Awards

2016 Off West End Theatre Awards: Best Lighting Designer
Teddy (Southwark Playhouse)

Nominations

2024 Profile Awards (Theatre shortlist)
Blackout Songs (Hampstead Theatre)

2023 Offie Awards: Best Lighting Designer (finalist)
Blackout Songs (Hampstead Theatre)

2019 BroadwayWorld UK Awards: Best Lighting Design of a New Production of a Play or Musical (nomination)
Preludes (Southwark Playhouse)

2020 Offie Awards: Best Lighting Designer (finalist)
Preludes (Southwark Playhouse)

2018 Off West End Theatre Awards: Best Lighting Designer (nomination)
Suzy Storck (Gate Theatre)

2016 Off West End Theatre Awards: Best Lighting Designer (nomination)
Octagon (Arcola Theatre)

2015 Off West End Theatre Awards: Best Lighting Designer (nomination)
Johnny Got His Gun (Southwark Playhouse)

The Real Ones (Bush Theatre)
"... Christopher Nairne’s lighting [brings] some real edge to the recurring club scenes, with

beats and strobes that gradually shift from thrilling to threatening."

– Katie Kirkpatrick, Broadway World

"Christopher Nairne's flickering lighting

enhances the sense of the years slipping past."

– Clive Davis, The Times

"... the many locations [are] summoned with Christopher Nairne’s

brilliantly busy lighting."

– Tim Bano, Time Out

"... superb lighting effects and video projection

from Christopher Nairne and Dariusz Dziala..."
Infamous (Jermyn Street Theatre)
"Christopher Nairne provides gentle but effective lighting –

the soft but vibrant light of dusk and dawn rendered beautifully."

– Flora Doble, The Spy in the Stalls:

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting design of blinding flashes

is perfectly complemented by Simon Slater’s... urgently textured soundscape..."

– Ian Foster, There Ought to be Clowns

Samuel Takes a Break… in Male Dungeon No. 5 After a Long but Generally Successful Day of Tours (The Yard Theatre)
"Christopher Nairne’s

disorientating, high-impact lighting...

[contributes] effectively to the increasing pivot into Gothicism."

– Gary Naylor, The Arts Desk

"... the transitions... are total horror:

blasts of pure white light or complete darkness,

and unsettling, distorted sound."

– Tim Bano, Time Out

"... there’s super work... from Christopher Nairne on lighting,

slowly hemming us into the dungeons

that are still incarcerating Samuel today."

– Tom Wicker, The Stage

“... a hangover-hurting sunrise blazes through the kitchen window...”

– Mark Lawson, The Guardian

“... sympathetically lit by Christopher Nairne’s

atmospheric lighting design.”

– Paul Vale, The Stage

“... the lighting and music’s

intimate... dynamic set-up

allows the audience to feel immersed...”

– Elmira Tanatarova, Camden New Journal

"Christopher Nairne’s

hypnotic, paranoid lighting

is particularly stunning."

– Tim Bano, The Stage

"... most striking is Christopher Nairne’s spectacular lighting...

sharp bursts of colour to show Rach’s anxiety, reality-eliding strobe lights, or rippling swells like delicate sound waves."

– Marianka Swain, The Arts Desk

"... pencil-thin concentric rhomboids of light... flash and flicker and glow with white and blue and red against the surrounding darkness (design, Christopher Nairne).... From the very first ‘boom’ of deep electronic vibration that beats through our ears, combined with a perfectly synchronised ripple through the ribs of light on the stage,

we are held together by this technological artistry."

– Julian Eaves, British Theatre

"Neon arches and atmospheric lighting (Christopher Nairne)... add to the overall sense of threat and energy in this

astonishing masterpiece that haunts the mind well after the crashing chords and hallucinatory visions have subsided."

– David Guest, The Reviews Hub

"... beautifully lit by Christopher [Nairne],

who transforms the space from a bleak prison to an English hill to an Iraqi desert."

– Fourth Wall Magazine

"... Christopher Nairne’s

magical lighting projects an ethereal shadowy moon

above illicit assignations."

– Sheila Cornelius, Remote Goat

"Lighting designer Christopher Nairne has... harnessed this cavernous space to create an atmosphere which marries beautifully with [Ben] Ellis’ words and [John] Kachoyan’s direction. This is a huge space to light and

with a show that is so epic... it is impressive that Nairne has managed to pull off such intimate moments so successfully."

– Skye Crawford, Fringe Review

"For much of the production, Guy Jones’ direction and Cécile Trémolières’ set is unassuming and restrained (the same goes for Christopher Nairne’s intelligent lighting). But every once in a while, all these subtle theatrical flourishes - these small but significant human touches - pull together and create something big...

the lighting begins to play with our senses...

little lights glimmer and dance through the trees."

– Miriam Gillinson, Exeunt

"[The set] is complemented by Christopher Nairne’s

sympathetic lighting design that bathes the stage in a fading light..."

– Amy Yorston, British Theatre Guide

"Christopher Nairne's lighting design

dances off the rainbow walls..."

– Fiona Scott, Broadway World

"Max Dorey’s immersive design... [is]

claustrophobic, disconcerting and often - in Christopher Nairne’s careful lighting design - pitch black."

– Matt Trueman, Whatsonstage

"Add to this Christopher Nairne’s fantastic lighting, playing with complete darkness, low lighting, and small light sources such as phone screens and candles, Cargo is

a dangerous and dark creation with a stifling aesthetic and atmosphere..."

– James Waygood, Grumpy Gay Critic

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting design

pins Joe like a moth with cold, clinical beams

or bathes him in the golden glow of the past as he takes refuge in memory."

– Sam Marlowe, The Times

"... Christopher Nairne’s

peerless lighting...

