The Stuffed Crocodile

The Stuffed Crocodile model wagon is 30 cm long, 16cm wide and 22cm high.

The model horse was a lucky find at a Berlin flea market!

The full scale wagon will have solar panels on the roof so that as the sun sets during the early evening shows, hidden fairy lights about the wagon will lend it an even more magical appearance.

Below is the road side view of the wagon - in the UK that is the right side. On the model we have just a suggestion of an antique circus sideshow banner. The actual banner will serve to promote the show and I hope that we can find a way to add specific venue details for each upcoming performance.

But I will also be webcasting and sending out Tweets too! Yes, there will be some tech involved so that I can charge my camera and laptop and upload the GoPro footage every day. More about that in another post.

The position of the door is another unique feature of the Brush Wagon. On a typical Vardo the door or entrance way is at the front, behind the driver. On a brush wagon the door is at the back - enabling the salesman to trade with the customer without the horse getting in the way.

Below you can see the back door sarcophagus. I have always been enthralled by the stories and photos of Howard Carter’s 1922 archaeological dig and, I must confess, almost as much by the legend of the 'Curse of the Pharaohs' and what allegedly befell various members of Carter's expedition.

These where the first photos I saw of Charlotte’s model. It was a very magical and even emotional experience to finally see something that, I had for some two years only imagined, now becoming a reality - albeit a miniature one!

Charlotte put the model on her balcony - just to give it a bit of context with the trees in the background. It really got my wanderlust going!

The two images above are unique. Charlotte landed a very nice job working on set for Steven Spielberg’s next film, currently being shot in Berlin, so she didn’t have time to check with me where the octopus should go! This was the first image I saw with the roof elements in place. I love how she has translated her artwork into model form. I call this one The Stuffed Octopus because he should be on the back!!

This is The Stuffed Crocodile Story Wagon as it should be. I very much hope you like it.

After our first brainstorming session, Charlotte Reibell, my set designer and collaborator, came up with these scribbles. They are remarkably close to what we have ended up going with. I don’t know why I am surprised, she is brilliant.

Octopus? Check. Crocodile? Check. At this point, I had planned to perform around all sides of the wagon, taking my audience with me. That is why there is a world map of marvels on one side with a ladder. I have gone off that idea - but it is one of those things that can only really be tested with an audience.

I have always wanted to perform a more freestyle form of one man show, one that would evolve and grow, like a stand up comedy routine, to be adjusted and tweaked to suit every kind of audience, young or old, and every occasion.

An ‘A to Z’ of 26 boxes, The Stuffed Crocodile oddities on display - can be changed, props can be swapped, I can drop things altogether to lighten or darken the tone to suit the audience.

This is a wagon of myths, monsters and impossible things - to inspire wonder and amazement, shrieks of delight or fearful shudders.

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!

Wagon Performance (Concept Art by Charlotte Reibell, 2014)

I love Charlotte’s depiction of what The Stuffed Crocodile might look like during a performance. All the little details - the gramophone record player, the step ladder for reaching the specimen jars on the top shelf, the mini theatre for Mabel the Mermaid, the octopus etc. I really like the stylised crocodile with his long snout. I’m hoping we can build the octopus’ body from fibreglass as I would love to have a light inside it.

These were the two preliminary sketches, by Charlotte Reibell, that really sold me on this particular design direction to go in with the wagon. A 'Cabinet of Curiosities' - a strangely ordered chaos of absurd, whimsical, magical, half formed and broken things

In the drawing below we see the ‘mini-theatre’. This is where Mabel The Mermaid’ may make an occasional appearance. Mabel an end of pier, seaside starlet, is The Great Pemberton’s elderly mother; she is a terrible singer, forgetful raconteur and lousy psychic. She and her mermaid costume have seen better days!