Nathan: Hi, I'm Nathan Crowley. I'm the Production Designer on The Greatest Showman.
This is Barnum's museum which starts as a sort of natural history type museum. As you
come in you're here to see Barnum's wonders of the world. So we have an odalisque here, Cleopatra's odalisque
and we have the lions of the Nile. A lot of this stuff is sort of scene specific with
Napoleon and Marie Antoinette and her guillotine. We have a wax figure that has a head chopped
off. And behind you we have the shell man who, you know, guess where the shell is and
he's an automaton. We're going to get an actor to work his automaton. We have the half human,
half mermaid. We sculpted this and we sort of hung seaweed. This is flexi to make her
feel like she's under water. We have to add a sort of cheesy factor to Barnum that he
has nearly done it well, but hasn't quite. Which is hard for us to do because we like
doing things well. And then we're in the big space. So we're in an existing warehouse
and we've added all of these steel columns and second floor and cast iron work to sort
of enhance the exhibitions and the crystal palace structure.
[So what are these made of?]
Nathan: They're steel inside and they're just wood on the outside.
[And a monkey obviously.]
Nathan: And a monkey. You always need a monkey on your column. So we have upper levels. We
wanted to make the place feel huge so when it becomes a circus we can put the trapeze
up here and we bring in the circus ring and then this backing comes down for the natural
history museum phase one. And it goes up and behind that is the main curtain and backstage
for all the acts to come out.
[So how many storeys up?]
Nathan: It's about 60 foot up to the top there. Maybe 65. We have a elephant over there. That's
a fibreglass elephant. And a giraffe.
[Is that a real giraffe?]
Nathan: Yes. It comes from a very old collector.
[And I'm intrigued by this baby? What's going on here?]
Nathan: This is the Joyce, the 'oldest woman in the world'. She's not the oldest woman
in the world, but Barnam introduces her as the oldest woman in the world, she nursemaided
Washington and she's still alive. Napoleon, great victory with his sword in the back of
an Englishman, unfortunately! He's a wax figure.
[And a bear.]
Nathan: A bear, yes a stuffed bear. We have a sort of museum exhibition cases with oddities
from around the world. And you can see up here the start of the red and white. So you
see these banners which are traditional to great exhibitions. But then the red and the
white eventually becomes the red and white of the circus tent. We start introducing these
colours until you get to the red and white of the circus tent.
[So will all of this become a circus tent at some point?]
Nathan: No. The circus tent is on in the armory. This space ends after he discovers the ring,
the circus ring. And we put that in here and that's a sort of discovery at the centre.
And he puts bleachers all the way around here and we discover the show through the main
curtain. And then that transforms into a tent. So we go from the blue and white to the red
and white.
[And just briefly because this is a musical, is there anything in here that you've done
differently to make it acceptable for people to sing and dance in?]
Nathan: Well when the ring is in we have to put a sprung floor under it so the dancers
can dance all day. Obviously they'd be dancing on concrete and that's terrible. There's no
dance number in here for phase one but when we bring the ring in that has a sprung floor.
Our floors have to have some cushion in them for the dancers.