For practical reasons to do with only having one horse and my inexperience driving one I abandoned my original idea of having a travelling theatre with fold out stage floor and pop-up proscenium - inspired by both medieval traveling theatre-carts and Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus (see The Stuffed Crocodile Story Wagon Design Youtube film). Instead my wandering players 'The Pembertons' have fallen on hard times and are on the run from their creditors. They have nothing but their wits and a clapped out old horse and a battered circus side show wagon full of broken props and stolen oddities.

The Stuffed Crocodile wagon, in reality will be built in Cumbria by Mr. Barny ‘as seen on TV’ Maurice, of Wanderlusts fame. (http://www.wanderlusts.co.uk)

To give Barny some idea of what sort of a wagon I had in mind I asked my set designer, Charlotte Reibell, to come up with a technical drawing based on her preliminary sketches.

This version of The Stuffed Crocodile wagon was partly inspired by a photo of Barny’s grandfather’s brush wagon (see below). I love its simplicity. It is not an ornate Gypsy Vardo covered in romantic paintwork and carving.

It looks like a shed on a cart. You can see a rack on the side from which the wares could be displayed. It is purely functional.

There are also very practical reasons why this is a better design. It will be relatively light for a start as I will be driving one horse, and he should not pull more than one and a half times his own weight. I will also be running my show single handedly - so the less ‘moving parts’ the better!