The show had originally been staged at the Cottesloe Theatre at the National as a two-play promenade production, with a cast of nineteen actors playing seventy-five characters and the Albion Band providing a folk rock score. We were proposing to mount it in one of the smallest fringe venues in London.

We were entered for the Mark Marvin Rent Subsidy Award (Peter Brook Empty Space Awards 2004) and won, much to our own surprise and that of a few others: Lyn Gardener's bemused comment, 'A promenade show at the Finborough! Won't that be more of a shuffle?' sticks in the mind.

The work began in earnest to accrue the remaining funding and mount the show. My biggest challenge was how to produce a set that could contain varied locations and would be visible to the majority of the audience at all times. I experimented with textures colours, levels, entrances and exits: no corner was left unfilled; the directors even had an actor entering from the tech box window. I eventually produced an environment that included a two-storey hayloft, ladders, a hill, folding tables, a counter on castors, flaps, doors and a tin bath. The experience started right from the moment the audience left the bar as they passed two actors playing the fiddle and accordion on the staircase landing, dressed as part of the set.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was where to hide ten seating blocks (measuring two and half metres long) and eight pieces of steel deck rostra, in a venue measuring ten metres by seven and a half metres when the backstage area comprised of one dressing room, an office, a tiny tech box and a smallish mezzanine storage area.

The nagging feeling that we had bitten off more than we could chew was allayed the day the cast first saw the space. Our talented group of actor/musicians had been rehearsing hard at the Jerwood Space with only tape marks to indicate ladders and a myriad of levels. As soon as the cast walked in to see the transformed space, one of them exclaimed 'Wow, I haven't felt like this since my Dad built me a tree house!' It was then I knew we had a show.