The wettest show in London

I think I've just found the worst working conditions in the capital. It's a place of Stygian murkiness and discomfort. It's hard, cold and very, very wet. All those who enter here can abandon hope of standing or even crouching. Down in this micro-hell, where less than three feet separate the floor from the ceiling, you work horizontally.

You wear top-to-toe waterproofs because water drips through from above onto rough concrete. The only way to get about is to slither around, snaking round the struts of scaffolding. Kneepads are essential. Plus a sense of humour. And guess what? This being fringe theatre, the pay is terrible too.

The Almeida production of King Lear is the wettest London has seen, rivalling the same theatre's production of The Tempest. Under the stage, it's damp. Damn damp. As the wind blows and cracks above, 200 gallons of water are sprinkled onto the actors in the course of half an hour. Some collects in puddles on the stage, but the rest drips through, much of it onto Charlie and Patrick, two stagehands charged with keeping this show on the road from below.

Who'd be a stagehand? When the artistic minds dream up their spellbinding effects, it's up to others to bring them to fruition. "Water," says production manager James Crout, "is a nightmare. The only thing worse would be to cover your set in butter. It really is a pain."

Never work with children or animals. the saying goes. There is a design equivalent of that dictum: if you work with water, don't also work with wood. This Lear is set in a wood-panelled room. The stage is made entirely of wood. When it starts to rain, the wood has only so long before it starts to warp.

Even that would be all right in some circumstances. Unfortunately, this panelled room doesn't behave like most panelled rooms. In the storm it starts to keel over. Most of the huge panels at the back of the set fall flat on their back in a series of deafening thunderclaps. This is supposed to illustrate the fracturing of Lear's mind, but when the design concept was put to the technical team, it seemed a huge headache.

The flats are actually made of steel - no piece of wood could absorb the impact of 12 weeks' walloping - while the inset panelling is moulded out of four depths of plywood. Each flat is held into a frame by catches. When the catches are released by stagehands pulling ropes in the bowels under the stage, the flats tumble under their own weight. "We had to come up with a system of checks so they can't be operated with anyone standing there," says company manager Rupert Carlyle. "If you were standing under one of the flats when it fell, it would kill you." From where the audience is sitting, the toppling scenery is spectacular. From the backstage wings, it's scary.

Then the flats sit there during the storm, and Gloucester's blinding, for nearly an hour each night in a pool of water. The night I was there, they discovered that the panels were beginning to warp. So, as far as the crew are concerned, the interval can't come soon enough. The task is to lift the flats and pour the water off them. The biggest flat, about 10ft x 12ft, requires five strong men to lift it. When they do, gallons of water cascade onto the stage, sluicing into all the other puddles. But the stage has to be bone dry by the time Edgar and Edmund have their sword fight, and there are only 20 minutes to dry it.

If there was an award for best interval entertainment, this Lear would win it. It's not just the mop-up operation. The furniture is stripped of its damp coverings, which are washed and dried, while the chairs and tables are stacked in a pile. Two heavy chandeliers are lowered onto the stage and carted off.

The first time they tried to do it, it took 25 people two hours. By the technical run-through it was down to 45 minutes with 20 people. By the first preview, it was 35 minutes, which is still far too long for an interval. They bought two industrial Aquavacs. These are operated by ushers (on extra pay), and they leave the space entirely dry.