riley, and Sam Waddington’s suitably unfussy lighting, which complements the muted colours of the set and the characters’ costumes wonderfully, all of this creates a hugely enjoyable evening."
HISKIND