Best stage effect?

The end of Mike Bartlett's Wild at the Hampstead in 2016 when the whole full-sized set suddenly started rotating so that the stage right wall eventually became the floor, with actors in situ.

The Blackpool Tower Circus transforming into water fountains is pretty breathtaking too.

ah yes, that was remarkable.

And anyone remember the final image of the national's Mysteries, that huge wheel with bodies draped over it.

Harry Potter many moments especially the fight with flames and sliding through the fire.

Ghost the Musical when the ghost walks through the apartment door.

The collapse of the corrugated sheet metal panels at the end of the production of Medea with Diana Rigg at Wyndhams in the 1990s.

Sheet metal (again) at the end of the Hal Prince production of Sweeney Todd at TRDL - Todd walking into white light and slamming the door.

The Angel at the end of the NT production (original, seen on tour in Manchester) of Angels in America

The suicide scene in Groundhog Day at the Old Vic

So much of the Menier / Wyndhams (again - damn I love that theatre) production of Sunday in the Park With George


.... the older you get, the more memories you (try to) hold.

It broke down when I saw it, stuck at a funny angle.

Another one for Wild here. While I’d anticipated the twist that it wasn’t a real hotel, I definitely didn’t anticipate how far they’d run with it. That was quite something. And as if Jack Farthing being on the wall wasn’t enough Caolifionn Dunne took out a large pin and jabbed in into herself so she appeared to burst into a shower of confetti. 🤯

More recently, the opening sequence of Stranger Things, particularly the sudden appearance of the ship.

A couple that I would probably have been more impressed by if I hadn’t read about them on here - Mary Poppins flying off, not into the wings but out over the audience, and the bridge in Frozen that is much longer than it should be.

I have to say, in Back to the Future was so delightful for me as a hardcore movie fan. I get very excited by it. 😄

Also the beheading scene in Danton’s Death at the NT. I just remember being amazed at how seamless and impressive it was.

Wild was very cool but by the time I saw it I was spoiled and knew it was coming because of the early tech failures and people talking about it.

It was a long time ago, so I may be wrongly remembering it now, but it certainly made an impact and stayed with me.

Philip Prowse's 1984 production of Phedre at the Old Vic, starring Glenda Jackson.

In my head I remember a vast golden wall at the back of the stage that, as Robert Eddison reported the death of of Hippolytus, fell forward onto the stage with two white horses attached to the back. As one of them dropped its head in its final death throes blood poured down the stage. I was young and impressionable at the time, so the visual impact and sense of it has stayed with me even if it wasn't quite as dramatic as I remember.

The opening of Tarzan on broadway I thought was very well done.

The original Lord of the Rings at Drury Lane has some real wow moments such as Bilbo vanishing, the balrog, shelob.

The original Beauty and the beast with the beasts transformation

I nearly mentioned that Phedre, those two enormous dead horses.

the Moby dick whale I've teased was at the royal Exchange whose physicality has no trap doors, and bringing bits in of a whale or flying it in would have been absurd, but a floor full of dry ice and a stage filling inflatable floor cloth giving a huge rising and falling dome was sensational.