[allows] lightning-fast shifts of mood and location..."

– Ian Foster, The Public Reviews

"… Christopher Nairne’s evocative lighting gives

fresh intensity to the swiftly changing scenes."

– Jane Martin, Whatsonstage

"... elegantly designed and smartly lit..."

– Matt Trueman, Time Out

"... richly lit

by Christopher Nairne..."

– Natasha Tripney, The Stage

"... peppered with blinding and dazzling lighting...

you’ve got a production that can only be described as ‘otherworldly’."

– James Waygood, Grumpy Gay Critic

"Christopher Nairne’s

sultry lighting saturates the stage

as saxophones sigh."

– Tom Wicker, Time Out

"Christopher Nairne...

took a near empty space and created extraordinarily evocative atmospheres

with great economy, using pulsing patterns and the glow of neon to whip up affecting moods from tenderness to emotional excess."

– Judging panel, Profile Awards

"... lighting by Christopher Nairne...

pulsates with hedonistic excess

and then tightens its focus around the couple like a visual embrace."

– Arifa Akbar, The Guardian

"The lighting design elevates this show, and it is no wonder Nairne’s designs received an Offie nomination last year...

his designs tell the story fluently."

– Amy Rye, Lost in Theatreland

Tom Fool (Orange Tree Theatre)
"Lighting designer Christopher Nairne effectively picks out moments that need attention, occasionally focusing on the depressed inertia of a character

- not easy in so small a space -

before returning to the brightly lit drama of a family in clear view."

– Sara West, Everything Theatre

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting

can hollow out darkness

with an effect that makes everything... garishly relentless..."

– Simon Jenner, FringeReview

"The cloister's pillars are clothed in crumpled silver brimming with fairy lights, part of

an ambitious and nimbly effective lighting design by Christopher Nairne

which mixes electric light with candles to play with both the texture and colour of different kinds of light."

– Charlotte Valori, Bachtrack

"The mood shifts like glass caught by changing light

(the clarity and mists of Christopher Nairne’s... lighting are very fine)."

– Susannah Clapp, The Observer

"The production exudes a sepia toned 50s aesthetic,

from the rusted illuminated ‘T’ which greets audiences in the bar, to the warm glow of the string lights which adorn the auditorium,

and dually allude to the makeshift aplomb of Ted culture, as well as the austerity of its post-war roots. A clever detail from lighting designer Christopher Nairne."

– Charlotte O’Growney, Talk Stagey to Me

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting was beautiful and

set the tone perfectly for each scene."

– Charlotte Hurford, The Spy in the Stalls

"... a Tron-like cage of fluorescent strips

elegently lit by Christopher Nairne

is simple but striking..."

– Natasha Tripney, Exeunt

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting design is

cheerfully reminiscent of a videogame,

especially when paired with Giles Thomas’ electronic sound effects."

– Fergus Morgan, Everything Theatre

"... Christopher Nairne’s lighting is

moodily pitch-perfect..."

– Ian Foster, There Ought to be Clowns

"... each theatrical element [is] rich in calorific value.

The striking lighting design... resembles the tone and angles of a graphic novel..."

– Pauline Flannery, Stage Won

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting and Pete Malkin’s sound are

original, inventive and atmospheric..."

– Genni Trickett, Last Minute Theatre Tickets

"Christopher Nairne’s accomplished lighting design is a key element in Elks’ atmostpheric, engrossing production,

subtly transforming the squalid studio into a place of magic and memory."

– Alun Hood, Whatsonstage

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting

picks out [Dan Frost’s] features almost sculpturally."

– Tom Wicker, The Stage

"... warmly illuminated

by Christopher Nairne’s intimate lighting."

– Matt Dicks, The Stage

"Christopher Nairne’s lighting design deserves a special mention in creating incredibly effective moods throughout and

the evocation of nightmarish Fascist propaganda was chillingly well realised."

Chloe Kenward and Christopher Nairne added great touches to Deen's work with lighting,

subtly gracing characters with their own hints of colour.

– James Willstrop, Whatsonstage

"[The set’s] transformation from living room to pub is ingenious, and washed over by

Christopher Nairne’s melancholic lighting..."

– Stewart Pringle, Exeunt

"... Christopher Nairne’s space-savvy lighting raises

a bleak bush sunlight over Max Dorey’s set,

both perfectly formed for the Arcola’s smaller studio."

– Kate Maltby, The Times

Boy Parts (Soho Theatre)
"The stage is often set only by light, either streaming in from the aperture upstage, or flashing in sporadic motions across the entire theatre.

Nairne plays with the architecture of the stage image, toying with the space’s dimensions as a photographer with their camera – or indeed, a predator with their prey.

At times, the stage fills with amorphous blurs bleeding from Irina’s prostrate body and testing the audience like a rorschach card; at others, the backdrop flushes from white, to pink, to a blazing and ravenous red."

– Ian Kirkland, Theatre Weekly

"It’s eerie to say the least, thanks to

a feast of stylish visuals..."

– Paul Vale, The Stage

"The sound (Tom Foskett-Barnes) and lighting (Christopher Nairne) designs are contemporary and raw...

Flickering lights, pulsing beats, prolonged projections of brightly coloured screens

– all of these combine to build audience discomfort..."

– Auriol Reddaway, The Spy in the Stalls

"Technically flawless..."

– Alun Hood, Whatsonstage

"[Delicate and powerful choreographed routines] inhabit set designer Max Dorey and lighting designer Christopher Nairne’s

lightbulb-strung, bombsite wonderland of a set

to create a slick kind of night-time magic."

– Alice Saville, Exeunt

"A beam of light snaps onto an old valve radio...

It is an exquisite transformation."

– The Jewish Chronicle